Week 2 - There's so much we can do.

RubySewSew

Mortgage just bounced

moo2moo

Oh no.

((hugs)) You must be feeling really really awful. Hope you managed to sleep.

Eager_Elephant

((Ruby))

Why did the payment bounce?

Have you not been paid yet or was there another problem with your wages? Has your ex not paid the maintenance?

Could you ask the mortgage company to change the date? Could you pay by a different method and send the payment as soon as your wages go in?

EE

Eager_Elephant

Asking your children to help around the home does not mean they will lose some of their childhood. In fact you will be making their adult hood better.

There is nothing worse than your child leaving home unable to do housework, cook etc. Future wives will thank you for it.

My DS (14) has to wash up after tea every night, has to tidy his room and do other chores as and when.

My DD (8) has to keep her room tidy and help with chores etc.

What they liked was Flylady - I used to print off the previous weeks list and then we would all work from it - the children loved crossing things off and then reviewing it and allocating jobs to DH and me !! Maybe you can try something similar like a star chart or something.

Hope you can have a good weekend.

EE

RubySewSew

Situation update:

Mortgage bounced in week. Partly my fault. I had taken some cash out to pay for a budgeted expense and hadn't paid the excess back in. The account was only short by £10. 2 items were presented at the same time and for some reason a £30 phone bill was paid whilst the mortgage was returned. So now, my account is £21 short (had to get a few groceries), we have no bread, milk, cereal or anything for lunches or dinner for today, and no petrol in the car. Had said I'd take boys swimming but need a fiver for my swimming and petrol in the car. And for some reason my child benefit is late. Should have been paid Thurs/Fri

The bf has said he can sub my account but for some reason he doesn't have faster payments on his a/c so it won't go through today. No other way to credit my account today.

EE - there should have been enough money in account although it is always a worry because I have 4 credits throughout the month - maintenance (10th), wages (last day), tax credit (changes/4 weekly) and child benefit (changes/4 weekly). My wages aren't actually enough to cover the mortgage so I had timed all my other bills to come out of that credit. I timed mortgage for late in the month so that all other credits have time to accrue. Of course downside of that is sometimes it wobbles if I'm not really careful

Eager_Elephant

Hi Ruby

It is always a pain when things don't go to plan isn't it? Where was the money coming from that you were going to pay in?
Will the mortgage company try to take another payment or will you have to ring them?

How come you were short this month and have no bread or milk? Did you have an unexpected expense or is your budget too tight?
Are all your non-priority debts on token payments now?

I know it's hard with children but the only thing I can recommend is not to agree any outings until the last minute, obviously you will know in advance if you are going somewhere but the children don't have to know.
My children love outings but I can't always afford them so yesterday Dh, DD and I had a bike ride to see the lambs (even though we have our own!!), then we had lunch, then we went to look round someone's smallholding, then we had a BBQ (Which was fine til it all caught light!!!) and then it was bed time.
A lovely day, the only cost was food.

I know you probably get bored of being at home and want to get out and about and that is understandable - are there any free places to go?

Sorry for all the questions

EE

RubySewSew

Please don't apologise for questions - it helps me to think and its always useful to see how somebody else might view things.

Why am I short this month? Well it has been an expensive month. We went to see my Dad which cost £170 in petrol. I had to pay to tax the car (could only afford 6 months), had to buy shoes for all 3 boys (just did cheapie Primark ones to see us through) and it was DS2's birthday. Oh and my home insurance came up for renewal. I did a comparison, got the cheapest one, checked I had spare funds so decided to pay for it annually and save the extortionate interest payments. So far so good but when the policy came through it was part of teh standard conditions that you have to be 400m from any waterway. We're about 120m from the sea. Called the broker who gave me the next best deal but that doubled the price Whilst all of these things are budgeted for annually and saved for monthly none of the money has made it into savings yet as there seems to be a big budgeted cost every month. Things should be a little easier now as all birthdays are done but the car is making a funny noise and needs to go to the garage.

It all went through today - child benefit in, mortgage out. However, I had some horrible news which broke my heart. DS2's brand new scooter that he got for his birthday at the beginning of the month was stolen from school. He left it there over the weekend and not surprisingly it was nicked. I'm gutted. Absolutely gutted

Having a little think about both the housework and the days out. I completely agree EE that children should be involved with household chores and it is an important part of their upbringing, education and self esteem. My only concern is that my Mum was a single parent who held down 3 jobs whilst studying for ehr degree and inevitably we had to fill the gap when it came to running the house. At the age of 11 I cooked all the family meals, did most of the cleaning.., oops hold on a tall dark handsome man just arrived at my door with flowers, back in a min...

RubySewSew

Ahhh, see sometimes the good fairies do come to visit!

As I was saying, we did all the household chores when I was little. It taught me a lot and I left home at 18 fully independent but it caused a lot of tension and arguments as well. I guess what I'm saying is I don't want them to have to fill the role of an adult just because I'm on my own.

I do struggle with keeping the boys entertained at weekends. I feel lonely and isolated. We don't really socialise with other families because the boys have such a tricky dynamic and are so full on. We don't have bikes. Town is expensive and stressful (anywhere near shops is stressful with DS1 around), the weather has been terrible for so long and so we haven't been to the beach for ages, parks don't really work because they are at such different developmental ages, walks always end in tears. They are all very needy and very clingy - I've tried picnics in the parks etc but they each want my undivided attention and I end up exhausted. Often the easiest thing to do is to have a friend over to even up the dynamics but that means staying in all day. And the other thing is they are used to having a lot of money spent on them at their Dad's. If I'm honest, I find it really, really hard. Blimey I'm a misery at the moment.

Ok. Writing today off. It's been rubbish. I'm grumpy because I'm dieting and my feet hurt from walking. DS1 went out with my ex friends ex (!) and had a lovely time. The garden is looking green and lush. There is only 4 weeks until the summer holidays (whoop! whoop!). The bf is taking me to Paris. I have a lovely friend who is helping me with the weight loss and teaching me to needlepoint. And we had 4 eggs today!

Time to go looking for some of that old Ruby positivity!

moo2moo

Ruby, theres a not for profit bike recyclers in Brighton called Cranks, they'd be worth a call. Point out you can't afford to buy the bikes, even at £30 each, and see if they'll lease them to you for the summer, it can't harm to ask.

Theres a huge difference between asking children to help and expecting them to do everything.

Wowo to living so close to the sea. How about borrowing a copy of Edible Seashore from the library and going foraging on the beach for a day. I'm sure there are tons of other things you can do for nowt. Even setting them a beach side treasure hunt requiring a range of specific coloured shells and seeaweeds should keep them out of your hair for a bit. My two used to spend ages collecting horse hoof prints very very carefully in nappy sacks when they were tiny but were always rather surprised to find they'd vanished by the time we got back to the car. Turns out thats because horses hoof prints are magic.

Glad the mortgage is paid but pants to their dad being such a git that he can spoil them with stuff whilst neglecting to notice that they'd be better off with shoes.

Eager_Elephant

Hmm I'm wondering who this lovely tall dark handsome man was who arrived at 7:06 and did not leave until 9.00pm :rotfl:

It is so hard when you want to do things, have large expenditure on essential bills and then realise the budget can't stretch that far

I have to agree with Moo about the difference between children helping and doing everything - sometimes my kids argue over who will do the housework - annoying at the time but at least they don't see it as a chore.

Maybe you could sit down with them and discuss it and see what tasks they would like to do and give them a chance.

The house insurance is not always cheaper when paid annually, one year I went with Virgin for car insurance as they were cheaper and then found they don't charge a premium for paying monthly :T. Should still be the same so maybe one to thnk about next year.

Also remember that karma will come around - I'm sure your ex will get his comeuppance one day.

EE