2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Janey51

£10.49 spend today so doing OK. Had to buy some things for DH on his diet as he is sick of eggs
I saw a link to a site with a recipe for making your own liquid detergent.I will have to do a search on MSE to see where I can pick up a cheap supply of borax. I know where to get small boxes of it but it looks as if you need a fair bit more than that to mix up the detergent.
I have already ordered a sample pack of soap nuts to see if I like them.

slowlyfading

:hello: everyone.
I've spent £21.53 today. I had a piano lesson so that was £20 and then I needed milk and bread, and treated myself to some chocolate I think I'm still on track for the year though
sf x

Hardup_Hester

I'm not sure if this is relevant here, but I moved £240 from my current account to the savings, this equates to 2 months Council tax, and Jan & Feb are my 2 'free' months, I also made £41.76 on amazon so I moved £30 of that across too. I'm hoping this will cover my car tax, MOT etc later on in the year.

LollopyBear

£8.64 spent today. Hmph. £5 - Train ticket, £2.04 for 6 1st Class stamps (are they really THAT expensive now?) and then £1.60 for a bus from school to the station. I could have waited in school til 5pm (from 3.15) for a lift back and probably would have done except I had a splitting headache. It's better now and I was able to pick up a bit at home.

Why are the options normally time or money? I need some more time so I spend less money!

Thanks for the info about insurance You are all so helpful that I can't wait to check this thread each day.

*Lollopybear is feelin' the love today *

Frugaldom

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is relevant here, but I moved £240 from my current account to the savings, this equates to 2 months Council tax, and Jan & Feb are my 2 'free' months, I also made £41.76 on amazon so I moved £30 of that across too. I'm hoping this will cover my car tax, MOT etc later on in the year.

Hi Hester, You have made an excellent decision, IMHO, to switch the 2 months' council tax money into savings for later in the year as it means you will gain a little bit extra dosh from the interest :T I transfer everything extra into my [new] high interest account and will transfer from there to ISA as soon as the new tax year begins. I find it so much easier to set a figure of 'what's needed' in the savings pot and then look on that as being the equivalent of debt that I need to pay off My 'new debt' will be £3,600 from April, but I'm chipping away at it already via my 'house fund'

PS: Today was a NSD. I received one free sample of Olay Definity (goes into a gift box), I cancelled my Toluna account (I thought it was useless for me), I ordered the Happy Hippos game with more of my iPoints - it's for the pressie cupboard, honest

halia

weel this month isn't being a brilliant one but I did imagine it would be a bit tough to stay on budget as we're having to get used to cutting our spending down by HALF!

OH is good at giving me reciepts but there have been a few 'big' purchases. OH bought as a belated Xmas present a mount cutter and mountboard. We have lots of pictures and photos and some old frames and after decorating we wanted to put the pictures up. But they look soooo much better framed!

So total cost so far:
frames (some new ones from wilko's + 15 old ones repainted black) = £20
mount cutter (ebay) £80
mount board £30
pictures (saved from variuos places over the years)
photo printing £15 on ink catridges and photo paper for printing out digital images of our wedding day/ baby etc)

£145 and we have 6 pictures done already and looking great! the idea is that we will save on buying 'ready made' art, plus save on getting any of our photo's framed, and be able to frame things up as presents for grandparents etc.

Laurabelle

I was doing really well today just brought a valentines card and an aubergine until I walked through the door to see a note from the past office saying that I owed £1.40 on a package plus £1 handling fee!

Im gonna be having words with the person who sent it to me!

bails

A NSD for me here

Well, we've made a final decision and we won't be moving north... I know that this is the right thing for us at the mo but I can't help feeling really sad about it, especially as all my friends live up there. So that's me off to make some new mates down here and, on the plus side, it does mean I can start my veg garden this year! :j

Tomorrow is a day of Ebay and finding cheap deals for contents insurance, breakdown cover and pet insurance. Also going to try and sell my car for parts. So busy bee, hoping to save some serious cash Our £60 has now been paid to Quidco from BG so that should come at the end of the month - we're going to put this (and our phone switch cashback when it arrives) towards a slimline dishwaher, which may seem like an extravagance but will seriously add to my quality of life; can't wait!
At the beginning of next month when I know exactly what our new bills will be, I'm going to squirrel away the CT and water money into a high interest account too :T

Thanks peeps, this thread is guaranteed to put a smile on my face; I know my dream has been postponed, not lost forever.

skintwellie

My soapnuts sample arrived today - my friend who was here at the time didn't look convinced, so have decided to try them out on the dog's bed and towels.

Re the cat poo from this morning's thread, it would appear that poor moggie is unwell - looks like a trip to uncle vet 2morrow. (Only dog is covered by pet insurance). Looks like I'll be over budget yet again! Weekly spend getting smaller every week!!!!!! :eek: Will be recalculating yet again at end of month!

Managed to spend £8.49 in Mr S. when getting my mum's shopping - lots of reduced veg, bread, etc. So not too bad.

whitewing

Thanks Hopeless, for your encouragement. And everyone for the updates.

Hmmm, seen another thread and am tempted to pot-grow potatoes. My dad has probably got seed ones I could nab. I'm at the stage where even widdly saves seem like a great idea.

My brother asked us to get him some shaving foam and blades. He keeps laughing at me because now I ask for the money upfront (well, we were watching Martin at the time). Anyway, he gave me the money and I've decided that we'll use the boots voucher towards it. So I've converted that to cash now for the bread and milk we desperately need. That should help.

Had chips for tea at aunty's (while DS was receiving his free haircut). Normally we'd've bought fish and a chicken nugget meal too. But we were good and took over a box of chicken burgers. So a nice social family event for £3.60 spend. And another aunt popped in later and said that we could use her Clark's one third off discount card when we wanted new shoes for DS. So lots of potential there.

Is looking like our attempts to meet this challenge are not going to let us overpay on the mortgage anywhere near as much as I want, which I'm disappointed about because I thought I'd been realistic with my target (plus the mortgage, water & council tax). But maybe it's only because the start of the year has incurred some of the charges earlier and larger than expected. Changed car and tax for new (old) car is due in a few days, old car was May. Council tax got cocked up a bit when I moved house so am paying slightly more a month than originally budgeted for this year. (Last year's limited and ill-planned budget went completely wrong with moving house a year earlier than we ever expected). And I think our council-tax-free months are later than yours. Maybe by August things will look healthier. Perhaps I just accept that I need to bail myself out from savings for three months and then pay back gradually. Didn't want to do that in case it's the start of a slippery slope.

Good day on the organisation side of things (although you wouldn't think so from the piles of papers all over the living room). Will carry on with that tomorrow.

Onwards and backwards! Good luck everyone and keep going.