Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

DdraigGoch

ROTFL

Thanks, Whitewing, you have really brightened up my day! :rotfl:

rathga

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

rathga - £15 a day!!!! :eek: faint, swoon, choke etc!

have you heard about the adopt a jumble-bee scheme? you could give up the food for just one year and adopt me for over 26 months!!!!! i would make you a lovely packed lunch, and you could keep me by your desk at work so i could make you coffee whenever you wanted

scary fact - one years work food budget also = about 7 and 3/4 years of my all-in food budget :eek:

I like the adoption idea! Actually thinking about it £3,600/year isn't dissimilar to what my lodger pays me in rent... but I wouldn't trust him to make me lunch.

You guys have convinced me. Maybe I can get it down a little. Let's say breakfast at home, a more conservative £4 lunch (do these exist? what does an M&S salad cost these days?), homemade smoothies instead of one snack, and the horrible coffee machine coffee (gah):

£2 snack
£4 lunch
£1 homemade smoothie
= £7/day

Just £1,680/year on work food. Hell, this money saving lark is easy!

dfw844

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update as it's the beginning of a new month! Got to rush out and vote though, so I'll be quick. Done my new signature too (hope it worked). Here's the old one:

Debt at highest Nov '06 £17,822.98
Debt at LBM Nov '07 £14,231.63
Debt at 1st April '08 £9,034.96 Just missed being under 9K!!!
AIMS: 1) Pay off credit cards by Dec 31st '08
2) Pay off overdrafts & loan by Dec 31st '09 to be DEBT FREE!


Went way over for last month. Sorry Nyk and everyone. Will do better. My total spends aim was £333.33, I spent £424.

So monthly totals:

Jan £241
Feb £324
Mar £627
Apr £424
TOTAL £1,616 AIM 1,333

I'm going to try my best to catch up though!

xx

PS Hi Ragtha, if you stick around here you'll soon be making your own lunch! Looking at my spending diary I only spent £7.93 the whole of last month on shop bought lunches! I'm sure there's a lot round here who think that's too much though... (It used to be more like 10 times that...)

lilac_lady

Hi Folks,

Glad to see that you're still here doing what you do best - encouraging other MSE-ers. I've retired at 60 and can recommend it. I've already got a voluntary job at the local hospital for 4 hours a week so that I don't miss the works company too much.

I watch the birds in my garden, read when I want to, meet up with friends and sometimes just watch the world go by.

When you get fed up economising, making do and stretching the pennies, keep going. There's nothing to beat retiring with no debt and no mortgage worries.

Frugaldom

In true frugan style, I am still attempting to win £15 per month via the free bingo tickets so I can cover the cost of my tax free friendly society bond - this shall be known as 'frugal bondage'!

With regards to the Beltane and May Day celebrations - I found mention of the frolics in the woods here and would quite like to try one of these one year and one day things, so if it didn't work out, we could at least say we'd tried it! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Edited in after reading my own post!- I'm talking about the handfast part, not the frolic in the woods! :rotfl:

In true frugan style, I am also in the midst of preparing the second meal from yesterday's £2.29 chicken which was served with potato wedges and veggies last night for dinner. Tonight's late offering is chicken & veggie curry with plenty of rice and tomorrow shall be chicken & mushroom pie with boiled potatoes & more veggies. This plan normally works well as it means I can get 9 individual meals out of a smallish chicken. :beer:
Edited in - Of course I remembered to make a pot of stock - it's cooled and ready for freezing now.

It has been dry enough to get all the towels hung out and dried today and , other than a very brief shower, it is still lovely and sunny outside. I haven't listed a single thing on eBay despite it being 5p listing day and I have sold one more item on eBid, invoiced and awaiting payment now - fingers crossed!

Hope you are all surviving free bingo and have all been to make sure that any monthly interest payments due have been deposited. I am still a little bit off of making £50 per month, coming in at £43.88, but I'm working on that. I'm not counting the dribs and drabs from current account, business account or ciggie savings account, only the HI and the ISA. So many challenges, so little time to sort it all out... but I'll let you all into the secret as soon as I can.

Pirategirl

Hi all, hope today is a bright day for all?

Mefinks i'm going to have to get in on this free bingo malarkey! Oh yes, it will be done.... I have read about the pre booking of tickets ..think thats the way to go! Then I can happily while away my eve on Slice The Pie

Apart from that....i'm going to look into growing peppers, which I think is an exciting thing.

Will go now, or I will start to ramble....once I start, who knows where I will end? My favourite subject of the minute is plastic igloos..that will give you some idea. *ahem*

*skedaddles*

Mollymop5

3 weeks of purchasing free bingo tickets and still not a penny One line would be enough for me.Oh well keep trying!

bails

Great news Rathga :T Now all you have to do is decide what you'll spend the extra money on :j

*coughs for attention please* I'VE JUST WON £10 ON THE BINGO!!! Wooooohoooooooo! :rotfl:I need the little dancing smiley if you could oblige please Nyk, about 10 of them should do it

Prudent

Well done bails :T :T

Frugaldom

Well Done Bails! Our first May Day winner and an excellent reason to add my special favourite smiley just for you

Sticking with the frugallife of eeking out, eating in and cheap cheap hobbies, I'm playing birdspotting whilst playing free bingo. Except I didn't need my binoculars! Look who is watching me watching them! :rotfl:

He/she is sitting looking in my window!!