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

Thriftkitten

With the help of flying fresian I now understand 95% of the excel spreadsheet so a big thanks for the patience,
1 more question to ask the group please, I understand typing up the totals section, but do I enter an annual grocery budget in the totals section too, to keep a track or just post my spends for the month in "Jan Grocery?? promise it's the last question of the night ta x

Ches

NualaBuala wrote: »

Afternoon everyone!

I see I'm not the only one having plumbing problems today. I hope all of you get yours sorted ok. My pipe at the outside tap has burst and is spraying it all over the garden - the plumber can't come till Monday and will cost €90:eek: I consider myself lucky it's not worse but it's not going to stop spraying all weekend

.

Same thing happened here over Christmas but we found there was an isolation tap on the inside wall (behind kitchen cabinet but has a hole to access) so we could turn that tap off without it stopping the rest of the supply in the house. Worth a look.

cha97michelle

Brighton_belle wrote: »

great to see you back michellecha

Hi - good to be back and being a lot more pro-active. Hope to hear lots of good ideas to keep me motivated.

thriftylass wrote: »

Just applied to get one of these for free (found it via the T3sc0 greener living site). It's a shower water saving thingy but doesn't work with electric showers (which we have, thought get one anyway for the future )

Wow - thanks for that. We are planning a bathroom rennovation as we have been here nearly 6 years and are desperate for a shower. We have a mixer tap one but we don't use it as the water pressure from the hot tap doesn't work properly so you get a cold shower unless it is at foot level. No good as a shower. Hopefully this tip means we can put off our bathroom refurb for a little bit longer, if it works like it says. :j


I've managed to catch up on the thread to p20, so i may fully catch up tomorrow but you never know. This week so far has been fairly frugal. We bought a large chicken last weekend for a roast for the 4 of us, which then made a meaty soup in the SC, and has done 2 lots of sandwiches, a chicken and tomato pasta meal, a chinese style one made using up a sachet of sauce that was either 10 or 20p around this time last year in approved food. The only other meat we used this week was a pack of 50p pork sausages from the Mr M deal of the week (stocked up on 3 packs and only used 1, other 2 in the freezer.)

Other meals have been based on what we have in, so carrot soup to use up some carrots bought before christmas, beans on toast (4 pack of Branston ones for 89p in Mr M and cereals we already had in.

The kids have had reduced appetites anyway as they have colds, and also had swine flu jabs yesterday. This made DS2 quite poorly last night with a high temperature and a sore leg. DS1 was ill first though and seems much recovered today. He has eaten like a horse today. (to say he is only just 3, he hjas polished off 6 slices of wholemeal bread today, 2 with lemon curd, one with half a tin of spaghetti and sausages, and 3 with a bowl of HM carrot and red lentil soup. Also, fruit, gingerbread and some choccy biscuits. My two eat me out of house and home and eat portions the same size as me for some meals. :eek:)

We still have about a foot of snow here. One expense this week has been a couple of bags of rock salt. DH did the path up to our house, and then the pavement on the street so our neighbours in their 70s could get to their car if they needed to. I also popped to the shop for them yesterday while we were out as we needed a few bits to see us through.


Next week is likely to be a bit more pricey. We just realised our building and contents insurance ran out at the end of last month so we had best sort that. My MOT needs doing next week, and DH's car needs doing before the end of the month too. January is quite a hard month in our house, and i am glad this thread last year helped me think about our lifestyle.

Thanks to the frugang, i am now a SAHM instead of earning about £20k a year, and we are managing to still fund what we want to in life as our wants and needs aren't that much really.

Off to catch up a bit more with the thread anyway. So busy, i guess as more people are at home due to the poor weather.

Michelle x

cw18

Thriftkitten wrote: »

With the help of flying fresian I now understand 95% of the excel spreadsheet so a big thanks for the patience,
1 more question to ask the group please, I understand typing up the totals section, but do I enter an annual grocery budget in the totals section too, to keep a track or just post my spends for the month in "Jan Grocery?? promise it's the last question of the night ta x

You should put an annual budget for Groceries on the 'totals' page.
The spends on the Grocery pages you can keep as detailed or not as you like - so either Mr T £12.20 on one line to cover a full shop, or broken down to each item (which is how I do it, and necessary to keep a full track of the Whoopsie savings if you want to utilise that part of the workings - again optional). The total from these pages feed back into the Totals page, so you can see where you actually are against your annual budget.
HTH



mumoffour77 - great news about your Dad :T

Thriftkitten

Thanks a lot, I am now not feeling so stressed now the fog has cleared, am going to shop around tonight online for the cheapest deal on the dog food per month, currently buying 2 boxes of Bakers meaty bites per week so I know I can do better buying in bulk, and same for cats.

cw18 wrote: »

You should put an annual budget for Groceries on the 'totals' page.
The spends on the Grocery pages you can keep as detailed or not as you like - so either Mr T £12.20 on one line to cover a full shop, or broken down to each item (which is how I do it, and necessary to keep a full track of the Whoopsie savings if you want to utilise that part of the workings - again optional). The total from these pages feed back into the Totals page, so you can see where you actually are against your annual budget.
HTH



mumoffour77 - great news about your Dad :T

aeb_2

xnatalie81x wrote: »

My dream is not of a cottage in the country BTW - it is of a huge house with its own pool house out the back and huge car parking area so i can run swimming lessons from my home. They will be mega mega cheap so EVERYONE can learn to swim, not just the parents with money.

I would also provide 1-2-1s to rich people and use the extra money to provide group lessons to children who don't have lessons because of cost! I want funding from sports uk as well lol.

In my spare time i would have an allotment in my huge garden with a hen house too with around 12 birds who would be my pets - i want my house to be in a posh area in a town but not a remote village - somewhere in Herts where i live already (think posh spice/jade that kind of place) ahhhhhhhhh bliss - my dream

The bits in green are my dream come true, except to change 'swim school' to B&B. Let me explain.

We saved up. DH took early retirement and I left my job. We bought our dream house on the edge of a largish village in the South West. Although a bit run down it is structurally sound, sits in a bit more than an acre, has an annexe, a huge roof space, about six double bedrooms (depending how they are used) and a swimming pool complex to die for (wave machine, steam room, sauna, hot tub, etc)

We had just unpacked and settled in when DH suddenly passed away and I was left with three pre school children. The saving grace was that we had no mortgage but because moving had cost more than we thought and we were impatient to get the B&B going we took out a £12,000 loan. The first in our lives as we had no saving left.

I though I was feeling rubbish because of all this but then found I was expecting - big shock! - even bigger shock to find it was three! All went really well so here I am living in my dream house with 6 under 6 and loving it! Things could be better of course if DH was here but life must go on etc etc...

I tried to do a bit before the babies were born but then I thought well I have to be sensible as there is nobody else for them. They have only one uncle in NZ and my mum who couldn't cope with 6. Friends have been really good. An ex neighbour, a real Jack of all trades, came with his family. They went out for days whilst we did load of semi structural stuff such as putting in wires and pipes for plumbing and stud walls for en-suites. I then found a really good plasterer. So although I have no skirting, architrave, windows, floorboards (holes), sanitary fittings or light fittings/switches in most rooms everything is ready for when I'm able to move on with out too much disruption, just needs connecting up.

But, hey, on the bright side I have my bedroom and bathroom and a carpet that nearly fits which are warmed from the wood burner in the kitchen below. DS1&2 and DD1 sleep in together. There room is nice as we brought the furniture with us. The kitchen units DH and I bought from ebay for £75 and although not quite fitted to professional standards I did my best with real nails and no nails and they do the job. We brought down a huge pine table which we literally live around.

Outside we have a hen house although only 3 hens until I can cope with more. I've a big veg garden which I planted but then I couldn't harvest so the little aeb's did their best and can't wait for next year to begin.

The pool is full of water but for the time being it is my dream. Far too costly and dangerous. It is double locked!! It has to be kept full of water to prevent damage I am told. Someone suggested keeping fish in it to catch and eat - hmmm?

So that is part of my story, don't wait for your dream or it may be too late.

Ches

NSD here again as still eating from the freezer/cupboards. Didn't get my weekly money from bank today either as didn't venture outside. I still have the £21.55 from last weeks money so that will do me tomorrow but will have to get to the bank soon. We had chicken fahjitas tonight. Chicken/wraps/peppers/onions all from the freezer. Profiteroles (bought on special offer months ago) from freezer for pudding. Made a loaf in the breadmaker today with dried yeast that was ood. Not looking good and the birds may benefit instead of us.

xnatalie81x

aeb wrote: »

The bits in green are my dream come true, except to change 'swim school' to B&B. Let me explain.

We saved up. DH took early retirement and I left my job. We bought our dream house on the edge of a largish village in the South West. Although a bit run down it is structurally sound, sits in a bit more than an acre, has an annexe, a huge roof space, about six double bedrooms (depending how they are used) and a swimming pool complex to die for (wave machine, steam room, sauna, hot tub, etc)

We had just unpacked and settled in when DH suddenly passed away and I was left with three pre school children. The saving grace was that we had no mortgage but because moving had cost more than we thought and we were impatient to get the B&B going we took out a £12,000 loan. The first in our lives as we had no saving left.

I though I was feeling rubbish because of all this but then found I was expecting - big shock! - even bigger shock to find it was three! All went really well so here I am living in my dream house with 6 under 6 and loving it! Things could be better of course if DH was here but life must go on etc etc...

I tried to do a bit before the babies were born but then I thought well I have to be sensible as there is nobody else for them. They have only one uncle in NZ and my mum who couldn't cope with 6. Friends have been really good. An ex neighbour, a real Jack of all trades, came with his family. They went out for days whilst we did load of semi structural stuff such as putting in wires and pipes for plumbing and stud walls for en-suites. I then found a really good plasterer. So although I have no skirting, architrave, windows, floorboards (holes), sanitary fittings or light fittings/switches in most rooms everything is ready for when I'm able to move on with out too much disruption, just needs connecting up.

But, hey, on the bright side I have my bedroom and bathroom and a carpet that nearly fits which are warmed from the wood burner in the kitchen below. DS1&2 and DD1 sleep in together. There room is nice as we brought the furniture with us. The kitchen units DH and I bought from ebay for £75 and although not quite fitted to professional standards I did my best with real nails and no nails and they do the job. We brought down a huge pine table which we literally live around.

Outside we have a hen house although only 3 hens until I can cope with more. I've a big veg garden which I planted but then I couldn't harvest so the little aeb's did their best and can't wait for next year to begin.

The pool is full of water but for the time being it is my dream. Far too costly and dangerous. It is double locked!! It has to be kept full of water to prevent damage I am told. Someone suggested keeping fish in it to catch and eat - hmmm?

So that is part of my story, don't wait for your dream or it may be too late.

We are coming to live with you! I will teach all your children to swim and i will look after then hens. Only 3 children here and a H2B - WOW 6 children JUST WOW - i do remember hearing from you on the 2009 post but i never knew the situation till now WOW - when shall we get there lol

bails

Thanks for sharing a little more of your story aeb - you really are an inspiration. I thought you were up north but you live in my neck of the woods somewhere :T

aeb_2

xnatalie81x wrote: »

We are coming to live with you! I will teach all your children to swim and i will look after then hens. Only 3 children here and a H2B - WOW 6 children JUST WOW - i do remember hearing from you on the 2009 post but i never knew the situation till now WOW - when shall we get there lol

Well we are all snowed in this week!

Start saving because if I can't make a go of it in the next 3 years it will be on the market negative equity or not:rolleyes: