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

taka

Blairweech wrote: »

My day has been not so frugal but....guess what I FINALLY got to post today ? (It took 5 attempts to get it past the PO). But hooray, it is finally in the post, now I just need to hear back and absolute fingers and toes and everything crossed I get my passport back in time for my holiday (28th Jan)

:j Thank goodness... I applied for mine around this time last year and got it back before Xmas. (I was going abroad in the Jan too!) I look so grumpy in my photo now - I loved my previous passport photo. :rolleyes: I hope yours turns up quickly!

cw18

Just finished my number crunching for November, and the resulting table is



Despite what it looks like now, I could have a problem getting to the end of next month and remaining under budget :eek:

I've had the renewal for my home insurance (need to find it before Thursday morning so I can call and discuss it), and it's currently coming in over £30 more than I anticipated :eek: This is one thing I'm unable to shop around for, due to certain things I need on it (think someone mentioned a couple of days ago they're stuck with one company for car insurance due to being in the same boat with that). So this means I need to find £30+ from elsewhere in my budget

I've changed all the categories where I know what the final figure will be to the actuals (sorry Nyk, no more nice roundings from me as things are looking tough).

So I now have nothing to spare in
Council Tax
Water
Gas/Electricity
C/H Cover
TV Licence
Mobile Phone
Endowment
Window Cleaning
Gutter Cleaning
Car Insurance
Breakdown Cover
Road Tax
MOT
Service

I'm also showing an 'exact spend' on vets bills, but have a feeling I'm going to have another hefty one to pay (Yorkie isn't doing well at all since her fit a few months back - especially since I started work - so am going to take advice, but may have to say farewell to her )

There may be a couple of £s to spare on phone/broadband, but it could go the other way just as easily :rolleyes2

Still a couple of bits to get from presents category, but may manage to squeeze a fiver or so back from there

Petrol still an unknown quantity. I've not filled up since 9th October and still have just under half a tank, though I need to use the car a bit more over the next few weeks. I also plan to fill up on NYE, as I did this last year so would give me an accurate figure for use in the year (if running on fumes at the time, I reckon this would come to around £48 at current prices). BUT, elder DS has now phoned and asked me to collect him from Birmingham airport on 20th Dec - which will have huge implications on this category. (Have actually told him I may be working - or sleeping between shifts - in which case there's no chance, at best I'm only considering it for now )

Groceries is also 'unknown', but I can't see me ending up with much spare there

Only got a fiver in toiletries/cleaning even now, but am hoping to hold on to that as spare cash.

Dog expenses is a problem area. I bought 8 weeks food for the Dalmatian on 2nd October, but due to initially 'diluting' it with his previous food I should still have enough for another couple of weeks. This means I need more before year end, but am undecided as to where to get it. My last lot was purchased via Quid0 with a promise of 5% cashback, but it's showing as less than half that in my account. I flagged this up with Quidc0 almost immediately (at which point it showed as payment expected to me end Nov). They came back and said the company will correct it when they validate the claim, but it's a company who doesn't 'validate', and goes straight from 'tracked' to 'paid' - and it now shows as due for payment in January :mad: I'm not prepared to use them again until I see what finally comes through, as if they don't increase it I could have got it pennies cheaper elsewhere. So I need another bag (at least) before year end, which is going to be in the region of £50. I also only have 2-3 weeks food left for the Yorkie, so may have more to find there as well. Definitely nothing to spare here, and may need to find more for this category from somewhere.

So the only one left is my 'anything else' - which has a remaining balance of £62. There's no way this will be enough to cover the vets bill (if that's the way things pan out), but should cover shortfalls in insurance and dog food........ However that leaves me nothing to get a new coat, which I'm pretty desperate for now I'm out for work in the wee small (and very cold) hours of the morning at least once a week. Only option here is to speak to my parents, and if they've done nothing for me for Christmas yet (which I suspect will be the case as I normally get a cheque) then they may be prepared to get me a coat and let me have it early Just feel a bit like that's cheating at this late stage of the game though....

cw18

Just been G00gling to try and find something official about talk I was hearing in work this afternoon - and found it too....

news report here

this all took places about as far the other side of work as my house is this side - about a total of a 15-20 minute walk from my house !!!!

grandma247

CW that is very scary my dd1 lives in Atherton.

bails

Oh drat! I've just been reading up on teacher's Threshold and it seems I wouldn't be eligible to apply while working at this school, so would be 8 years behind on my salary :rolleyes: It's so frustrating, as I think I would really like to work in this school for the experience but having such a detrimental effect on my long-term pay on top of the illness is a real negative. The only way I can possibly see round it is if I become an AST and I'm not sure you can do this in this school either. Argh! If they were to offer it to me, I really don't know what to say... Salary won't be discussed til they make an offer; do you think it's okay to ask for time to think it over if they do offer it to me? I wish this could be simpler, I just want to go back to work and earn the salary I'm entitled to (and especially as these are the most challenging teenagers in the country!!) Any advice appreciated, especially from the teachers amongst us...

Got to go to work now but will catch up later x

FrankieM

Morning all,
Did the french onion soup and cake for pudding last night. Everyone seemed happy with that. Thank goodness. So no spending or panicking.

Today is shopping day today. I only have £20 due to spending so much on Sunday. I don't need very much, which is just as well. DH is away until saturday which also helps. He is going to Munich on friday and taking DD2 with him. She is doing GCSE german so he's hoping it will be a bit of a treat and also help her out. Of course there is her flight to pay for and spending money so I will be juggling my money around to get it all paid. I won't have as much money in savings but I think I won't accrue anything else on the credit card.
Budgets can be a bit of a nightmare!

slowlyfading

good morning, and happy december everyone! got my official observation today so I'm really nervous! shall update later, have a good day x x

FrankieM

Hope it goes well for you....x

lyndasharp

Morning everyone, just been catching up on the news over the past few days. Good luck with DGD Mooloo, you seem like a very resourceful person, but it's a shame that social services aren't helping out!
Cute pups natalie!
Bails, I've often asked for a couple of days to think things over after being offered a job so they didn't ought to mind.
Good luck SF!
FrankieM, I really love french onion soup, yum yum. I was in Norwich yesterday and had a horrid leek and potato soup that tasted entirely of salt.

My news is that I've bought a chicken coop, which will do horrible things to the budget but it looks like a really nice one. Will post a pic when it arrives. I spent the weekend with at my Dad's and MSE came in very useful for writing a letter to complain about his 2 year old boiler being repeatedly faulty (I know what brand to avoid when we change ours next summer!).

H2B has finally put his flat up for rent, as the potential buyer was still deciding even though we'd accepted her offer ages ago. We think she was just messing us about in case her offer on two other flats fell through. Frustrating, as it's meant delaying the rental side of things for 3 weeks while we were hoping it would sell, we might have already had a tenant in there if not for her!

Savvy_sewing

Morning, Childrens TV has taken over!.
DGD slept until 6.15 this morning, but sat in her cot with a bottle of milk, and playing with her teddy until 7am. I did try to get her to go back to sleep telling her it was night time still,but she said the cars were up!! True the cars were going through the village at breakneck speed!.
We have both got dressed and had breakfast. I managed a shower with her colouring in her book, on the bathroom floor. Forgot that privacy goes right out the window with littleones!.
Its taken me ages to get the fire going, and I had to go out to get more logs. Very icey and slippery out there.
Mr A text me telling me to call or I wouldnt get my delivery. When I rang they said the bank card had been rejected. Panic stations. But I had given them the other card details when I had added the nappies etc yesterday. So when I gave them the correct card all was well. But it just shows that I am working without any buffer zone anymore.
We are going to go for a cup of tea and some cake, in about an hour, at the church hall. Then be back for the delivery between 12 and 2pm. So my afternoon will be busy trying to put shopping away with a pair of tiny hands in the way.
Now I remember why I had a play pen when the twins were little.!
Defrosted a Mr T, £2 chicken, so will roast that today, and see what I can get out of it for meals for us all. Need to think about what DS can take to work with him. Will need to get him a lunchbox suitable for a working "man". But it will have to wait.
Least we have enough logs for a few weeks, and the delivery will mean most of our food and toiletries etc for the rest of december and into the new year. When the challenge starts properly for us all.
Christmas presents will be a little sparse, but the family will just have to understand.
If I get any energy I will be back at the sewing machine, but at the moment, I am too tired.
DGD is into everything. So I will really have to childproof the cottage better.
Thank god I had a fire guard to keep her off of the woodburner!.
Think Biggest of Mooloo's is going to take her to MK to see the display on Friday, so I will have some time to myself on Friday. Not quite counting the hours yet!!
Tomorrow the Social Worker is going to see my Daughter, so I will take DGD and go there too. See if we can get the battle of the do's and don'ts done. So will have to use the car then. Clocking my mileage for now. The car did 357 miles to the tank, so as the cost of the petrol has gone up, I will have to work out the cst again. Think its abit more then 13p a mile now.