2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

mumzyof2

Morning all, i havent been out yet so havent spent anything. I have 3 cigs left.. :$ hope everyone is good

MSHAWX

Morning all - what a glorious day after the scarey wind last night.

O2 - have been with them for ages £16.00 per month
Broadband - 20.48 per month
Talk Talk, - around £20 per month

I was talking to BT last week and they have a package called option2 which costs £11.00 per month including VAT with free phone calls after 6pm and all weekend. I need to work out my pattern of phone calls to see if it's worth while changing.

I've just realised that I need to add in the cost to the monthly spend, it goes out by direct debit and I've forgotten to add it in. Oh dear - how could I be so stupid ?? -don't answer that!! It's blown a hole in this month budget.

lilac_lady

Reading the posts I'm in awe of you all. I've had my turn at having to be very frugal after my divorce so I'm not joining in the challenge. I'll continue to be motivated by you all as I'm shortly joining the ranks of state pensioners

I suppose I met my personal challenge of having no debts or mortgage payments before I retired so I'm happy to follow the good advice here which hopefully will continue my quest for a secure financial future. I'm at the stage of not wanting much for myself but I get my satisfaction in helping out my family by buying grandchildren's shoes etc, and giving a bit more to charity. I do treat myself sometimes but it's hard to break the frugal habit.
I had a hard 7 years paying off my mortgage but to all you frugalites who are struggling, it was definitely worth the hard work. Good luck to you all.

Frugaldom

pennib wrote: »

Nykmedia, can I ask where you are going to buy a house? In the UK or abroad like Spain or Poland etc? I have been reading your posts and think they are great. I can imagine that you would be happy living in a renovated gypsy caravan :rotfl: surrounded by various animals with veg and fruit to hand.

I would like to have bought a house in Spain (a do upper) but hubby didnt want to.:mad: but I have to admit the language was a bit of a small problem:rolleyes:

I only come out of lurkdom rarely but I have a lot of respect to you all for conquering your debts and read the posts regularly, so I
now think twice before buying unnecessary stuff.

Pennib

Hi Pennib, welcome out into the open forum of frugality, thanks for visiting us here

I'm saving to buy in Scotland but your renovated gypsy caravan sounds a lovely idea! Unfortunately, I have family who expect 'normal' life, so that's not an option, and I work from home, so need access to stuff that lifestyle wouldn't be able to provide. But if you scaled it up a little bit then I'd probably be happy with that :rotfl:

Hi everyone else - I'm on free dial-up from where I'm working today. so can catch up with the posts soon

mumzyof2

NYK - I thought you didnt work? hehe Or did i dream you said that lol

Well i have 68.48 to find my the 11th as im now on final notice with westcot... as i didnt pay for about 7weeks now but it was at £209.00. Balance now £68.48 so i have just paid £18.48..and i will pay the remianing from now till saturday this week is going to be a toughie to make ends meet

Doom_and_Gloom

Ok so in Feb my running total came to £224.89 so that means so far this year I have spent £479.64 out of my £3,000 leaving me with £2,520.36 for the rest of the year. Not sure if I'll make that but kind of have to at the moment as am on JSA but despratly (sp???) trying to find a job :rolleyes: . Oh well. I hope it's going better for everyone else hehe. Hrm not sure what this month will be like (March) as I have mothers day AND my mums birthday this month :eek: . Why did she have to be born so damn close to mothers day I'll never know .
Spent so far = £479.64 Left of budget = £2,520.36

Frugaldom

Have been reading and typing little bits and pieces throughout the afternoon, now on to post it and hope it's not all complete rubbish :rotfl:

Mumzy - your weekly figure is worked out by adding up everything you need to pay over the full year and then dividing it by the number of weeks. Remember some weeks will be different from others, it doesn't mean you actually HAVE that amount. My weekly average should be £76.50, monthly should be £333.33, but I spent twice thatin January because of bills. Everything works out fine as long as you remember that anything left over from your weekly allowance needs to be kept for paying future bills, it isn't 'extra'.

Brokemum - I use the soapnuts and a few drops of essential oil (lemon or lavander works well) but have also used the vinegar at the same time. Nobody has noticed any difference in the washing so nobody is missing the shop bought powder or liquid.

Whitewing - well done with the mortgage overpayment! Hope you enjoy dinner with the family.

Funbrum, I'm glad there are a few of us who are aiming in the same direction and I wish you every success with your 5 year plan. Are you in your own house or renting at the moment? And good luck with the frugal February 'count-up' I must also add that being easily entertained certainly helps when you are frugal, however, some may say it's easier to switch on the TV... I usually fine watching washing dry to be much more interesting

Grandma - nothing odd about hanging out the washing and admiring it - do you get annoyed when you see squinty washing hanging on a line? (Or is that just another of my little eccentricities?) I would hate to live somewhere without outside drying space. My daughter has to bring her stuff to mine as she has no garden, no drying area and no tumble dryer, so there's washing hanging out quite often here. However, with no radiators to hang it over or near, Ive still to use the tumble dryer at nights.

Lollopy - WOW on the spends! Be brave, I say, face that scarey man in the papershop :rotfl: You could always send a written cancelation letter then never go back in the shop! Now, I need to ask... what is Queens Feast?

MarkyM - I could do far better with my Internet & telephone charges but most companies tie you into a contract, which is no good when you have to keep moving house (8 addresses in 7 years!) I hardly ever use my mobile, which is PAYG. Will remedy this when I eventually find myself a permanent address, along with saving on electricity.

Bails - I laughed at your reference to the interest payments. I couldn't wait to check mine as I was worried about the interest cuts! If I could just save enough to LIVE off the interest then it would be great! Next up is Premium Bonds draw... if only...

Bails & Marru - Please, no more talk of the animal rescue ... that was one of the main reasons I never had any spare cash - it ALL went on animals LOL

Mumzy.... 3 CIGS??? What happened to quitting? Don't take this the wrong way, but how much are you smoking now? Did you manage to cut down? Workwise, I'm self-employed based from home plus I take temporary & part-time jobs to supplement my income whenever I can. Working from home means I'm there when DD needs me to babysit and I no longer need a car, as I have no regular travel. It actually saves me money

MSHAWX - BT are reducing the cost of their option 3 package, I got a letter in about it last week. I posted about it on here a few pages back, as it was the all day plan with extra discount for direct debit and paper free billing.

Doom_and_Gloom - your grocery challenge target - is that for one person? Pressie-wise, I'm giving everyone homemade cards and small homemade gifts this year.

My waffling part - I am trying to cut down on what I call my 'silly little spends' as they amounted to over £500 last year! I certainly couldn't afford that this year on a 4k budget, for various reasons, but I am going to pay far stricter attention to how much tax I pay this year.
Believe it or not, last year I probably paid more tax on my spending than I did in my job! THAT was what made me quit smoking and start reassessing my eating and spending habits. Amazingly, there are still many people who are unaware of the fact that tax is charged on so many foodstuffs. I don't want to get into a political debate about this but the fact is, the Government makes cash out of a great deal of the food that supermarkets chuck out at the end of the night, so why would they want supermarkets to cut down on the amount that got bought in? What's more, when it gets dumped, there's also landfill tax. So... for my newest column in my spending stakes ledger, I'm going to include any tax I pay that isn't income tax or Council Tax. It should make interesting reading (I think?).

PS: Tax is topic of the day with the budget looming, the end of the tax year looming and this year's accounts due in soon, so skip this post, too, if it's of no interest to you

bails

Marru wrote: »

Hi Bails! When do we move? :j

Marru

Hmm, good question! I'll let you know at the end of this challenge when I know how much I've saved. Not for quite a while though...:( Although adjacent smallholdings/shared rescue centre... Where do you fancy setting up?

Feb totals (not sure I did this for January so nowt to compare to, will have to get round to that):
Groceries - £210.75 this includes a cupboard full of cat food :oand 2 big shops for March but technically bought in Feb (will need to tie up this and GC or will get confusing)
Presents - £11.35
Bills - £80.37
Home maintenance - £11.48
Entertainment - £49.88 :eek:
Stationery - £22.34 (bulk buy of cheap stamps and a MSbook for £2.99)

Hmm, the entertainment needs to be worked on, me thinks - this includes DVD rental DD, cinema, several tea and cake out and a theatre trip. I blame OH entirely for the tea and cakes - he has this rather bad habit of suggesting walks (great for getting me out of the house) which end at riverside cafes (not so great). This isn't included in our 4K budget though as it's luxuries, but was still revealing to tot it up and go :eek:.

So total spend for Feb = £336.29
I'm going to wait til tomorrow to deduct this week's spends from my total or I'll royally confuse myself (not hard these days:D). On the plus side, we've saved £272.21 jointly and I've saved £201.31 so £473.52 in total :T:j

Marru

nykmedia wrote: »

I use the soapnuts and a few drops of essential oil (lemon or lavander works well) but have also used the vinegar at the same time. Nobody has noticed any difference in the washing so nobody is missing the shop bought powder or liquid.

Where can I get soapnuts and how do I use them?

nykmedia wrote: »

Bails & Marru - Please, no more talk of the animal rescue ... that was one of the main reasons I never had any spare cash - it ALL went on animals LOL

I would be happier being broke because it all went to animals instead my money went to dodgy business people in disastorous franchise operation.

nykmedia wrote: »

Government makes cash out of a great deal of the food that supermarkets chuck out at the end of the night, so why would they want supermarkets to cut down on the amount that got bought in?

I don't think Goverment makes money from the VAT on the food stuff that is thrown away. Supermarkets deduct the VAT they pay to their suppliers from the VAT that they charge from their customers that is us so that the end user always ends up paying the VAT. No end user - no VAT. I hope this makes sense.

Marru

Marru

bails wrote: »

Hmm, good question! I'll let you know at the end of this challenge when I know how much I've saved. Not for quite a while though...:( Although adjacent smallholdings/shared rescue centre... Where do you fancy setting up?

I thought I would stay here in Somerset but would love the Lakes. Going to animal communication course to Windemere in June for a weekend (already paid for so won't muck up the challenge uh, except the petrol) and that will be my first trip up there. Have wanted to go for a long time thou.

Ok Nyk, we have finished now .

Marru