2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Frugaldom

Congrats to Rafiki on the second job, especially if the proceeds of that will cover this entire challenge - MOST impressive! I can't even begin to comprehend what city life must be like as I've only ever spent one day in my entire life in London. Visited the Tate Gallery, wandered along Regent Street, eventually ended up in Hamleys and played with their toys for the rest of the visit :rotfl:

Council Tax non-payments - easiest to count up your payments and if you are paying in 10 installments, check if number 10's been paid then that's you. Just make sure you are on 10 installments as some people now pay over 12.

Everyone is being fantastic on here and I am really pleased that this challenge seems to be helping a few of you. Only one comment I saw today to disagree with and that relates to overspend. When looking at this as a year long challenge on 52 weeks at £76.50 or 12 months at £333.33, these figures are averages and there is a difference between overspending and spending more than your average amount. Before taking part in this challenge, you will have done a complete budget for a full year and included items that may be paid monthly, quarterly and annually. Spread over the space of a year, they should be included within the overall amount and each should be deducted from the appropriate area of your budget. Here's why I am saying this -

Today I have spent £565.44 and only £1.00 of that was for groceries (potatoes and a bottle of vinegar). Having moved into a bigger house, the first electricity bill was estimated. This means that despite staying within budget last year, there will be huge differences to be made up this year. The original electricity bill was estimated at £182 and I paid this at the end of October. However, Scottish Power had grossly underestimated the bill and now, almost 3 months later, it's almost quarterly bill time again. I have been taking meter readings day and night and calculated that there would be around £500 to pay. It actually worked out at £464.44 plus the regular bill would still need paying at the end of this month. So, I have now paid the total sum of £464.44 plus a further £100 toward the next quarterly bill. I'm expecting the regular bill to arrive soon and then plan on paying monthly rather than quarterly. So you see, there is no way you can account for large spends, annual spends or quarterly spends without first counting them into your annual budget. I budgeted £1000 for electricity for 2008 (we are all electric with storage heaters and live in a 3 storey house) so from hereon in, I will be watching every unit of power used and charting it so there will be no nasty shocks. It's ok saying pay a set fee monthly, but when you live in a privately rented house on a month to month lease, the shock of a massive 'catch-up' bill from your electricity supplier when you leave could swallow up your next deposit!

OK, so I have had my rant about the cost of electricity. I was really ****** at having to part with that amount of money in one go, but it was the lesser of two evils, in my opinion. Thankfully, having been doing this challenge (and similar) for so long, the lump sum had been set aside previously. But what if I hadn't saved it? I'd have been moving on into a new house with a debt costing almost £10 a week for a year hanging around my neck. The prospect of electricity prices increasing by another 15% to 20% during 2008 is daunting, to say the least, and means that sacrifices will have to be made elsewhere. My guess is that the gifts allowance will be affected before anything else, so watch out family, you may all be getting homemade items next Christmas.

My slow cooker will be working overtime from now on and I'll certainly be doing more baking and freezing this year. Homegrown fruit & veg are a must!

I still haven't caught up with all the posts but I did spot our newest 'recruits'. Welcome on board Jammiejen and Jay1! I'll go and add you to post 1 right now and then you'll have your challenger numbers. Good luck and I sincerely hope that you have some fun this year, even if it is extremely frugal fun.

This is the state of play in my household and everyone knows I'm doing this challenge again, although none are interested enough to read my daily comments on here, so it shouldn't matter too much LOL

The spend is made up of the following:
Credit card payment - £59.02 (cleared)
2 x oil filled radiators from Curry's sale - £44.97
Gifts for 2008 - £15.99
Groceries etc - £35.57 (freezer & cupboards are still quite full)
Utilities/electricity - £564.44
Savings pots - £7.23
Total spend to date - £727.22

Balance: £3272.78
Adjusted weekly budget: £64.53
Original weekly shopping allowance: £30


As you all may have realised, I have an OCD type problem with my money so, to take part in the grocery challenge, I rounded down to a nicely balanced £120 per month. But this posed another problem, as it meant the weekly amount was £27.10 (a really silly number) so I have rounded that down even further and now have a weekly target of only £27 for groceries/cleaning materials/toiletries. Any loose change left over is for my sealed pot (another challenge) known lovingly as 'Phil the Pig'.

If anyone is having a bad day, feel free to scream and shout about it and then stand back to see the whole picture of how it has affected your year. Chances are it won't be enough to starve you just yet. Speaking of which, did you all remember to click your link at www.thehungersite.com today?

Off to try and catch up with all the posts now and I did notice that we've broken through the 50,000 mark for thread views. WOW! :T :T :T

I'll be back as soon as I have read today's posts.

PS: First part of my Additions Direct order (ordered yesterday) arrived today! Just waiting for grand daughter's doll's pram (£2 in sale) to arrive now

Lexxi

mini_huny_money wrote: »

well done on the job Lexxi

Thank you, I didn't want to go, I really hate interviews, so it was a huge suprise and they'll be paying me about £1 an hour more than I expected!
I really am off to bed, just changed my sig and figured I'd just round it up by 20 and a bit pounds to count for last two days spends, so from 137.11 it went to 200 :rolleyes:
Good luck over the weekend all, not that you need it!

Frugaldom

Rafiki wrote: »

Any friends that make jewelry? ...
(silver chain & clasps can be sourced quite cheaply from a good bead shop - although *hands up* I am not sure of exact prices ...)

Have you tried eBid for jewellery? I've bought loads of bargains from there for myself, for gifts and for several members of the family who don't have accounts - I've won several items at £1 without being outbid! I love it over there - there's not as much choice as eBay, but you're much more likely to win a bargain as there are nowhere near as many bargainhunters have found the place.

Frugaldom

Jay1 wrote: »

I'm trying to get stroppy with Eclipse internet now. Its says on their website there is a charge when you move house but it doesn't say how much! :mad: The only price I can find is £47:eek: , I don't think its that but if it is there is no way I'm paying, my contract runs out in Feb and I only pay about £15 a month, I'll just lapse and go with someone who has an offer on. Maybe they will be so concerned to keep me they will cancel all charges and reduce my monthly fee .

I spoke very nicely to AOL and explained that as a very loyal customer I really didn't want to switch services BUT theirs was no longer affordable on my new budget. They switched the package to reduce my monthly paymants and gave me a £5 per month discount for 6 months I never resort to stropping until grovelling has failed. Grovelling has never failed :rotfl:

Frugaldom

mini_huny_money wrote: »

just press the quote button.....bottom right hand side of everyones post


.what I wnat to do is highlight just a few sentences from someone else's quote....rather than the whole quote????? could do it on the PC with a mouse but this lappy downstairs ( belongs to DS) how do I do it

The laptop, I assume, has no mouse, so to highlight any text place the cursor at start of it, hold doen the left click button next to the touchpad and then scroll along using the touchpad to highlight whatever text you want. The click buttons next to the touchpad act the same as the left and right mousebuttons on the PC (or at least mine do, I think :rotfl: ) Umm... yes they do!

mini_huny_money

nykmedia wrote: »

I spoke very nicely to AOL and explained that as a very loyal customer I really didn't want to switch services BUT theirs was no longer affordable on my new budget. The switched the package to reduce my monthly paymants and gave me a £5 per month discount for 6 months I never resort to stropping until grovelling has failed. Grovelling has never failed :rotfl:

:rotfl: I grovel too nyk.........sometimes it works and hey....well when it doesnt at least Ive tried

my OH got me a fanastic deal on my phone...if anyones interested......He bought me a SKYPE phone for Xmas, Ive been with 3G for a coupla years now. and I was goin to go PAYG......my contracts up in Feb and Ive had lots of calls saying youre a great customer etc etc....but the cheapest I got was 16 quid for 200 mins 200 texts and 5000 mins of skype........well they phoned my OH......he's pretty good when it comes to phones...

..and now Ive got a mob phone contract..... 10 pounds a month for life.......

300 minutes to any network a month .....

plus 300 other minutes to any 3 user a month,.............. basically 600 talk minutes a month....

200 text msgs a month

and 5000 skype mins a month.......

PS if my mum in Australia is reading this .......I promise I'll ring you more ofte thru SKYPE!!!!!!

skintas_2

mini honey wel done , well done that is a good deal with your phone

Frugaldom

That's a brilliant deal, Mini! I haven't tried Internet calls yet, but the calling Australia bit, well, have I got another bargain for you!

0844 861 28 28 Dial this number from your landline and when it connects it will tell you to dial in the number you are calling in Australia and it costs a penny per minute!

For any International calls from landlines or mobiles, check out www.dialwise.co.uk (or any other similar site) for the best cost per minute deals. They do work, I have used them for USA, Cyprus and France

mini_huny_money

wow.... thanx nyk.....am stayin up late .....not that I need much encouragement on a Friday night to stay up late......so that I can call Australia my mum and sis live in Perth, and my Glasgow sis is there for January so I wanted to call tonight....I reckon with the time difference cos theyve now got double daylight saving........at 1 am it should be 10 am.....not too early to wake them!!!!!!

Frugaldom

Hi Mini, you're probably on the phone right now but that's me just catching up with all the other posts. The dialwise exchange tells you at the time of connection how much per minute your call will be, so it's easy to work out the cost. I use my little chicken wind-up cooking timer, set it to 48 mins, which gives me a 2 minute warning to get off the phone before it reaches 50p for the call :rotfl: I have gone mad before and made it to a £1 mark but that was because a frugal friend was explaining her fab new way of making ends meet whilst renovating the derelict hotel she and hubby accidentally bought whilst holidaying in France :eek: I haven't even budgeted for a passport renewal this year but my Greasypalm account should be up to about £80 for next month so that would help! Hmm... now look what you have made me think about... a budget trip to the Continent!!! :beer: