HUGE challenge for you all!

meanmarie

Beki, I would rather eat worms than go to any Disneyland, so bear that and the fact that I am 63 when I continue!

I think that you can manage this holiday and as you have been before and enjoyed it so much it is probably not as wasteful of your slender resources as it seemed at first, but let it be a lesson to you that in future you need to set a budget for any holiday before you think of booking anything.

Your financial arrangements with your parents are your business and theirs...nobody elses...my late mother was always on hand when she felt we needed money when my children were young...seven children and a husband who is a practising alcoholic don't help with financial arrangements, Mother's attitude was that she would rather give to me when I needed it than leave it to me when she died, so that you could see the benefit of her help to me....I really appreciated that help, she knew that and I was glad to be able to repay her, if not in money terms but by being the principal carer for her and my father in the seven years that they needed care before they died.

Trust your daughter more...children are not as unaware as we sometimes think they are, so talk to her about money, what things cost and how you and she can manage to trim those costs...at 10 she will give you lots of totally fanciful notions, but involve her as much as you can.

Enjoy your holiday and your parents while you can

Marie

Beki

Fantastic advice Marie - thank you!

carriebradshaw

welcome to old style Beki,just had a peek at your blog too,it's lovely :T

Beki

Thank you

miemie

Morning Beki,
Hope its not too wet where you are, have been to the post office and sent you a parcel, sent it 2nd class so you should recieve it Tue/Wed.
take care
Miemie

Beki

Thank you Miemie! That's so kind of you! I'll look forward to recieving it - will let you know as soon as it arrives

The weather here is very changeable! It's Been raining really hard since last night, but in the last hour it's brightened up a bit. Earlier on it was raining while the sun was shining - very surreal! lol :rotfl:

Hope the weather's better where you are! xxxx

skintchick

Hi Beki
First up can I say you might also get some good help on debt-free Wannabe regarding budgeting overall, rather than just OS stuff?

on that note, your house insurance seems very high - £48 a month x 12 months = £576. Can you swap to another supplier and get it cheaper? Also, for the future, if you pay these kinds of things in a one-off payment annually, it is cheaper than spreading the cost over a year as they charge you interest.

I have to agree with other posters though. I also had help from my parents, but for ten years I didn;t take ANY kind of holiday as I felt it was taking the mickey to accept their money then swan off away.

Even if they are OK with it, I think it's an irresponsible attitude, and as all DFWs know, it is the attitude that gets you into financial trouble!! I'm not meaning to have a go, but if you want to be able to do mroe than just scrape by, you need to think about WHY you get into these situations.

I have friends like you, and they are always skint too. But they now as a household earn over 60k! :eek: Yet they still struggle. And that is because their attitude to money and spending is poor.

Just something to think about for the future.

Beki

I think i've kind of learnt my lesson now. I'm going to go on this holiday, then start paing back my parents before even thinking about another one.

lauren_1

Hi, i just popped in to asda today and saw they had the huggies potty sets for £5! I got one for ds, it has a blue potty, stickers charts, their own wipes, pack of pull ups (which are £5 themselves) some colourful diagrams for ds and a handy booklet of tips.

We went and got ds another set of bigboy pants as he didnt fir 2-3's (he's a chunky monkey) ok he did pick out fifi firstly but swayed him for the blue football ones!

Hope this helps

Beki

Thank you!