2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

dND

JustKeepSwimming wrote: »

Just redone my signiture & think things are going ok'ish - have just discovered a huge patch of damp in my bedroom where water is soaking through the wall :eek: so I'll need to investigate when I can borrow a long ladder & on a less windy day! Have a nasty feeling that it may take me over budget slightly...:mad: but as I'm spending less, I'm happy!

Got my soapnuts today - will be making up a solution when I can find the thread with directions! Also got horribly excited when I realised that the post office hadn't franked the envelope so I can reuse the stamps! How sad & obsessed am I becomming?

Here's the thread /post about the soapnuts, post 202. The whole thread is interesting reading. They work for some people but not all.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=174684&page=11&highlight=soapnuts

Good luck

MRSMCAWBER

Afternoon all

Well, even though i haven't technically joined your challenge..im avidly trying to keep up with whats happening:p

You lovely folks are helping me think much further ahead . just a quick background:-

We are living in army accomodation -so far we have had lovely houses :j .
We have a house that we started to buy when we were getting ready for hubby to leave the army (only now he is doing 5 more years)-only on our 3rd year of mortgage.. but the tennents have paid most of the mortgage so far:T
Our aim was to get rid of our loans before he left the army -we have no tv liecense no car tax, petrol is about half price and and a lot of food items are so much cheaper here (if your careful)... Hence my grocery challenge budget and my determination to squirrel away as much as possible .
Then when he leaves in 4 1/2 years we were to use his lump sum to pay off our mortgage.... we got a 3 bed terrace for 63k mortgaged 56k-ish - and then we would be debt and mortgage free. The house next to ours is smaller and has recently sold for 89k :j ....

Well hubby has said from the outset that the house was just so we had piece of mind of "having a house" and that it wasn't going to be long term..even though i would have happily stayed there... Hubby wanted more outdoor space -and neighbours not living THAT close :rotfl: .... I was all ready to put up a fight -using the fact he could retire at 55 at the latest , as this is when his full army pension will kick in.. ....... only talking to him the other day and with the hints, tips and motivation picked up from all of you fresh in my mind.. we are now looking at moving in to start with and then selling up and paying the mortgage off..adding the equity to hubbies lump sum and a small mortgage and buying somwhere with at least a bigger garden -preferably some out buildings etc so we can have chickens and i can grow my own -out of bloomin pots and in the ground:D . Even if it means having a house that needs a little work...

All of this thanks to you all, and othere mse threads of course .

So now im really going to pull in the belt... having informed hubby that we have to do this -as if we do take on somewhere else we may be living a very frugal life for quite a long time :rotfl: . So this next few years we are going to treat as a test run...to see how little we can realisticly live on, and how much we can save...

God i don't half waffle..anyway that means im now NOT saving for a new car, or to do up the house when we leave the army...but to see if we can afford to live our life at "our pace"
so thankyou everyone... and keep the hints n tips coming

skintwellie

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your support with this challenge and for making me laugh so much with your threads. Just what I need after a c**p day at work.
A big thank you to nykmedia for telling me about the 'pastures' and 'fields' supermarket. I'm going to try my own £10.00 challenge there tomorrow.

Last month I filed in a medical survey which said it paid £10.00. Today I received an email which was a voucher code from the survey company to spend on Amazon. I have bought a book for the prezzie box plus a cookery book called 'Eating for Victory' which promises healthy home front cooking on war rations - hopefully I'll get a few money saving ideas!

I have recalculated my weekly budget by adding together my overspends and my daughters groceries and £40.00 I gave her and dividing it amongst the weeks left this year. Hence my new weekly budget is £83.00. Hopefully I'll now be able to keep to this. It is great to actually have money left in my bank account - I shall be paying off some of my debts at the end of the month.:T :T :T :T

Thanks for all of your support.


Re: chooks and allotments - my friend kept her hens on her allotment but got into trouble cos it wasn't allowed, also somebody broke into the hen house and stole the eggs and let the hens out. As they left the run gate open the hens escaped and messed up other people's allotments - they weren't happy.:eek:

bails

Aril, I love the idea of 'to outfrugal someone' and have written it into my dictionary I would have a go with my OH but it would be just too easy to win at the mo! If I told him it was a competition though...:rotfl:

Thanks Brokemum, I was thinking that too, my problem is that if it's there I may eat it all in one go, which means more money and more weight :eek: May have to do it anyway and make OH the Freddo Custodian

Oh thanks Nyk for the reminder about non-essentials - I put my Saturday paper in last week's amount so that's £1.50 extra left! Weekly spend is now £72.82, another 3p a week clawed back :T I'm keeping tabs on my non-essentials spending too so I can see where it's going; that budget is having the same treatment as the 4K thanks to this challenge!
MrsMcawber, your new plan sounds ace!
Welcome to newbies and lurkers, great to have you all around! I learn something every time I log onto here, or it jogs my memory about something I wanted to try/do so I find it invaluable.
I'm SO tempted by the chickens idea, so much so that I daren't go to the Home in case I come back with some Must resist Bails... We're off up North this weekend to look around at areas- really don't know whether to move or not, I'm in such a quandry. Anyway, to rest my stressing head, Im back to waiting for a 'sign' ...:D
I think I'm going for a NSD today - there's a little inclination to go bargain hunting to help pass the time but I think I'll head to the Freebies board instead OH has brought home a couple of gems in the past few days - a wooden door someone was throwing out which he's going to turn into a loft door (it's a large hole; already it's stopped a lot of the draught just being perched up there ) and a fantastic workbench which was thrown out at uni for his workshop. I've also requested a few things on Freecycle, including a slow cooker and a vegetarian slow cooker recipe book :T so fingers crossed!

liuhut

Hi everyone... hope you are all OK.

MrsMcawber - that sounds like a fantastic plan. Can I ask, do you have kids?? Just wondered how they deal with the moving. We are planning on going to Oz next year and I'm so worried how the kids are going to settle.

Well I'm back on track today...I've spent £1 towards t. Did my house ins last night and got it for £180...the renewal was £298 so pleased aabout that...stuck it on my MBNA card which I got £8.50 from quidco for. Its three months interest free so will pay it off over the next two. Also did OH car ins and got that for £120 full comp for the year....after the £90 from quidco. Savd my self about £180 yesterday so very pleased.

Off to put t out and then do some comps....

Janey51

redglass thats a good idea to use the copper pipes to keep slugs off. Never thought of that.:T We have humungous slugs here.
DH says he can build a fruit cage with some cheap netting we got and use the poles from 2 garden gazebos (only bits that survived the fire) to make a frame.
catshark88 I would love some chickens and am seriously considering some. We have the space but will have to wait until the re-building work has been done. Don't want them traumatised!
spendthrift I think I have a problem with toilet rolls. When we were at the market on Saturday, I went to the loo, as you do. They had obviously just changed the big circular toilet roll dispenser and the old bit, with a few dozen sheets still remaining, was on the cistern. Somehow, it found its way into my handbag.:o
And, because I always have my own sweeteners with me, when DH treated me to a coffee, I took 2 sachets of sugar off the table. Fair exchange

Janey51

The whole reason I am trying to be so frugal is because I am changing my job and today, I heard I have got it:j
I will be dropping from £14/hr to £6.51/hr :eek: but I will have my pension as well which will be about £155 a week on top. I have got 20 hrs initially but there is a load of extra hours available if I want. They wanted to offer me 10 but I negotiated up. Told them I wanted 30 when I knew I wanted 20 . 10 hrs is fine until you are on holiday or you go off sick :rolleyes:

I am so happy and nervous and oh heck, do I know what I'm doing :eek:

skintwellie

:T :T :T :T :T :T :T :T :T Congrats on your new job. I too left a very, very stressful, but well paid teaching job to become a cook. The pay is a third of what my teaching salary was but I am a much calmer, less stressed (but poorer) person. Money isn't everything - good health and well being is. I did get myself into debt (which is why I joined this challenge), but hopefully with all of the wonderful support from everyone I can get rid of my debts and learn to live a simpler life.

Just a quick note to say that I've found a Frugal Food recipe section on deliaonline.com

Love to you all.:j :A :A :A :A :A :A :j

Janey51 wrote: »

The whole reason I am trying to be so frugal is because I am changing my job and today, I heard I have got it:j
I will be dropping from £14/hr to £6.51/hr :eek: but I will have my pension as well which will be about £155 a week on top. I have got 20 hrs initially but there is a load of extra hours available if I want. They wanted to offer me 10 but I negotiated up. Told them I wanted 30 when I knew I wanted 20 . 10 hrs is fine until you are on holiday or you go off sick :rolleyes:

I am so happy and nervous and oh heck, do I know what I'm doing :eek:

liuhut

Janey. Just to say congratulations on your job...well done!!!

Janey51

Gone slightly over budget for the week but will be better next I hope. Spent £2.05 and .76p was on excess postage as I had a faulty item from an ebay seller which she replaced and sent me (so she said) the correct postage to send the faulty bit back. But it was 76p short:mad:
I will be calm. I will be calm. I will be calm.