Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

slowlyfading

lilac_lady wrote: »

Congratulations !!!!!!!!! Well done!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks!!

MrDT wrote: »

Woohoo good going sf :T :money: :j

When's the celebratory knees up?

Thanks am off out tonight - will try not to drink and spend too much :rotfl:

JAMIEDODGER wrote: »

well done sf!!!!:)

Thank you!! x

Frugaldom

slowlyfading wrote: »

just to let you guys know, I got a 2:1 for my degree! :j :j :j :j :j :j :j

Well done SF, we are all really proud of you!! That deserves 2 of my special smileys just for you!

:beer: :j :T

slowlyfading

nykmedia wrote: »

Well done SF, we are all really proud of you!! That deserves 2 of my special smileys just for you!

:beer: :j :T

Thanks I was so nervous going up there today, but now I'm so pleased. Am off out tonight, but will watch the budget lol :rotfl:

MrDT

Right, there's only five days left of this quarter, I have plenty of food in to last til the start of July, and I've already made plans for the weekend that will cost me exactly £0.00. So, I should have 5 NSDs ahead, and I'm ready to declare my totals for the 2nd quarter of 2008 (my first quarter as a challenger)

Warning : This post will go on a bit...

---

I'm a little bit over-budget for the 2nd quarter of 2008, but not by a huge margin. I'm actually quite happy to have gone over by so little if that makes sense

Total spends from the 1st April through to 30th June for everything excluding rent, council tax, and commuting is £1110.49

That means I've overspent by an average of £1.20 a day, but I'm hoping to claw that back over the next 6 months

The problems I can see in the second half of the year:
1) Summer months are the cheapest as far as heating is concerned, latter part of the year will see much higher electricity bills :mad:
2) Food is getting more expensive by the day :mad:
3) Christmas won't be cheap :mad:
4) Most birthdays in my family are towards the end of the year :mad:

The bonuses are:
1) Holiday is all paid for upfront :cool:
2) I'm learning moneysaving stuff from this site all the time :cool:
3) I'm making a few extra quid here and there through quidco, slicethepie, etc that I could, I suppose, offset against spends (?) :cool:


Now, if anyone's interested, here's an incredibly dull and trainspotty breakdown of the last quarter (I keep a spending diary spreadsheet which allows me to generate this kind of summary easily):

Spends for 2nd quarter 2008

GROCERIES
£94.80
two big shops and a handful of 'bits' shops - have emptied freezer and nearly emptied cupboards, batchcook/homemade feature heavily, and i buy cheap meat from friend in the industry

TOILETRIES
£12.71
been buying shower gel, scrub, toothpaste, deodorant etc on special offer - will only use branded hygeine stuff but works out cheap enough on offer

HOUSEHOLD BITS
£5.10
sponges, can opener, batteries, baking tray, lunchbox, bin bags etc - it's just me so i don't really need much

ALCOHOL (SHOP BOUGHT - DOESN'T INCLUDE THE PUB!)
£14.26
a crate of cider, and the ingredients for my homebrew

BREAKFAST
£1.40
in three months i've only weakened once - amazing! mmm, bacon and egg bap at the canteen nomnomnom

LUNCH
£24.19
a handful of lunches at work when i didn't manage to sort a packed lunch, and one or two chippy lunches and sandwiches etc when out and about

EVENING MEAL
£7.12
one pub meal in three months, not bad going! i've had a few more with work, but they've all been 'expenses' jobbies

DRINK
£16.83
a few instances of 'just one pint' in the sunny afternoon and a couple of soft drinks

SNACK
£5.55
deskfood - i take plenty of fruits and nuts etc with me to work, but it's difficult to say no to a mcflurry if everyone in the office is having one!

NIGHTS OUT
£225.01
second highest expense category (after holidays and trips) - not too bad though, six nights out in three months each averaging under £40. better than the old £70 every fri and sat night situation!

CINEMA
£3.00
had some free tickets lol, this is just the price of a soft drink!

HOLIDAYS AND TRIPS
£476.21
london trip inc all spends, wakestock festival weekend camping ticket, magaluf flights, hotel, shuttle, and insurance

GIFTS
£15.38
fathers day and a birthday

CHARITY
£10.00
donation to the british heart foundation

CLOTHES
£0.00
scruffy !!!!!! huh!? not bought any clothes, but that'd be the case even if i wasn't taking part in the challenge lol

MEDICAL
£0.00
no dentist bills or anything in the past three months

ELECTRIC METER
£110.00
past three months has been much cheaper than winter months! my heating is electric, no gas here, so the difference between the seasons is immense

TV
£34.83
tv license paid monthly

OTHER
£54.10
a couple of sweepstakes at work, some bits for my bike, parking tickets, new microwave, new alarm clock, some bits of home brewing kit

And that's it, my total spends for three whole months. Failing the challenge so far, but spending less than I ever thought possible and maximising my savings :beer:

If you're still awake after all that lot it'd be cool to see any breakdowns you guys have :rotfl:

mumzyof2

Hello Iam back from a wonderful afternoon out with sophiesmum..she is really really nice We went to Tesco to use my £5 off and then to McDonalds with the kids (and sophiesmum of course) and then to Asda. Both DD is asleep in bed and DS is led on the settee with his towel that sophiesmum bought him

So just wanted to say Thankyou for a loverly afternoon out xx

Total spends today

£2.85 on cigs (i borrowed some off a friend and had to give them her back so had to buy 10)

£39.21 in Tesco but with £5 off coupon and a 40p coupon it came to £34.06

£7.59 in Asda

Guess what??? Im getting a long haired hamster tomorrow...iam dead excited!! I think i made my landlord say yes by texting her the following... Just wondered if i could get a hamster for DS.. I will keep it in its cage at all time :P Just thought i would ask.
She replied il make you an exception

sooooo tomorrow i will spend about £30 on a hamster and cage lol but im soooo excited.

Anyway i have had a fab day and my feet hurt and im "knackered" as my son says lol

System

Mr Tesco -
i reckon you could just about afford to keep me as a housewife:kisses2:

i would never have to work with 'orrible teens again!

if you gave up drinking, and the odd bought lunches etc...then x4...it is getting close to the £1600 it costs to keep me :rolleyes:

mind you, I won't get my hopes up - you seem to be courting everyone on this thread

(maybe you should be called Mr Tease-co?)

In other news, I was at the fair today, found 16p in loose change, must have been falling out peoples pockets on rollercoasters

plus i got free hand-me-down trainers from a workmates daughter - apparently they were about £50 but they were too small (just right for me through :T)

EDITED IN - mumzy - don't get a rotastac hamster cage, they take forever to clean and put back together! plus they cost lots (my frugalhamster lives in a jumblesale rotastac cage through )

Mollymop5

:T Congratulations SF :j

MrDT thanks for posting your figures.I love to know how everyone is doing and finding out what their budget goes on.

Nyk I love the house.Wish there were photos of inside.Would love to look

mumzyof2

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

Mr Tesco -
i reckon you could just about afford to keep me as a housewife:kisses2:

i would never have to work with 'orrible teens again!

if you gave up drinking, and the odd bought lunches etc...then x4...it is getting close to the £1600 it costs to keep me :rolleyes:

mind you, I won't get my hopes up - you seem to be courting everyone on this thread

(maybe you should be called Mr Tease-co?)

In other news, I was at the fair today, found 16p in loose change, must have been falling out peoples pockets on rollercoasters

plus i got free hand-me-down trainers from a workmates daughter - apparently they were about £50 but they were too small (just right for me through :T)

EDITED IN - mumzy - don't get a rotastac hamster cage, they take forever to clean and put back together! plus they cost lots (my frugalhamster lives in a jumblesale rotastac cage through )

I have not got a clue what one of those cages are lol. I was thinking of a hamster started kit cage,,, has little gaps in the bars?

System

rotostack is the type where you get different rooms that join together with tubes, so you can add more bits as you go along, you can get starter ones but they are really teeny tiny and all the big ones cost a fortune!

I wish I had a big rectangular cage with a plastic tray for the base, it would be soooo much easier to clean (plus my brother once knocked a tube off mine and my hamster escaped and fell to the floor and could have died!)

hamsters can cost quite a lot to start up, once you add up the cost of the cage, hamster, a bed, some toys, wooden chews, food, food bowl, water bottle, cage disinfectant, sawdust, bedding, wheel, ball - one of my friends spent over £100! cant remember how much mine came too but it wasn't cheap, and that was just for the 'extras' after i got the cage cheap :eek:

lingojingo

Congratulations! slowly fading You must be so pleased.

Well, I've just had a very interesting evening at my friend's. She had a hot tub for her birthday last week, and invited me round to try it tonight, as her husband is away, her twin sons(16) were out playing cricket and my DD is at grandmas between uni open day visits. I've never been in a hot tub before, and I'll certainly never forget my first experience.

The hot tub is in her garage. So there we were, two forty somethings attired in cossies, dressing gowns and slippers, (empty) wine glasses in hands, locking the side door of the house, when the key snapped off in the lock:eek: and we couldn't get it out:eek:
Well, I've got a spare key, back at my house, only 2 mins walk away, but across the main road, and we're in dressing gowns:eek::eek:

But even that's no use, as my house keys are locked inside her house ( along with mobile phones etc.)! and only about 3 hours till her boys get back:eek::eek::eek: we had visions of having to sit in the hot tub all that time, to keep warm as it's quite chilly here, and as her wine store is also in the garage of course we'd have to drink LOTS to keep our spirits up. Vision of teenage sons arriving home to find very tipsy shrivelled prunes comatose in the hot tub :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Fortunately, after about 5 mins giggling, then becoming really worried as we realised the situation, we decided to try the door and found it hadn't actually locked, so we could get in the house after all!!

Eventually, we got the door locked on the inside and went out through the patio doors, and thus finally managed to have our time in the hot tub - which was brilliant. My friend has really bad arthritis, she's had to give up work because of it, so it's really good for her. I just enjoyed the relaxation.

Well, I never laughed so much, and it didn't cost me a single penny!