£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Silver_Queen · 13 June 2017 at 12:52PM

On the flipside, think about how many great memories you'll make as a family, and how many important skills your kids are learning thanks to your encouragement to get out into terrain that they may not be used to...;)

Wysiwyg49 · 13 June 2017 at 1:22PM

I'm into my 4th month of tracking all expenditure and it has really surprised me how much I spend on kids activities (although DD is into horse riding which is far from cheap!)

The camping fees aren't bad overall, just think how much you would spend on a week in the sun! Last year we got an air b'n'b place and visited friends who live in Europe - sounds like a cheap holiday, but it was still about £1800 plus a lot of eating out money...

enthusiasticsaver · 13 June 2017 at 1:44PM

I think some holidays you would think are cheap like camping, caravanning, even staycationing end up being more expensive than you think as in bad weather you need to sort out entertainment and often eating away is more expensive than eating at home. School holidays are a killer to any budget so we overbudgeted and any left went to Christmas fund. There is also additional petrol/diesel to find.

I tended to find the cheapest days out were on the beach or walking or flying kites on the moors but living in Cornwall we did not have to travel far for either. Picnics and drinks were taken rather than eating out although we tended to do the odd fish and chips lunch or pasty. Walking, beachcombing, flying kites, ball games etc etc were cheap ways of passing the time with our kids. I am looking forward to doing that with our granddaughter this summer.

Our Centre Parcs holiday with the family next week is costing us a small fortune but luckily discovered our cycle rack fits my OHs new car so we can take our own bikes and just hire a child seat for my granddaughter.

warby68 · 13 June 2017 at 1:47PM

ToPM, the simple truth, however you dress it up otherwise, is that you can't afford holidays at the moment. You shouldn't have had the £400 one and you certainly shouldn't have booked any more.

Its no mystery, your budget does not currently stretch to this due to overspending for years previously yet you still keep spending, hoping for a miracle.

I fully understand why you are kicking and screaming in resistance to an altered lifestyle especially with 3 little expectant faces but unless you adapt for a few years, you are putting bigger things at stake for much longer.

At their age, they can have just as much fun camping in your own back garden.

I am one of your harder commentators but all the 'there there' posts in the world won't help if you end up creating a problem for many years to come because you can't face consequences for a year or two now.

As ever its your choice, but it certainly isn't some budgetting mystery - you are going on endless circles of rationalisation to make choices which you can't afford and I think you know it really.

Sorry to be the bringer of doom once more but that light bulb is barely flickering at the moment.

Seriously, why can't you cut your cloth for just one year and then, like you say, review things against hopefully higher earnings?

enthusiasticsaver · 13 June 2017 at 1:50PM

Looking at your soa you have only been allowing £75 a month since February and if £350 is taken up with a family holiday and then you have lots of camping costs on top then it is not surprising that there is not enough as only six months worth of £75. Next year if you get this right the pot for holidays will be that much larger as you will be saving for longer.

emmie26 · 13 June 2017 at 6:06PM

I'm panicking a bit because like ES says, we are starting a budget half way through the year so the annual expenses won't actually be paid for, as long as you make cuts somewhere else and are aware then next year your budget should work better.
When we did our previous debt busting 7 years ago

we did a 'cheap' camping trip and we really did do it on the cheap but the children had a fab time and we have lovely memories.

Treadingonplaymobil · 13 June 2017 at 6:51PM

warby68 wrote: »

ToPM, the simple truth, however you dress it up otherwise, is that you can't afford holidays at the moment. You shouldn't have had the £400 one and you certainly shouldn't have booked any more.

Its no mystery, your budget does not currently stretch to this due to overspending for years previously yet you still keep spending, hoping for a miracle.

I fully understand why you are kicking and screaming in resistance to an altered lifestyle especially with 3 little expectant faces but unless you adapt for a few years, you are putting bigger things at stake for much longer.

At their age, they can have just as much fun camping in your own back garden.

I am one of your harder commentators but all the 'there there' posts in the world won't help if you end up creating a problem for many years to come because you can't face consequences for a year or two now.

As ever its your choice, but it certainly isn't some budgetting mystery - you are going on endless circles of rationalisation to make choices which you can't afford and I think you know it really.

Sorry to be the bringer of doom once more but that light bulb is barely flickering at the moment.

Seriously, why can't you cut your cloth for just one year and then, like you say, review things against hopefully higher earnings?

Oh gosh, I'm not pretending there's any mystery to it. I'm in the process of breaking 15 years of mindless spending habits (I've been in debt, one way or another, since the day I started university), and even though in an ideal world I would avoid all these overspending incidents, the truth is that sometimes I need to make the mistake, get my sensible head on, learn the lesson and hopefully avoid making the mistake again ever again. It's not a perfect process (really really not a perfect process), but it's my process and I'm happy with it.

Treadingonplaymobil · 13 June 2017 at 6:53PM

Wysiwyg49 wrote: »

I'm into my 4th month of tracking all expenditure and it has really surprised me how much I spend on kids activities (although DD is into horse riding which is far from cheap!)

The camping fees aren't bad overall, just think how much you would spend on a week in the sun! Last year we got an air b'n'b place and visited friends who live in Europe - sounds like a cheap holiday, but it was still about £1800 plus a lot of eating out money...

Kids' activities/entertainment was definitely one of our biggest spending categories pre-LBM. It's still a huge category for us, but at least the mindless spending on activities they won't necessarily enjoy/benefit from has stopped.

Silver_Queen wrote: »

On the flipside, think about how many great memories you'll make as a family, and how many important skills your kids are learning thanks to your encouragement to get out into terrain that they may not be used to...;)

We have such great memories of camping since our oldest was a baby, we all really enjoy it, and I hope we continue to make great memories. Just need to learn to budget properly for them in future too, for a double win!

armchairexpert wrote: »

I am giving myself a year to get the budget perfect for this exact reason! It's all a learning curve. I still don't, and won't, know if my birthday budget is about right until the end of the year, since both my girls have near-Christmas birthdays and I've never previously added up how much I spend on the party plus presents. You're ahead of me if you have a pot for school holidays, I always, always underestimate how much it costs to do even cheapish things when the kids are at home with me and I think I need a separate category for that.

Anyway. Solidarity! I envy the camping trips, Mr E refuses point blank to contemplate camping and I think my kids would love it, so please enjoy them for me.

Our budget has been adjusted so many times since we started out. It's a long process getting a budget sorted when you've been overspending for a long time.

Treadingonplaymobil · 13 June 2017 at 6:58PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Looking at your soa you have only been allowing £75 a month since February and if £350 is taken up with a family holiday and then you have lots of camping costs on top then it is not surprising that there is not enough as only six months worth of £75. Next year if you get this right the pot for holidays will be that much larger as you will be saving for longer.

I'd better get it right next year! I'm certainly not nailing it in 2017 :rotfl:

emmie26 wrote: »

I'm panicking a bit because like ES says, we are starting a budget half way through the year so the annual expenses won't actually be paid for, as long as you make cuts somewhere else and are aware then next year your budget should work better.
When we did our previous debt busting 7 years ago we did a 'cheap' camping trip and we really did do it on the cheap but the children had a fab time and we have lovely memories.

I think there's never a perfect time to start a budget, it's just a case of starting and wiggling things around again and again as you keep going to try to make things balance a little better each month.

Silver_Queen · 13 June 2017 at 8:01PM

TOPM I think that with your level of debt, you are fully aware that it'll be a long haul and as long as you're mindful of your spending and making informed decisions, knowing that it will mean not cutting down on your DFD so quickly and you are still willing to make that sacrifice, then fair enough.

£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

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