 | Age: 42 Job: Housewife Salary: £15000 - £20000 Married to Clive with two daughters |
Karen Norris is 43 and is a housewife from Peterhead in Scotland. She is married to Clive and they have two daughters, six year-old Elspeth, and Karah, who is two. They are now growing their own vegetables in a greenhouse and a list of jobs to be done around the house that keeps getting longer. Karah is also attending a playgroup, which is another necessary expense to add to their finances. LATEST UPDATE We are concerned that oil prices are going up again. | INFLATION CALCULATOR This month's personal inflation: -2.1% |
Seeing as when they fell the prices or fuel and electric did not, the suppliers would probably use increasing oil prices to put domestic prices back up again. The greenhouse is doing well, so much so that we are considering buying a large chest freezer. I could not bring myself to throw away anything, and so I could freeze our produce for use over the winter. |  We have to look at the set up and continuing costs of keeping a few chickens against the cost of eggs.  |
Elspeth and Karah are fascinated by the amount everything has grown, and are helping with watering and generally taking care of it all. My next project under consideration is chickens. We have to look at the set up and continuing costs of keeping a few chickens against the cost of eggs. Again, this is also something that the girls can help with and learn from. We have had to 'bite the bullet' and ordered replacement windows for the garage, before the existing ones fall out. It would be cheaper overall if we could have all the windows replaced at once, but that is money we simply do not have at the moment. The fence is also being replaced this weekend, another thing crossed off the ever growing list of jobs around the house. Karah is settled into playgroup three mornings a week, which is another expense to add to our finances, but one we feel is important for her social skills. Elspeth is starting a sports club next week run by the council just until the end of term which she is looking forward to, but again these things cost money. Summer seems to have arrived here - well spring, at least. We really could do with a warm, dry summer this year, as it makes doing things with the girls so much easier and generally a lot cheaper! APRIL We had a bit of a knock at the beginning of the month, when our mortgage lender would not extend our mortgage to get the windows replaced. | INFLATION CALCULATOR This month's personal inflation: -2.1% |
They no longer take overtime into account, and 25% of Clive's wages are overtime and on-call. We found that difficult as we have never been turned down for credit before. It makes me very wary of going anywhere for the money now, so we are not sure what we are going to do at the moment. | Considering energy prices are meant to be coming down, it was an unpleasant shock when our electric supplier put our monthly payment up |
There is an ever increasing list of work to do on the house and it all costs money and time - both of which are in short supply at the minute. Considering energy prices are meant to be coming down, it was an unpleasant shock when our electric supplier put our monthly payment up. I guess it is due to the wet and cool summer and therefore increased use of the tumble drier, and just being at home rather than out and about. Clive spent the weekend cutting up wood we had been given to try to get the wood shed stocked back up for next winter, but we have still had the heating on, and the fire lit. Spring temperatures are not fully here yet. Elspeth, Karah and I have started to plant our vegetable and salad seeds, so if all goes well we will be keeping ourselves supplied with plenty of fresh vegetables over the summer and autumn. We have noticed that bread and cereal prices are creeping back up again, presumably also as a result of the lack of a summer last year. Clive is still very good at keeping the freezers stocked from the reduced items, although it is increasingly difficult to get cheap meat. We were disappointed that the 2p tax was added to petrol and diesel prices. With the pressures already on family finances, we felt it was an unnecessary extra burden. Living as we do, in rural Scotland, public transport is not a viable option, as Clive has to be in work about 2 hours before the first bus would get him there. MARCH | INFLATION CALCULATOR This month's personal inflation: -1.6% |
Things are OK this month. The cold weather means that we have used more oil than previous years. I got a nice surprise when calling around for oil prices though, as they were less than half the price compared to last year. Food and fuel prices have stabilised so even though they are higher, it feels 'normal' now. We have decided to try and grow some of our own vegetables and salad this year, which our older daughter is very excited about. We will see how that goes. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that moving house is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. We have therefore been looking at things like replacing the double glazing, which should help bring the fuel bills down. | We will take something of a hit next month when we start paying for playschool for our two-year-old |
I found it difficult to believe that one firm we had to quote was charging 25% APR for their finance. It is unjustifiable with interest rates as low as they are. We will get some quotes and then see if we can extend the mortgage a bit. Fortunately, house prices here do not seem to have dropped at quite the same rate as elsewhere in the country and we still have equity in our home. Car servicing, road tax and insurance are all due this month for Clive's car, but we try to put away a bit each month to cover those expenses to ease it a bit. We will take something of a hit next month when we start paying for playschool for our two-year-old, and our older daughter turns six as well, with a shopping list for presents that is quite impressive. But the money will be found, children always have to come first. FEBRUARY Food and diesel prices appear to have stabilised for the moment, although the bad weather has meant that the MPG has dropped on the cars. This winter has been much colder than before and we are burning more logs and the central heating has been on quite a bit, so we are also using more oil. | We were pleased to see that our electricity supplier will be dropping its prices from the end of March. |
It is likely that the tank will have to be filled earlier than usual. We were pleased to see that our electricity supplier will be dropping its prices from the end of March. It's not much, but better than nothing. We have decided that the rates on our savings are so low that we would invest a little amount directly into shares. Our theory is that they probably cannot do much worse than over the past few months, and will hopefully give us a better rate of return in the long term than the building society. We have done a little investigation as to whether it is worth doing something with our fixed rate mortgage. Although the rates have fallen significantly, once the early redemption fee and new arrangement fees are taken into account, there doesn't seem to be a saving. JANUARY | INFLATION CALCULATOR This month's personal inflation: 2.8% |
Christmas came and went a bit, with Clive unexpectedly having to work all over the Christmas period. However, with the extra money we are treating ourselves to a four day break near Edinburgh. It might not the most prudent thing to do with the money, but time together as a family is important and we have had very little recently. | I strongly feel that the government needs to put some real pressure on the energy companies to either put their prices down or explain exactly why they cannot do so. |
Food and diesel costs are falling, which makes a difference to the monthly budget. Now, if only the electricity would follow. I strongly feel that the government needs to put some real pressure on the energy companies. They need to either put their prices down or explain exactly why they cannot do so. Additional expenses are coming this year with our younger daughter starting playschool after Easter. She will not get a funded place until January 2010 because of when her birthday falls, so if we want her to go then we pay until then. We have decided against a summer holiday this year as we want to have a big party for Clive's 50th birthday at the end of the year. So really, life returns to normal after the mayhem that is Christmas. Click here to return to the families front page Click here to read Karen Norris' 2008 reports
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