Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

mumzyof2

Afternoon all, I have just done my total without cigs and i have spent £9.08

Frugaldom

Just popping on for more free bingo tickets but still think they only let you win if you spend some money now and again - could be fixed somehow to prevent abuse by freebie grabbers. Still, there's always the law of averages, as I say every week.

Finished digging & weeding the (soon to be) veggie patch and as soon as I turned my back, one of the neighbour's cats appeared, started digging and then squatted right in the middle of the newly weeded garden. Does anyone know how to prevent this? neighbour has umpteen cats that wander around and the garden is going to get wrecked! They use the lawn and the supposed veggie patch as a toilet, they scare off all the birds, they have already broken my bird table by climbing up inside it, they eat everything I put out for the birds and, animal lover or not, I know what I would really like to do to these cats! :mad: :mad: :mad: And if they don't wreck it, the thousands of snails will!

Gotta go, dinner's burning! OOPS!

Prudent

Whitewing I hope evrything gets sorted.

Bails well done on the win

Sohpiesmum I always budget in the odd luch with friends, worth every penny

NYK - I hope your lease is renewed ok after all that hard work in the garden. Scottish house prices seem to be falling, at least in my area. So hopefully your wait wont be so long.

I am just checking in quickly this eve. I have started writing my class reports and it takes forever, so will be busy in the eves for a few weeks.

Had an email today to say I have won skincare worth £350. It posh Armani stuff, so probably one pot :rotfl:

guiri

nykmedia wrote: »

Hello Guiri, I think you must be refering to the following 2 lifestyles:


Lifestyle/Family 1
Couple with 2 of a family, husband works full time on a salary of £30,000 and wife is a full time mother/homemaker (not sure what the politically correct term for this category is any more!) Total income approx £452 per week including Child Benefit.

Mortgage & Buildings insurance - £740 per month = £170 per week
Council Tax/Water - £125 per month = £24 per week
2 cars, both on HP - £300 per month = £70 week
2 x road tax, insurance, servicing, petrol/diesel etc = £270 per month = £62 week
Credit cards - £100 per month = £23 week
Bank loan - £100 per month = £23 week
Total expenditure before actual living expenses - £372 per week
Balance to live off - £80 for everything else (£4182.85 for the year)

Lifestyle/Family 2
Couple with 2 of a family, husband works full time, wife part time, joint salary of £18,000 plus Child Benefit, total income approx £300 per week

Mortgage & Buildings insurance - £303 per month = £70 week
Council Tax/Water - £100 per month = £23 week
Home Improvement loan - £266 per month = £61 week
Credit Cards - £100 per month = £23 week
Other debts - £100 per month = £23 week
Car - road tax, insurance, servicing, fuel etc - £100 per month = £23 week
Total expenditure before actual living expenses - £223
Balance to live off - £77.00 for everything else (£4026 for the year)

This whole challenge is about a frugal lifestyle, doing whatever it takes to live within a £4000 budget for the COST OF LIVING. The above (both real examples) show that family 1 has an income of £452 per week whilst family 2 has an income of £300 per week, but their 'cost of living' budgets are fairly similar. (This does not take into account any working or child tax credits.) The above are purely house, council tax and self-imposed costs, they do not include cost of living, as in the absolute NEEDS such as food, clothing, heat, light etc. I rounded the figures down to £4000 to pay for everything else needed to survive. Not everyone has debt, not everyone has a mortgage, not everyone pays rent and not everyone owns cars or has children staying at home. These are all circumstantial, but EVERYONE needs to live.


Can you live on £4000 for a year?
That's for a typical household, but you'll also have family allowance/child benefit if there are children in the home.

Some reasons for doing this challenge:

£4000 (or less) really is all you have to live off after paying debts
You strive to live off £4000 and everything else pays off debts
You strive to live off £4000 and everything else gets saved
You are mortgage free, have £100,000+ in the bank and live off £4000 interest

Some people chose not to attempt £4000 (+ child benefit if applicable) and opted for a higher amount or lower amount depending on their personal circumstances.

Hope this helps to make it a little clearer and I hope you pick up loads more hints and tips by reading the MSE forums.

Thanks for that. It seems a bit fluid. It looks like if I could live off 4000 I'd be going UP in the world instead of struggling, because my annual spend after house, car running costs, loan repayments etc is about 2900GBP (sorry, Spanish keyboard, no pound sign) but there you go. Anyway, I'll let you get back to your bingo, but as I live in Spain, hearing dos mujeres gordas, ochenta y ocho or todo de los nueves, noventa y nueve doesn't have the same ring as the English originals.

whitewing

guiri wrote: »

dos mujeres gordas, ochenta y ocho or todo de los nueves, noventa y nueve .

Sounds wonderful to me though.

sophiesmum_2

Good evening fruggles,

We had a buffet this afternoon at work as it was the funeral of my lady who died last week. Have spent the afternoon making tea, pouring drinks, collecting plates and running about and am shattered. Didn't have to make any tea though as me and OH had buffet and DD left school today and has gone for a barbeque with friends to celebrate.
Woo Hoo , just realised that this will be the first summer in almost 17 years that I won't have to go out and buy next years school uniform:j :j as my last baby has finished school:D

Enjoy the rest of the evening everyone,

mama67

I've won £35 today and got a £10 bonus,

Mollymop5

Evening everyone.I've made it to the stables wish me luck!!

looby-loo_2

My catch up post just disappeared!

mumzyof2

i cant find the stables room.. can someone help me? and in the chat bit it says error occured