Bare Bones

Penny-Wise_4

I would never get rid of them - only if I really could not afford to keep them anymore and it would be better for them if I did. I just wanted to see how much they cost me:

£3.88 food a month
£11.34 litter a month
£30 x 3 inoculations
£90 other vet appointments (estimate – 2 of them are getting on a bit)
£94.50 flea treatment

= £450 a year £37.50 a month

But that doesn’t cover:

Replacement cat flap (as one of them half pulled it off the door and managed to smash it)

Material for recovering sofa and chair (as they have scratched it so much the stuffing is poking out in a few places) :mad:

Extra cleaning materials as one of them likes to go up the chimney/down to the wood down the road and walk soot/mud everywhere. :mad:

Maybe when I no longer have these cats I will keep fish instead.

Bogof_Babe

Realistically there isn't much more I could do without making unacceptable inroads into our already basic quality of life. We have precious little social life to give up, and only go out with friends for a pub meal about 5 times a year. We do like a glass (or two ) of cider in the evening, and we could cut that down I suppose, but heck what's the point of being alive......?:beer: We don't have any TV packages, and only buy a paper on Saturdays for the TV mag. They'd have to send the bailiffs in before I'd ditch my Broadband.:eek:

If it came to the crunch, I'd change to economy brands of absolutely everything that had one. I would have to grit my teeth with some things, e.g. economy (19p not the 44p supermarket brand) lemonade is dreadful, and we love our lavender bath soap and 99p de-stress bubble bath, so they would be the last to go!

Stop using the tumble dryer and drape clothes all round the house (don't know what I'd do with the bedding if it was too wet to hang outside).

Persuade hubby that pasta several times a week is not a punishment! Make my own veggie burgers. Try to get the cat back onto ordinary catfood instead of Gourmet (tricky that one :cool:).

I just made a tiny saving now that I've never thought of before - the kitchen was a bit steamed up from cooking some rice, and I automatically went to switch on the extractor fan (a hole-in-the-wall one, not a cooker hood) then decided to open the back door for a few minutes instead.

It all boils down to weighing up your quality of life really. If you become a hermit and a complete miser you might as well jump in the river as it would be too tedious to carry on. Of course if you knew it was just temporary that would soften the blow, but personally I think I'd be on anti-depressants within a month .

nicki_2

I guess if things got really tight we could get rid of :

- Internet = £14.99 a month for dial up. Could always go up to my mothers and use thier wireless broadband like we used to when I first moved out.

- Home phone (£30 a month) or OH mobile (variable amounts. Supposed to be £40 a month budget) & possibly mine, but I spend less than £10 a month so its not too bad.

- TV = £10.49 a month for the licence

- Magazine subscriptions approx £1.20 a fortnight for one and £2 a month for another. BUT the second one is only for 12 months as it was a special offer

Plus we could then sell :
-TV
-DVD player + DVDs
-Video + videos
-Freeview box
-Computer / printer / scanner
-Stereo + some CDs (use the small portable one upstairs instead)
-Microwave

We couldn't get rid of our car (£153 a month loan repayments, £800+ a year insurance, £110 tax for 12 months, MOT etc) as we've worked out that it is cheaper to run the car than to rely on public transport as OH's family live in the Lake District and it's cheaper for a tank of petrol (there and back + errands) then to pay for two adult tickets and soon to be a child ticket on the train. Plus he commutes 40 minutes each way, 5 days a week to work. I guess we could move house to be closer to his work but that would be more expensive so the car would stay LOL

Curry_Queen

Penny-Wise wrote:

I would never get rid of them - only if I really could not afford to keep them anymore and it would be better for them if I did.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you would

I just wanted to see how much they cost me:

£3.88 food a month
£11.34 litter a month
£30 x 3 inoculations
£90 other vet appointments (estimate – 2 of them are getting on a bit)
£94.50 flea treatment

= £450 a year £37.50 a month

What on earth are you using for flea treatment to cost so much? :eek:

You can get a bottle of Frontline for around £16 which should easily last you a year or more for 3 cats. If they don't like being sprayed (some cats hate it) spray some onto a cloth or kitchen roll and rub it onto their coat. The drop-on type flea treatments are an extortionate price and totally unnecessary

I didn't include any vet fees in my costings as it's rare they actually need to see a vet and again, being indoor cats, don't need any further vaccinations.

How do you get your food bill so low? I thought mine was low but yours is nearly half that with an extra cat!!!

Lillibet_2

Bogof_Babe wrote:

Stop using the tumble dryer and drape clothes all round the house (don't know what I'd do with the bedding if it was too wet to hang outside)

Don't mean to be at all rude so please don't take it that way, but maybe you could do the same as those of us who don't have a tumble dryer & drape our bedding on indoor clothes horses/lines when it is raining? And I have super-king size bed linen!!

Really not trying to be rude or agressive, but a little amused that you think there isn't an alternative? This is Old Style, after all!

Curry_Queen

Bogof_Babe wrote:

don't know what I'd do with the bedding if it was too wet to hang outside.

Drape it over doors ... but make sure the door tops are clean first

Try to get the cat back onto ordinary catfood instead of Gourmet (tricky that one :cool:).

It wouldn't starve if you refused to offer the gourmet stuff anymore ... would be healthier too

Penny-Wise_4

Curry-Queen - £3.88 one 4k sack of Tesco Cat Crunchies

They occaisionally have a tin of pilchards too - 27p each but forgot to count that - maybe an extra £1 a month. They don't really need them - just a treat


I have never heard of bottled Frontline. I do use the individually packaged ones - it is extortion - £15.75 for a pack of 6 lasts 2 months so £94.50 a year. where do i get the bottle from? it would save me £78.50 a year :T

nicki_2

As I type I have washing hanging from the curtain rails in the bedrooms. I do this with every wash unless it is nice enough to hang outside on the washing line. I went from having central heating in our old house (just put the washing on the radiators and a wash maiden rotating as necessary) to having no heating except for a gas fire in the livingroom in this house. Since we've moved in we have had two gas wall heaters fitted in the bedrooms through the "Warm Front" grant. Our bedrooms are lovely and warm (sometimes even hot!) and at 6p a hour its cheaper to dry the clothes this way than to take them to the laundrette. Also, by hanging up the "to iron" clothes, more creases drop out so there is less ironing. BTW I also have 2 maidens at total cost less than £30 with about 4 meters of "hanging" space. I rarely have my washing up for longer than 24 hours depending on how warm the room is and whether I have the windows open as well. It seems to dry faster when the windows are open as well, I'm assuming this is due to the breeze.

Bogof_Babe

Lillibet wrote:

Don't mean to be at all rude so please don't take it that way, but maybe you could do the same as those of us who don't have a tumble dryer & drape our bedding on indoor clothes horses/lines when it is raining? And I have super-king size bed linen!!

Really not trying to be rude or agressive, but a little amused that you think there isn't an alternative? This is Old Style, after all!

Not at all, you are quite right and it is an extravagance. It goes back to when we were both working all the hours including weekends, and had a window of Saturday and Sunday afternoons to get all the washing done, dried, ironed and put away, and the beds changed. We don't rotate sets of bed linen, just use the same lot continuously until it falls apart, then start new! (To avoid confusion, I mean we do wash them weekly, but the same ones go straight back on the bed).

Also our house doesn't really lend itself to indoor drying as it is quite cold, the main rooms being north facing, and there is nowhere we could put one of those hanging wooden (or cord nowadays I think) drying gadgets, which I'd love - my parents use theirs all the time. Anywhere in the kitchen would be in the way of the various doorways off, and obviously in any other room it would look odd. I don't have the luxury of a utility room .

On the plus side, we don't have a dishwasher - do you?

I've fortunately never been in the situation of having to do "bare bones" economising, but I'm sure it does focus the mind rapidly, and I might surprise myself at what I'd do should the need ever arise.

I suppose the other thing is, the electricity doesn't really seem to count in the forefront of my budgeting, as it is paid by direct debit so it's not like "real money" (That blushing smiley says "don't all shout at once" lol)

Curry_Queen

Penny-Wise wrote:

I have never heard of bottled Frontline. I do use the individually packaged ones - it is extortion - £15.75 for a pack of 6 lasts 2 months so £94.50 a year. where do i get the bottle from? it would save me £78.50 a year :T

You need to get it from your vet as it's a POM product (although some people have mentioned buying it online slightly cheaper from an overseas suppliers on a different thread, but I think you might need a prescription from your vet to do that anyway.) As long as one of your cats is registered with your vet and has seen him/her within the last 6 months you can just go and buy it over the counter without an appointment. It comes in two sizes 50ml and 100ml (bigger one usually sold for dogs as they use more) but it's exactly the same formula and having 3 cats you might be better buying the bigger size anyway