Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

Prudent

I am back after writing my class reports for weeks. Missed you all

Whitewing - the ring shopping sounds good, especially the cream tea

looby-loo_2

andromache wrote: »

looby-loo - that's happened to me before and I thought I broke my laptop! Try hitting the Numlock key

Thanks for telling me that - I pressed all the number keys and nothing changed, so I pressed ALL the keys along the top and finallly:j :j it worked. My number key is called 'Num Scr' andI have never seen it before! What on earth is it for when there are numbers across the top anyway?

Stupid cat!

looby-loo_2

Help! All that key pressing and my F6 key has just fallem off! It must have been the shock of being pressed for the first time - I've really never noticed that row of keys before. I shall leave well alone and ignore them from now on.

Gone to find glue

Marru

looby-loo wrote: »

Thanks for telling me that - I pressed all the number keys and nothing changed, so I pressed ALL the keys along the top and finallly:j :j it worked. My number key is called 'Num Scr' andI have never seen it before! What on earth is it for when there are numbers across the top anyway?

Stupid cat!

It is because us boring accountants want to key in series of numbers quickly as laptops don't have that separate numbers section like pcs. Please don't glue it you should be able to just push and click it back in. My DD once pulled off my CTRL button and I just popped it back in. Good luck but it was funny thou!

Marru

System

whitewing wrote: »

Hope your 'private chat' is going well now, lol

hm it didnt go so well... he just asked if i 'was up for sum fun'
so i said yes, 3+4=7

then he asked what age i was, and i wouldnt reply, so he said 'oh im 21'
and i said i bet you are a lot olderthan that,

then he must have had enough of me and he went away!

:eek: and :rotfl:that there are bingo perverts going about preying on lonely wifeys

Frugaldom

Hi all,

Been away since yesterday, just back this afternoon then a friend arrived with a bottle of vino and it was such a nice night we just HAD to sit out in the garden and polish that off. :beer:

Whitewing, dress sounds fab and that's great news about the rings.

I now have my major 'bulk' shop from Mr T's and oh my... it's certainly LOT! :rotfl: I did a massive online order and had it delivered to my parents' house last night, then went and collected another order of fresh f&v, chicken, eggs, milk etc en route home. I was allowing a budget of £200 to stockpile and then my grocery budget from 1st June until end of the year is going to be £10 per week in an effort to further reduce the annual amount to £1000 in total. I need to add up everything I have spent (need to finish unpacking & find receipts) to see how I did. I already know that I didn't manage to spend £200. In all honesty, I don't know how anyone can spend that amount a week! It would be impossible to use it all. My bulk shop includes all the party food ingredients, balloons, party plates etc and even with that, it worked out amazingly frugal. My family was a little gobsmacked at the amount delivered, mind you! Especially when it lined up the length of their hall. :rotfl:

Yesterday's showers of rain have proven rather beneficial to the veggies! Everything seems to have shot up overnight but I still had to water this evening, as it has been so warm & sunny today again. Sorry to those who have had rain.

Marru - you are so brave driving there! I have driven several times on the M25 but it has always been weekends or else very early in the morning. I certainly couldn't manage London in any way, shape or form. Glad you had a good time.

I am now cliaming some free bingo tickets, and looking for other 4k'ers. Oh, and I'm getting my figures sorted, of course, so I can admit to my super-spend on groceries etc.

Glad you got you numbers and letters fixed out, Redglass. :rotfl:

Jumble-Bee, LOVED your answer to the 'wanna have sum fun' question! Well done! I once got asked, "Fancy a break away?" Answer to that one was, 'No thanks, I prefer Kitkats. :cool:

Edited in later - I managed to grab a few freebie Gala Bingo tickets but won NOTHING! So, I have done my budget, updated my signature and packed away all of the shopping from the mega-storecupboard stocking escapade. I spent a grand total of £182.59 plus £20 on petrol for my overnight trip. I won't bore you all with the list of what I bought, as it extends to 4 x A4 printed sheets, but it includes enough of the following to last the 3 of us to the end of the year (I HOPE!):

Cleaning products
Toiletries
Tinned fruit
Tinned veg/beans/spaghetti
Tinned tuna/corned beef
Curry Sauce
Sweet & Sour Sauce
Instant Desserts
Condiments
Pasta/Lasagne/Spaghetti
Rice
Noodles
Coffee
Tea
Milk Powder
Jam
Marmalade
Honey
Baking ingredients (including sprinkles, chocolate, flavours andl colours)

I also got quite a bit for the party plus balloons, table sprinkles etc AND I filled the freezer. Everyone who witnessed the stockpiling of NYK land, including myself, was mightily impressed by the quantities that I have managed to fit into the available space plus I kept it under my anticipated £200 budget. Sophiesmum - thank you for suggesting this challenge within a challenge within a challenge. It really makes you sit back and look at how much food we use. I know mine is for 3 of us but even one third of what I bought could not have been fitted into bags and carried home on a bus!

My anticipated grocery spend from 1st June onwards is £10 per week and I'm allowing an extra £15 for Christmas week. I used all my Mr T vouchers, codes and coupons and amassed a whopping great 1081 points and I have already exchanged my May vouchers for Deals and now have enough to pay for friend and I to not just go to Ireland, but also go the bus tour to the Giant's Causeway. I also have enough in my Topcashback account to cover the cost of Monday's trip to the Isle of Man. :T
2 boat trips in 1 year is amazing when doing this particular challenge. :j

PS: In my Mr T order, I had ordered 20 tins of curry sauce @ 4p per tin. The obviously must have run out because when it all arrived, 5 tins were of the large Homepride cook in sauce - charged at the 4p. They did the same with my 10p shower gels and £1.69 milk powder plus, the cherries were short dated, so they whoopsed them to £1 and sent a note explaining why. And I cannot get over the fact that they sell strawberry whipped instant dessert for 3p per pack! :eek: I just got so much stuff that I can't believe it! I even got 'little extras' like jam doughnuts, apple doughnuts, crisps, bars of chocolate..... ok, going to stop now, I think you get the picture; I'm pleased with my haul.

fizzel81

good morning

quick update from me, no more recent nsd from me am not convinced im going to make this challenge, met my friend in sevenoaks yesterday was doing ok funds wise till it started raining i then ended up buying 2 of the boys them umbrellas (£10.00) £4.50 in train fairs and around £3.50 in the bakery on a gingerbread/cookies etc each.

im not planning to spend anything untill monday which will be an expensive day when i buy a tuble dryer im only going for a very small compact one (3kg size) so i dont start getting into habbit of doing all my washing in it, it will be there for finishing off anything thats had at least 24 hours on the airer.

need to find a new ebay stash to sell, the money ive been making on ebay has been going to buying stuff for the boys which can be a bonus as there sorted for clothes for the next year minus some odd bits that might be needed, even not doing this challenge i wouldnt be spending much more than i do on the challenge so im plooding along continuing to try

redglass_2

I'm trying to think where i would fit all that lot, in Nyk, there isn't room in this place! Amazing, well done. And Whitewing, I look forward to hearing about all your preparations for the frugal wedding - I bet it will be every bit as enjoyable as the profligate kind and you won't have the financial mess to clear up afterwards.
As for me, I'm feeling...I suppose 'smug' is the only word! Managed to book 3 free (well, tax only) return flights to Dublin and 3 nights' accommodation for me and two mates for about £130. That's for all of us. My friends (who don't do MSE ) were staggered to find you could fly to Ireland free. I think I may have converted them to the Church of St Martin....;) I've already reserved the guidebooks from the library and now need to plan the packing (hand luggage only, so a challenge) and sniff out the cheapest Euros....:D I'm really looking forward to this, I love Ireland....Right now I'm eating up the store cupboard to get me through this month so I can pay my car tax, but that's OK. There was a time when I'd have gone into a panic, but not now that I've learnt so much about frugalling from all the people on this thread. Thanks, everyone.:T

Mollymop5

Morning everyone.
Well here goes with my figures!!!!!!!!!!!

£137.97 Essential bills (Gas, Electric, Water, Tv, Telephone, Home ins)
£146.50 Groceries - well overbudget!
£294.41 other stuff ( clothes, birthday pressies, KIDS!!!!!) way over budget!

£578.88 Total Monthly spend

Which means I have spent £2487.20 of my budget and have £3083.20 left.

New monthly budget is £440.45.


I've upped my Grocery budget this month to £200 and as my essential bills are £138 approx every month that looks like I only have £100 for other stuff this month.I can see i'm really going to have to pull the purse strings tigher and learn to say no to the kids.

Good luck to everyone for this next month

shaz_mum_of__2

Hi everyone

re: the cheap whip dessert you can make milkshake with it add double the amount of milk and drink straightaway


Nyk and sophiesmum - how have you worked out your consumption of everything for 6 months ??

i started a list of everything we buy including toiletries and medicines etc and was horrified at the amount of different products we buy and couldnt decide how much we use i dont menu plan as such but a lot of what i call storecupboard cooking instead


Shaz


Shaz