Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

mumzyof2

slowlyfading wrote: »

And me!

and youuuuuu and lol at BB mmmm strawberrys!!

whitewing

MrDT, I thought you were older purely because of the 'Mr' and partly because I didn't know that 24 year old males would be interested in our thread. So it's great to have you.

MrDT

whitewing wrote: »

MrDT, I thought you were older purely because of the 'Mr' and partly because I didn't know that 24 year old males would be interested in our thread. So it's great to have you.

I don't think there are any other males here, nevermind 24 year old ones lol

I've been trying to save what I can to buy a house recently, that's how I found this forum in the first place I think. Eventually stumbled upon this thread and at first thought it'd be totally impossible to manage on 4k a year. I carried on reading and figured it might actually be doable and would definitely help boost my house savings!!

Of course I figured I could rely on you ladies to keep me in check, that's a big plus point :cool:

I think I've learnt a lot from the forum as a whole, as detailed here So thanks everyone :T

sophiesmum_2

nyk.
No problem freezing the chilli. You can even soak kidney beans, cook them and freeze for future use. Same applies to most pulses:D

whitewing

Just a quick post,,,

as a result of another thread, I have just managed to get onto my Lloyds internet banking and upgrade my (free) classic account to a (free) classic plus account @ 6% interest on balances up to £2500. Didn't work the first time I tried it though.

mumzyof2

whitewing I have also done this too

whitewing

mumzyof2 wrote: »

whitewing I have also done this too

We're on the ball now, aren't we. In my pre-challenge days it would have sat on my to do list for weeks!

sophiesmum_2

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

I think semi veggie is the way to go to save and its got to be better i used to have tummy probs and now no probs at all

my storecupboard list pretty similair to yours and i cook from scratch too i am looking into bulk buying organic meat hence the freezer

What is kefir ? is it like quark ?

apologies if thats a silly question but am sure i am not the only one wondering

Got the good life on DVD today so thats our night sorted
Thinking of joining the local self sufficiency club they accept non smallholders as long as you share the dream #(plus they sell to each other organic lamb £1.65Lb!!


Have a good night

Shaz

Kefir is a probiotic drink, it tastes like a natural yoghurt drink but is a little bit fizzy from the fermentation process. If you leave it longer you get a quark like cheese.You can add the kefir drink to recipes, and it makes home made bread lovely and light. I also use it in smoothies.:D Once you have kefir grains you can just use them over and over again.

redglass_2

Hmm, wasn't sure whether to reveal age because I'm not actually in the challenge (only addicted to the thread). Actually it was because because you're all so young, I feel like a very old lady! I'm 52.

Who was it mentioned Rhonda Jean's blog? Thanks for that, it's a wonderful site and RJ is a great role model for the, ahem, mature fruker as she says she didn't get into simple living until she was 50. Hope for us all, then!

whitewing

*Long post warning - I won't be offended if you skip it*

I was feeling really happy this morning. Sun is shining, birds are going mad with joy.

But then I logged onto the BT website to check how we were doing with recent calls (as I've told OH that we must cut them down a bit, or we're in danger of having our monthly pymnt amount increased).

So I find out that last night MIL has spent 40 minutes on the phone to an overseas mobile. It doesn't come to a huge amount (as we use one of the cheap calls numbers I got from this site). But it's the principle of the thing. Firstly, we don't charge her for her calls as she is on a tight budget anyway and is supposed to be saving a deposit to be able to move out in the autumn.

Secondly it really annoys me that she uses the phone without asking when we are out. I find it very deceitful. I have spoken with H2B about this before.

H2B is at work today and not back until this afternoon.

The trouble is I don't have much of a relationship with MIL as I resent that I have to be the one dealing with finances all the time. And the more I have to hassle, the more I don't have the energy to get her involved with other stuff (eg planning the wedding). My accountant said that if I showed him her payslip, he would check that her tax code was correct (she also does some work for our business). Although she was paid two weeks ago, she still hasn't had a payslip. So I've asked her to ask, and it still isn't turning up.

Ever since the strop she had a couple of months ago, when she decided that she was going back 'home', never mind that she had no money to get there (hadn't started her job at that point), and that we had spent a (relatively) large amount of our money/time with all the forms etc to apply for jobs/let her work in UK, I find it hard to trust. I don't mean that she is deliberately deceitful, just that there are big, big cultural differences.

I have tried to discuss with H2B but we have so much to do now that we get little time to just 'be'. Which means that it all becomes an issue. I feel that I want to block the phone so that we have to tap in a code before it gets used, but I know that may be a solution for a 5 year old only!

I am not so much worried about this particular call, just that it happened so soon after our last bill was issued. I can't be doing with 3 months' worth of this amount. I do talk to H2B about keeping the bills down and he seems to listen. I know he feels like piggy in the middle sometimes (in terms of trying to translate to give the exact meaning/intention).

I never told you guys this before, but a few weeks after MIL arrived, H2B was chatting about some friends of hers who were thinking of selling up and coming to the UK to open a restaurant. I got very worried and said to H2B that there was no way that we would have the time to get involved in helping them with anything. We were overwhelmed with work, self-employment and MIL being newly arrived. I made it very clear to H2B that we must not get involved. Nothing more was mentioned.

A few weeks later, H2B said this couple had actually left their country. I reiterated that they must not come to us. H2B said that's okay.

So that same evening, I was sitting at my parents and my mobile rang, and this strident voice asked in English for MIL. I said she wasn't with me. This person said, we are in England and we are coming to see you tonight. I said No, you are not to come to our house. (Her attitude was terrible but that may have been because English was not too familar).

I went back home, as I knew by this stage that MIL had known they were coming. It eventually turns out that H2B had known as well for a few days, but didn't know they were coming to us; only knew they were coming to England.

I was so livid. I took H2B that if they set foot in our house, then he would be moving out and so would MIL. I meant it too. They did turn up (despite being told not to) but didn't come in. I still don't know if they had been expecting to move in for a while. Cultural thing.

I got a few not-very-nice texts from the woman after that, eventually telling her that I did not want her to use my mobile for contacting MIL (she always rang when MIL wasn't there, and then I think she thought I was nasty daughter in law).

I know a lot of this is down to cultural differences, and also H2B has not translated things as specifically as he could. For example, I say, 'XXXX is a really big issue for me; this is why' and he just says 'don't do XXXX' which she thinks is unreasonable so she does it because she doesn't understand why.

In pure money terms, she has a lot more money than ever before (if compared to her wages back home). But no sense of higher cost of living. I'm dreading the future when she is old and not earning.

The money thing is getting in the way of any kind of relationship with her. H2B knows how I feel but has no answers.

I don't mind helping someone become independent, but I feel that she is not making much effort herself to become independent. After Marru's post about ISA's the other day, I started talking to H2B about that for MIL. But nobody is interested in making it happen. I feel like the bad guy all the time, as I feel that I am pushing her out.

She is paying board (£65 a week), although only since her job started. And she does have a medical condition that went a bit haywire but is getting under control (but which may account in part for the strop).

I worry about her old age. If she spent the next 10 years doing what she could to be thrifty, I wouldn't mind her coming back to live with us. I'm not a nice, nursey sort of person, but I'd happily let H2B look after her physically.

But I feel that if she doesn't begin to understand the way the English system works, she will be spending her money now and then we will have to fund her old age.

Sending her back home is not an option as H2B would want to send money to help her out.

We're not comfortably off ourselves. She does pay towards nursing home fees for her parents-in-law, even though H2B's dad is long deceased and they were divorced anyway. The heart's there, it's just a fundamentally different way of viewing things.

What do I do? How many times can I discuss it with H2B? Sometimes I think Relate may help...