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

Vixstar

CW Congrats and you're definitely canny.

I wouldn't say anyone on here is mean, no one is saving or looking for bargains just to amass a large hoard of money, everyone on this site is here for a purpose and generally that is to improve their family's quality of life. My mum thinks I'm being funny when I track down "free" money or go for the cheapest option as I don't need to however in order to improve my quality of life I need to move and there's only one way I can afford that nowadays...

taka

:j Congratulations Cheryl! :T I hope your DS has good news soon too.

On the mean v thrifty debate... I'm not sure it is really down to money... I think it is down to individual people and their nature. Some people are generous of nature with whatever they have (even if all they have to be generous with is time), while others are mean in so many senses. I hate that Scots are portrayed as mean - it misses so much out about the people here...

bails

I definitely agree with Taka, and everyone else. Being savvy with your money doesn't make you mean!
Grandma, thanks so much for the link, looks v interesting and could be useful for work :T I've signed up to their email alert of what books are coming each week. Free books, woo hoo! (I'm a book addict )

Gutted about the scratchies, I've effectively lost £22 but nowt I can do. Be careful peeps so it doesn't happen to you too! I was even playing PSS and that didn't count apparently Probably cos I can beat their stupid computer most of the time!

grandma247

Bails What age group are you teaching and what subject ?

slowlyfading

Have a good day everyone aiming for a NSD here! x

bails

Hm, good question Grandma! Here I've been teaching 11 -19 year olds (yes in one class!)and Tibetan adult refugees. I'm hoping to get a job teaching teenagers when I get back.

Good luck for your NSD SF!

grandma247

Ok thanks I had a link for free leveled reading books but they are for primary age. I hope all goes well with the job. Many are also in french and spanish (Mexican/American)

bails

I might still be interested Grandma as I work in special needs so often need lower level work. Thanks for thinking of me :T

HH62

Hi everyone. Well I joined in January but I've been hopeless.

I decided to set myself a goal for the final two months of the year, I have a total budget of £1400 to cover everything (no mortgage or rent though) and I've just done the figures and it can be done.

So these are my plans :

I'm cutting back on my food spending - that's one of my weak areas. I live alone and spend far too much on my food.

I've got a very strict budget for Christmas. I'll be sending out cards, but my Christmas gift list is shrunk to an absolute minimum. I don't have any kids to buy for and I plan to discuss my cutbacks with friends etc and suggest we do a Mutual No Buy for Christmas this year.

I'm not planning to buy anything non essential. So there'll still be food shopping but I've got more than enough cleaning stuff, toiletries, loo roll, cosmetics, clothes etc etc. I don't need to buy any of that stuff.

I'm also planning to cut back on my impulse buys. This is another area where I spend far too much. I became aware of this when I started this challenge this year. A magazine here, some chocolate or a lippie there, etc, it really adds up. So to deal with this I'm going to take £40 a month out of the cash machine and that's it. When that's gone it's gone.

If I've got anything left at the end of the month (monthly budget is £700 for all spending), I will pay the extra off one of my credit cards.

Right, I'm off to the OS board to look at the frugal food threads!

NSD for me today.
Have a good day everyone.

lyndasharp

Hi everyone! Congratulations on the job CW, and on the exciting land purchase TTDB!

Had a good day yesterday arranging wedding bits, but had my first spend day of the month buying a sandwich. Still, the good news is H2B is pretty much debt free as of yesterday! He still has about £1500 on a credit card, but that's at 0% for almost another year. We've also been approved for consent to let on his flat, as there hasn't been any progress with the sale. It was much easier than we thought, and no fees to pay. Let's hope someone is prepared to rent it out!