HELP! Have cut back all I can but am still over-spending!

Spendless

Have just had a read of the link provided a few posts back re kids and money. Makes interesting reading. I must admit the older they get the harder they are to entertain for free. I guess you are just coming to the end of Feb 1/2 term? Here it is next week. I do think the Feb holiday is the hardest to entertain for, no theme running events like there is for Easter, October and Xmas and weather likely to be worse than it is the May and summer hols.

I've kept on an eye on what is available where I live and there's £1 bowling per game if you go between 9-10am as well as offers at vue, ice-skating has some cheaper times and swimming is relatively inexpensive. Lunch out with friends parent/s is harder to see where you can cut costs I agree, though I have been known to say 'oooh, I have a voucher for x if you were thinking of eating there';)

aliasojo

ScrimpingandSaving wrote: »

I think the hardest part of budgeting is not giving the kids what every other kid has. I know we can tell them that budgeting is actually the best way to live. It's not wasteful and who needs all these things anyway? But when you are growing up you want so desperately to be one of them, you don't want to be singled out as different and that's what is difficult. They all wear labels such as Hollinger - she gets second-hand ebay clothes. They all have a takeaway every Friday. They all have private piano lessons or go horse riding and visit the cinema every weekend with friends, etc, etc. I can go without these things, I'm 41 and no longer care much what people think of me. She's just 12 and I know she feels she is missing out. She doesn't have to say as much, I just know.

No, she doesn't need to go horse riding (she could just eat a Tesco burger), or wear these fashionable labels and yes she should be proud to be different and yes these people may well get in debt one day (although I doubt it as their parents can afford to bail them out) and she will be a better person for it. But in the here and now, how do you explain all that to a 12 year old?

I bet bloody Cameron and Osbourne's kids don't go without. I hate this government.

I agree with what you say.

My girl is 13 and she's a good understanding sort which sometimes makes me feel even worse when I can't give her what her peer group has.

And yes, I HATE this government with a vengeance. Yes, they may have been saddled with baggage from the past but their handling of it is unfair and divisive. However that's another thread.

Well I had a huge sense of entitlement thing going on today. You know...the one you were accused of having earlier OP?

I thought I was doing quite well up till now but I'm sick of not having the things I like and only picking up the things I need or the nastier cheapo versions of things. I needed milk and I walked round Tesco with a right chip on my shoulder, seeing all the things I *just* wanted. :rotfl:

I have no idea how people can live for years always denying themselves what they really want. I've only been doing it a few weeks and already I'm frustrated and annoyed. I clearly don't have the required backbone to just get on with it all with good grace. Something I will need to work on.

I gave in to my inflated sense of entitlement today. I crumbled.

Off to have one of my £1.65 brioche rolls now (instead of one of the pack of 6 for 50p jobs that I usually buy). :D

maman

aliasojo wrote: »

I agree with what you say.

And yes, I HATE this government with a vengeance. Yes, they may have been saddled with baggage from the past but their handling of it is unfair and divisive. However that's another thread

When it's started pleeeese post a link!:D

aliasojo

Lol....nooooo I'm soooooo not going there.

I'm happy just hating the government thanks, I feel no need to set myself up for others to berate me for it. :rotfl:

Devon_Sailor

ScrimpingandSaving wrote: »

I bet bloody Cameron and Osbourne's kids don't go without. I hate this government.

If you feel so badly about it, take some personal responsibility and heed the advice listed in the first handful of posts on this massive thread. Give up the booze! Even with your revised SOA, you still have £100 per month going on drinks.

That could be the new top, trip to the cinema or some other item you are currently blaming the Government for not letting you provide.

There are plenty in this country that have much less wriggle room in their spending than you do (myself included), and make even more sacrifices so that their kids dont miss out, yet you seem intent on blaming politicians for the fact that you cant find the willpower or inclination to give up drinking, even for just a couple of months? Or even cut it down to one bottle of wine per week for a little while?

Whilst I admire your commitment to saving money, I find your unwillingness to recognise that the solution to your problem liest withing your own grasp already, mindboggling, and syptomatic of the easy cop out of "its the governments fault" pervading this country.

D_S

ScrimpingandSaving

"There are plenty in this country that have much less wriggle room in their spending than you do (myself included), and make even more sacrifices so that their kids dont miss out, yet you seem intent on blaming politicians for the fact that you cant find the willpower or inclination to give up drinking, even for just a couple of months? Or even cut it down to one bottle of wine per week for a little while?

Whilst I admire your commitment to saving money, I find your unwillingness to recognise that the solution to your problem liest withing your own grasp already, mindboggling, and syptomatic of the easy cop out of "its the governments fault" pervading this country."

I love how people assume that we spend far too much on booze. It's like they haven't read the thread where I stated time and again that the word 'drink' does not necessarily mean 'booze'. I spend just as much on fruit juice and ginger beer and yes it's a treat - for us and the kids to have one drink out a week. If I cut back on grocery shopping as I am doing, we can probably carry on what we are doing and break even.

I had an off day ok? I think that in the early stages of realising that you can't actually live as you are doing you are bound to have a downer and I don't really get this supportive site that everyone keeps going on about when there is always someone ready to beat you with a stick.

Re: the government. Do you realise how many people took out mortgages they couldn't afford thanks to the banks not taking proper care? Do you realise how many people had multiple credit cards? How many people bought on HP? How many people got things they could not afford just because the bank said they could?

We weren't one of those people ok? We never have been. I've never led the kind of life where I wasn't constantly counting the pennies. We've always budgeted from as long as I can remember. As a kid I would hide behind the sofa when the men came to knock. All I knew was that they were here for some money.

We got married on a budget, borrowing things and making do. We had kids on a budget. Everything was second hand or borrowed. Nothing was new. We holiday out of season. We've never been in a nice hotel, we've never dined in a nice restaurant, it's always been the cheapest place we could find. Even now we live in an ex-council house, we don't have Sky or iPhones or Blackberries. Our furniture is a mixture of parents-in-law stuff, charity stuff and ebay stuff.

I do not live with a sense of entitlement and never have so please permit me a day of raging against the unfairness of forever seeming to be budgeting.

I now have to compromise even further with the realisation that our wages are not ever going to rise but the cost of living certainly is, so we need to squeeze some more.

It's amazing how many people are looking out of their ivory towers and insist I cut back on this excessive amount of wine I must drink each week in order to give my kids more.

I give my kids as much as I can thanks very much. My daughter attends a state school but it's one of the best in the country, which is why many of her friends can afford designer clothes and horse riding lessons because it's a sought after state school surrounded by a very affulent area. It's hard for her in that environment as she's surrounded by kids who have much much more than she'll ever have. But as I remind her, many of those kids have parents who are divorced. She has more than them in many ways and she knows this. I was having a moan back then because it was a bad day for me ok? I realise and she realises that money doesn't grow on trees and that spending £30-£40 on a shopping trip with friends is never going to happen.

I know most of you have been lovely and supportive but it only takes one or two idiots when you are feeling low anyway to really drag you back down again.

This is a board for people needing support so please take your judgments and shove them in a Findus lasagne. Most people can see that I am cutting back and trying to budget and most are being helpful and brilliant. So before you post, just take a look at your own lives and check that you aren't being hypocritical yourselves.

ScrimpingandSaving

The trip I was talking about to see my dad will now take place sooner than we had anticipated. I spoke to him and his wife this weekend. His health is failing so I want to see him asap.

My husband has booked the Easter period off and I'm now calculating the cost of the trip. I'll take the money out of my ISA.

I've started a thread asking for any tips or recommendations on how to do the journey as cheaply as possible. If you have any advice to share please do contribute. Cheers

maman

ScrimpingandSaving wrote: »

This is a board for people needing support so please take your judgments and shove them in a Findus lasagne. Most people can see that I am cutting back and trying to budget and most are being helpful and brilliant. So before you post, just take a look at your own lives and check that you aren't being hypocritical yourselves.

So now they'll have bullsh*t in them too, at least its vaguely cow related!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

ScrimpingandSaving

Ah now stop horsing around! Can't you see I've got a long face?

Soubrette

Personally, the way I am with money is very different than when I first logged onto MSE.It's a journey where you keep adding to your knowledge and making small but permanent changes.

Ignore those posts which add nothing to your experience or your journey, they don't know you and you don't know them. Take on board advice that is useful to you and just keep plugging away.

In 5 years time when someone else posts for advice and you're spending £25 a year on groceries, weaving your own clothes from your two meat rabbits in the back garden and have decorated the house with bits of skip material and from freegle - just remember where you started and be kind