FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 1. (Living on £4,000 a year)

Hardup_Hester

Morning all
Well at least the snow is ensuring a few more NSD's, not that I need anything, I still have lots of food in. Still no work for me, hopefully I can get back on Monday.
My DD got married for £300 November 2008, hired an evening dress, carried flowers as opposed to a wedding bouquet & reception at TGI's.
Hester

FrankieM

Morning everyone,
Another cold one here today....bbrrrr......

I've got to post a letter today, but other than that its a no spend. Will be spending the day inside, in the warm, reading my regular blogs and having a look at that Life after Money blog too.

I'm also going to be having a look at Approved Foods and getting an order there, also ordering some coal. It's going to be an expensive month but I'm quite sure it'll all even out by the end of the year.

Having trout and veggie savoury rice. Not a favourite so I'm going to make some flapjack for lunch boxes and also to have for pudding tonight with custard and icecream.

I love hearing about peoples dreams and their plans for making them happen. It'd be great if people posted them and I'd find it really encouraging.

Hope you all have a good day.

chika

Cheers Bails. I'm a trainee teacher at the moment and yes I know there are a lot of teachers who seem to be really unhappy with their jobs. In fact as you say it doesn't apply to just teachers.

Anyway my dream, it not a massive one. I just want to live in a nice house, out away in the country with a bit of land, a veg garden a couple of horses a nice husband and happy children. I like the lifestyle Nyk seems to lead. It's not as grand as some people's plans but due to being young and stupid and clueless about money, I managed to mess up my credit rating, I don't even want to think about how much money I owe the SLC and in general my finances aren't in order.

My mum is amazing in so many ways but not financially. She will shop and buy clothes shoes and holidays until she has literally no money and only then start to think about how she will pay the rent. I get at least one text a week from her asking to borrow money (it should be the other way round!) Needless to say I was heading down that path, living a widly extravagant lifestyle for a couple of days a month and then suffering for the next three weeks. Returning to uni to do this second degree didn't help too. I was used to earning quite a good wage with minimum outgoings and I spent the first couple of years at uni living and spending like how I did when I was working.

Anyway its just a long way of saying I need to start to save, sort out my credit rating for the grand plan of saving a good deposit and then getting a mortgage for the dream house. This is what this frgality is all about for me, its amazing how much pleasure I'm getting out of it especially as I know that in say ten years it will all be worth it

bails

Well, I can always share mine Frankie

My current dreams for the future ie after completing the one I'm currently living are to marry my gorgeous man, start a family, find my dream job, and own or build our perfect eco home with enough land to grow our own and get a horse :rotfl:

bails

Spooky! Just posted at the same time as you Chika - seems we share the same dream :T

debtmess

Morning all xx i really must catch up but i reckon there is a good 40 pages im behind with now

hope everyone is not feeling too many effects from this cold x

it will be another nsd here and will remain that way till at least monday, there is nothing we need to go out for 5 nsd's for january already but this weather is helping my budget hugely, i aim to save enough now to get another private landlord to let me a better house ! ive got a chunk saved already but ti doesnt seem to be enough to get anywhere in this area thre seems to be a shortgae of landlords who will take hb

planning to make a chicken n veg soup and a loaf in the breadmaker the flour will work or it wont lol nothing ventured nothing gained on the flour thing

must also have a better crack at ebay have bits & bobs that wont be used ive sold one item and have £33 sat in my paypal :T

something i wanted to ask approved food what are the better things to be ordering (does that make any sense) on the market here we have a stall that sells very smilier but its more crisps choc snack food with odd tins and jars as well, ive brought a few times but as its mainly what i class as junk ive never brought a huge amount

need to make a cup of tea to warm up its not mega cold i just cannot get my feet warm

chika

bails wrote: »

Spooky! Just posted at the same time as you Chika - seems we share the same dream :T

I know! That is weird. Hopefully we will achieve it sooner rather than later. :jAre you enjoying being back in the UK?

Yes I want to know too Frankie, why are you Frugal - what is your dream? Can we all share?

knithappens

Thriftkitten wrote: »

Morning all, I stayed up until the wee hours last night trying to figure this all out and came up with these numbers for my budget for 2010,
Scared myself to death!!!!
Family of 1 adult 3 kids, 2 cats, 2 dogs! Annual income 25k.
Groceries inc pets Weekly £62.90
Mobile £8.88
H/phone/Int £7.03
Petrol £5.76
Cartax £3.17
Car Ins £6.29
Breakdown £0.57
Car finance £51.90
Credit Monitoring £1.37
Tv Licence £2.79
Life Ins £4.67
Pet Ins £3.85
Cont ins £3.46
Gas £12.69
Elec £12.69
Water £9.61
Debts inc CC £25.38
Pres inc xmas £8.65
Contingency/xmas £7.69

Total Weekly £239.34 month£996.96 annual £12051.00
I hope this is correct as took me all night! but I also hope it's wrong as can't believe I spend so much.
Mobile contract comes to an end at the end of this month and will downgrade to cheaper contract, looking to downgrade pet ins also.

i am a family of 1 adult, 3 kids 2 cats
my take home with everything, childbenfit etc is 25k

my budget is anually
Council Tax 912.00 Water 288.00 Gas/Electricity 960.00 nut 84.64 Bldgs/Cont Ins 178.46 Phone & B/band 264.00 TV Licence 154.00 Mobile Phone 80.00 mortgage 5718.24 life ins 103.82 childcare 4095.00 tax credit overpay 128.00 christmas/birthdays 1000.00 Car Insurance 408.00 loan 1265.00 Road Tax 120.00 MOT 100.00 savings 1000.00 credit card 2400.00 petrol 300.00 clothes/shoes 300.00 leisure 300.00 Groceries 2400.00





TOTALS 22559.16
if i take out childcare, mortgage and coucil tax that i have no control over it is
£11833.92

so very similar to you, i am still looking around to cut car insurance, i switch to pay as you go, trying to cut energy consumption, my other big thing is cashback, surveys, selling on ebay amazon to get rid of debt as that is a bi chunk of my outoings. I have also started growing my own fruit veg in the garden, which helps reduce groceries especially in the summer with salads, blackberries strawberries etc.

lyndasharp

Funnily enough, I have a similar dream too. Enough land for a small smallholding, with a few animals and room to grow veg (but no horses, I'm very allergic to them). H2B shares that dream so hopefully one day we'll get there!

knithappens

i think we all share similar dreams