Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

slowlyfading

:hello: Mumzy, hows your day going so far?

Mollymop5

mumzyof2 wrote: »

I want it as a starting figure of 5000 though not 4000. i apprichate your help though

Mumzy I'm in a bit of a rush now with school pick up so haven't got time to check, but if you go back a few pages to the end of May I gave you the figures, as we're working from the same starting amount. If you cant find the post then I will look when I'm on later

mumzyof2

slowlyfading wrote: »

:hello: Mumzy, hows your day going so far?

Hello

My day has been ok so far, heading back home today so have to catch the train later on after tea. Just been on internet all afternoon and it been great..back to being mummy later on i guess :cool: but wouldnt change it for the world haha.

How has your day been?

mumzyof2

Mollymop5 wrote: »

Mumzy I'm in a bit of a rush now with school pick up so haven't got time to check, but if you go back a few pages to the end of May I gave you the figures, as we're working from the same starting amount. If you cant find the post then I will look when I'm on later

I must of missed your post but have now found the answer but thankyou.

slowlyfading

mumzyof2 wrote: »

How has your day been?

Alright thanks, just having a break from revision!

whowants2brich

Hi Frunchkins (we both (me and my OH) love that term... Genius!),

How's this for being frugal...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=949905

Yeah, so the hotel chain and laterooms may have made a mistake, but aren't we consumers entitled to benefit when they do? This, I guess, is almost on a par with Mr T giving loads of clubcard vouchers so that everyone gains more points than they actually spend...

Your comments relating to this hotel find would be much appreciated. And if it helps, the background is that my work are organising a social after work, and the theory is that me and my OH can stay in a cheap hotel near to the office so that we don't have to commute back home afterwards (no petrol to pay) and we're closer into London therefore cheaper train fare for the following day)... Would work out very frugally if we can get the hotel room for £11, inc breakfast!

Thanks, and keep up the good frugalling...

ww2br

Marru

Hi,

I have finally got my numbers organised and I am changing my rules again. These are my new rules:
Exclude: rent, council tax, water, nursery, car and recent trip to London
Include back: animal costs
I consider my land line and broadband as business costs and they are not included but my mobile is my personal one and is included.
The money that I have raised during my 2008 olympic challenge has now allocated towards Interest Beater challenge and I am scrapping my olympic challenge. This money is not used against animal costs anymore - it will be deposited into my ISA account.

That is it. I am going to stick to this from now on.

So my numbers for May:

Gas, electricity, mobile: 76.41
Food, household, toiletteries, DD's clothes: 147.98
Animals: 100.71 (includes big bag of dogfood that will last till July and a table to put piggies cage on)
Other: 103.75 (includes my clothes and haircut for two)
Total 428.85

This is 95.52 over budget and in total I am after three months 347.62 over budget.

I know I can squeeze my grocery bill down and I am so going to do it. In June and July DD will have most of her meals in the nursery so I should be able to get it down. Also my brother and his family came to visit and brought me huge amoung of pickled herrings so all I need now is some potatoes, lettuce and cucumber to keep me going for weeks.

August is going to be expensive month as DD is home for two weeks and needs food and entertaining so I better get my act together before that. At least I am not worrying that my car insurance will wreck my challenge, it feels more managable and controllable this way.

Hope everybody has had a good day.

Marru

redglass_2

Good luck to you, Whowants, but I don't think they are obliged to honour it - I think I'm quoting Martin's The Money Diet, where he says you can haggle in shops, but the flexibility works the other way too - they don't have to sell you something at the marked price. But if you can get them to play, why not?

whitewing

Hello Everyone,

Worked all weekend and so did H2B, so we've had a nice day catching up with each other. We went to see my family re plans for wedding buffet. As we are getting married 2 hours from home, we wanted to sort out who is getting what for the buffet. We actually wanted to sort it all out while we were down there. Unfortunately my stubborn father doesn't quite believe we are capable of sorting out our own buffet (grrr). So we had to come up with a solution or risk him buying either we'd already got and more.

I did just jokingly suggest that he handed over the money and we'd do the shopping. But bless him, he seems quite excited about the whole thing. We were just going to go to one of the supermarkets and buy a whole load of stuff. But he wants to go home made. Home made! We don't have time for normal stuff!

Anyway, we think we have a solution. We're going to see if he can put a freezer in his garage and we can spend the next few weeks buying BOGOF stuff and making nibbles. MIL is going to make some traditional dishes from her own country to keep my Dad happy that she is fully involved. (I can't remember at what point we stopped attempting a 'quiet' wedding, but it is quite touching how many people are happy for us).

Went to a small specialist cake decorating shop today. I wanted to buy a 6 tier cupcake wedding stand. I need it for two occasions about 10 days apart. Anyway, bless them, the shop said I can hire it for the whole time and they'll only charge the one fee (£25 plus a returnable deposit). How cool is that? I thought I'd have to buy one and then sell it on. Well, I know for a fact that I wouldn't sell it. So as far as I am concerned I've saved myself £100. I've got silver cupcake cases but that's as far as it goes at the moment. MIL will make the cakes and the top tier will be a traditional fruit cake that aunty has agreed to make.

Aside from this, and my monthly DD's, we've had a no spend day. We have to really work hard at not overspending in general at the moment as we want to pay for as much as possible with income rather than savings. (Still living in fantasy land!)

Last thing - after bails idea about funding open uni via tesco voucher things, I was wondering... we're not wanting a wedding list as many people will be travelling down, and we don't want them to give us anything other than to be there. However, some do want to give us money. I was wondering about (my parents) saying tesco giftcards if they must. If we use giftcards in Tesco would we accrue the points when we spend, or does the person who purchases them accrue the points?

System

:rotfl:at the clubcard points wedding list - i think you get the points when you buy stuff? otherwise wouldn't us lot give everyone giftcards as presents so we swipe the points?

finally added a big gas bill thats been hanging about for a while, so my may total was £125.13

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek look!!!! my total left is now well under a grand!!!!!

:rotfl:don't know why that looks quite so scary to me, seeing as im still a weeny bit under budget, BUT IT DOES! :eek:

.....i feel like a peasant now

ps have now set a work leaving date, so have calculated my UC/IB amount more accurately, so its now down to £294 yaaay