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

butterfly72

Hi all! Is it too late to join the challenge?!

I haven't read all the posts but will make my way through them at some point! Some great ideas tho. Love the bulk cooking and freezing of chickpeas. We use a lot of them and I buy the ready cooked tins. I guessed it was cheaper than boiling them on the hob for an hour but didin't think about bulk cooking and freezing! I wonder if you can do this with other peas/beans?

So, my plans for this year are to make EVERY card I send out. I've already made a valentines card for the OH and mothers day card. I'll have to find out what other family birthdays are coming up. Mum normally rings me two days before and I pop a bought one into the post. I just need to get organised. I'm hoping to make them from bits and peices I find around the house/packaging etc... nothing bought especially for card making. So far my craft box has coloured tissue paper, bows and ribbons from old wrapping etc, the sides of tissue boxes which often have lovely patterns and pics on them. I cut these and glue them on to card, scraps of paper, buttons and sequins from old clothes. I'll try and post piccys of the cards I've made this week. They're not that good, but its the thought!!!

I must also make use of the sewing machine I got for christmas 2008. I've piles of fabric too! Trouble is I'm not actually very crafty so this will be a struggle. Tonight I might make a draught excluder!

I have a remoska which must be saving me a fortune because I hardly have the main oven on anymore. I also have a slow cooker and infact will be using it twice next week for planned meals. I always meal plan and hardly throw any food away.

We also have an allotment. Last year we had a really successful year last year growing 27 different vegetable and fruits. Im not sure how much we saved because it was our first year and we had to fork out for spades, hose and all the equipment. Saying that, we spent every night down there so our going out spending went right down! I'm really looking forward to our second year.

I also have a dream of owning a small holding.. or a patch of land big enought for a veggie plot and greenhouses, chickens and a couple of horses. (used to have horses and ponies as a kid) Its just a dream tho.

Hopefully in the next week I'll have a bash at martins budget planner and see whats what. I think I need to plan to get started!!

:beer:

Frugaldom

Minjara - home contents £23 per month (£276 a year) sounds really expensive to me. Mine is less than £50 for the full year and I should get most of that back because I used a cashback site. (See 'cashback' link in post 1 for who offers what). Also, could you renegotiate terms on mobile phones, Sky TV and Internet, as these all sound high to me. It might make it easier to increase the household budget to cover anything you may have forgotten. Hopefully your phone package includes evening & weekend calls at the very least, so should be around £12.50 per month, as you seem to use your mobiles quite a bit.

Edited in - Sorry, it took me so long to type this reply that several other posts had been added in between times, so ignore irrelevancies.

Welcome to the challenge, Butterfly72, I'll add your name to the list.

minjara

Oh, just spoken with the OH, the £23 is for building and contents.

cw18

I'm f-f-f-f-reeeeeeeeee-zing :eek: I'm sure I should have toes rather than ice-blocks at the end of my feet !!!!!

Nipped down the shops for some kitchen roll, and what should have taken an hour tops ended up taking 3 hours - including over an hour standing in the Market Square !!

Called into work (on the offchance of decent Whoopsies, but nothing doing), and came out to find the checkout/CS supervisor chatting to a gent with a mobility scooter. Turned out the ignition key had snapped in the ignition, and he'd given her a phone number for the local Mobility shop - or thought he had, but when phoned the lady said it was a private number.

So the chap got off his scooter determined to push it up to the store - but I knew the road he needed (a nasty incline) was really icy in patches, so I insisted on giving him a hand if he was going to do this. Got there to find the store closed, and no emergency number on display !!

After trying to get out of him roughly where he lived (impaired/slurred speech - I thought he sounded like my Dad shortly after his stroke, but turns out he had a brain haemorrhage a few years back) it turned out to be waaaaaaay past my place, and up a steep hill. We were then joined by another concerned lady who'd come to the shops in a small MPV, but no way the scooter would have gone into her vehicle - and even less chance in mine had I come home for it.

So the other lady phoned the police, who said they'd send someone out...... The other lady went about her way, and I waited with the gent for another 15 mins until the police came. After a chat (with me filling them in on what I'd gleaned on where he was headed) they put in a call for a large vehicle (they only had a small patrol car), but the only one available was the staff carrier - and when it arrived they couldn't get it into that either due to the seats.

So in the end I left the chap with the police (3 men and a lady there by then, so I was surplus to requirements and losing all sense of feeling in my toes), while one of them started contacting local taxi firms to see if any of them could help out.

I've seen the chap out pushing a scooter before now, so it appears it's not a totally irregular occurance for him to have problems with them - but I have a sneaky that a lot of the problems will be a flat battery due to the distance he's already done into town before trying to head back home



Saw several items that made me go 'Ooooooo' while I was mooching round the shops - but I was a good little girl and resisted almost everything...... though I did bring home a couple of DVDs with original episodes of P@ddington Bear, which I shall enjoy sharing with my GDs Paid £1.99 each, and just checked on Pl@y, where they're £6.99 each :eek:

minjara

I can on mine as i said for my mobile. we use our mobiles more than the house phone, partner gets free texts n calls and i get 900 free texts or calls, but mine will only go down to £30 as both are still in contract. He will not move the home insurance, won't budge. Sky we will be bringing down to the £18 one. Phone we will get to be put on the light user scheme I hope. We only use it for local rate numbers.

cw18

minjara wrote: »

The phone, I think we should be able to go on to the light user scheme due to both being unemployed and going on to housing benefit for the council tax..

As I understand the scheme, you can't have it if you have access to another phone - which includes a mobile. While it's possible to "hide" a PAYG by not registering it, I've been lead to believe they can check for contract ones

(It was something I tried for when I was on long term sick and dropping to IB, so all we had coming in was my IB, DH's IB and DLA, plus CB and CTC. We also got help with housing costs at that point..... )

lynzpower

I just wanted to sort of wade in and say a big hi to you all ( some of you i "know" some I dont) :wave: I hope there is room for another little one in here

I dont really know how to be frugal to be honest, I used to when I ewas getting DF, tight-as-a-gnats-whatsit but now... well the foot has been off the brake and last year was a spendathon.

We want to build our savings more and we are more than aware that we have no control over money. OH owes me 3,600 and is paying this back I owe nothing to anyone.We had amassive barney the other day when basiclaly he told me that the date when my 3600 would be back ( this is going towards our house deposit, spent on frivolity:D) would be 2 years. I know he has a disposable income of 130 a week ( yes, a WEEK!) and I just hit the roof as I thought it was a pi55- take anyway, he has ( under sufferance) brought the date forward to Xmas at latest :T

However, what this argument (!) had highlighted is that we are both out of control and actually im probably worse at it than he is. We were meant to be solidly saving for the wedding - I said we are not doing this until theres no debt

Anyhow thats me, have been reading over the past few days, and hope to get to know you all better over the next few frugal months :cool:

xx

xnatalie81x

minjara wrote: »

Well the latest is that even though my partner is older n gets more money than me we will only get £100.95 pw to live on and we are going to be coming in at a deficit. Our income:

£100.95 x 4 - £403.80 437.45
Dave - £70
507.45

Expenditure
Gas - £2
Elex - £87
TV - £12.12
Sky - £22.50 (think theres a lower price) - how long is there remaining as you can still get freeview channels through the box if you cancel.....
Internet - £21.99
Phone - need to investigate a monthly amount
Mobile - £40 (mine should be able to go down to £30)
Mobile - £40
Paymentshield - £49
Life ins - £10.50
Home contents - £23
JL - £20
HSBC - £30
Scottish water £7.99
Car - £49
Housekeeping £60

So without including the home phone we are at a deficit of £1.30, so with it will prob be about a deficit of £27.

God we are up a certain creek again without a certain paddle.:eek:

Can find you a little bit extra money!!!!!! months are not 4 weeks so you need to take 100.95 and multiply by 52 and then divide by 12 = £437.45 a month average...... so no more deficit

MushyPeas

Thriftkitten wrote: »

Well started the day today baking fairy cakes for the weeks snacks and attempted some home made bread with some dried yeast... first attempt at homemade bread and it came out like an unrisen scud missile.. Oh well guess I could stock up on them incase St Ives comes under attack!!

Oh dear Thriftkitten, I tried baking biscuits this week and had the same trouble! We should both keep trying though... I'm sure we'll get there eventually

cw you poor thing you must be cold... my OH kindly has put in an order of these for me:

http://www.play.com/Gadgets/Gadgets/4-/6860876/Cozy-Feet-Microwavable-Boots/Product.html

(sorry.. I know it's a bit naughty suggesting things to buy...:o)

BTW, love the sound of Paddington DVD!

minjara - sorry, nothing to add but I found lurking around here I've found lots of money saving tips

sft - hope you're feeling ok

cw18

minjara wrote: »

Oh, just spoken with the OH, the £23 is for building and contents.

I may be jumping to conclusions, but having buildings insurance implies he owns the property? Does he have a mortgage? If so - especially if it's a repayment one and/or on a fixed rate taken out before interest rates bottomed - there's a good chance that the help for this from the state won't cover the full montly payments.

If it's covered by an insurance policy (one of those loss of income ones), then as soon as he's on Income Based benefits they're likely to want proof that the money he's getting from the insurance company is for the mortgage - and if they're not satisfied they'll treat it as income (meaning loss of benefits). I believe it's easier if the insurance company pay it directly to the mortgage company, but have heard that not all of them do this

And if the insurance pays out more than's needed for the mortgage (a friend used - many years ago - to have one that also covered utility bills for a while), then this extra will definitely be counted as income when calculating benefit entitlement.