Frugal Living 2010 -The Cost of Living Challenge, INTRO

ellemm

After countless pages of scribbles have finally come up with a budget

There's only me and OH, we are 16 months away from retirement, 1 year from end of mortgage payments :j and trying to save a bit for said retirement. We have a holiday home in Greece (which is paid for) and want to spend months at a time there when we retire so saving as much as we can while still working as we only have the state pension to rely on :eek: Happily we have already paid off credit cards and have no debt apart from a car loan which will be paid off in 16 months.

After taking off mortgage and council tax payments, other outgoings amount to £4914 (Haven't included holiday spends - we try to get away 3 times a year, as we save for these from our own money not the joint account at the moment while still working)

Food budget £1440
Clothes £200
Gifts £1000 (but plan to make this as money neutral as possible using earnings from surveys, cashback etc)
Hair £400 (again have a cunning plan to get my hairdresser to come to the house as she does do homers)
Petrol £240
Outings £300
Contingency £506

Making total budget of £9000 if I have done my sums right :rolleyes:

This will be a good trial run for when we retire and I am looking forward to joining in and following everyone else's efforts.

Good luck all :beer:

trex170104

Well after much rejigging I have finally sorted my budget for 2010. It still seems quite high but hopefully some of these amounts will be reduced over the year. To give you a little bit of background about me - I am 29, married with one two year old little frugalmite called Finn. I used to be a university lecturer before being a mum, but when I fell pregnant my OH and I decided it would be great if I could be a STAH, which I absolutely love. OH works fulltime and I have a few small businesses, which I work on part-time [proofreading, making cupcakes, and makinh handmade cards and jewellery]. I want to try and save all the money I make this year, plus the basic CTC and CB that we get, as we'd like to think about a second little fugalmite sometime in 2010 or 2011, and we need to convert the attic for this. We've just moved from a fairly big three-bed semi to a two-bed terrace but we couldn't be happier, our old house was not in a very nice area of our town and our new one is in the perfect location, and backs onto acres of parkland, but it would've been impossible for us to get three-bed in the same location. So basically I want to try and save as much as I can this year [I think we're looking at 20,000 to convert]. I don't think there's anyway on this earth I'll save the full amount this year but we can do our best.

In my budget I have not included our mortgage and council tax as these are about £10,000 per year and essential. Our fixed rate on our mortgage does end in May so fingers crossed that'll free up some money when we go on the variable rate [or reduce some years?]. Also there are no car expenses as my OH has a company car [this does affect his tax but saves us on petrol and insurance etc...]

So here goes:
Buildings and Contents £10 per month = £120 p/year
Water £35 per month = £420 p/year [but we've applied for a water meter which hopefully will reduce this
Gas £70 p/month [840 p/year]
Electricity £43 p/month [516 p/year] I'm going to look into changing G&E if I can find a cheaper supplier
Phone, Internet and V+TV = £40 P/month [£480 p/year]
TV Licence = £12 p/month [£144 p/year]
Mobile = £20 p/month [£240 p/year]
Life Insurance = £12 p/month [£144 p/year]
Income Protection = £27 p/month [324 p/year]
Food £100 p/month [£1200 p/year]
Finn's Trust Fund = £15 p/month [£180 p/year]
Fixed Rate Savings = £100 p/month [£1200 p/year]
Playgroup two mornings a week = £60 p/month [£600 p/year for ten months]
Baby extras = £30 p/month [£360 p/year]
Contact lenses = £15 p/month [£180 p/year]
Xmas savings = £20 p/month [£240 p/year]
Birthday savings = 20 p/month [£240 p/year]
Tesco clubcard plus = £10 p/month [£120 p/year]
Extra cash for me £80 p/month [£960 p/year]
Extra cash for OH £80 P/month [£960 p/year]
TOTAL = £9700


Any suggestions on reducing this further would be greatly appreciated.;)

Also "I heart 2pound coins" your webpage is fab - I've started setting one up to spur me along too - thanks for the idea xx:T

PS: Sorry for the extremely long post hope I didn't bore you all too much x

trex170104

PS Anyone know any good books on learning how to knit? My auntie has made me some fab jumpers for Finn and I want to try and do the same plus it'll be another thing to give for pressies

oldMcDonald

I've done our budget and it was flippin' hard work!

It has been very difficult, but has made me look very closely at our outgoings and make some difficult decisions about what stays and what goes (decided in the end that we should keep the kids ). I've also looked around the internet to find better packages on phone&Bband / leccy and gas. I last did this over two years ago so it was good to get to work and find better deals.

My budget for the years challenge will be £11,000. This includes gas/electricity, phone/Bband, Insurance, travel, food, Xmas/birthdays, mobile phones, kids pocket money and activities, dog food/insurance/vaccs, clothes & £600 for emergencies (such as the washing machine or car dying on us:eek: ). This is for 5 children (age 6-14) and 2 adults.

I'm quite looking forward to getting started on this

oldMcDonald

trex170104 wrote: »

Also "I heart 2pound coins" your webpage is fab - I've started setting one up to spur me along too - thanks for the idea xx:T

I agree

Oh, and trex1.......linky to the blog when it is up and running is expected

mardatha

They are using youtube videos now to learn to knit

trex170104

Ooo thanks Mardatha I'll check that out. My homepage is now up and running I'll be adding lots more over the year but it's a start. Really is should've been proofreading this afternoon but just couldn't get my head around it too excited with this new venture! OH is painting the house as we speak it is so lovely to see it all coming together bit by bit. Off to see the xmas lights being turned on later woo hoo - the festive season is here!!:rudolf::snow_laug:xmassmile:santa2:

Jay1_2

Hello all

Jay1 would like to join please. I'll mostly be lurking as I no longer have the internet at home (it was so slow it was driving me insane and I wasn't going to spend the money on upgrading) and while I'm naughty enough to read this at work I'm not naughty enough to post from there. I've got free access at the Library but only half an hour per day and I can't be bothered to go on everyday (I work at the Library so its mostly lazyness).

I am instictively frugal, although I'm not bad at spending other people's money... My worst spending habit is buying lunch everyday rather than taking it with me.

I am saving for lazer eye surgery, overpaying my mortgage so I can buy a dream house (or at least a bit dreamier than the shared ownership flat I have now), and retiring ASAP.

Good luck to you all.

Jay

ChinaTea

Having spent the last few days researching feeding the cats frugally but nutritiously (sp?) I've decided to set my budget at 4000 for 2010. Reducing food costs for the cats is doable and I've made a start by buying dry food in bulk but will be a work in progress over the next few weeks if not months. I think I could actually set my budget for less than this maybe 3750 but as this is the first year I've tried this don't want to set myself up for failing at the 1st hurdle.

Having a trial run for the rest of 2009 and looking back through my diary for this year I've already picked up some frugal habits.

Christmas all sorted just DGS present to wrap and wait for big day.

Frugaldom

Good evening frugalers

Well, I have finally completed my 2010 budget and it's looking like this:

Groceries £1,095.00
Toiletries £75.00
Cleaning £15.00
Electricity £1,100.00
Coal £150.00
Logs £200.00
Internet £240.00
Mobile £40.00
Telephone £150.00
TV Licence £145.00
Clothing & footwear £80.00
Gifts £250.00
Extras £50.00
Travel £260.00
Household Insurance £45.00
Miscellaneous £105.00

TOTAL = £4,000

The above is for everything for a household of 3 except rent/council tax/water. I'm not really changing anything from previous £4k challenges, just the actual name of the challenge on here.

I won't be running the £1000 in 100 days challenge on MSE in 2010, although I will still be carrying on with my usual cash neutral challenge elsewhere on my personal blog site. Congratulations to everyone who is setting up their own. :T