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

FrankieM

Afternoon all. I've been reading the wedding costs with great interest. Its fascinating to see how the cost easily adds up.
Could you not work out your budget based on how much you have to spend? You know, the cutting your coat to fit your cloth. I'm not sure how these things work but wondered if that was a possibility, and then prioritise the things you really want?

I've just been to the local shop and spent £2.28 on chocolate and pringles...bum!
Oh, well. That should be all till saturday. I've got £20 for fuel, who knew campervans could be so thirsty, and £45 for DS to get 2 birthday presents and a pair of jeans and a couple of jumpers. I'm hoping there will be change from that.
I've worked out that my £135 a week should be split: £70 groceries, £20 fuel and then £45 for other stuff or getting saved, but being my first week that could all change.

Hope you all have a good day.

Frugaldom

The_Cat, regarding your allotment, are you hoping that it works out cheaper than buying produce from the supermarkets? If so, I would think you'd need to take into consideration availability & price of those things plus any travelling costs involved in getting them. Will you need a car or public transport to reach your allotment, do you have the time required to prepare the land, plant, grow, harvest crops, is the soil suitable for growing what you most need? Loads of questions you need to ask yourself.

Over the past year, we've spent a fortune trying to develop a garden from the scrap of land this house sits on, it certainly hasn't been cheaper than if I'd just gone and bought the veggies. I realise that an allotment doesn't mean starting from scratch but I'd never look at one as a cheaper alternative to buying fruit & veg. The true value is in the pleasure you derive from working your patch of land and enjoying the fruits of your labours. Homegrown veg is certainly much tastier than supermarket bought stuff. I think I'd be inclined to treat it as a healthy hobby to begin with, use sites like freecycle for getting stuff - even seedlings - and seed share with friends & fellow lottie holders. Most of all, have fun and in time, you'll reap the benefits. It's like keeping 2 or 3 hens - you don't really get free eggs, as the feeding & care each week costs more than buying a dozen eggs over the space of a year. Hens don't lay all year round, but you have much more fun knowing where your healthy eggs have originated when they are being laid.

boring_beige

Nykmedia - Thank you for the warning. I got the idea from a women working in a library who told me people copied from books, sometimes whole books. i had no idea it wasn't allowed. i just read the copyright page of a book for the first time!

bails

FrankieM wrote: »

Could you not work out your budget based on how much you have to spend?

This of course Frankie is the most sensible and frugal thing to do, and in some ways is what I'd like to do. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting to be asked and as such, having just come out of long term illness, OH being a student til last year and neither of us working because we're on this trip we've saved all our money for, we basically don't have funds! The sensible answer to that is of course wait til we do, again something we've thought long about. But the choice we've made is to get married next year before we start our family and work hard to pay off any debt that may arise. I'm certainly not recommending this as a strategy and in an ideal world, wouldn't be doing this myself, but it's not an ideal world. The thing is, I know we can manage our finances well and so this is the right decision for us, in our circumstances. All that said, of course I am going to do my utmost to keep the costs down as much as possible. I wish it wasn't like this, but it is our choice to do it this way.

And SL, I completely forgot to say about the barn idea - we've sent some feelers out for this already but unfortunately all the land is owned by the same guy so if he says no, that's it!

Thanks again everyone, I appreciate the input x

ps Nyk, are you trying to torture me with that link?!

cheerfulness4

The_cat - there are some very good online seed exchanges that saved me a fortune last year when I had very few seeds. Many generously will help you out the first year with seeds and as you self save or have extras you're able to 'give some back' as it were.
I've been able to try a few really interesting varieties of veg that I'd never known about before and get some excellent advice from members.
Just google 'seeds swaps' or exchanges and a few pop up. Might help you out.

FrankieM

nyk I was just looking on entitled to and it said that I would be entitled to £182 odd per week plus CB and CT credit. I was wondering where the £4k figure came from?

FrankieM

bails, I do completely understand. Sometimes you've just got to run with stuff and sort it out later...I was just wondering if you could do it that way if you had a lumpsum to work with. I have no doubt that where ever it is and whatever you spend it will be a fabulously memorable day.

bails

Thanks Frankie x

cw18

FrankieM wrote: »

nyk I was just looking on entitled to and it said that I would be entitled to £182 odd per week plus CB and CT credit. I was wondering where the £4k figure came from?

As I understand it, this is the annual figure Nyk's been using for a few years now.

But a single adult (aged 25 or over) with no dependants would only be entitled to £64.30 a week (2009-10) making £3343.60 a year, so Nyk's figure is actually more than someone would get on Income Support or means tested JSA. (They'd also get rent and council tax, which are items Nyk has chosen not to include). I am aware Nyk still has a son at home (though I'm not sure he still classes as a 'dependant' ) and another adult (her house-share) - and that her £4k covers all of them which I think is very brave :T

A number of challenge members who have children run of £4k + Child Benefit + CTC

SmlSave

Hi Bails

Just for your research purposes I got married in August with 30 people for the day and 70 for the evening and spent £6000.00. We did budget for this amount and saved where we could i.e. £150 wedding dress but splurged on the flowers £325! If you'd like a breakdown of the costs I'd be happy to PM them to you.

I'm looking good to be within my £5k budget this year I'd be even better if I could resist M&S £10 meal deals though!

Hope everyone's good