Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 2

HH62 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I'm still here although not managing the challenge. So, I thought about how the first 3 months of 2009 have gone and decided enough is enough. It's the first day of a new month and I'm back and I'm sticking with it.

I use spending diary so I know how much I'm spending but does anyone know how I can keep a runnng total of how much I have left? Would Excel do this? So if I put in my total budget figure for the month, then every time I spend money I note it down and it automatically tells me how much I have left for the month?
Help please

Yes you can do this in excel! Something like putting into the formula a minus so for instance if your total spend is say in cell j4 then in j5 it could be something like =sumwhatever -j4. Well-I think thats right! Then, when you press return it will show the balance available to spend. Im sure cw18 and MrDT can do it!
Anyhow-as I now have my new quarterly budget available I went out spending today. Nothing at all that wasnt planned though!
£24 petrol-will prob last the month
£40 for 2 sunloungers
3 growbags and a big tub for our toms.
some growmore and roundup
some g.pig food and nuts for the birds
some rat poison(we live by farms and woods)
a new extractor fan for the toilet
a toilet seat!!!
So-nothing remotely exciting;)
Damage £122
However-thats the spending out of the way and the rest of the week should be easy!:j

Morning all,
Well, I'm back with my new and revised budget! I'm hoping it will work better for me to see actual amounts to work to but I'll have to give it a few months to really see.
Our people mover has broken...! We need to sort out a replacement but as we were going to be getting our campervan on the road we are heading in the right direction. Unfortunately campervan not only needs a new engine but a load of welding so we are currently rethinking what to do. We are looking at seeling ours and buying another one thats more solid...but that clears out all the cash that I was saving to pay our loan off early. I don't really want to get another loan for it though! This money business can be a bit of a nightmare!!

Anyway, glad to see you all. hi to the new people!

Ohhh, the new thread, didn't come on yesterday as feeling kinda down. Expected to clear a large portion of my debts to find the inheritance cheque had bounced:( so now have to wait till tomorrow, when the new cheque clears, but we go away in the morning, so wont be until next Friday that I can make my payments, and figure out where I am for the start of the second quarter into the year.
My mum has paid for the holiday, and the spends will be coming from the inheritance so the first week of April for me will be a £0 as far as this budget is concerned and I shall not be adding any costs into my spending dairy.

I hope you folks all ordered your free vegetable seeds from BBC's website to help with the soaring food costs!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/digin/apply_for_seeds.shtml

Long time no see and I guess you thought I had disappeared into my old spending ways. Wrong my friends.:D Just a lot of work and not enough time to chatter in here as often as in the past. Our totals are pretty much where they should be -yes, subdued and in the bank!. There have been the occasional follies which have been promplty recoupered within the following couple of weeks.

Always refreshing to see new members joining in even at this stage, new baby additions to the frugal family plus the usual ups and downs of a highly functional family pretending not to be anything else in the process! May the Frugal Force be with us until the end of 2009 and well beyond because what we learn in here is not even taught at the most posh universities, some mere weekend country schools charging in the hundreds of pounds for a few hours tuition. So lets have a home brew on that shall we??:beer:

Keep working at it people, chip by chip we shall manage to reach the goal at the end of the road, whatever that may be for each of one of us.

Goonight and God Bless the little frunchkins especially!:T

P.S And yes for those that are perceptive enough to have suspected whether I have had a couple or thrice of pints of Guiness and a few malts you are spot on gavs!:A But this angel is ready for an early night sleep.he he he