Millionaire Challenge

Kayalana99

Tbh not much to update. My sister might be leaving her husband again and shes offered to give me some money to do the school run. My dilemma is she is supposed to be at school the same time as my son so I would have to drop her off at 8:45 (and leave her waiting round) and then take mine to Nursery but she has to pay £25 a week for breakfast club so she has said I could have that if I did the mornings.

My mum has offered to pick her up twice a week, but that still leaves 3 days a week where she will need collecting to. My thought was for £25 a week given shes family that would be 5 morning drop offs and 3 pick ups - and I wouldn't charge her extra during the holidays when she is here.

I think that's fair (actually more then fair given the holidays to) but then I imagine having her everyday for 6 weeks during August school holidays..my other thoughts was to just say £15 a week and just do the mornings as asked but I think she's going to end up here for holidays anyway!

I appreciate she is my sister, but I normally walk to school everyday so it does mean I will be using the car daily so I have to take petrol into consideration to.

Also during August I have quite a few weddings on, so I will be busy with editing so I am not sure I can entertain her(although maybe a blessing in disguise as she plays with the kids?)...but I know she won't be able to afford the childcare costs but once September comes he will need to get to school earlier and I will need to pick him up after school as well + I will get busier on the run up to Xmas so the morning run I wouldn't mind so much but picking her up again.

I wouldn't be surprised if they take your offer to be fair, good for you for holding your ground at the end of the day you are not a buyer who has fallen in love with the place and would pay anything for it - you are making a financially stable decision by offering a certain price and not going higher.

I've been building my website up today, it's got .wordpress in it ATM but I think it's not expensive to get it just my website name but I'm unsure how it all works for now I am just building a bit of a website up on it. Have a blog post about a couple shoot I did last week which went well.

4 hour work week came read about 5 pages and got busy same old. OH is losing facing his job so I decided to keep that 1k back in a savings pot for now. It's not his fault it's purely the area he is working in isn't doing well.

He's been asked to write a report on what he can do to help the business income improve, he said he noticed an e-mail from his bosses boss asking his boss to write a report on what he can do to help income improve...so I told him when you do the report e-mail it to your boss and CC in his boss so his boss knows they are his ideas. We both sat down last night and brain stormed and I think I came up with one really good idea that he's going to push. (This gal right here might be the reason the business starts making profit and they won't even know cause I won't get the credit if it helps his career though and I can only hope it may not make a difference lol)

lessonlearned

lessonlearned wrote: »

Tbh. I think most of us are aiming for much higher than that. 15 per cent won't get you very far.

Sorry Ellie. I just re read that and I think it came out wrong. I didn't mean to sound harsh or dismissive. We all have to start where we can, and if you can only manage 15 per cent then fair enough. even saving 5 per cent is better than nothing.

What I meant, in my clumsy way, was that to really make things fly you need to save as much of your disposable income as possible, if only to get you off the ground.

For most of us on here we've had to live quite frugally In order to save as much as possible to give us "lift off".

For some, myself included, it has meant clearing debts before we can even think about investing or speculating and most of us have ploughed every spare penny into debt reduction and savings.

At the moment I am aiming to save 50 per cent of my net passive income to add to my savings. It's a challenge I have set myself - I probably won't manage it every month but for me I think it's a goal worth aiming for.

I am not saving for savings sake because the money I do manage to put away is earmarked for a particular plan I have in mind.

A few months of frugal living will hopefully pay handsome dividends in the long run and it's not as if I am skimping on essentials or going without anything. I still allow myself a bit of "mad money" for entertainment or a few treats here and there.

Anyway, why not join us and see how you go.

lessonlearned

Kaya - sorry to hear about both your sisters break up and your husband's potential job loss. Fingers crossed between them your husband and his bosses (with your help ) can come up with a rescue plan for the business.

Of course you want to help your sister out - that's what families are for but you do need to make sure you don't over commit yourself.

If you think the afternoon pick ups would present a problem you would be better to explain that to your sister now rather than try it and find its too much and have to let her down. You could always be part of a "back up plan" - say if your mum or the other 3 day person couldn't make it some days.

Juggling childcare can be such a problem and school holidays and childhood illnesses only compound the difficulties. I used to have several "back ups" but even then it could be a worry at times.

During school holidays and after school a couple of the mums in our circle and myself used to just have reciprocal "play date" type of arrangements. No money changed hands - we would all just play "host" to each other's kids......We just used to take the view the more the merrier and just let them hang out together and entertain themselves.

It meant taking a relaxed view about the state of house though, it could get pretty messy at times.......4 or 5 boys can soon turn a house upside down. Snacks were easy enough, you just need to keep the toaster working at full stretch.......;)

You might find that your boys adore having a bigger older female cousin to mother and fuss over them.....you might even get a few extra breaks to get on with things.

cazmanian_minx

Still tied up in crofting legislation here Now looking frighteningly like it may not go through before the change to the stamp duty laws on the purchase of second homes (the Scottish legislation hasn't got a fixed date for going through yet, AFAIK, but they were hoping for April) - my neighbour's decrofting application took 14 weeks for the Crofting Commission to approve and if the transfer to me takes a similar amount of time I'm going to have a stamp duty bill of £2,850 instead of £0. I've asked my solicitor whether the tax is calculated as at the date missives are concluded or as at the date of entry - if it's the former, then I'm fine, we've done it.

Kayalana99

It wasn't the afternoon it was the mornings that are most difficult. (or at least until my son starts school full time in Sept) as I have to get mine to school the same time.

It feels really wrong leaving a 7 year old at the school gates today but apparently that's what her Dad does everyday and she walks down to her friends and I needed to get back to school. I have opted for her to go to breakfast club though as it was a nightmare, cars everywhere struggled to park and then I had to get the kids out the car seats to walk her to the gates - back into the car seats - back out of the car seats to get them to my eldest school and then youngest back in the car seat to go home (not to mention the stress of driving and parking when it's so busy!)

Still got to do it for a while as she has to apply for a place but hopefully that will be sooner rather then later.

1 year and I'll have my youngest doing 2 and half days at Nursery and my eldest will be full time - then I'll have lots of free time to get a job or develop my businesses as I'll have set days off.

The Dad just refused to take the daughter to school as the car broke down even though he is not working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Honestly though it's 30min walk tops - 60min both ways or he could get a bus she even offered to pay for the taxi) He moved out yesterday but this isn't the first time so we'll see what happens next.

I'm more relaxed with school holidays it's the having to do the school run that annoys me but just the thought of her being 6 weeks straight but hopefully my Mum will help to. My niece is lovely with the kids tbf.


I hope they don't slap that tax on you crazy for the sake of a few weeks!!

lessonlearned

Kay - sorry misunderstood, thought the problem was afternoons not mornings. Yes it does sound complicated but hopefully it will get easier once the weather gets better.

Having to wrestle little bodies into car seats is easier when they aren't wearing lots of layers of coats, hats, etc. My youngest used to make himself go rigid if he didn't want to co-operate. I felt like breaking his legs some days........:D

Yes I always preferred holidays - a much more relaxed and leisurely start to the day - less stressful too. We used to watch breakfast TV together and then do some exercises with either the Green Goddess or Mr Motivator, the kids loved it.

You are probably too young to remember them.

Sounds like your sister is better off by herself........;)

Caz. Hope all goes well. Hope you manage to get it all through before the tax deadline.

tinktay84

hi all,


great reading through all the goings on, hope alls well with everyone.


well we had snow at weekend and my fellas 'work' car is a bmw estate (oldish one still on finance) so on sunday we parked it a little way up the road so he wouldn't get snowed in...6am Monday morning he went out to find it wheel less and burnt out :-(
Anyway, straight onto police and insurance and have to say direct line insurance have been absolutely ace!
also very glad I opted for gap insurance as the car was valued at less than the outstanding finance by around £1000.
we have a courtesy car at the moment but have sourced a Peugeot 107 (small city car type jobby) for the same monthly payment through the same finance co but it will be £200 less a year for tax and half the fuel costs so not all bad. just frustrating that people work hard and things like this happen. cest la vie!
on the plus side I got £80 of shopping for less than £13 by buying a £20 voucher for £5 off wowcher to spend at approved food (think ive mentioned before)

ms_night_ryder

Hello all! ��

I am very happy, just booked my ticket to new York, so it's a spend day, I was only supposed to buy one way and the other in 2 weeks when I get paid again, but one way was 1k, where a return has just cost me £372 in June.

I was supposed to use some of the money to buy my machine, but in 2 weeks I will deffo have the money. I have started my samples without it, so it's not too bad.

I now have to be frugal, as I want to get 1k minimum for spending money, staying with family so most meals will be at my aunts and I want to clear down most if not all of the remaining small debts I have.

Getting work at the moment is not a problem, there is loads and they are desperate, so adding more money to fees etc, I have work everyday for about 2-4 hours a day depending what I'm doing, the money is good.

Now that's all sorted, I need to concentrate more on my business, launching it and making some money from it.

Hope your all well.

Off to look at things to do in new york.

Kayalana99

Jealous New York is on my bucket list :-) ...I won't get to go for years though as it's not the sort of thing to do with the kids and our next big holiday will be Disney Land (well center parcs 2017, hopefully disney land 2018 when they are a decent age to go!)

I'm not over the moon with 4 hour work week yet but I've not got far through it so I can't judge - FYI if anyone buys it buy it off amazon as my eBay seller did

In the process of cancelling our TV license I've mentioned it to OH before and he said no but we haven't used live TV in about 3 months, the only issue is they owe us 6 months as we had to pay 6 months in advance when we took it out (oh did you know you can cancel it really easy if you don't need a refund but if you want a refund for any money owed you have to send evidence of why you don't need it and post only? funny that) and I'm a bit worried we never updated our address details but we'll see what comes of it - wrong address or not we've been paying for it so it shouldn't be an issue.

Karmacat

Blimey Tink! I'm glad no one was injured ....

New York - I've been once, after 9/11, just for a week, it was great. Lots of free things if you hunt, and one of the best was the Staten Island Ferry