A Money-Mastering Maternity

Thanks sugarcube. My first Mother's Day was wonderful. I am so in love. With both my beautiful bouncing boy but also my husband. I have never been happier in life.

Except for the debt!!!! How annoying it is! I'm glad they're going in the right direction, I just wish they were going quicker! I miss having two proper salaries to throw at it.

I'm hoping to go back to work part time, crunchy. I need to put the official request in yet though. I have worked out how our budgets will look on all of the circumstances and we will have a better disposable income even after all the nursery fees. Fingers crossed they'll let me go back as I want to. I'm very lucky I guess, even with this debt, that I can go back part time. I see the argument here for going back full time at least until the debt is paid off but I don't feel that the extra is worth giving up all that time with my boy and living the life I am currently loving as much as possible.

Keeping on with sales. £50 up and £67 to follow tomorrow. This is helping.

Mot tax and insurance due this month. I have £200 aside for mot but hoping we can get away with a £30 basic mot job without any work being necessary. Then the extra can go to debt. We shall see

I've been quiet. Which usually means I've been less obsessive than usual. Tick to things not improving for a while!

Oh well, less than two weeks to payday

Re jigging has been required as a 0% came to an end. Another transfer then plus the fees to go with it to make sure it all stays on 0%. I had always hoped to have all 0%s paid off before they came to an end.

I've felt really down about this all recently so I've been concentrating on enjoying time with DS rather than worrying about money, or lack thereof. But I can't afford to do this completely. Mot and car insurance jumping up have also caused issues but re jig of signature puts it back on the straight and narrow. I'm worse off than at the start of maternity and I am determined this will not be the case by the end of it. To top it all off I have been unwell so dh has had free reign of the food budget etc and hasn't stuck to anything whatsoever.

One week to payday and kind of a new start. Again.

We have cancelled sky tv so saving some pennies there. I have bulk cooked a freezer load of food for an £80 shop. This has reinforced the fact that planning food really does make it a lot cheaper. I will continue doing this and should be able to get our food spends down and back to within budget each month. DS will be weaning soon so when I can cut out his formula will help!

All that said, I have expensive things to come. New car seat for DS required soon. They don't come cheap. At least we bought a base that will work with the next seat so we don't have to replace both.

I can't decide whether to sell some of the things DS has outgrown. It would help with cash flow but might be short sighted as we will want to have another. That also said, I think finances will make a bigger difference as to when we come to decide to do that. We will need to be rid of a significant chunk of this debt before considering another, if not all of it.