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My flatmate showed me an article from the Times yesterday entitled Bristol teacher Kath Kelly beats the credit crunch by living on £1 a day. Basically, the teacher lived for ONE YEAR on £1 per day excluding rent and utilities. She couldn't front load any spending but was allowed to carry over "savings" from day to day.
Typical outlays and her solutions:
Transport- bicycle only
Internet, books- library
Holiday- hitchhiked to France and stayed with her brother
Social life- free lectures, book signings, art, anything at the University
Food- free buffets galore, reduced price food, garden, basic ranges
Shopping- Church jumble sales
Health- NHS (God bless England)
Mobile- scrapped it, delivered notes to friend's houses
Dentist- this is the one time she broke her budget, she had to pay for her teeth.
Charity- found £117 in spare change and donated it
Wedding/Presents- At the end of the year, the gave her brother a £1300 wedding present and contributed to the reception (was the reason she started the whole thing). I thought Sallie's Niece would be happy to read the lengths that some people will go to for their sibling's wedding present.
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I'm certainly impressed by the teacher spending £365 (plus a dentist visit) in a year. She's now writing a book and perhaps I'll get it out of the local library in the spirit of frugal living. One thing I took away from the article is going to free stuff. I need to do that more, especially with the corporate membership benefits I get. She makes a good case for being in a university town as a way to save money. I think Frugal Trenches could give her a run for her money being a 20-something in London and having oh-so-many no spend days. In honour of the article I'm setting myself a goal of 4 no-spend days this week and will think more about getting a bicycle as a way to save on travel.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Living on £1 per day...
Posted by Savings not Shoes at 23:27
Labels: budget, budget travel, frugal
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5 comments:
I didn't read the article myself but my OH wasn't impressed. He felt that if everybody followed her lead, the 'free-loading' would just get out of hand. He does have a point.
Another thing I find odd, is that she's willing to write a book in order to make money, but doesn't buy books to support other authors herself.
OMG. I'm saving like crazy for a wedding too, but I could never achieve that. I'm not sure if I would ever even want to achieve that. But... good on her, I guess :)
Wow that's pretty inspiring! I don't think I could be that committed for a whole year - she must really like her brother! But some good ideas in there - I love getting free books and movies from the library. Thanks for sharing!
No I don't think I could survive on £30 a month. That's just pushing it a little too far I think. Good on her though, if she does write a book then (once I'm allowed to of course!) I'll probably get a copy.
This is pretty interesting.
Due to paying deposits etc for my uni accommodation next year, I have been left with £80 and have 6 weeks of term and then 4 weeks of "holidays" before I next get any money. So, I am definitely trying it - sadly not through choice lol.
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