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

savingfortravel

Meant to say that have just finished meal planning for Dec. Our Grocery Budget for Dec/Jan/Feb will be the £96 we got from ebay sales/£20 M and S voucher and anything we save this month-so a max of £43 per month for the 2 of us. Since our budget for food each month is £75 then we will be £96 up (£225 in total).

I'm not sure if this is crazy saving and that I should really be getting a life..(goes off to ponder this......) :embarasse

sft

Blairweech

Evening,

Bails - Massive good luck to you for your interview tomorrow, completely agree with CW saying they would not have made the effort if they were not interested

The weather is really horrible outside, so I am curled up in bed with candles and tea
Was going to go to OHs tonight and buy kebab for tea or something, but I left my bag at home so didnt have any money! :rotfl:Good way of avoiding spending.

Interesting article about living without money BB, I think my volunteering experience next year will set me up nicely for when I am hopefully 'self sufficient' with no income. Side note - now that I have a place at uni, my 'crazy self sufficient dream farm deluded fantasy' no longer seems crazy or deluded. It feels almost like it could be obtainable now :T

Savvy_sewing

grandma247 wrote: »

Would you consider cloth nappies? It used to be said that disposables were cheaper than cloth but guess who did the research?
The new type cloth ones are not cheap but you can make your own for next to nothing. Pm me about that or b/f if you want. I fed all of my six.
Also there are organisations such as national childbirth trust and La Leche league that can help you.

If you want to use disposables, for the first few weeks, Remember Mr S have a half price sale on Baby things at the moment. Might be worth putting a few things into your basket while its on. My next grandchild is due in the new year, and I picked up some newborn nappies when I was passing by. Not in MrS sadly. We dont have one of them near here.
Want DD to use washable, would make them for her. I have the pattern. But she is in a hostel at the moment, and there is no room for washing nappies.

Frugaldom

Thanks for the link to the article BB, it made interesting reading as it sounded similar to the LETS system that's been around for many years. (I was just slow to find out about it. ) I can understand the offloading of material possessions but I don't think I'd last very long without any income. :rolleyes: Imagine asking a Government office to accept a few cartons of soup in lieu of Council Tax or something like that? :rotfl:

slowlyfading

bails, good luck for tomorrow xx

lingojingo

Good luck Bails - they'd be crazy not to employ someone as resourceful as you!

Savvy_sewing

Echo that, Good Luck Bails.x

Read the article. Interesting, but I agree Council Tax would not accept the carrots. Certainly wouldnt have accepted mine. They were rather like a knotted root then a carrot!

sophiesmum_2

Positive thoughts winging your way for the interview Bails xx

Kerfuffle

Hi cw18

cw18 wrote: »

Ok, confession time (of a sorts). In order to stand a chance of sticking to my £8k budget I decided not to include some purchases made in the last 10 days, but now I'm dithering again about whether I'm cheating by not doing so !!!
My budget is supposed to be 'all in', whereas I know a lot of folks exclude anything that's work related (wasn't relevant to me when I set my budget).
But because I now have a job I've bought : -
a new pair of shoes £53 (and coppers)
my old ones would probably have held up over the next couple of months for personal use, especially as I also have a pair of trainers, a pair of lightweight walking boots and a pair of wellies that can be worn from time-to-time to stretch the life of the shoes
2 pairs of trousers @ £5 each
one pair I had were really too big around the waist (so my blouse never stayed tucked in), which meant I only had one pair that was suitable
and (the one that's causing the most dithering)
a new iron @ £8.99
buying an iron is totally out of character for me 'cos I'm renowned for my aversion to ironing. The one I've been using was a wedding present in 1992, and was totally DH's choice - but I've never got on with it, and after 2 weeks of having to use it pretty much on a daily basis I was about ready to chuck it through a window. Have only used the new one once (did both sets of uniform before work yesterday, so need to do another ironing session before work tomorrow), but it definitely seems a lot easier to use and gives a much better finish. As I don't iron anything else (unless I'm going to a wedding / funeral / christening / extended family gathering) I'm hoping I can claim this as a works expense and exclude it
Only other real news from me is that I did my Food Safety Level 2 on Saturday, which you need to get 20/30 on to pass. Saw the personnel manager as I was leaving (late again!) today, and she gave me a certificate for passing - and then informed me I'd managed to not only scrape through (I had been unsure about a couple of them), but had manged to attain 100% :T

Now need to try and find out when I'll be doing Level 3, as I have to have this due to working in the bakery.......

I wouldn't put the clothes purchases under your 2009 budget, I know you've re-started work recently so you've gone about 3/4 of the year already without the purchases, it would be unfair to yourself to put the costs down in the last quarter.
Maybe you could allocate it to your 2010 budget but then because it's already spent just put it into savings, IYSWIM, deferring the expenditure if you like.

And as for the iron, put it down for household maintenance (or equivalent) and again because it's already spent put it into savings. Certainly a lot cheaper to buy an iron that you get on with, than having to replace a window! :rotfl:

Congratulations on the 100% pass too.

savingfortravel

Where are you from Kerfuffle? Just noticed $ in your sig. SFT