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

Darnit_2

Thanks Brighton Belle! How can I refuse now?!?

Blairweech

:wave: Hi Darnit. Great username

Andromache - Well done on representing your uni, and what an interesting hobby. I dabbled in public speaking at school, and the nuances between arguing, debating and persuading were just :eek:

Just a heads up, I had my Lidl email today and they have some good thermals,fleeces and gilets in from next Thursday

bails

Brighton_belle wrote: »

SF - I agree with others, it is great that you are focussed on saving money, but don't get into feeling guilty - it is ok to value yourself and have treats like a night off from cooking. I think you are doing amazingly as a PGCE student to keep on top of your finances as you are.

I agree with this wholeheartedly SF, it's about balance and making choices that make you happy x

Welcome on board Darnit, your preparations for next year sound great! :T Definitely join Freecycle, it's an amazing resource for everyone including the planet

My challenge will only be a part one next year as we won't be back til sometime in April. It'll be a little tricky as we'll be homeless til the end of June (we rented the house out til then in the end, just to get someone in) and then there's the wedding etc. But I'll still very much be here and frugalling away to make the most out of every penny I can And hopefully I'll have a job too :j

Andromache, what a great hobby, your employers must love that! I can't imagine anything worse as I am terrified of public speaking (something I am working on) so I admire you greatly. And a trip to Turkey, result!

Have a great day everyone, I need to get my head stuck into the application today so I can show it to OH before he leaves.

savingfortravel

Am catching up...up to post 369..Got back from France last night but more about that later...

Help me with my dilemma-Free apples in basket down the road..have taken half a bag for my mum and dad..should I go and get some more..I want to but is it being greedy?

SFT

cw18

I'm back from my interview at Mr M.......

The interview was fairly informal, but what really surprised me was that she never once queried the time (almost 20 months) I had off my last job with back problems - I thought that would be a major drawback/issue

They're interviewing people against specific posts, and the one she has me against is days rather than the evening/weekends they advertised. She did say the majority of the posts were 'student hours' and that the majority of the applicants were after those.... so I guess that bodes well. But the really good thing was that it won't impact my voluntary work in the local primary school, as the shift on those two days doesn't start until 1pm and I finish in school at 11:30am - and home/school/supermarket are all within a few minutes walk of each other She actually seemed quite keen for me to continue doing that, so I guess they're an employer who likes to be able to say their staff volunteer in the community.....

Tuesdays will be a long day though - start at 7am ( ) and finish at (I think she said) 4pm !!!!! She said it was 27 hours in total over the week, but I'm struggling to make the shifts calculate to that, so I must have missed something on the the days/hours she said :undecided

I took a piece of card with me, on which I'd written 4 headings for questions to ask of her. She covered three of them in the interview (how flexible I'd be expected to be on hours, opportunity to carry on voluntary work, and movement around departments), but seemed pleased to see those as things I had written down to query. That only left issue of uniform to be covered, which seemed to go down well as a sensible one to ask.


So fingers crossed now....


Interviews are all day today and all day tomorrow. She's then phoning everyone on Monday to let them know if they were sucessful or not (will then be followed up by letter), and the inductions are Wed/Thur of NEXT WEEK !!!!

Skint_Lynne

Good luck Cheryl,

It seems to have went well, I hope you get it, and hope it goes well for DS as well. xx

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!
We left the appples in the end..glad we did as more disappeared so someone else was interested.
thirtylass-hugs to you, BF and family.
BB-Glad you sorted out the lodger. Congrats on your clothes shopping trip too.
Bails-So glad you're hillwalking and enjoying being out in the beautiful scenary. Good luck with that application.
CW-Glad the interview went well..fingers crossed.
Grandma-What a superb holiday. Love poking around Charity Shops. And you were so organised with the food.
Andromache-Wow! Good luck with the competition. I'm with Bails in that I hate public speaking (bizarre from teachers I know) but going to Istanbul, what a result! Been there many times and just love it!
sft

Brighton_belle

welcome back sft:j - the forums were down all afternoon for maintenance so couldn't post re apples.
CW - sounding promising. It would be wonderful if you and DS both got posts: would make a real differnce to your finances but doesn't rule out you changing your mind at some date and doing child minding. Always good to have choices. Everything crossed for you both.

I've just upgraded our phone package by £3.45 month - this will give us free weekday calls after 6 pm aas well as the free weekend calls we get allready. I looked at our last 6 month bills and it would on average save us a few quid each month and occasionally a bit more than that. Doesn't include calls to mobiles of course or 0845 numbers but rarely ring them anyway.
I've started cancelling old bank accounts I haven't used for aeons and some cards ditto. Didn't realise that they might show up on a credit score even though they are all Nil balance.

shaz_mum_of__2

Hello everyone

Back from frugal holiday with my frozen lamb in tow .......................(courtesy of a friend on another forum we met up and swapped cash for meat in a pub car park just off the A1 .....................must have looked a little odd)

Workload for next week at uni is appalling and i have last weeks to catch up on yet!!

Managed to top up our Isa's this month now both full and hubby got the extra bit(£5100 instead of 3600) as he is over 50 so seriously impressed with savings skills this year bulk buying definitely works for me.I have a muslim friend who wants to take me to Bradford shopping to a gigantic ethnic wholesalers i will need to write a list and stick to it!!

Managed to buy a big sack of organic flour direct from the mill whilst away worked out at 80p a kilo.

Having a naughty takeaway as we are shattered but will be back on the wagon tomorrow.

savingfortravel

Our Trip to France was great. Sooooo relaxing. Had so many lovely lie ins. The first day was a bit drizzly but then the weather transformed and it was like summer time. The Dordorgne region is beautiful and the autumn forest leaves next to the bluest sky was just amazing. We shopped in the supermarket on the outskirts of the town where we were staying-and the meals we cooked worked out so well. We also visited the little Patisserie in the town for the most beautiful cakes. However we ate out only twice and both times were a disaster. The first time we paid £26 for 2 pizzas and they tasted ok (just ok) and the next we paid £42 for an ok piece of beef (for Mr SFT) and tasteless fish (for me). I would have been pleased to have paid the price if the food was gorgeous but it wasn't and the French are supposed to be World Class chefs (just not where we went). But that was the only down side of the trip. We even saved 60 euros which I have put in Valerie my china hen (who lives on a shelf in my kitchen-I know she is supposed to have eggs in her but she never does so she is now going to be my savings hen). Valerie was named after the very kind lady who free cycled her..I've always wanted one after admiring my auntie's as a child.

When we came home we saw my dad had put a new roof on our leaky back shed and dug up 2 small veggie plots so Mr SFT can prep them for next year, ready to start growing veggies in spring. I love my dad..he's 75 years old.
sft