Mooooving Into 2010 - Bovine Adventures In Budgeteering!

EssexHebridean

Urgh - having been on one or two Scotrail trains in cold weather myself you have my sympathy. I bet you were glad to see your friend and get your lift home!!

I love it when MSE stuff arrives in the post - I got the magazine too and it's amazing how many odds and ends have found their way from freebie or low spend offers into people's christmas presents!

honeybear_2

flying_fresian wrote: »

ANCHOR BAKING SET!! Pictures to follow...

pictures! pictures! pictures!

mooomin

honeybear wrote: »

pictures! pictures! pictures!

Will do pictures tomorrow along with pictures of my Christmas tree and (If they stay still).....Kittens In Tinsel

Intergalactic_Floozie

flying_fresian wrote: »

I will post tomorrow with information about what I'm going to include, for those who are interested.

ME! I'm interested :j:j:j

mooomin

Intergalactic_Floozie wrote: »

ME! I'm interested :j:j:j

Here's my original post from the challenge...

I have done some maths, factoring in increases in costs of about 5% of the amounts I'm paying at the moment. We're two adults and two old cats and live in a two-bedroom flat.

Here are the annual breakdowns, I have removed debt and mortgage repayments:

Council Tax £1280
Scottish Power £1212
Virgin Media £432 (Evening/weekend calls, freeview and 10MB Broadband)
Mobiles Phones (Myself and Mr Fresian) £408
TV Licence £144.12
Bus Pass £504
Pet Insurance £276
Home Insurance £216
Union payments £96 (Would like to continue paying this)
Holiday 2012 £120 To (hopefully) attend the Olympics in 2012
Christmas/Birthday gifts £300
Groceries £2040 which I know is a lot.....to be reduced!! (Aimed to spend £250 per month this year so am reducing this to £170 per month for this year)
Entertainment £360
Boiler Cover £312 (included cover for plumbing)

I have savings of almost £1000 which I hope to grow and I will use this as my emergency/contingency fund. The groceries budget will cover all food, toiletries and cleaning gubbins as well as all the food/treats for the cats.

The above comes to £7,700.12 so I'm going to aim for £8,000 for the year, as this will cover anything unexpected...I hope! If you can see any room for improvement please let me know!


Looks a little scary to me when I see it in black and white (or purple!) I think that for me the key to it will be reducing expenditure. I'm planning on keeping to the £8000 by making savings in the other areas, as £300 for unexpected things isn't a lot! My aims will be:


1. Reduce the cost of insurances. Got my home insurance renewal through yesterday so that will be a fun job over Christmas :rotfl: I may well just see what the cover is like with Tesco and go with them for extra Clubcard points Pet insurance is quite a cost, but the moggies are getting on a bit now so they need to be insured.

2. Cut back on grocery shopping. I'm already aiming on spending £80 per month less than I did at the start of this year, but with the amount of food I have in the freezer at the moment I have grand plans of batch cooking through January and using any money saved to stock up on meat at Costco, then continuing this cycle

3. My monthly costs for gas/electric continue to infuriate me. I'm turning appliances off where possible, and slowly converting Mr Fresian. Together with not turning the heating on until November this year, I'm hoping this will have an effect on our bills.

4. My budget of £300 for Christmas/birthday gifts looks a lot but covers quite a few people. I have already got two Christmas presents for 2010 courtesy of Bangzo for a princely £5.30

Hopefully this makes a little sense, I need to really get better with spreadsheets to carry this off!

I've also joined the £100 clothing challenge again, which starts on January 1st so my mission for the next few days is to find a kick*ss pair of jeans before then I'm also going to attack the Next sale for suitable work clothes. This will be helped by birthday/Christmas money received already.

Fancy joining me in the challenge Flooz? :A

moo2moo

It sounds very organised FF. Wanna come round and sort out my masterplan for 2010? Have already signed up to the pay off 20K by x-mas challenge which will see us totally and utterly debt free until we start work on the house again. Vageuly considering a make £1 a day challenge but that seems a bit too easy as 2 DooYoos would cover that. Still have 14 DooYoos to go to achieve the 200 I delared I'd do by x-mas. Theres no way I'll fit them in before the end of tomorrow though.

Intergalactic_Floozie

I really do need to join in some sort of challenge to keep me motivated as I do get really bored quickly. I'll do some sums.....

mooomin

About to strap on my wellies and head to the local shopping centre for travel/shopping chaos. Eek....

On the plus side, received a free beanie hat from Carling in the post today (Mr Fresian will be pleased!) and my £20 Quidco from B!ngon is now received so I'm crossing my fingers it will arrive for December's end of month payout

pointypenguin

Evening,

Sorry to hear about your horrendous journey. I have to attempt to fly down south tomorrow fingers crossed the plane takes off in Snowland or I will be trapped here :rolleyes:

Chirstmas dinner sounds good and very MSE. Good luck with the yearly challenge you are a braver woman than me.

I must go and sort out my spreadsheets so I don't go Xmas spending crazy.

Intergalactic_Floozie

flying_fresian wrote: »

About to strap on my wellies and head to the local shopping centre for travel/shopping chaos. Eek....

Are you still there? :eek::eek::eek: