Frugal Living 2011 - the preparation stage

lynzpower

ooooh hello sparkle :wave:

thought you might have been jumping in deep as a newbie.

Im having a bit of a panic gang, wondering if you can help me.

Basically, er, we dont earn enough. Im about 3.5 grand short on the SOA calculator budget brain thingy.

No matter how I play about with it, it remains the same. :eek:

Can we even live!? Oh god!

slowlyfading

Can you post it? Then we can have a look

lynzpower

I will post it tonight. I need to check some figures with the OH when he gets back, I think.

trying not to burst into tears, the worst of it is that OH is having to take a pay cut in his hourly rate to boot. That also doesnt include any clothing, prescriptions ( we dont have any yet) transport and travel anywhere other than work and so on.

I know he has some savings towards the rent so I need to work it out entirely. We also think that we might have some income ( not much tho from HB) due to the low income coming in, although this isnt clear just yet. I think im panicking too early.

Or too late!

slowlyfading

Don't worry (((hugs)))

HelenPie

Hi guys,

Newbie here, hoping to try a year of frugal living so that my OH and I can clear our debts asap. These are based on our existing bills, the only thing I have trimmed is our household shopping, grocery, and petrol budgets. I have shopped around recently for better insurance deals but I will look again to cut back where I can when renewals are due.

Fixed Costs
Council Tax: £1290
TV Licence: £144.50
Dental Insurance: £185
Bank Account Fee (used for included benefits): £78
Car Tax/Services/MOTs: £700
Train Season Ticket: £3620

Other Bills (hopefully can trim these before end of the year)
Insurances (MPPI, Cars, Cats, Home): £1433
Water: £250
Gas/Electricity: £650
TV/Internet: £564 (will definitely reduce this!)
Mobile Phones: £660

Regular Spending
Petrol: £1800
Groceries: £1480
Toiletries/Cleaning products: £440

Grand Total: £13,290

WHAT!?! :eek: That's the first time I've seen that total

I know my season ticket bumps it up a bit but this is all just for 2 20-somethings with a car each and two cats, and doesn't even include the mortgage! Yikes. I hope to post a revised budget before the end of the month

H x

ifonlyitwaseasier

i've decided that until hubby anjd i move out and i get another job we'll be frugal but i can't work out a proper budget so i'm going to lurk and tryto keep up with the thread

good luck everyone

sparkle76

Lynz you poor thing, that's a large difference, hopefully when your OH comes home you can work things out and maybe it will be better than it seems. Am I right in thinking that you are studying hence only the one income? Maybe housing benefit can help, I don't know much about HB really.

Welcome IOIWE, hopefully we can all help eachother out, figuring out the figures!

lynzpower

sparkle76 wrote: »

Lynz you poor thing, that's a large difference, hopefully when your OH comes home you can work things out and maybe it will be better than it seems. Am I right in thinking that you are studying hence only the one income? Maybe housing benefit can help, I don't know much about HB really.

Welcome IOIWE, hopefully we can all help eachother out, figuring out the figures!

Yep, thats right, I jacked my job in and am at uni ( Masters) I do love it, it is the right thing to do. I was hoping to be able to get a part time job as well, but Its looking pretty unlikely the workload is massive.

I hope something might come up, maybe tax credits, or otherwise Ill have to sell his old socks on ebay for the "gay interest" market

( only a little bit joking there)

cw18

Lynz - my Grandma used to keep saying "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves", and I'm sure this will be true here. You're working so hard at budgetting wisely that I'm sure you'll get it all straightened out

HelenPie - It does tend to make you gulp rather hard the first time you try and work out a budget, but I'm sure you'll soon find ways and means of trimming it down if you want/need to

IOIWE - feel free to lurk, and please keep us updated on how your frugalling is going anyway

Sparkle - my dog is on a special diet due to having had kidney stones (Dalmatians are bad for this, and have to be on a low protein food anyway. But having had stones he also needed low purine). The one the vet wanted him on was about £50/sack in September of last year, and there was no way I could have afforded that long term. After a couple of months I discovered the manufacturer had started doing a breed specific one, so I went and asked if he'd be OK on that - and they agreed he should be (but only 'cos it was the same make).

I did a lot of digging around on line, and was surprised to find that P@H are generally the cheapest for the one I need, though it's only available on-line - but even then I've done 2 big stock ups when they've had it on B1G1HP rather than regular orders of just a couple of sacks (which would be enough to qualify for free delivery). Last stocked up in September (B1G1HP - max of 2 'offers' per household, so I ordered 2 lots to my house and used my Dad's c/card to order 2 lots to his address which gave me about 8 months of food in total) when it was £36/sack. They had the offer on again in the last couple of weeks and I nearly ordered a few more (to get to the end of 2011), but then realised it had gone up by £10/sack in the space of 10 weeks (:eek:) and couldn't afford to in case I get any unexpected bills in the next few months

sparkle76

lynzpower wrote: »

I hope something might come up, maybe tax credits, or otherwise Ill have to sell his old socks on ebay for the "gay interest" market

( only a little bit joking there)

:rotfl:The mind boggles :rotfl:
Once the little one arrives I may be up to the same thing as we'll be on one income then too
OH said today he was already getting used to me being a 'housewife' as I had gotten home from work early and was 'home'! I guess it helped that I had the slow cooker bubbling away with chicken stock
Having dreamt of chips from 10am this morning he is now braving the ice cold and snow to get us fish and chips and scampi - never loved him so much

As cw18 says something will hopefully come up and/or new ways of doing things migh emerge - I know it's hard though when you are already doing so well with budgeting and being careful...