2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Frugaldom

What a happy-go-lucky, up-beat kind of place this is today with everyone as confident and excited as they seem. even for the bad overspends some may think they have had, we are only approaching week 3 :eek: That means there's less than 50 weeks left of 2008 :rotfl: :rotfl:

I haven't spent a single penny today and am planning on a 'use everything up' week for mealtimes. Even I am impressed by the numbers of frozen 'single portions' I have already accrued in the freezer. Normally, I would just spread it out a bit and finish it all off in one sitting but I now know that it's safe enough to freeze it afterwards. It is making such a difference having people to ask questions of and get sensible answers :beer:

I'm tempted to go and bake bread tonight as I have enough flour for about 3 or 4 loaves and a new bread tin that I rescued. It's a lovely pleated shape and was heading for the bin during a friend's clear out!! I think I'll try MrsMCawber's recipe this time

Bails - your OH might move further north, I'm house sharing with a Sussex person just now - fortunately, they don't seem to notice that the meals are a bit of a hotchpotch but I get away with calling it traditional Scottish cuisine and I don't think they are any the wiser! :rotfl: Son & daughter know exactly what I'm like, so they are well used to it by now. However... I have the most startling revelation to make! In fact, the news almost floored me!! DD lives nearby and popped in this morning. whilst here, she revealed that she had boiled a ham for dinner AND WAS MAKING SOUP FROM THE STOCK IT PRODUCED!!! I think it was my proudest mother/daughter moment since the arrival of my grand daughter!

In answer to another question, no, I do not have any horses at the moment - umm.... NO! NO! NO! Don't make me even think about it :rotfl: I did go to Dumfries horse auction last year and for the first time ever, I DID NOT BID! :T Not even for the lovely, fluffy wee brown & white donkey

Mumzy - I'm still contemplating your dilemma but need to agree with the others - you need to count up everything that is going out every month and deduct it from what you have coming in then the balance is all you have for groceries/travel/cigs etc, etc, etc. for all of you. You really are doing well but don't overstretch yourself to clear debts too fast that might result in you getting more charges elsewhere and then risking running up more debt whilst you are away on holiday. Keep your diary up to date, work out what debts are costing you the most and above all else, don't lose heart. You already know you can do this and you have the determination to succeed.

Frugaldom

Mollymop5 wrote: »

Now I'm using spendingdiary.com I'm finding it so easy to keep track of my spends that I will be able to update weeekly.Yeay! just off to update sig.

I love my www.spendingdiary.com but now I've had to confess to cheating with my sealed pot challenge because I mark up every penny I spend and it totals it up as I go along :rotfl: Not much of a surprise next December when I can see the total of my secret sealed pot (Phil the pig) savings from 1st January

Oh, I have started on my catch up and have begun listing my 'for sale' items, so let's hope I start generating a few more pennies and pounds soon

Rafiki_2

Last weeks spend - £161.72 :eek:

How's that for a budget blower :rotfl:

However, if we discount the appalling(ly good fun) cocktail & Sushi night as an unavoidable one off and take £90 off the above spend, I'd have come in £5 under budget! :j

Ok, ok, no excuses *slaps own wrist* but my cheery point to myself is that my own spend was well within limits ie. I can do this!! Ta-dah!

Just home after a weekend with a couple I love and adore.
Last night I cooked up some 8 servings of Beef & Ale Stew and about 10 servings of Spaghetti Bolognese, of which I have brought home 3 of each - 6 evening meals in total. (I left the rest with my friends as they seldom have homecooked food, bless them!)

Further I have all the ingredients for Potato & Onion Soup ('cept the cream) and Chilli Pepper Pasta.

I don't have a local 'super' supermarket so whilst with my friends I made good use of theirs and stocked up on loads of bits and bobs and the entire weekend, all meals, ingredients, household stuff etc came to £33.00

Check me out *boogies butt in chair* :rotfl:


Hope you've all had a great weekend!
I need to dash and iron 5 shirts and trousers galore.

Oh, and my Christmas 2008 Pot remains perfectly on target! £30 banked to date! (I feel positively festively rich! :rotfl: )


PS. I feel a bit rude - haven't had time to read thread and catch-up with everyone. Hopefully if I get the housework out of the way, I'll find a moment but please know this - you're in my thoughts! Go us!

Janey51

I have just found this thread and it seems to be what I am looking for.
We have been in a DMP for 2 years with CCCS and doing OK but we have had a pretty disastrous 2007 culminating in a major house fire in November. I am still off work because of the shock ( I was in the house at the time).
We lost all our memories but I am alive :T
But it has made me look at my life.
I have decided to leave the job I hate and am one step away from getting another (medical to pass). This new job will be less than half my present salary but I will have a retirement pension as well.
And we don't want to reduce our payments into our DMP. At our present rate we will be debt free as we start to draw our State pensions :rolleyes:
It would be great to cut the repayment period down to pay off our debts. 2 years ago it was calculated at 61yrs :eek: and its now down to 12ish. We managed to quadruple our monthly payment to our creditors last year and have maintained this even though my OH had to take early retirement and can only work a few hours a week because of his health.

If you are still reading Is it too late to join? I do things better with money if I have a set goal.
If I can join, should I just start on Tuesday and calculate the number of weeks to the end of the year x my weekly /monthly budget to keep within the £4000?
I say Tuesday as New Year's Day was a Tuesday.

Rafiki_2

Janey51 wrote: »

I have just found this thread and it seems to be what I am looking for.
We have been in a DMP for 2 years with CCCS and doing OK but we have had a pretty disastrous 2007 culminating in a major house fire in November. I am still off work because of the shock ( I was in the house at the time).
We lost all our memories but I am alive :T
But it has made me look at my life.
I have decided to leave the job I hate and am one step away from getting another (medical to pass). This new job will be less than half my present salary but I will have a retirement pension as well.
And we don't want to reduce our payments into our DMP. At our present rate we will be debt free as we start to draw our State pensions :rolleyes:
It would be great to cut the repayment period down to pay off our debts. 2 years ago it was calculated at 61yrs :eek: and its now down to 12ish. We managed to quadruple our monthly payment to our creditors last year and have maintained this even though my OH had to take early retirement and can only work a few hours a week because of his health.

If you are still reading Is it too late to join? I do things better with money if I have a set goal.
If I can join, should I just start on Tuesday and calculate the number of weeks to the end of the year x my weekly /monthly budget to keep within the £4000?
I say Tuesday as New Year's Day was a Monday.

Come join the party!

I like your gumption!

:j :rotfl: :j

Janey51

Rafiki.....yes, my gumption is pretty amazing

Jay1_2

A NO SPEND DAY, A NO SPEND DAY, DE DUM DE DE DUM DUM, A NO SPEND DAY :T :rotfl:

Now some thanks:
MRSMCAWBER thank you for the bread by hand recipe - I have been thinking about making some bread since being inspired by this forum, but I know if I bought a machine I would use it once and then get bored - total waste of money (and space). I used to help my grandma make bread when I was little so hopefully I will know when it looks right.
nykmedia big thanks for this thread, and thanks too for giving me another target - I need to save up my money so I can buy a brown and white donkey! should probably save for somewhere to put it too (unless... I think it was in the Commitments somebody lived in a tower block next door to someone who kept a pony in their flat - and I'm only on the first floor!!! )
Rafiki and Everybody Else thank you for your lovely, funny and supportive posts - this must be the nicest group on the internet EVER.

Frugaldom

Hi Janey51, welcome to money madness and mayhem, you are lucky number 116 for this challenge. Thank you for being brave enough to join us :beer:

Jay, you do realise that now I'm going to have to rake through all my old digital photographs and find the piccie of that donkey Takes me back yeeeeeeeears, does this, when I used to see something I wanted. I'd get a picture of it and stick it in a notepad with columns for date, savings, balance and time left until I could afford to get/go/do whatever it was. Umm... ok, so I still do that, hence my pay off the mortgage type house challenge - I don't even have a mortgage at the moment :rotfl:Off to find the donkey piccie now

I'm baaaaaaack.... I found the piccie in my virtual scrap book of 'things I'd quite like once I have spare cash, my own house, no mortgage and my time is all my own'. Coincidentally, having quit smoking completely this year, I'll be saving £468.48 over the year - that would be enough to have bought this scruffy, fluffy donkey no problem

All together now, aaaaaaaaaaaaaah

OliveOyl_2

To carry on with the upbeat-ness of this thread today
I've been playing with my snowball fiddling with different figures, and IF I manage this challenge, and sell regularly on e-bay, then I *could* clear our credit cards (7 balances ) by January next year :j :j

Obviously, if I sell well on e-bay, and get other income from Quidco, mystery shopping etc I could bring it forward to December......

That would just leave the 3 loans......oh wow. With that goal in sight I am more determined than ever. Off to list 10 things on e-bay right now

Frugaldom

OliveOyl wrote: »

To carry on with the upbeat-ness of this thread today
I've been playing with my snowball fiddling with different figures, and IF I manage this challenge, and sell regularly on e-bay, then I *could* clear our credit cards (7 balances ) by January next year :j :j

Obviously, if I sell well on e-bay, and get other income from Quidco, mystery shopping etc I could bring it forward to December......

That would just leave the 3 loans......oh wow. With that goal in sight I am more determined than ever. Off to list 10 things on e-bay right now

That would be brilliant if you could do that inside a year! Well done for even conntemplating it! :T :T :T Isn't it funny how much fun we can derive from all the what if's? There are so many opportunities available to us once we decide to take command of our budgets and once we are in command, we are in position to make demands! I demand a few acres of land and a brown & white donkey, plus another donkey to keep the first one company! :rotfl: OK, you know what I mean. Once the debts are all gone we still have the money coming in regardless, so why not have some fun thinking about it?
I'm too mean for eBay, I'm sticking with the free listings on eBid for now :j