2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

DdraigGoch

Today OH went out and bought Firelighters [essential] and black bags [ditto since we are clearing out the house], 53.78 litres of diesel @ £107.9/litre for my car [just over two weeks worth in my "stay out of debt" plan] and a newspaper £1.50 [out of his daily "get to work" money, he was off for two days this week - bad cough]. So, that's £70.58 in one fell swoop :eek:. I can't see that I can not put all of it into my challenge spending - apart from, possibly, the newspaper as it was "free"? What do you think?

Frugaldom

DdraigGoch, I would try taking everything out of your budget and keeping all your receipts and a record of spending, like actual household accounts. That way, come the end of 2008, you'll know exactly what you have spent, what overheads have increased, which have decreased and which relate purely to work and individual lifestyle. The 4k budget is for essentials. I have notes right back to 1999, when I first began setting challenges such as this, so I'll come back and post on some notes to let you see the difference in prices over the past almost decade

Does anyone remember 'THE GOOD LIFE'? LOL

Frugaldom

Does anyone remember the bread wars of 1999?

The following information is taken from an article entitled 'Off Yer Trolley', which was published in March 1999, when our challenges first began. The article is copyright protected, but I have authority to reproduce extracts here for the purposes of highlighting the price of bread.

On the subject of the cost of living, and in the wake of the bread wars, we decided to carry out a short survey of prices within our area... (the average price of a non-branded loaf at this point was 35p then the war started and the prices plummetted)

Asda budget Farm Stores white sliced loaf - 9p
Tesco saver own brand - 9p
Safeway saver loaf - 17p to 19p
Sainsbury economy loaf - 17p
Kwik-Save own brand - 7p

It is very interesting to note that the bread wars of 1999 were denied by both Asda and Tesco at the time, but Asda also denied any threat of takeover by Wal-Mart! It is also interesting to note that around that time, Somerfield was taking over Kwik-Save stores.

We are now in what I would perceive as the wake of another bread war, but this time round, Somerfield has taken over some Morrisons stores, which they had taken over from Safeway. And, as we all very well know, Wal-Mart did, indeed, take over Asda, although I think they may have called it some sort of merger. Anyway, you get the picture... when staple food prices start shifting drastically, there's usually something behind it and, in my opinion, they will blame anything except the truth. Whether it be oil prices, wheat prices or the minimum wage, it usually precedes a major change!

I'd like to carry out a bread survey right here - find those prices and let's compare them. Receipts at the ready, notebooks and pens in hand in the supermarkets, corner stores and farm shops.

Please PM me the price of a loaf of bread so I can compile a chart here, thank you

We'll call this market research for frugal living :T

slowlyfading

nykmeida, can i have a challenge number please?

Hardup_Hester

OK, I'll admit I'm daft, I read Jacks post that said £49 spent on staples & I thought thats a lot of staples, must be for a lot of paperwork!!!
Having just re-read it, with my 'daft' head swapped for a clever one, I assume it means housekeeping staples.
In my defence I often spend £200 a month on staples, the metal kind, at work, I run a reprographics department.
Hester

Frugaldom

slowlyfading wrote: »

nykmeida, can i have a challenge number please?

Hello and welcome on board. You are number 106 and all expenditure from 1st January to midnight on 31st December 2008 should be analysed and you have £4000 of a tearget for essentials excluding rent/mortgage, council tax and water. If you have children, then you should get Child Benefit for each, which is added on to your 4k budget.

Staples, to me, are foodstuffs based on a basic diet, but I think I'll call mine basics, such as bread, milk, cheese, pasta, rice, fruit & veg. If all else fails, I can survive on a basic diet I cannot and should not eat my staples, not those ones, anyway.

Gone to re-read my 'feed a family of four on a tenner' notes now. :rotfl:

slowlyfading

ooo :hello: now that i'm an official member! I've not spent anything this year yet - which must be an first for me! as there's only me, and there's whole families doing this, i feel i'm not trying that hard on £4000. well we'll see, i'm so excited about this! lol
sf x

liuhut

Well just had my first dabble at Matched betting, reckon I've won ten pounds, got £35 on Quidco and then got another free £10 bet...cool!
A NSD for me (apart from the £10 for my betting!) however my OH bought papers so that was £1.
My little book is doing well, I have hardly used my mobile or the phone and the gas/lecky is proving to be interesting. Worked out that I owe them £30 at the mo which I thought was quite good for the winter period and can hopefully start to reduce the consumption now.

Frugaldom

notanothergreyhair wrote: »

I must be ill - this is my 5th NSD out of 5 Go me!!!

Well done!! So long as we still see you here then we won't worry you are starving and got no milk for a cup of tea I might manage that if I could lay my hands on evnough bread and milk to keep me from walking to the shop but it's so lazy when I stay on the same street as it :rotfl: In fact, my trips to the postie and the Co-op are my main exercise! :eek:

Frugaldom

Let me know the bread prices for our comparison chart here.

Asda smartprice - 37p
Co-op value - 65p
Hovis Best of Both - £1.23
Kingsmill Great Everyday - £1.09
Mothers Pride Scottish Plain - 89p
Sainsburys basic - 37p
Somerfield saver - 65p
Tesco value - 37p
Warburtons Med Slice White - £1.16