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

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

I've spent this morning as constructively as possible and am feeling vert pleased with myself now, as I've done several small and frugal deeds.

1. First of all, I followed a link to see if I could claim a free electricity monitor from British Gas, even although I'm not a British Gas customer and the application said yes! :j I found it via this MSE forum and even although I have no social security reference number it lists Working Tax Credits as a qualifying benefit. :j I'll need to wait 6 weeks to see if my electricity monitor arrives but I did get a confirmation on screen that it would be despatched. :T

Did anyone else get one of these?

Mine came almost 2 weeks ago (arrived very quickly), but I've only just finished hooking it up (keep forgetting before work - but with the extra hours last week & the week before it was dark when I left anyway - and at the weekend)

Put the display unit in the kitchen (best accessible plug socket), got it up and running, and checked the display - showing at 0.38kW current use. Turned off the kitchen lights on my way out of the room (7 energy efficient spots in recessed fittings), and out of interest went back to see if I could still read the display - down to 0.31kW.

So a note to self to remember to turn lights off whenever I leave that room, and also to nag DS to death about the same....... Found it interesting as they're something you can't monitor using one of the 'between the socket and the plug' monitors

The other things I discovered of interest (to me), was that turning on the light in my over-hob extractor pushed it back up to 0.38kW - so the times I've used that instead of the main lights (thinking it would be cheaper) have been very misinformed. And as that only illuminates a very small area of the kitchen I think I'll stick to the main lights in future :rolleyes2

Savvy_sewing

Cheryl I ordered one at the same time as you, but as yet I havent recieved it. Wondering what the fan heater does compared to another plug in heater I found under the stairs, as DS has a habit of sticking the fan heater on!. Also we have only got wall lights, so I have either to take half of them out, and sit in semi dark, I would love to know how much certain appliances are costing me. (like the tumble dryer when Iam using it for the baby things.)

Frugaldom

Good afternoon and, I believe, Happy Islamic New Year!

Less than a fortnight to go until the new challenge begins and I am still getting ideas from this thread! Loved the crochet work and think I might just take something like that back up next year, even if it os just to do the lining for my long awaited patchwork quilt once the freebie sewing machine is put into action.

SFT, price of coal here is, as was already pointed out, £230 a tonne if we opt for the cheapie £11.50 per bag stuff (20 bags to the tonne) but the coalman sometimes offers a free bag with it. Mine gets rationed in favour of logs, so I don't actually get through a tonne in a year.

CW - my electricity monitor hasn't arrived but my save-a-flush sachets did, so I'm now using 1.5L less water with every flush, as I left the 500ml bottle in place too.

Had another quick check over the budget balance for this year and this is what I have left:

Groceries - £54.33
Electricity - £40.00
Gifts - £28.55
Misc - £34.23
TOTAL - £157.11

I have swept all the small and penny balances into my 'misc' column, but the parcel deliveries have still to be deducted from this total. Everything else is paid up to date for this year, it's tight, but it's still within budget. Here's hoping there aren't any surprises waiting around the corner for me. The gifts and misc will soon disappear when I package up the boxes for the courier to collect them on Monday. That's it, I have £157.11 left out of my £4,000 to last me 13 more days. :T

findingmyfeet

afternoon all,

nyk-totally amazed and in awe of your budget, you do so well. wish i could do as well, is it sheer grit and determination or do you treat it game like and cant bear to lose? what is it that keeps your motivation so strong ? iam afraid i do well for several months then lapse either by pressure from someone in the house wanting things or by seeing things i really fancy and cannot resist. My other weakness is not enough planning for the unexpected then the budget goes out of the window and i get disheartened with myself, anyone else get like this?

Anyway had a good christmas shopping session this afternoon got almost everything now, cards all delivered (most by hand) and budget not blown too much. still working myself up to the big food shop, hoping to make a list of good store cupboard stuff to help in the new year as i have £100 to spend in vouchers and dont need much fresh stuff, so will come in handy come january.

still -2 here, everything frozen and about 2cm of snow and still the occasional flurry. keep safe, well and warm everyone

Savvy_sewing

Findingmyfeet, I am like you, I start with good intentions, and then loose it when I end up helping out the family, or seeing something in the supermarket that I havent had for a while. Mostly its overspending on groceries is my major trouble, and it used to be spending in Charity shops,but now that I am in the village, I am not out and about for myself much now. The next biggest problem is using the tumbledryer. Usually becuase I am washing the twins things, as they have not done enough washing and run out of bedding or babies clean things!!
Still learning to say NO is going to be the biggest way to keep to budget!

grandma247

Well done NYK.
fmf it does get easier I think as time goes on. We are in a much better position than we were last december and I have really been doing this for three years and not just this one official year. I am even looking forward to putting money away in various savings accounts which I have not been able to do for ages.
I want to squirrel some away in my mini isa and put some money in the credit union account for emergencies. Hopefully if we do have something urgent come up I will be able to get a loan from them at a silly rate 1% I think instead of touching the savings as the profits get shared at the end of the year and it is way better than the bank interest rates.

the_cat

findingmyfeet wrote: »

afternoon all,

nyk-totally amazed and in awe of your budget, you do so well. wish i could do as well, is it sheer grit and determination or do you treat it game like and cant bear to lose? what is it that keeps your motivation so strong ? iam afraid i do well for several months then lapse either by pressure from someone in the house wanting things or by seeing things i really fancy and cannot resist. My other weakness is not enough planning for the unexpected then the budget goes out of the window and i get disheartened with myself, anyone else get like this?

I know exactly what you mean! This year, I am taking a slightly different approach to try to trick myself out of this. I have set a budget which allows a comfortable amount for each category and an 'anything else/contingency' section
I figure that I am the sort of person that gets discouraged easily and when I get disheartened I can go off the rails. I am positive when I am below budget and that motivates me better.If I have more slack in the budget I will hopefully waver less often which should save me more than trying to attain the budgets of some of the much better frugalists on this thread.

Hopefully it will work!

PS apologies to those who are working on a very tight budget through necessity. I hope this post doesn't come across as insensitive.

cw18

the_cat : mine was set at its limit partially through necessity. I could have set it quite a bit higher for 2009, but opted to set it at the level I'd need to be at in 2010 if I still weren't working again. But I didn't see your post as insensitive at all - this challenge is (in my eyes) all about making us aware of where we're spending our money, which in turn means we can set our own priorities.

Mooloo & Nyk : Initially thought it odd I've had my monitor a while but you've not received one (yet). Now wondering if this is due to my being a customer (even if only for my central heating breakdown contract) Had another shock with it tonight.... came home and started to make tea, then glanced at it. My first thought was that DS's PC hammers the power, but then I realised I'd turned on the electric grill. So I momentarily turned the grill off (out of interest) and the useage dropped dramatically !! There are a few meals I do where I use the grill for very small quantities of food, so I may have to explore alternative cooking/heating methods :rolleyes2

savingfortravel

Nyk-I agree you are incredible. As for me......This is probably going to seem insensitive too..

But deciding on my budget for 2010 has been a nightmare..almost three quarters my wages go on bills, extra pensions, paying my parents back (for the dreaded roof), Contingency, Christmas Club, Petrol and maintenance of car, Hairdressers, Dentists..then most of the remaining quarter is our spending money and holiday savings (it ain't cheap to take the nephew to S.Africa).
So what do I include as that amounts to 2k per month?
We are very lucky to be able to afford everything on 1 person's wage but since Mr SFT earns a quarter of what I do its just as well.
Everything he earns we are putting towards the mortgage...His earnings are going up we hope in April when he changes from 2 days a week to 4.

However I love that this thread motivates me so much so although I probably won't have a 2010 budget I am desperate to stay.

Hope that's ok

sft

savingfortravel

However we are saving as hard as poss so that I can give up work and follow my dreams...My spending money is £50 per month and I only buy second hand clothes, love charity shops, cook from scratch and pretty much watch the pennies.

sft
40 2 go in my sig is how many more months I HAVE to work at school before the mortgage is paid off.