2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Marru

Evening everybody,

I will join the celebrations of hitting 40 next year. I had my LO quite late. When I was 31 my mum told me that I had only 4 years left to have a child and as it happend I was right on schedule at 35 and half years old.

Re to Nyk's message way back about the challenge of earning online just enough to manage for £4k per year. I think it is absolutely brilliant. I have recently had to rethink a lot of things and realised that there are lots of things in this world and life that are more valuable - time being one of them. I guess we are brainwashed to keep running in the rat race so that we never stop and question what we are doing. At least that how I feel has happened to me. Last year I wouln't have even thought that there could be a possibility for me to train for new career having a 3 year old and being very mature student but now it all feels more believable and possible.

Re to Keren's message also way back I am in a really difficult financial situation and at the moment and that is why this challenge is so great. I would be spending too much money when I have it and not having it when the once a year bills hit the doormat. It makes me more aware of how much I am spending and also it is very empowering to realise how much control I can have of my finances and not being in a big salary anymore doesn't scare as much as it would have been hadn't there been all you lovely people. So thank you.

Re city vs country. I am really shocked when I realised how much I am driving after I moved to Somerset from London. I think that by the end of the year my car expenses in total are 50% of my budget :eek: . But on the other hand as has already been said by others my weakness in London was sandwich shops from where you could buy lovely feshly made sandwiches and soup and so often lunch time I was so hungry and always rushing somewhere that it was so easy to fall into popping into one of these places. I can't bring myself to calculate how much money I spent that way.

Now I have to make a confession. I am so so jealous of all of you who batch cook and bake. I have tried to think how I could fit that into my days but haven't quite managed to figure it out. I am so behind with my cleaning that I only manage little bits at the time meaning that house is never clean and tidy. Oh well. I tried to hoover today but LO insisted on helping. You can imagine how helpful it was. That is it, moaning finished.

3rd NSD on a row. Running out on cheese and spread but will try to stick it out as long as possible. Ok for tomorrow and LO goes back to eating lunch at nursery on Monday. Just need to do veggie pasta bolognese for tea for Monday. Enough tuna rissotto for tomorrow and if it runs out my faithful egg mess will always come to a rescue (=cross between omlet and scrambled eggs)

Hope everybody has had a good Saturday and very relaxing Sunday wishes to all.

Marru

PS Mumzy have a great trip and enjoy!

redglass_2

Marru wrote: »

Now I have to make a confession. I am so so jealous of all of you who batch cook and bake. I have tried to think how I could fit that into my days but haven't quite managed to figure it out.

Well, I was feeling really smug about my batch cooking today: cooked leeks and mushrooms over the woodstove, made a HUGE lasagne with them, topped it with tomato sauce from Mr L and put it in the oven to finish off. So frugal! I then ate most of it in one go. I'm not very tidy, either.

looby-loo_2

Hello, not posted for a while but I have been watching and doing my bit. I had a good Feb and March is on track. Feb credit card bill is only £346 and thats about it apart from usual bills. Phone has gone down by £20 using Option 3 (don't have cable here) and gas and electric is down too, by £5 a month but still. Council tax is higher (£165) but as that doesn't count for this well... I do have a new rescue cat and kitten to feed though.

Everyone else seems to be doing well - for the most part. Well done.

Marky Mark - double glazing. I noticed the other day that mine is the only house in the lane which does not have double glazing. Then I looked as I was driving to work, again, all except one tumbledown property have it. The windows are over 100 yrs old and are in good conditin so I think it's wasteful to change - but then I know I loose heat and this is wasteful too. I have some secondary glazing in the lounge and one bedroom which is good. I had an estimate to replace the bay and they quoted £12,000. I know it's big with 7 sections x 7' high but I still thought it was a lot, especially when what is there is in good condition. Oh dear, what to do? Leave it a bit longer!?!

andromache_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Hi Andromache, I hadn't forgotten you and was just having a little laugh at your signature - do you think you'll manage on what's left? It's the embarrassed smiley next to your figures that I find so funny, not you. :rotfl:

lol, glad to give you a giggle It looks pretty bad as I had big expenses in the first term like textbooks (which I will resell, don't worry!), society memberships, and other stuff. Also it took me that long to figure out how to make my money go further! I wasted quite a bit last term and have spent much less on essentials this term. (Although I spent more than I probably should have in the Jan sales!) I also have a couple of tricks up my sleeve... firstly, next term is exam term which means not much money will be spent on socialising, sadly... secondly, I have subtracted the money paid for my ball ticket (over £100 :eek:) but will add on the money I get from working at other balls (£85ish) when I get it (the only 'catch-up' scheme I am allowing myself)... and thirdly, I have a two-month 'get out of jail free card' since all my spends when I am travelling this summer will come out of that budget, not this one - though I will have to pay for a fair bit of train travel in September. Soooooo although it will be tight I remain optimistic that I will be able to catch up :cool: And if not... well... no harm in trying :rolleyes: Does it look like you'll be able to catch up as well?

ceridwen

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Not in the spirit of living on £4,000 - but what's new - we today had a visit from a window replacement company to replace some failed sealed double glazed units. I thought about 8 had failed - he reckoned 12 and he missed out one that I had included, so that makes 13 that need replacing at a cost of pretty close to £1,000.

We've lived in the house 11 years, and it was built 25 years ago, so I suppose it's not surprising that they have failed. We had 7 replaced not long after moving in, and the remaining ones have failed one by one over the intervening years.

It's one of those things that you can just ignore - they are just full of condensation and not very easy to see through - but it really should be sorted some time. If only it wasn't so much money!

By the way, DD is recovering well from her week of poorliness - the conjuncitivitis and ear infection seem to have pretty much gone, so just the constant runny nose to go now.

Not sure which is intriguing me most:

- how doubleglazed windows can "fail"? (crikey......I hope not......when I did mine I thought "Thats it - sorted for the rest of my life now".

- how you manage to get windows so cheaply - last one I had replaced was £450 I think.

Elucidation welcome on both points:D

FunBrum

Looby-loo...I'd leave the double glazing until you have to do it. Call me old fashioned, but I think that a traditional feature is so much nicer, especially in an older prperty. Just put another coat on if you're cold girl!:rotfl: :rotfl:

I made two huge pots of soup yesturday, and my lovely sister gave me a huge batch of rolls both brown and white as the resturant that she works part-time for, throw out whatever is left at the end of the night. Bless her, she had even packed them into freezer bags for me. She said that they throw out cherry tomatos too, and did I want them I almost bit her hand off! I'll be popping over to her...very posh....house this morning and will take her a few bowls of my soup to say thanks. If I play my cards right, I may never have to buy bread again. I only ever bought it from MR.M at closing time for 9p for 8-10 rolls anyhow!;)

I'll be eating out of the freezer and cupboards this week, so may come up with some 'stange' recipes.;) I want to empty the freezer for a another shopping spree....usually £20 worth!:rotfl:

I feel a bit stuck at the moment as I feel I can't move on until I've sorted my next few financial goals out, and that take time. I've never been good at patience and am rattling my brains trying to think of other ways to bring about my goals a lot faster. Just feeling a bit 'stuck' thats all.:o

MarkyMarkD

NYKThere's no balance on the Egg card - it was last used 18 months ago, probably for the last 0% deal (when they used to do them every anniversary). The normal spending is on Egg Money with 1% cashback.

Not sure what to do about the 40th yet. My brothers seem to expect some sort of international jet-setting celebration (they talked about flying to Christmas markets in Germany, or somewhere like that :rolleyes:) but I'm not sure. OH's 40th is 5 weeks after mine so it would probably be a joint thing if we do anything at all. It's a shame it's in the winter and so near Christmas because (a) it's cold and (b) there's lots of other stuff happening at that time of year.

Looby Loo I'm pretty sure that when they evaluate the cost-effectiveness of double glazing (replacing standard windows) it's never worthwhile. The energy savings save you some money, but not enough to repay the cost over a sensible term.

We have wooden framed double glazing and the £1,000 I've been talking about is to replace the glass, not the frames. If we had it all ripped out and new windows installed it would be more like £4,000 I reckon (for the faulty ones) or maybe £6-8,000 for the entire house. There's no way I'm going to do that.

We are one of the few houses in the road without replacement windows. But most of them were built with single glazed windows - the people we bought the house off upgraded to double glazed when they bought it brand new.

In our old terraced house in Bristol, we were very, very rare (in our street) in having original 1930s wooden windows with leaded lights which we loved. As soon as we sold the house, the philistines ripped them out and put in standard UPVC double glazed units. It's mad how people think it's a saving to get rid of something which has done the job for over 60 years.

ceridwen The sealed unit bit can, and does, fail - condensation gets between the panes and they are not repairable. The reason the price is (relatively) cheap is as described above - I'm replacing the glass, not the whole thing.

mah_jong

My food, household and toiletries amount to 43.82 month to date. I still have lots to eat in the freezer but need to make headway into the stuff that does not appeal!!

I have made meals out of much of the meat and frozen the portions. But there is still much to get through.

I spend most of my total on milk, veg and fruit.

markymarkd I too have replace three lots of glass when the 'blown' window is just a foggy mess or has streaks running down in between! My windows are now 21 years old. I think there are another 3 that are becoming worse (always more noticeable when the sun shines!).

I would never consider plastic white in an old property!

working_forever

I have received a letter from HMRC stating that I have underpaid an amount of £3000. I have always been PAYE and the letter states that this underpayment came about because of a change in the way tax credits were paid.
Evidently they were paid by my employer until 2003 and then paid directly from HMRC into my bank account from then. They say that my tax code should have been changed to reflect this but I have not received a tax code change in the past 10 years and my previous employer, Hertfordshire County Council say they did not receive any changes from the HMRC either.
What can I do, if anything as they say I have 30 days to pay and they will not give me time to pay off in instalments.
Thank you for any advice you can give me.

Marru

working_forever wrote: »

I have received a letter from HMRC stating that I have underpaid an amount of £3000. I have always been PAYE and the letter states that this underpayment came about because of a change in the way tax credits were paid.
Evidently they were paid by my employer until 2003 and then paid directly from HMRC into my bank account from then. They say that my tax code should have been changed to reflect this but I have not received a tax code change in the past 10 years and my previous employer, Hertfordshire County Council say they did not receive any changes from the HMRC either.
What can I do, if anything as they say I have 30 days to pay and they will not give me time to pay off in instalments.
Thank you for any advice you can give me.

I don't know if I can help (Marky might have more knowledge about this) but could you please tell for what tax year/years does this relate to?

Marru