Do I run too tight a budget?

meritaten

why dont you compromise? he wants a cottage you want a tent. why not a caravan holiday?
he gets the amenities and a little bit of luxury (some of those caravans are nicer than my home!) and you do save a bit on the cost of a cottage!
hun, saving for your dream is nice - but you have to live NOW! and if anything happened to your OH (GOD FORBID) how would you feel if you forced him into roughing it?

emlou2009

Why dont you just both save some of your "spends" towards it?

Oh, how the other half live - I worried over buying a £4 top earlier and wont even have a cheap getaway honeymoon after my wedding as we cant afford it. I could understand the worry of spending £1000 on a holiday if it was one months earnings, but its only 1/3 of one months earnings. I think its quite sad actually. You're lucky to have the kind of income at your disposal to afford something nice for your family.

Ex-Spendaholic

This thread actually made me quite sad in a bizarre way.

My OH comes from parents who were obsessed with becoming mortgage free. They did that and as a result OH says they never went anywhere - no holidays, no trips to the seaside, virtually nothing. He and his sister never had the latest fashions or toys or anything either. Anything they got were hand me downs from their "poor" cousins. The poor cousins incidentally had parents who didn't have much of an income but always made sure their kids had holidays, clothes, toys etc.

Now before people jump up and down and say material things don't matter my OH remembers these things. No matter what anyone says it is hard being the only child without a particular T shirt or whatever especially when it would have only cost a few pounds. As a result now if he wants something he buys it and is the same with the children. He feels that he cannot deny them anything (which isn't always a good thing but thats another topic entirely). The outlaws well they continue to hoard their money and will do until such times they end up in nursing homes and the money is usurped to pay the fees. Seriously what is the point?

In the past few weeks 2 friends of ours have died. 1 aged 34 dropped dead and the other aged just 31 was in an accident. Both leave behind a wife and children. Those wives are maybe mortgage free now thanks to the life insurance but I can bet both they and the children would rather be mortgaged to the hilt and have their husband and daddy back.

OP, you sound like you have it made. You are going to be mortgage free in about 2 years, you have shedloads of savings and your children seem to do well for activities etc.

Have the holiday, let your OH relax in a cottage, go to restaurants. You really don't know what is round the corner. Children will remember the fun times not the day the mortgage was paid off.

gabyjane

Again i agree with the above post but it made me think a bit more. When i was younger i didnt have a great upbringing. My dad worked his bum off but he struggled and i never had most of the latest fashions etc like my friends did, the ones i did have i felt very guilty about..i remember still now!..I also agree it is not about material things but children do remember things years on.
I dont want my dd to grow up spoilt but if we can afford things for her then i will buy them..within reason i mean not everything she asks for, she is a saver too (must get it from me!) and knows things cost but she has had lots of lovely holidays and things that i want her to have and grow up with..she laso remembers most of these which to me is a lovely thing..something i can not replace as she gets older.
Go on the holiday and enjoy yourselves xx

nickyhutch

For goodness' sake, it's your DH's life/money too!

Go to the cottage, and don't set so many rules for when you're there, because yes, you're taking the fun out of the holiday by doing that. Let him take charge of it, because it sounds like you're pretty much in charge the rest of the time.

JodyBPM

emlou2009 wrote: »

Why dont you just both save some of your "spends" towards it?

Oh, how the other half live - I worried over buying a £4 top earlier and wont even have a cheap getaway honeymoon after my wedding as we cant afford it. I could understand the worry of spending £1000 on a holiday if it was one months earnings, but its only 1/3 of one months earnings. I think its quite sad actually. You're lucky to have the kind of income at your disposal to afford something nice for your family.

Thank you for this post, it brought me right back down to earth with a bump! In some ways I need that kind of perspective on the situation.

To be fair, we live in the South East, an expensive part of the UK and our income, although it would appear nationally as quite good, is for this part of the country, average to poor. Admittedly that is a lot because I only work 2 days a week, but still, when a 1 bed flat costs nearly £200k, a three bed house £300k plus and the kind of rural property I dream of (and that will be a small 3 bed with a decent garden) at least £500k, our incomes are not high at all. In order to bring our children up in a nice environment we need to save and be careful with money, in other parts of the country our income would provide that easily, I know!

It doesn't feel to me like we have much disposable income because we NEED to save to achieve anything. We do spend a lot on the children, they get to have the things they need and more, we never stop them from doing activities etc. I genuinely don't believe for one minute that my children will grow up saying "why did we go camping, when we could have afforded a cottage holiday?" more likely , they will fondly remember the camping holidays for the fantastic fun that they are!

JodyBPM

nickyhutch wrote: »

For goodness' sake, it's your DH's life/money too!

Go to the cottage, and don't set so many rules for when you're there, because yes, you're taking the fun out of the holiday by doing that. Let him take charge of it, because it sounds like you're pretty much in charge the rest of the time.

LOL, maybe!:D

JoJoB

I agree with you about camping - I don't see it as slumming it at all, we all love it as a family!

We live in the South East too and as such our budgets are restricted (our holiday this year is still 50/50 affordable though just a week at a £500 cottage). We are going to do out best to get there though.

The part of the SE you are living in is considerably more expensive than our (coastal) part of the region. We live in a very nice 2 bedroom flat worth £100,000 for example. Would it be worth you looking at other possible areas to buy your dream home which are under the 500+ mark you mention? Even if you have to commute into london there are now high speed train services to outlying areas such as east kent which are great for schools/houses etc but cheap property prices too.

Oldernotwiser

JodyBPM wrote: »

We do spend a lot on the children, they get to have the things they need and more, we never stop them from doing activities etc. I genuinely don't believe for one minute that my children will grow up saying "why did we go camping, when we could have afforded a cottage holiday?" more likely , they will fondly remember the camping holidays for the fantastic fun that they are!

I don't think that anybody thinks that your children are going without anything from your description of what you spend on them.

However, it does seem to some of us that your husband works hard and earns a decent income (even for the south east) and yet can't manage a fortnight's holiday in a cottage in the UK! It's hardly a once in a life time trip, is it?

Sucker_for_sweeties

When I was wee I seemed to always be starving, we had a variety of unmanageable/unaffordable heating systems(paraffin heaters,storage/bankrupt ones), one bath a week, and I worked part-time and did the berries and the tatties from 13.

But we ALWAYS had a summer holiday.

A tent or caravan (St Andrews - Baltic:eek:) was great, but now I can afford a cottage (£330pw July/August) we do it. The joy of being able to dry your kit in Scotland is priceless....ditto the beaches..
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/49032
http://www.visitourscotland.co.uk/mellon-udrigle-beach.html
http://scotlandinthegloaming.blogspot.com/2009/01/gairloch-beach-sunset.html


I put all my cashback and survey earnings to pay for the cottage