Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

Janey51

slowlyfading wrote: »

:hello: Janey, I hope your DH recovers quickly! You know Quidco, how have you got £77 to pay out? Mine is always like a quid or something, never very big!

£50 of this payout from Quidco is from cashback from the new Car Insurance I took out in May. I do a search at least once a day on the Price Comparison sites. My Mum is addicted to a certain TV shopping channel and, if I order her stuff for her via Quidco, I get cashback.
I am due £25 from Betfair next month.
It all mounts up.

mumzyof2

Today i have spent:

£1.40 on the bus
£0.90 on the bus

Total £2.30
(i have started smoking again but am quitting again tomorrow well now really as no cigs, i lasted nearly 5 days last time) so this doesnt include cigs i spent in last few days

tryingtodobetter

Well here are my spends for May and they are a bit :eek: :eek:

Petrol - £45
Food - £287.08 :eek:

Clothes and Shoes - £30.10
Gifts - £152.97 :eek: (2 special birthdays 70th and 80th and a wedding this month)

Uni - £15.26

Utilities - £167.33

Mobile Phone - £20

Internet - £14.99

TV Licence - £11.61

Other - £23

Total Spend May - £717.74

mumzyof2

wheres NYK gone and sophiesmum?

whowants2brich

redglass wrote: »

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?

Thanks for confirming what I had already thought... I'll give it a go and hope for the best. If it works, great, if it doesn't then I haven't lost much, have I? It's always worth trying these things... if I expect them to refuse to honour it then I'll be prepared to cancel, and if they do honour it then I'll be celebrating...

whitewing

I'm livid! Had a big row with my dad last night, who is turning into Bridezilla. He has a tendency to overcomplicate arrangements, and make everyone's life an utter misery.

So H2B and I decided to get married far from home so all dad has to do is turn up. But now HE has decided that we won't be able to organise a buffet properly (never mind the fact that I'm in my mid-bluddy-thirties and have brought a child up single-handedly). So he has roped in MIL and decided that they are going to produce an entirely home-cooked wedding reception, and -get this- that we should just leave it entirely to them!

We told him not to, but he won't listen. And the dilemma is that even if we go ahead and do anything ourselves, he will just turn up on the day with double the quantity on the basis that if we don't use up all the food, it will always get eaten at some point. Never mind the fact that we chose not to have a photographer and car because we wanted to be able to invite a larger number of people for food.

Now I don't expect any contribution to the wedding from my folks, but now he won't even let me spend my own bluddy money the way I want. H2B says we should just go ahead ourselves and do what we want, but it is such a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

And he told me I was stupid for hiring a cake stand for £25 when I could go to China and buy it for pennies. I am so, so angry that I feel like telling him not to come at all.

H2B said that he will have a word with him. H2B cannot believe if we tell him not to do something, that he will do it anyway. But H2B will be wasting his breath. Of course, while I was yelling at my dad last night, H2B was stood there looking worried and saying 'Don't shout, don't shout!' That made me ten times worse.

It never occurred to me that we wouldn't be able to arrange our own wedding.

But everything else is okay for the moment! Perhaps a good session on the exercise bike will calm me down.

mumzyof2

Whitening - Im sorry to hear about your fall out with your dad, maybe he will back down/calm down? I would be livid if my parents said that to me, as as your H2B said i would proberly just go ahead and organise it the way i wanted..but then again i would be worried about what my parents thought. Its your day..you should have it how you want it
Hope you feel better soon x

On a brighter note my DS3 is at nursery today, should be my DD2 at nursery too but i have had to take her out of nursery till the beginning of next month as i just cant afford it, and she goes to a play group for 3 hrs on a Thursday so i don't think she will be missing much and at £16.50 a go at nursery for only 1pm-5pm i think its just a big dint in my purse whilst living on my own.
I don't need anything today and i have decided to quit again after going 3 days and getting caught by the bad habit once again.. its always day 3! grr
I will pop into town at 1pm after i dropped DS3 off as no point going home as my son only in nursery for 2 and half hours. I shall window shop Price up some grow bags for my tomatoes also. Does anyone know how many tomato plants i put into a grow bag? Do i need canes? Not that i know what im doing with them lol I have £17 in savings from last week from not smoking and although i have no money to spend in my current account i might just buy some grow bags from money i saved I dont need any food and what money i have in my current account is all for bills.

My Mum is over from Cyprus on sunday for 2 weeks (staying here a week and week at my sisters) so that will be fun. She is going back after 2 weeks and taking my Grandma with her for 2 weeks then flying back with Grandma and my Mums Husband, as my Mums Husband is staying in Cyprus on first trip over on Sunday. My Mum must have money to burn.. she is paying for them all!!

Im going to bake some hobnobs today was going to do a bakewell tart but dont want to buy a flan as no money in current account and im deffo not buying one out of my savings.

I best go I have waffled on too much and need to tidy up get us all showered and ready for Nursery at 1pm. Have fun everyone and Hugs to anyone that need's them today. Have a good day.

Mumzy

PS: Where's sophiesmum and NYK?

Edited to say: WOW i have never wrote so much on here lol I have proberly just rambled on hehe

whowants2brich

Hi Mumzy. As for the pastry base, I'd recommend cooking one, wherever possible. They're incredibly easy to make, the ingredients cost hardly anything (flour, margarine, an egg if you want, some water, etc) - the biggest expense is the actual gas/electricity to cook the damn thing!

As for your smoking (or not smoking), I have one comment and one congrats. Congrats for starting to save your money, it's easier to keep going if you visualise the amount of money you're saving. £17 in one week is great, isn't it? Think of how many tomato plants you can pot for that?!

However, on the downside, if you constantly give in to the temptation to smoke, you'll never quit, and you'll always get into the routine of not smoking for 3 days, having a few, then going for another 3 days without smoking. Try to find another incentive to string two 3-day periods together. eg if you go one whole week then you'll have £17.50. £10 to your savings account (which you don't touch), £5 to your gardening, and £2.50 for a small treat for yourself. A lovely chocolate bar, a magazine, or a saving fund for something special. After 10 weeks of not smoking, that £25 will go that much further, for eg a facial - or better still, you can send all your kids to nursery and have an afternoon off so that you can be able to relax and have some time out.

As for gardening tips, I've not got a clue, so I won't even try to help. And the whereabouts of the fellow frugalites, I've no idea... I'm sure they'll be back soon enough, with tales of how much they've saved on their epic journeys away from the internet!

Marru

Mumzy - Sophiesmum is around. She thanked you for your post that you made last night at 9.37 pm. Nyk has gone to IOM and Bails is in Holland in music festival.

Whitewing - what can I say!!! I lost contact with my dad over seven years ago so not the best person to say anything. I don't know your family dynamics but is there anyone else in your family that could rope him in? Perhaps the only thing that comes to my mind is to sit down with him and explain how much this upsets you. He seems to want to do his best to give you the best time but is going wrong way around it so guiding him to do it the way makes you happy might help like by giving him a task on his own that makes him feel important and at the same time is out of your way and your organising. I hope it makes sense.

Proper catch up coming up when I get a moment or two...

Marru

PS Janey! Lots of caring thoughts for you and your OH!!

dfw844

mumzyof2 wrote: »

PS: Where's sophiesmum and NYK?

Hi Mumzy,

Don't worry about Nyk, wasn't yesterday that trip to the isle of man? Don't know about Sophiesmum, sorry.