2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Frugaldom

Well, I have just done my budget for 2008 and it is looking GRIM :eek:

My basic average outgoings:

Heat & Light - 100.00 (winter months, banked and paid quarterly)
Telephone & mobile - 25.99
Internet - £12.99
TV Licence - 11.30
Insurance - 4.30

Total monthly £154.58, annually £1854.95 (I hate odd numbers, so £1855)

I'm allowing £500 for gifts & Christmas

That means I have only £1645 left for everything else. That's ... £31.46 per week :eek: And I hate odd numbers, so I'm going to aim for £30 a week and put any small change out of that into my sealed pot. The residual £1.46 per week can get banked for umm... emergencies? :rotfl:

Thank goodness for Tesco points, Co-op dividends, BOGOFs and vouchers!!

PS: I calculated a week by dividing the total by 366 days (2008's a leap year) and multiplying by 7.

My targets for 2008 are:

Utility bills - £1855
Gifts/Special Occasions - £500
Everything else - £1645
Total - £4000

Pollydaydream

Hi everyone.

I've been thinking about this and I'd like to join, please.

I'm trying to pay off a lot of debt this year and I've been concentrating on making more money, so this is the other side of the coin, so to speak. I actually made quite a bit of extra money this last year, but it just sort of disappeared with nothing to show for it. No more frittering!

I've just put how much money I spend on cigarettes in a calculator and :eek: :eek: :eek: . If I don't stop smoking, I won't be eating much; if I do, I'll feel as if I've won the lottery :rolleyes: .

I'm not including debts, the £4000 is pure living expenses. I'm also not including any freebies, money off vouchers, that sort of thing, but I will include vouchers that I've used instead of cash (so that I can hopefully get a clearer idea of where the money's going).

Good luck everyone.

Polly

FunBrum

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I didn't realise I was being 'uncool' :huh: . My kids think I'm as cool as "The Fonz"! Well, OK, they don't actually know who 'The Fonz' is, but when I say "Am I as cool as The Fonz" and shake my fist at them in a menacing fashion, they both go "yes Dad!". QED, I am cool.

As far as the challenge is concerned, I simply expressed my incredulity at whether a healthy and nutritious diet can be maintained, especially for growing kids on a budget of much less than £19 per week per person.

Just to step on my soap box for a second... A child can be malnourished even with a full belly if its belly is primarily full of junk. I often see SOA's containing similar amounts of money spent on 'fags' and 'the OH's beer' as spent on 'food'. *DD shakes his head in dismay*

However, I am open minded so if someone does want to post that 30 day
food plan I mentioned in an earlier post, I'll be most happy to eat my words...

Hi DD.

I'm sure you are very cool! Was just playing with you mate!:D

I too think that healthy eating is essential, and always cook nurishing healthy meals. I always have done since my four children were babies, and I know you can do it on a budget. Its far cheaper to buy fresh meat and veg. than to run the kids into MacDonalds. Not knocking it but it works for me.

Sorry if I offended you, truely not intended, was just teasing you. Do you forgive me?!;)

redsquirrel80

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I didn't realise I was being 'uncool' :huh: . My kids think I'm as cool as "The Fonz"! Well, OK, they don't actually know who 'The Fonz' is, but when I say "Am I as cool as The Fonz" and shake my fist at them in a menacing fashion, they both go "yes Dad!". QED, I am cool.

As far as the challenge is concerned, I simply expressed my incredulity at whether a healthy and nutritious diet can be maintained, especially for growing kids on a budget of much less than £19 per week per person.

Just to step on my soap box for a second... A child can be malnourished even with a full belly if its belly is primarily full of junk. I often see SOA's containing similar amounts of money spent on 'fags' and 'the OH's beer' as spent on 'food'. *DD shakes his head in dismay*

However, I am open minded so if someone does want to post that 30 day food plan I mentioned in an earlier post, I'll be most happy to eat my words...

If you like I'll stick my neck out and dig out one of my old posts where I did a meal plan for the week - on my previously mentioned £50-60 per month grocery budget. I don't have kids but think the meals I have would be OK, although my fondness for lots of chillis would have to be toned down I guess!

Jhayda

Personally I think you guys are all utterly barmy...and it's brilliant!
:T

I'm not brave enough to join you as I think my bills come to £4k for the year as it is but I'll be watching this thread with interest and wishing you all the best of luck with it!

whitewing

redsquirrel80 wrote: »

If you like I'll stick my neck out and dig out one of my old posts where I did a meal plan for the week - on my previously mentioned £50-60 per month grocery budget. I don't have kids but think the meals I have would be OK, although my fondness for lots of chillis would have to be toned down I guess!

Yes please - that would be very helpful redsquirrel.

redsquirrel80

whitewing wrote: »

Yes please - that would be very helpful redsquirrel.

When I get a bit of time I'll stick together a typical week's shopping list (although that does tend to vary a lot as I try to bulk buy and stock up on things on some weeks) and meal plans to go with it. And then you can all tell me that I eat weird things... :rotfl:

maverickangel

Any room for another one please? £4000 for the year for me. I think it sounds like a really good challenge.

I'm a frugal type of person pretty much, but am very, very bad at recording and keeping tabs on my income and expenditure. I hope this challenge would give me the necessary discipline to keep my budget spreadsheets and so on up to date. Following on from that, I guess I need to do some sort of budget breakdown so I know how much to allocate for each item to keep on track?

I do have a loan which I'm fine paying for each month, but presumably I could pay it off faster if I economised. I also have a fairly ambitious savings target for next year, so this would really help.

Currently we have a budget of £100 / week, excluding some of the car expenses (some relate to work), rent, council tax and dental care, so think I will have to work on things to reduce down by about 25%.

There's myself and the two children, plus assorted animals to fend for.

DD's 30 day meal planner sounds a challenge in itself I don't meal plan at all, but am happy to post my meals on a weekly basis along with expenditure as from Jan 1st, and would welcome comment on their nutritional value / cost (although I know there's loads of that on the OS board anyway). We certainly come in way below £19pp / week, but I admit I have a unique culinary style :eek:

Hope I can join in.
All the best Mav

DdraigGoch

I'm terrified at the prospect of joining up to this and failing - it's all I can do to even think about it! I've just chatted to OH about "budgetting" and we'll see how we go. I'll keep popping in and lurking, if I may? I'll let you know if I manage to keep to it, when I can. I don't think I could cope with telling you all the times I don't....

FrankieM

I'm in the same place.....I've had a look at my direct debits etc and I'm not sure how I can possibly manage it. Even at £5000 and for only 11 months. I'd have to get my direct debits down quite significantly....but I still don't want to rule out the possibility...how crazy is that???
Anyway, I'd be interested to see a basic budget for those with a family. I have 4 children and a DH. So anyone with children who'd like to share...I'd really appreciate it....