Live on £4,000 for a year - 2009, Part 3

lingojingo

sophiesmum wrote: »

shaz - you must be at the sunny end :rotfl::rotfl:apart from a couple of days it has been naff here so far. Frugaldom gets more sun (and wind and sheep!) we just seem to get the rain:rolleyes:

And I'm half way along the M62, it's rained every day since I don't know when here, and often windy too.

Frugaldom

Buzz, well done with the berry picking. Ours are nowhere near ready yet, and I love apple & blackberry pies, mixed berry jam and fruit strudle. Also love the berry sauce over ice cream.

Just completed workout 3 of my C25K and got absolutely drenched. It was pouring rain and the waterproofs just couldn't cope. Gave us a bit of a laugh when the calves stampeded off in the opposite direction to my shooshy splooshy running, though. LOL Week one completed, weekend of walking only and then step it up a notch on Monday for the start of week 2. I WILL get fitter and not fatter, I must! There's far too much of an age gap between my mental age and my physical age! :rotfl: SM, are you nearly here yet? Are you coming out to play tomorrow? :rotfl:

citroennut

Hi everyone. Have been a lurker here for a while and enjoy the thread very much. Just wanted to say Nyk that you may find that the smaller Sainsbury stores tend not to stock so much of the basics range sadly. Ours has even stopped stocking the 4p curry sauce, horrors! The whoopsies can be good though. We love Sainsburys.

I know your part of the world very well as I used to live down that way and miss it very much.

C.

cw18

Did my main August grocery shop today - and am still within my July GC budget, even without needed to touch my 'spare' from the year-to-date figures at the end of June :T

Need to update a couple of other categories (petrol, car insurance and 'anything else') before posting my end of month spreadsheet figures - but have a couple of urgent jobs to do before crashing tonight, and a fairly early start for a day out tomorrow (Blackp00l Tower Circus with GDs and DD, which is a birthday treat for elder GD who turns 6 next Tuesday). Will try and get them done tomorrow night, but can see it being Sunday morning before I finalize everything

Frugaldom

Good morning!

The sun is shining here but I'm not sure if it's going to be enough to dry up al of yesterday and last night's rain. One can only live in hope!

Can you believe that it's August already? I can't! :eek:

Like CW, I'm checking through all my figures and will see where I have over or underspent before rejigging to make ends meet. I am ever so slightly ahead, having £1,710.86 of my original £4,000 budget remaining. This equates to a difference of only £44.20 the good side of average. :T Will be back soon to update all my figures and assess the true damage of the increasing food prices.

Citreonnut, where abouts did you used to live? You can PM me if you'd rather not say on the open forum. I suspect you may be right about the smaller stores not stocking as many of the bargains and whoopsies are few and far between about here. At best we can get half price on stuff we wouldn't normally buy. :rotfl:

Wednesday 5th is our annual agricultural show, so I'm thinking that I might just take any extra funds I have and spend them on cheese. Last year I got 4 blocks for £10. I know it'll never compare to SM's fab whoopsie bargains at 20p per block, but this is rural SW Scotland and things like that just don't happen here.

Has anyone heard about this supposed new Government scheme that's being considered whereby everyone will have an annual carbon allowance and have to pay extra if they go over it but be able to sell excess if we stay below it? Is it for real? I received a survey about this, here's a link to show you I didn't imagine it. 4 years on and the surveys are still circulating and the Govt is still considering...

Here are our household results

• Your footprint is 8.25 tonnes per year
• The average footprint for people in United Kingdom is 9.80 tonnes
• The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
• The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
• The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes

Here's link to the site I used. Messing about with the figures shows I'm more environmentally friendly if I seal up my chimney and just increase electricity useage. Looking at the figures, it may well be more cost effective as well because the fire doesn't heat the water.

Hardup_Hester

Hi
Really interesting info Nyk, thanks for that.
I need to find some slack in my budget to help my DD, she has £2.02 per day to entertain her 2 children for the summer hols & although there are a few free things on round here none of it is walking distance. I shall give her £20 from my pennyjar savings for petrol. I'll also treat them to a trip to our local farm park. She works nights & her DH works days, but he didn't get his full pay this month.
Hester

Frugaldom

Back again. After having a close look at the budget, I have made a few small changes by reshuffling the allocated funds. My annual budget now looks like this:

Groceries - £1,130.00
Toiletries - £50.00
Cleaning - £20.00
Electricity - £1,200.00
Coal & lighters etc - £170.00
Logs - £200.00
Internet - £240.00
Mobiles - £30.00
Telephone - £150.00
TV - £50.00 (split among 3)
Clothing & Footwear - £100.00
Gifts - £470.00
Extras - £20.00
Travel - £100.00
Insurance - £47.50
Misc - £22.50
TOTAL - £4,000.00

I had over estimated on mobile phone use (I barely have a signal here) and, in seeing just how much difference coal burning makes to the carbon footprint, I have slashed the annual coal allowance and will pass £50 on to HS by way of contribution towards the TV licence, even although I'd happily live without a TV. (I'd need to pay a radio licence if I didn't own a TV.) I am also hoping to have over estimated for electricity, but don't want to touch that in case winter hits early and I switch on a heater rather than burn coal. If the berries on the trees are anything to go by then winter could be here by October! It's mainly grocery shopping that's crippling the budget, but only because I choose to give gifts at Christmas and include this as an essential. The seasonal splurge needs to be budgetted for throughout the year or else I'd run the risk of being tempted back into the 'buy now, pay later', mindset. I could easily blow the budget on food and solve the Christmas problem the plastic way, but this would be very anti-MSE.

I think I get quite a bit out of my £4k and, as most will know, I was hoping to make that my 'all-in' target to include everything - garden project, livestock and anything else - with the hope that all extra spending could be neutralised. Taking all of this into account, the balance on my original £4k is £1,002.37

Hoping to do some pasta making this weekend but haven't seen SM yet. Hope she isn't too distraught at what the sheep have done to her garden.

cw18

Just had a quick play on that Carbon Footprint calculator - now rushing off to get ready to go out! - and my results say

• Your footprint is 7.87 tonnes per year
• The average footprint for people in United Kingdom is 9.80 tonnes
• The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
• The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
• The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes

Chuffed with this, as my household should/could be lower (figures include several months with DH here, quite a number of weeks with elder DS home, and 30+ weeks of having GDs around school). My highest individual figure is the 'secondary', which I guess I can improve by starting to grow fruit & veg in the garden

bails

Hello from Brighton everyone! Just off to watch Gay Pride in a minute, will catch up soon but hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

SM, I completely agree with all your reasons for growing your own too :T I am so excited about planting next year, especially as MiL is growing lovely cucumbers and aubergines here, my favourite! Anyone grown avocados, as we're thinking of trying next year?

SL I am so sorry you didn't get the job, I really hope something amazing comes up for you soon. (Sorry I can't give you a dodgy hug, this PC won't let me access the extra smilies).

Mooloo, going back and reviewing is a great thing to do - I often do this to make sure I'm really being honest with where we are with things as our situation changes a lot. I'm currently looking in detail at how we would manage in different scenarios if we did get the cottage, which with so many unknowns is quite difficult but it's the best way I know to stay in control and understand what our options really are.

We had our house valued this week, it's worth 17k less than we paid for it, which is not so bad in the circumstances. It would have a potentially big impact on our ability to raise the deposit though, so we'll have to see how the market does over the next 4 months...

Shaz, I absolutely LOVE that chicken you posted! :T I will definitely look at the instructions on your blog but have you costed them, just out of interest? Would make lovely pressies! I love this thread for its wealth of creativeness, very inspring!
Back to catch up some more x

bails

Skintlynne, I know Working Links do mock interviews, although I think this service is only open to those returning to work after illness. I would imagine the Job Centre may offer something similar, or know of somewhere that does, hopefully for free. Worth a call.

Caught up with everything now! Good to see the frugal family helping each other out as usual :T

SFT, I'm so pleased you saw not one but two toucans - what a moment that must've been! :j

I have been giving a lot of thought to our future and a whole load of number crunching later reveals the cottage is potentially within our grasp :j:j:j We'll know what it's been valued at in December so there's not much more I can do until that point and see what the figures say then. We will be having a chat with our potential guarantors though, laying out our (very well thought out) proposal should the cottage be within our budget Thanks so much for putting up with me obsessing about it, I'm sure it's been boring but it has been really important for me to do this leg work before we go and also important for me to be able to 'talk' it over with you guys so I can get my head straight. Thankyou, I really appreciate it xx

The inspiration I find on here is quite humbling, it's opened up such a world of possibility in the time I've been a member on the forums and especially since I joined the 4k last January; what a wonderful community to be part of