Learning to budget to make future adventures happen

crunch_time · 6 January 2018 at 8:44AM

Nicnak wrote: »

I'm so jealous! Childminder declared she was having a holiday at the end of October again, and I went into melt down mode again!

How frustrating! My sister uses a childminder and has complained before how she takes holidays and then my sister still has to pay her!
I know it’s all part of the system but it must be so frustrating!

crunch_time · 6 January 2018 at 7:14PM

Evening all

Dd has had awful tantrums all day and I’ve found it really hard not to succumb to buying a bottle of wine for tonight to ‘reward’ myself for getting through it. Husband has kept me in check and I have just transferred the money I would have spent into the secret foreign holiday fund. £7. This could be very motivating. I don’t need the wine and want to lose weight and want a foreign holiday next year so it’s all going in the right direction!

Crunchy xx

barnsleylass83 · 6 January 2018 at 10:22PM

I like this idea, I think it may help us realise just how much we do spend on the odd takeaway and bottle of wine. The little ones can be very trying at times cant they!!

Willowtree222 · 7 January 2018 at 9:55AM

That's fab. I think I would have given in and gone for the wine, but the odd £7 will soon add up for your fund,

crunch_time · 7 January 2018 at 1:21PM

Nicnak wrote: »

That's fab. I think I would have given in and gone for the wine, but the odd £7 will soon add up for your fund,

Yes - if I manage to go a whole year without a £7 bottle of wine then I can save £364!! I hoping this attitude will stop me choosing things that aren't really for me in favour of choosing things that are. I choose to travel over spending £7 to take the edge off a tricky day of parenting.

I'm going to try and do the same with magazines that I don't need or get the time to read anyway. Hopefully, this will all add up and give me what I actually want.

crunch_time · 7 January 2018 at 1:26PM

I've amended my signature as we have had husbands credit card statement through with the new balance transfer on it. With the fee it now stands at £4579 and mine stands at £3035 after I rang up for a figure. This means I am now at £7614 which is higher than I predicted but sometimes you need to go upwards to go downwards. Some of the credit card balance is now going accrue interest so husband needs to ring up and find out how much so I can transfer it to mine when I get my card.

Crunchy x

Seasidegal58 · 7 January 2018 at 8:27PM

crunch_time wrote: »

Yes - if I manage to go a whole year without a £7 bottle of wine then I can save £364!! I hoping this attitude will stop me choosing things that aren't really for me in favour of choosing things that are. I choose to travel over spending £7 to take the edge off a tricky day of parenting.

I'm going to try and do the same with magazines that I don't need or get the time to read anyway. Hopefully, this will all add up and give me what I actually want.

That’s a really good idea crunchy. I used to buy quite a few different magazines a few years ago. When I started debt busting I stopped and found you could go online to read them instead for free. And I wasn’t reading most of them anyway when I did buy them. I do get two now but these are through subscriptions that I received as presents.

crunch_time · 8 January 2018 at 6:58AM

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

That’s a really good idea crunchy. I used to buy quite a few different magazines a few years ago. When I started debt busting I stopped and found you could go online to read them instead for free. And I wasn’t reading most of them anyway when I did buy them. I do get two now but these are through subscriptions that I received as presents.

If I go a while year without my usual magazine (£4.95) then that nearly another £60. I’m going to allow myself to buy it only if most of the articles reasonaye with me. I do rip out useful articles and keep them and have done this for over ten years. In fact I have a whole folder full of them and they are all categorised!! Perhaps looking for info online would be better - or getting a subscription.

crunch_time · 8 January 2018 at 7:07AM

Morning diary,

It’s hitting me today that I’m not going to be a teacher anymore. I still have set my alarm early but I’m currently dressed in my work out clothes and going to squeeze in a 30 min workout before breakfast.

My course starts today so I will have lots of things to read online and of course will need to plough through the changes of address that I still haven’t finished.

I’m very proud of myself for my alcohol free weekend! I can’t temember the last time I went a week without booze. I read a few blogs on the subject last night and I’d like to see if I can go a whole year without it. But I’m going to do January first. Actually transferring the money has helped in a big way.

It’s not like my drinking saw me trollers every night but in a week husband and I would plough through 1-2 bottles of wine and some beers on my Friday (Wednesday) and we really didn’t need it. I would often get alcohol to be my companion of an evening when husband was away. That makes me feel sad now. I must have been unhappy.

Crunchy x

crunch_time · 8 January 2018 at 3:43PM

Just popping in to say DS's last after-school club bill was £3 less than expected so ramping up the holiday fund to £37.22!!

The National Grid need to register the meter in our name and this property so I won't be paying for electricity for a while. I'm going to tuck the money away into the household bills account for now. We won't have to pay a big lump sum for the back pay but it makes sense to save it just in case.

After getting used to oil central heating for the last two months and realizing we will be spending more money on oil than we would like to, husband has reduced the amount it is on and set different times so we shall see how that helps. The current prediction is £74 per month - on top of electricity!!!!!! Must get that down...... and wear the slippers more.

Right - must get ready for the school/nursery run!

Crunchy xx

Learning to budget to make future adventures happen

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