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

Kittikins

Fingers crossed you can fight off the lurgy at the pass. Hope you have an awesome trip and that you can do an SFT and keep us updated at some point during your time away, we'll miss you

lingojingo

Kittikins wrote: »

Fingers crossed you can fight off the lurgy at the pass. Hope you have an awesome trip and that you can do an SFT and keep us updated at some point during your time away, we'll miss you

Have a brilliant time!

jtb2412

Have a wonderful time Bails ! Take care xxx

lyndasharp

Have a great time bails!

I've spent a scary amount already this month, will be well over budget. However I will soon have a new carport for just £350, including a water butt so can save a bit on watering the garden... I admit I was hoping it would be under £300, but my Dad looked at the design and added some extra pieces, so that it will be less likely to fall over or blow away...

Our neighbour manages a builders merchants, so we got a good price on the materials. We're building it all by hand rather than buying a kit, after I almost fell off the chair seeing the kit prices - over £1000 for a similar sized version! Fingers crossed for some good weather, if so it'll be all finished by the weekend, and I will post a photo!

Skint_Lynne

Have a wonderful time Bails, you deserve it. xx

I couldn't get on last night, my home broadband is broken. I find it to be really frustrating that my provider uses call centres on the other side of the world. I can never get anyone to understand what I am saying because of this accent of mine!:o Some of the accents over there are really broad, my indian sister in law cannot understand them either.:rolleyes:

It cuts both ways though, we in the UK should not be receiving calls for another country either, eg German directory enquiries based in S!!!!horpe.:p

It took me ages to get the guy to understand me, then we went through the motions of trying all the usual quick fixes, then he informed me that it will be fixed as if by magic in 2 days.:mad: Not good enough I'm afraid.

I then had a call to my mobile later on, asking me if the broadband had come back on, I let them know that I wasn't at home, this met with the response, 'that's good, I am glad it is working now', then I had the rigmarole of telling him, no, I don't know, I'm not at home. They arranged for a call back at 8pm last night that didn't happen. Then, when I called them back, a girl told me that it should be running again after 4pm today as it takes 26 hours for the line to stabilise, whatever that means.

I will be demanding a rebate on my account as I can't use the service.

The truth of the matter is that I had distinct withdrawl symptoms from not being able to get on here, that was the real problem.:o

Will check in later. xx

Kittikins

Hi SM - managed to get to Wilko's just now and they've cut back on their home brewing section, so now only have brown beer bottles and clear wine bottles, not fantastic for sloe gin/vodka etc....although I am thinking of being very MSE and just buying the plastic re-usable corks and reusing some of my parents' wine bottles this year! I know they'll look a bit cheap (ok, very cheap...) but I might be able to get away with it

Skint_Lynne

Oh my,

The forum does not like my choice of town which I pulled out of thin air. Scun thorpe. I didn't realise it has a sweary word in it.:rotfl:

grandma247

Skint_Lynne wrote: »

Oh my,

The forum does not like my choice of town which I pulled out of thin air. Scun thorpe. I didn't realise it has a sweary word in it.:rotfl:

I take it that its a computer program that gets to decide what is and isn't acceptable then.

Bye Bails have a great time.

SFT_2

Have a great trip Bails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looking forward to your updates already!

Day 12
We left Costa Rica and its comforts behind this morning. Felt a little sad to leave such a beautiful country but am looking forward to the cultural diversity of Nicaragua. I have to say the border crossing was much less painful than Panama-Costa Rica (when I had to drag my luggage up a slippery hillside in the rain and then negotiate across a rickety bridge-as huge trucks riffled by). Once accross we changed dollars to local currency (Nicaraguan currency is called Cordobas) with some woman on the street who had a wad the size of a brick (the done thing apparently, not had to do this since Syria about 10 years ago). We then stopped on the edge of Lake Nicaragua for a view of Ometepe Island with its 2 beauitful volcanoes. A great egret was wading in the water.
Next we visited the town of Rivas-wow, what a buzz of activity-wandering through the market stalls, many selling hair accessories, flip flops and wellington boots of all things. Rickshaw bicyles were whizzing past carrying whole families, motorcyles with small children on their parents laps. But this is the kind of thing that I love and the people were friendly but not a bit aggressive. The town square had a beautiful cathedral on one side and a huge satellite mast on the other. The arcades on the remaining sides had a real spanish feel about them and reminded me of Cuba.
We were unable to catch the first ferry to the island as the boat was broken, So we waited for the 2.30pm. The boarding was chaos and our luggage disappeared as some man put ours and several other bags on his head. We kept a close watch but were grateful for the assistance. On board there was a film being shown, very violent and lots of swearing, translated so that all of the family could enjoy it. Shame the crossing was shorter than the film as I'll never know what happened to those criminals now. I wonder if the crew even know. Our bus to the accomodation was the most characterful yet. The island is very lush, the people are poor and rely on tourism. We are staying in a kind of rustic shelter, nice hammock outside. Only one green snake spotted but lots of white throated jays flying around. My dinner was fish, tasty but just warm and tiny green flies were all around- a few got on my plate but I was hungry.

Day 13
Had pancakes and syrup with tropical fruit for breakfast. We are half way through our trip now and have opted for a quiet day. Our washing is hanging out to dry and we are currently in the posh (I use this term loosely) hotel up the road using the free internet. Mr SFT has a headache. We will wanderdown to the lake shore later (the biggest fresh water lake with an island with 2 volcanoes in the world) and splash a bit. Look out for bull sharks in the water.



Now have a goal for the money we are saving on food. We will obviously be paying off our roof debt with regular payments but I have promised my nephew a trip and to be honest I am looking forward to it too. So we have worked out the food costs for it and need about $540 for food for the 3 of us. We have saved $272 so far and have a wedding cheque from Mr SFT's american auntie for $100 which we haven't cashed. So we have $372 so far, which is great. Just need $168!

The money for the cost of the trip is coming out of the money we are saving for reducing the mortgage. Mr SFT has reassured me that his parents will be happy for regular DD over a period of 32 months so thats ok.

Pleased I have all my finances in my mind, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to work it out being away and would have worried myself sick. CW-I am learning from you.

Have been managing to read most posts and hope everyone is well.
Good to see HWGA back.

Take care all.

SFT

Brighton_belle

really enjoying your updates sft and a virtual non traveller (well with you, I am now a virtual traveller lol)..
So nyk, SM - ominous silence: what's the chicken count now chez frugaldom:D

Really excited to her the canner has arrived grandma:j Im still not convinced this is some heath robinson basement filling device and look forward to hearng how it goes.

well done lynda on your bargain carport:T

watched the ec0nomy gastr0nomy prog last night - I thought it was very good and should help many families who have lost there way and have no concept on planning meals or budgeting. I was certainly reminded of a ew things to re introduce or try harder at. But of course it is way off the astonishing achievements of many on this thread, but was still a great intro to the subject for the completely terrified/clueless but wanting to change. Next week's family of 5 (3 kids) spend £17,000 on food a year:eek:. This weeks family are on target to save £4,500 on their food bill, which is how much mum earns at her p/t job which she is on the cusp of being made redundant from. Really nice family though.
I wonder where the nationwide skill gap started in basic housekeeping?

LOL Lynne - you glasgae girls really should watch your language: a wet weekend in Scun thorpe is quite terrifying to a soft southerner: no wonder they deleted it:rotfl:
Hope you get well quickly bails:eek:.