2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Burlesque_Babe

My bread with the out of date yeast has come out fine! Well, it looks fine - the proof will be in the eating later I guess!

whitewing

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

(I'm okay, just having a budget crisis. Doing all right on the challenge itself but just had to transfer £500 from the savings acct to get us thro Feb. Should balance out over the year okay but am P**** off that while I am enthusiastically trying to get my spending under control, the WHOLE DAMN WORLD is conspiring to trip me up!! I mean OH is sitting there eating 4 slices of bread, 4! How dare he! DS advised me that he needs protein at every meal!! Don't worry I'm not really letting them all starve. )

I feel that I'm on a helter-skelter at the moment. One moment whooping with the thrill, and the next landing in a heap in the floor.

OH needs to get his (foreign) passport renewed. I wouldn't mind, expect that we paid for it last year, then he needed to send more stuff and he didn't send it back in time so it all needs to be started again. He chooses this morning to tell me. Just after I had said about my wages from my part-time job temporarily going down for 2 months. Great timing. I know he's actually trying to be helpful and bring this stuff up earlier than he would normally but I just want to SSSSSSSSCCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMMMM!

Oh well, a learning process for us all. I don't mind the difficulties now eg borrowing from the savings acct. I'm just worried that it'll get to a stage where I can't pay myself back. It annoys me that now I've got a great attitude to money, I still can't seem to get it to go right! Keep focused on the fact that I am getting better I suppose.

broke_mum_of_three

nykmedia wrote: »

2007/8 year personal allowance was £5,225 and the 2008/9 figure is £5,435

Just got a letter from Tax Office today
No tax up to £5435
at 20% on the first £34600
at 40% on the anything over £40035 In practice, your tax free amount is spread over the whole year, so you can receive about £453 a month, Or £105 a week before you get taxed, so if you could live on the £5435 how great would that be:j . I just worry about pension schemes though Nyk as you quite rightly say you have no control over your money.

hopeless_spendthrift

:rotfl: :rotfl: A very good afternoon to you all my fellow funny frugalitis ridden challengers. :hello:

How very interesting your posts have been today - and how hilarious! :rotfl: Thank u all so much for brightening my day yet again. :A

Twas a NSD for me yesterday yay! _party_ Had planned another for today, but, alas, just checked my bank account to find that a cheque for £17.40 has gone out this morning...?
Ah-ha! Do not fear my fantastic fellow frugalactically infested foragers, on closer inspection of my cheque book I find that the said cheque was sent to a company called DAXON, who dropped me a catalogue through the post ( probably as a result of the frantic clicking that's been going down here! ), with a £3 voucher, promising me a FREE COAT :shocked: if I placed an order over £10!!! I did so - bought a couple of tops, but if the coat comes with I shall be over the moon! :j It is a three-quarter length style, beige in colour with a fur-lined hood. Looks very warm and stylish in the picture and I really do need a coat

I also appear to be showing signs of Lollopy's Evangelical Frugalitis - oh dear - although yes! the padded cell does sound like the perfect solution for a clear run of NSD's, so a lucrative side-effect after all :rotfl:

Wishing you all a peaceful day x x x :happyhear

LollopyBear

((((Whitewing)))) I can hear your frustration! You are doing fantastically well and it will even out in the course of the year, particularly as you get better and better at frugal living. We're all here for you so keep venting It does help!

Frugaldom

broke_mum_of_three wrote: »

Just got a letter from Tax Office today
No tax up to £5435
at 20% on the first £34600
at 40% on the anything over £40035 In practice, your tax free amount is spread over the whole year, so you can receive about £453 a month, Or £105 a week before you get taxed, so if you could live on the £5435 how great would that be:j . I just worry about pension schemes though Nyk as you quite rightly say you have no control over your money.

You need to make National Insurance payments on everything over £87 per week (£90 from April 2008) If, however, you earn less than this (ie £76.50 on this challenge) then you can claim a small earnings exemption. This, however, I wouldn't advise. Instead, it may be more beneficial to voluntarily pay the £2.20 (£2.30 from April 2008) per week contributions, which count towards your basic state pension and other such 'benefits'. All of these things are handy to know if you decide to call it a day in the rat race and register as self-employed fulltime from home - aiming to earn enough to fill your budget target (without paying tax). Umm... does this sound unethical? It's basically financial self-sufficiency

princess_leia_3

keren29 wrote: »

My bread with the out of date yeast has come out fine! Well, it looks fine - the proof will be in the eating later I guess!

Thats good to hear, I have made another duff loaf today - the top keeps sinking and its states that this is either 1. The ingrediants are too warm (could not be that) 2. too much water/ flour - but I measured exact because of the last loaf :mad: I stopped using this recipe as it was so unreliable but the bread (when it turns out) is so much nicer and lighter than another recipe I have - which involves milk powder???

Does anyone have a real foolproof recipe they use each and everytime? I have written down Mcawbers recipe but not sure if thats OK in a BM?

Anybody else

broke_mum_of_three

princess_leia wrote: »

Does anyone have a real foolproof recipe they use each and everytime? I have written down Mcawbers recipe but not sure if thats OK in a BM?

Anybody else

I'm not sure if you are using a breadmaker or not, but I use a crusty white farmhouse bread mix out of Mr T's which makes a large loaf in the breadmaker, its foolproof as all I have to do is add water, it costs about 52p or 54p, its not ideal for sandwiches ( as I cut it like doorsteps) but lovely with soup or stews.

princess_leia_3

Thanks, yes I do have a bread machine and have used these mixes before and do like them but trying to be a bit tighter than this and go for the make from scratch!
I think I will try that farmhouse one tho as it does sound delicious

Frugaldom

Whitewing, you have my utmost sympathies as it certainly does, OFTEN, feel as though the world is conspiring against you, especially when you think you are just getting into the swing of escaping or narrowly avoiding the 'rat trap'. It's just a 'society in general' thing, though, and you soon start to see how it all happens and how we are only a tiny part of what is going on around us.

Sit down with a cuppa and review your situation. Look at your current predicament with a slightly wider angle lens, so to speak, and you'll soon see that the 2 months reduction in income probably coincides with the 2 months non-payment of council tax for most. You can then see that these coincidences are, annoyingly, all around us! Then, as director, producer and editor of your personal Frugal moviemaking, see how humorous your storyline is - 21st Century modern-day Britain where the average income is reported as £31k net, yet it is still possible to get annoyed by someone consuming 4 slices of bread when 2 could have sufficed! :T :T You have to laugh, otherwise you'd err.... end up in that padded cell feeling grateful for 3 square meals a day and no Council Tax to pay :rotfl:

PS: on the breadmaking front - I have tried the one on the dried yeast packs (I hand make mine, don't have a BM) and they seem pretty foolproof.

I substituted half the water with milk in my yesterday's loaf and it has, indeed, led to a much softer crust. In fact, when I took the loaf out of the tin, it was practically crustless around edges and base! Hmm... quarter of it gone when it came out the oven, quarter of it at lunchtime today toasted with cheese and pickle, leaves half the little loaf to last until tomorrow plus the comment, "this makes ordinary bread toast taste like cardboard!", so that could only be a compliment :j