Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

grandma247

Wow I just noticed I have a star!:j

Frugaldom

grandma247 wrote: »

Wow I just noticed I have a star!:j

Well done reaching your first star. :beer:

andromache_2

keren29 wrote: »

What is happening to food prices - we'll be going vegetarian if this keeps up!

*looks smug and animal-friendly*

Well done on your star, grandma, welcome back, slowlyfading, and have a lovely time in Manchester with your friend, bails! I was in Manchester just a few weeks ago and thought it was a great city

Frugaldom

Hi folks,

I've just been doing a review of my budget and have arrived at the following, rather depressing, figures:


My updated budget for 2008 is:

Groceries: £1200 - £359.57 = £840.43
Gifts/Special Occasions: £500 - £70.69 = £429.31
Utilities: £1400 - £1013.30 = £386.70 Electricity costs wrecking my budget
Mobiles: £50 - £5 = £45
Internet: £220 - £61.89 = £158.11
Household Insurance: £52.40 - £52.40 = nil
Everything else: £577.60 - £164 = £413.60

Total: £4000 for year. Already spent £1726.85, balance = £2273.15
Actual average weekly spend = £114.03 to date
Day 106 of 2008, 260 days left with average of £61.20 per week.

The above includes electricity underestimates from 2007, but it is still blatantly obvious that my utilities budget is going to have a serious impart on 'gifts' and 'everything else'. I cannot change tariffs as we are in rented house and account not in my name, I just pay the bills.

I hardly use my mobiles, other than for odd text messages, but want to keep them activated. I have 2 on different networks because we live in an area that has poor/nil signal depending where you are.

Internet account has already been reduced to best possible and we're stuck with it for 18 months.

I have nothing else I can cut back on but am sticking rigidly to the plan of living on £4000 for the entire year. Mad as it may seem, if I had to buy nothing more from my gifts budget, I would probably still have enough in store from the sales and auctions to allow everyone a Christmas gift. I'm very much a 'make hay while the sun shines' person and the £70 spent so far in sales was for about £200 worth of goods. The everything else budget took a bit of a hit as I had to buy a tabletop cooker and 3 oil filled radiators, amongst other things.

I guess the main thing that I am noticing is that, between the increase in fuel/power supplies and food prices creeping up at an alarming rate, there is no way I could have afforded to buy cigarettes this year. If anyone is on a tight budget and still smoking, ask yourself where the money comes from for those cigarettes, because something, somewhere, can't be getting paid and someone, somewhere will suffer for it further down the line. A 20 per day smoker is looking at burning £1830 per year and I could keep a pony for that! :rotfl:

bails

nykmedia wrote: »

. A 20 per day smoker is looking at burning £1830 per year and I could keep a pony for that! :rotfl:

That almost made me wish I smoked so I could give up and get a pony :rotfl:

I've just updated my spending diary prior to going away and my figures aren't looking too pretty either, especially after our very expensive week last week! :eek: My NSDs have gone right down too, only had 1 last week with all the vet visits! I am keeping a track of everything we spend and when OH next has a shiatsu weekend I'd like to have a really good look at everything and see how we're doing overall. My hat goes off to you Nyk and anyone truly living on 4k :T I'm definitely going to be here next year and working on improving things further. I'm hoping that my medical costs will come down a lot (which is where most of my money goes) but I've just been told I need to be on one thing for life :eek: You can get this on the NHS if your doctor agrees...needless to say I need a new doctor :rolleyes:

System

nykmedia wrote: »

A 20 per day smoker is looking at burning £1830 per year and I could keep a pony for that! :rotfl:

never mind a pony, you could keep a jumble-bee for that and still have £210 change :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

any smokers out there wanna quit and adopt me?

Frugaldom

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

never mind a pony, you could keep a jumble-bee for that and still have £210 change...any smokers out there wanna quit and adopt me?

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: So what you are saying is that for the cost of 20 cigs per day, you'd be at our beck and call 24/7 AND pay your own way AND give us £210 change? How are your cooking skills? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

System

nah, i mean you could keep me as a pet....i would keep your mind off any nicotine cravings and then at the end of the year you would have spare cash to
spoil me with presents (like a new bowl and a new cushion to sit on)

Janey51

Jumble-bee serious consideration being given to this proposition in the Janey residence.
Do you have any useful talents?

System

well, i have nice curly hair which would be good to stroke, and i am toilet trained and could clean my own hutch out (note that i would need quite a large hutch - a heated summerhouse/shed with windows would be ideal)

jumble-bees are intelligent cretaures and get bored easily when left on their own, so it is recommended that you leave a laptop,tv & books in their hut at all times.