2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

always_amazed

nyk, they are so bad at the underestimation thing! We've just had a £500 extra whacked onto the bill, luckily Dad had noticed that they were underestimating and had put some cash aside.
We are in very chilly north of mid scotland. Luckily there are good public transport links, sadly very warm and cozy pubs nearby.

Chollita

Not that it'll make you poor, freezing Scots jealous, but ... I live in Spain, and Christmas Day was about 16C ...

OH and I are living on a very low budget at the moment, so I'm always looking for free or very cheap things to do. We are lucky enough to live in the middle of a major city, and can walk to all kinds of interesting places. It's nice to just stroll around town and look in shop windows or at the buildings. On Christmas Eve, we walked in some gardens, like Mini and OH, and just had a lovely time being together.

I'm great at living on a budget, but could really do with some new clothes. Not an option at the moment though, and charity shops are pretty much unknown here. Never mind, love is free ...

mini_huny_money

nykmedia wrote: »

Quick hello from freezing southwest Scotland. I'm going to be checking my electricity meter next year as, having moved house recently, it looks like they have grossly underestimated the first bill, meaning that the next one is going to be astronomical. I've just read through the relevant thread in the forums and am still none the wiser for the huge variation in utilities bills. Have also searched for a thread that can recommend the most cost effective electric heaters - living in rented accommodation (rather draughty, high ceilings, windows in need of replacement and a generally odd-shaped house all round) whilst saving to buy, no gas here, only storage heaters & hot water on E7 plus electric heaters as there's no heating at all on ground floor.) If my calculations are correct, I could be facing a £500 bill next month at this rate. ALL suggestions welcome. Off to find a chimney sweep now, and hope I get some winter woolies for Christmas

hya all.....hope everyone had a lovely day, I was pretty spoiled ...lots of goodies, new leather purse and bag, son bought me after a few hints, as I was desperately needing new so I dont need to replace that, lots of bath stuff and smellies.plenty of books though I must say am an avid reader and devour books, I havent read as much since joining MSE...... cos I spend so much time on here reading everyones threeads.....so thats already moneysaving.
Am changin my contract phone in Feb to PAYG and OH bought me a phone that will take a PAYG SIM and also can do SKYPE calls. Am absolutely hopeless with phones so he always buys me my phones!!! Lay in bed last night reading ,snuggled up to OH the book he bought me ......Martins Money Saving Diet Book!!!!!

I need to sort out my power bills. Am with NPOWER at the minute and I usually find it too much hassle to keep switching......am so lazy.....but this year Im wantin to put a lot more effort in. Does anyone know if theres a site where I can put in my readings, say weekly, and can calculate how much the heating etc is costing me. This is the first year Ive not had a card for my gas and though it was costing me more, I could keep more of an eye on how much my heating had cost me.
And hopefully the next few days will be no spend days, lots of leftovers to eat, did Nigella's ham cooked in cola and its delicious so we're having that today......and am still in my new jammies and dressing gown so def wont be goin out to spend

dreams_R_free

mini_huny_money wrote: »

did Nigella's ham cooked in cola and its delicious so we're having that today

So glad you had a lovely Christmas Day, mini, with lots of thoughtfully-chosen gifts.

I wondered what the Nigella ham in cola would actually taste like. There's a ham joint in the fridge so I think I'll risk it now you've said it's delicious. Thanks:beer:

I'm with nPower too and it's been a series of disasters with the DD payments. Have been on monthly DD with them for a few years and then in June they stopped taking payments apparently because of a problem with their 'system':rolleyes: . Then they sent me a letter in December telling me I was over £500 in arrears and would I please pay it asap:eek: . I phoned them and they said to just ignore it as I shouldn't have received that letter at all! They've now upped my DD by £40 a month to cover the deficit(without asking first if such a big increase was OK). We have no mains gas in our village so use a fair bit of electricity. I keep looking at the switch sites and couldn't really get it any cheaper last time I looked. I might try again in Jan, even if it's only a saving of £1 a month it would be worth it to be rid of nPower's incompetence.

Good Luck:beer:

whitewing

Hi All,

We seem to be warmer since we bought our dehumidifier, and don't have the fire on quite as high.

With regard to how to keep tabs on the amount spent, I have decided to keep things really simple. So I will be checking my balance online virtually each day and then putting the amounts of the things that are in the challenge on a simple excel spreadsheet and just doing a running total.

I will transfer money between accts (eg phone bill is quarterly so I will save each month for that) but I won't put that on until the bill is paid. So some months I may spend more than the one-twelfth, but I'll deal with that separately. If I make things too complicated I won't do it at all.

dreams_R_free

I was wondering how everyone was planning to report in on their successes/failures in this challenge. I like your plan, whitewing:beer: .

I think I'll keep a running total in a spreadsheet/notebook and just update my totals on here at the very end of each month when everything's been accounted for and totted up. I'll be doing it by calendar month for convenience, the initial £5000 target figure divided into 12 equal amounts of £416.66 each month. That way I'll soon see where I have to make any extra cutbacks and if(unlikely I know:rolleyes: ) any month I spend less than that I'll know I have a bit in reserve in case any unexpected bills:eek: crop up.

This might not be what others are doing but I think it might work for me and something certainly has to!

Have a good Boxing Day, everyone:beer:
Imp

Penny2myName

Since I forgot to put the chocolate oranges in kids stockings and to bring the boxes of chocolates down for Christmas, think I will save them and do them for :EasterBunEaster. Which gives me a head start to saving some pennies for next year.

mini_huny_money

hya Imp hope you enjoy the ham in cola....Ive been picking at it all afternoon. I need to stop!!!!On the recipe Nigella says the cola stock can be kept as the base for a black bean soup....cant find it, can anyone help. Have chilled it anyway....not quite sure how boiled cola freezes.

Am not sure how I'll post....I usually check my balance daily too, I was thinking about posting weekly just to keep me motivated and till I get into it.

mini_huny_money

Impomdasp wrote: »

So glad you had a lovely Christmas Day, mini, with lots of thoughtfully-chosen gifts.

I wondered what the Nigella ham in cola would actually taste like. There's a ham joint in the fridge so I think I'll risk it now you've said it's delicious. Thanks:beer:

I'm with nPower too and it's been a series of disasters with the DD payments. Have been on monthly DD with them for a few years and then in June they stopped taking payments apparently because of a problem with their 'system':rolleyes: . Then they sent me a letter in December telling me I was over £500 in arrears and would I please pay it asap:eek: . I phoned them and they said to just ignore it as I shouldn't have received that letter at all! They've now upped my DD by £40 a month to cover the deficit(without asking first if such a big increase was OK). We have no mains gas in our village so use a fair bit of electricity. I keep looking at the switch sites and couldn't really get it any cheaper last time I looked. I might try again in Jan, even if it's only a saving of £1 a month it would be worth it to be rid of nPower's incompetence.

Good Luck:beer:

They did that with me too Imp. I noticed on my statement that there was no DD coming out and hadnt been since MAY....Then I got a letter from them saying that They were coming round to cut me off....:eek: Though the call centre was helpful and got it stopped though it shouldnt have happened in the first place. ...have got the heebies though how much heating is going to cost me this year. Dont know if anyone feels the same but I can cut back on practically everything but if the house isnt comfy, I cant get motivated to do anything, except the ironoing, I always get nice and warm doing the ironing.

Frugaldom

Hello to all, I hope you all had a great time yesterday :beer: .

:money: I see I wasn't the only one to help raise Martin a few extra book royalties - I got a copy of each of his titles plus several others about frugal living, money saving and entrepreneur life stories - a signed copy of Duncan Bannatyne's book, to name but one.

Kitchen cupboards are well stocked with pre-Christmas BOGOF bargains, I have several surplus pressies that will be stashed away until needed and I'm reading the electricity meter every night this week so I can work at cutting the bills in 2008. I'm on Economy 7 tariff, so I set the timer on the cooker last night and left the turkey stock to switch on, simmer and switch off whilst watching a late film; result - 2 litres of fresh stock now decanted into an empty milk carton and into the freezer. I guess it's turkey for dinner tonight and some sort of prawn & veggie concoction tomorrow. I even managed to rescue a bread baking tin that a friend was going to bin, so home baked bread is always an option if I care to get up early and bake it whilst the electricity is on cheap rate! There! That should make me sound totally barmy and frugal to the point of obsession :rotfl:

I checked the utilities comparison sites and found Scottish Power was still my best option but spotted a few other payment options I hadn't known about. I hadn't a clue how wide ranging the prices were within a single company! Not quite finished reading the downloaded pdf files but there's one pan that lets you key in your own meter reading each month and pay instantly online. I already get the 'prompt payment discount', so that's another few pounds saved, but need to catch up with the previous underestimates. I may have to bite the bullet and pay over £500 in order to make the most of this option :eek:
Next up, umm... mum loved her Cash Cow, dad loved his filled sealed bank and I have now downloaded the MSE 'demotivator' to make sure I change lanes in 2008 from casual smoker to complete non-smoker. It could save me almost £500 over a year... nearly equivalent to the electricity underestimate calculation!

I'm charting my spending in a spreadsheet but plan to update my signature to reflect expenditure from my original £4000. Please, please keep listing hints and tips, diary notes and updates so I know I'm not the only one trying to turn a shoestring into a piece of money elastic.

Off to join the 'quit smoking' thread now and hope they accept me there, then I'll be gearing up for the 'start a cottage industry' challenge with all my scraps and offcuts donated from various associates who all think I am totally insane. Keep on having fun and catch you all soon.