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

Paulgonnabedebtfree

cw18 wrote: »

Thanks Paul

No, it didn't come with the machine - it was something I bought at the same time (discounted because of getting the laptop from the same store)

Will try and get the key off the machine to be safe, but I know the disks are in the house (only had the laptop/software 2.5 years, and haven't moved in that time :rolleyes2 )

That spreadsheet of yours sounds quite detailed. I had already set up a spreadsheet of my own (in MS Works v. 6). It is less detailed than yours but did the job last year until I stopped using it . I do think I ought to have an extra column this year though with the heading "CHOCOLATE" .
If I make it till midnight, I will have started the year with 2 NSDs. I need as many as I can get as I've promised to take a friend out to London for the day in a couple of weeks as a birthday treat.

Kittikins

Thinking of you MumofFour.

I've already spent £43 of my monthly £120 "household" budget - this is to cover food, cleaning materials, newspapers, etc etc. 2p was on taking DD bowling, 80p on a newspaper and then the rest at the local version of L*keland, which was having a 25% off sale today.....in my defence, everything I bought was something I had had on my wishlist for ages, but it's a good job my cupboards are full of dented tins and the freezer is well stocked!

I made DD a lovely looking bottom of the fridge tomato-based veggie stew tonight, it'll do her 3 meals and a little bit left over to blitz to become passata for hm pizzas on Monday.

At least I managed a NSD on the 1st, mainly due to being hungover and just chilling out with friends/DD. Need more of them, but can do without the hangover!

candygirl

CHIKA have a look in the veggie recipe threads on here for chickpea recipes, eg curry, hummus etc, and welcome to the thread hun x:A

top_drawer_2

hi,

Can I join this challange too? I have the spreadsheet but dont have a clue as to how to make it work/budget.

I am on a extremely limited budget but I hope to address this soon....... I don't buy things I don't need ... but I am setting up home and I really want the house to be nice and comfortable. I seem to have I want syndrome too ...... as a kid I never had clothes that were suitable for the occasion so this is a bit of a problem and food my parents live very basic lives (mainly based around the local pub and the nearest takeaway) so I have a thing for wanting to fill my cupboards with food/tins/comfort food .........

I tend to just spend and spend and hope for the best, ensuring that I have covered the basics - I rarely ever get to make bigger purchases.

Thanks

Jen

mooomin

Well since yesterday I have inventoried:

Toiletries
Gubbins under the sink
Cupboards
Freezer

I put links into those as to post the whole lot would probably break the thread! I suspect I don't need to buy much in January

I have also successfully resisted the lure of the reduced Radley bag that some evil temptress posted on the Grabbit board

cw18

top_drawer wrote: »

hi,

Can I join this challange too? I have the spreadsheet but dont have a clue as to how to make it work/budget.

Jen,

The first thing you need to do is set your own personal budget(s)

The categories on it are suggestions only - you can use as many or as few as you want, change the headings to be more appropriate to you, and there's a couple of 'spare' slots if you need extras

Pop figures into the Budget column on the Totals page, and it will add them up to give you a total annual figure - plus divide each by 12 to give you a monthly amount.

As long as the bottom line (total annual) is no more than you have coming in (after you deduct anything you don't include in this challenge - a lot of people exclude rent/mortgage and debt repayments), then your proposed budgets for the categories are affordable. All you need to do is make sure they're at levels you're comfortable with (unless you're a miracle worker there's no point setting groceries to £1200/yr - so £100/month - if you have to feed a large family.........)



Once that's set up, all you should need to do is log your spending into it - and it will keep track of what you've spend - both against each category, and also as an overall total.

During 2009 (my first full year of doing this challenge) I found that I'd mis-guesstimated a lot of my category budgets, so changed them almost on a monthly basis But I kept a note of what I'd set them to at the start of the year, which meant I could see just how far out I'd been (and have a think about why) when it came to setting my budgets for 2010.

grandma247

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

Belarc Advisor

I have this on my computer and had no idea what it was,my computer man put it on.

JayneC

Not off to a brill start. Whole family went to cinema (to see Avatar - which was very good) which cost £35, including food n drink tho (which I got from shop not cinema - tho probably could have got it cheaper if I'd shopped around instead of going to the Spar just before!) Still we don't go out very often and I have got a leisure budget - just have to be more careful next month!

Doing better with my grocery challenge and have also ordered some seeds to grow veggies in my garden (well yard really!).

I'm recording all my spends on Spendingdiary.com I did think about using a spreadsheet but I use several different computers so won't keep up with it.

Anyhoo off to have a mooch about on other threads.

Jayne x

LilacPixie

vickiv55 wrote: »

Heya, I'm in Perth and stay at the bottom of a really steep, unsnowploughed cul-de-sac. My tesco order turned up on Tuesday. Mind you the driver phoned me early as he was cancelling all out of town slots......
Good luck
Vicki

Thanks for that. I'm in Monifeith but our order comes from Dundee. I think it might be dodgy we had another inch or so of the white stuff earlier. :rolleyes: Snow turning to ice being covered with snow that turns to ice then more snow.

DdraigGoch

It's a similar situation on the hill I live on in Wales, LilacPixie - turning the car around is a constant "amusement" for us! It's just too cold at the moment to do any New Year clearing up/out or listing of pantry/fridge contents, so that'll be done bit by bit. Luckily I had to move all my food about a fortnight ago, so that'll be easy, it's the rest of the stuff I am daunted by ..