Enjoying the Sunshine whilst Saving for the Rainy Day

debtfreewannabe321

Urgh! I'm so disorganised I could scream at myself :eek::mad:

Finally I got round to price comparisons on gas and electric as my deal ran out and I actually got an email telling me there were cheaper deals and I still have taken 2 weeks to do something about it Have just spent 30 minutes trying to remember my log in details to submit a meter reading and it's driven me insane!!! I've sorted out the log in but now I need to go outside and get the gas readings which are out the front of the house and I don't want to do that in my P.Js :rotfl: so i'm now impatiently waiting for DH to get home so I can send him to have a look . It's telling me I am £250 in credit but that is without readings so I won't hold my breath! I've changed suppliers and the DD will go down to £80 a month again and i'll save money across the year. There is also no penalty for leaving early in case I see a better deal later on So the money I save on gas/electric will be spent on the better pet insurance deal I found so same amount of money each month really. After the dog was so ill the other week I decided to up his policy to the next level just in case *touch wood* he's ok atm

SO that's the pet insurance done, gas & electric and i've had a little look at car insurance...why does everything run out at the same time!

Dad has text me asking if I can go visit him next week instead of this weekend as he's feeling quite weak still....good news though all his biopsies came back clear so he might not have to do chemo now :j I'll wait till he's seen the drs before getting too happy about it though!

Right kids are in bed, i'm off for a quick tidy up before I try and finish this meter reading malarky!

debtfreewannabe321

Back from meditation today just in time to get the washing in before it rained! I'm now curled up on the sofa with a film which is totally confusing me (don't take much ) and so am on here to do banking instead! My spreadsheet is still showing a minus and my bank is not :huh: I think it's because I have things pending on PP so until they go out of my bank things won't tally up?! I'm still waiting on rental money so I can pay money to the ISA, and other accounts that are owing still. I wish everything came in on the same day would be so much easier than being drip-fed it throughout the month!

Not sure if I mentioned before but DH & I have decided to give DS1 £60 a month from next month. His usual pocket money is £30 but I've doubled it and told him from this money I want him to learn to budget. He will need to buy his own clothes (I will get school uniform and shoes still though), his own snacks (and leave the biscuit barrel alone!), this is also for the usual things like cinema and trips out with friends. He's been hankering after a new phone for ages so i've told him he will have to save each month for it. I am still paying his contract on his phone but that is only £14 per month (£10 tariff is capped and £4 insurance) and i'm thinking after this runs out I may let him get his own contract as he will be nearly 17 by then. I'm hoping this will set him up with some good behaviours towards money and spending what he has and saving before the credit cards are sent out in a couple of years....we shall see though Oh and he also has to do extra jobs around the house! dog walking x 3 a week, emptying the DW 3x a week and helping with the dinner at least once a week

:A

brizzledfw

good move on getting your kids to help...I am a big believer in that! (not always totally successful in getting my way though )

well done on the car insurance..sounding good

Eager_Elephant

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Not sure if I mentioned before but DH & I have decided to give DS1 £60 a month from next month. His usual pocket money is £30 but I've doubled it and told him from this money I want him to learn to budget. He will need to buy his own clothes (I will get school uniform and shoes still though), his own snacks (and leave the biscuit barrel alone!), this is also for the usual things like cinema and trips out with friends. He's been hankering after a new phone for ages so i've told him he will have to save each month for it. I am still paying his contract on his phone but that is only £14 per month (£10 tariff is capped and £4 insurance) and i'm thinking after this runs out I may let him get his own contract as he will be nearly 17 by then. I'm hoping this will set him up with some good behaviours towards money and spending what he has and saving before the credit cards are sent out in a couple of years....we shall see though Oh and he also has to do extra jobs around the house! dog walking x 3 a week, emptying the DW 3x a week and helping with the dinner at least once a week

:A

I am sure we live in the same household - we have just done exactly the same for DS.

We have tried a few things over the months and the newest is that for £50pm he has to pay for his college food (if he does not take it from home), dates with his girlfriend etc.
I think at the moment I am still paying for his phone contract which is £10.50pm.

For his money he has to fill up the water containers x twice weekly (these are 25l containers that we use on our field for the animals as we have no running water up there), fold the washing x 1 weekly and put the bins out x 1 weekly.

Things have not gone that well as the night the bins need to go out he has football and when he has to do the water he is mainly out so I have kind of changed it to he can be paid per job and then I will send the money after each job.
To make up for his lack of completion of jobs he had to wash DH's truck last weekend which was very mucky but he did get to use a pressure washer so not that hard.

It is so difficult to know what to do for best as a lot of his friends have part time jobs but where we live there are no jobs and the nearest town has all those kids also fighting for the same job.

debtfreewannabe321

brizzledfw wrote: »

good move on getting your kids to help...I am a big believer in that! (not always totally successful in getting my way though )

well done on the car insurance..sounding good

So far so good with the teenager up to yesterday anyway! He hasn't even had the extra money this month but has asked what he needs to do this month to get it I was expecting him not to help out until "pay day" and he had the money but as it is I guess if he was in a real job he'd be working a week or two in hand anyway :rotfl: So he's emptied the DW a few times already, he's asked when he can help with dinner :eek: and the sticking point is the dog walks. He hates doing it because the dog refuses most of the time to go out with him because the spoilt dog likes to go off the lead! But if ds1 lets him off the lead dog runs off and doesn't come back :eek: seems dog only listens to mum and dad :cool: Hmmm! I don't know whether to change this job or not, thing is ds1 has already stated he wants a big dog when he leaves home and I thought it would be good to show him how much hard work they are! I'll think about that some more as he's not taken the dog out once yet!

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

I am sure we live in the same household - we have just done exactly the same for DS.

We have tried a few things over the months and the newest is that for £50pm he has to pay for his college food (if he does not take it from home), dates with his girlfriend etc.
I think at the moment I am still paying for his phone contract which is £10.50pm.

For his money he has to fill up the water containers x twice weekly (these are 25l containers that we use on our field for the animals as we have no running water up there), fold the washing x 1 weekly and put the bins out x 1 weekly.

Things have not gone that well as the night the bins need to go out he has football and when he has to do the water he is mainly out so I have kind of changed it to he can be paid per job and then I will send the money after each job.
To make up for his lack of completion of jobs he had to wash DH's truck last weekend which was very mucky but he did get to use a pressure washer so not that hard.

It is so difficult to know what to do for best as a lot of his friends have part time jobs but where we live there are no jobs and the nearest town has all those kids also fighting for the same job.

Oh good idea paying for per job as already stated above I have noticed he's willing to do some things and not others! I've stupidly offered £60 rather than £50 too :rotfl: should have thought about that a little more I worked it out that our clothes budget is £20 per month per person (so £100 for our family) and I thought that by giving him his share that's £20, plus £10 for snacks over the month (I probably spend loads more than this but others do eat them too and I thought it would encourage him to eat more fruit/yoghurts that I buy rather than junk food that will come out of his pocket now ) and plus that to the £30 he already gets for going out I am hoping this is plenty and he won't ever ask for money again! We'll see though first trial month is July so i'll see how he goes. It hasn't cost me out of my budget at least, i've just dropped the food budget by a tenner and the clothing budget accordingly

debtfreewannabe321

Good morning all!!

I ended up going to bed last night at the same time as the kids and reading for a bit/meditating and going to sleep at 9pm! I was so tired! I slept till 8.30 this morning I am feeling much better today thankfully ....as ds1 and dh have gone out to watch a rugby game and left me in charge of housework/dog walking and dinner...:cool: I somehow feel I have the dud end of the deal?!

I had a really vivid dream last night which started off with me planting roses in my garden, they were a really lovely shade of pink and were beautiful. The plant ended up growing into a huge bush before my eyes and before I knew it the bush had grown into a rose tree (???:rotfl:) I woke up at that point but managed to go back to sleep t the same dream. This time I was sort of in control and knew it was a dream so I changed my house as it is now to a detached and the NN was moved miles away :rotfl: My nice neighbour who is still quite noisy was moved away from me too I made my house nice and big with enough bedrooms and bathrooms for all and watched as this tree grew and grew until it was as tall as the house :eek: Then I panicked it was too big and thought about cutting it down but couldn't bring myself to do it as it was too beautiful :rotfl: strange strange dream but quite nice at the same time especially as I could have emptied my paddling pool without the rottweiler next door going off on one

Yesterday was a spend day, I bought petrol, some snacky food for this afternoon/evening when we have our movie night and also DH got a few bits from h@lfords. I've got two PP payments due out on Monday, the child benefit will cover this and I am also due my tenancy money around the same time as well as my expenses for volunteering. Once I have all these come in I will feel more relieved I think. At the moment I have nearly nothing in the main account :eek:

I have finally worked out how to get music off a cd onto the computer (windows 8 confused me for a bit there) and now I can't get my phone to sync to the computer to put it on there Computers + Me = Bad mix!

Right anyway before my morning disappears i'm going to get dressed and do something with my day!

*Robin*

What a wonderful dream, DFw! Great you managed to 'get back in' and remember the progression. :T

How old is DS1? Given that his Dad is away some of the time, his list of jobs to qualify for new allowance seems pretty short? (Was I a hard taskmistress back in the day, lol?).

Did think, oh the lad needs to take Duke to obedience or agility classes to improve the relationship between them.. Then remembered how small Duke is; maybe not agility! :rotfl:

debtfreewannabe321

*Robin* wrote: »

What a wonderful dream, DFw! Great you managed to 'get back in' and remember the progression. :T

How old is DS1? Given that his Dad is away some of the time, his list of jobs to qualify for new allowance seems pretty short? (Was I a hard taskmistress back in the day, lol?).

Did think, oh the lad needs to take Duke to obedience or agility classes to improve the relationship between them.. Then remembered how small Duke is; maybe not agility! :rotfl:

DS1 is 15. He already has to clean his own room (which he does without me reminding him most of the time) he changes his own bed, cleans up after himself in the kitchen/bathroom and every now and then I'll get him to hang out a wash or put one on. Thing is I don't like the way DH & DS1 clean they've done it for me before and I can tell they put effort in, just not as much as I like so I like to give DS1 "safe" jobs that I know he can do properly . I have a little OCD I think

Today he went off with DH to watch DH play in a rugby match with the army and DH was sent off :rotfl: DS1 stepped in to dad's place and apparently did very well and they won the game with the help of DS1 :T How proud are we :j:T I'm glad DH didn't tell me about him possibly playing beforehand as I'd have said NO. They are all grown men playing and generally quite big so there's no way i'd have said yes. As he has played though I will give him a well done when they get back :T:)

We've had a busy day today. After coming on here earlier I made a picnic and took two little ones and dog to the beach for a few hours. Tide was out. Typical! But they had fun anyway. Had to come home in the end as dog had run out of water. Got home and cleaned house a little and hoovered throughout and made dinner. Also cut the grass & watered plants and hung out two washes. I'm absolutely exhausted now :cool: Wine, snacks and dvd time now! DS1 is going to a party when he gets back but i'm in pjs already (thanks to ds2 soaking me whilst he was in the shower!) so DH will have to drop him off

Hope everyone has had a lovely sunny day like we have

ETA: NSD too!!

debtfreewannabe321

Well today was a bit of a spend day. I had to borrow money from emergency funds too as my expenses and tenancy money still haven't cleared/ or are even pending yet :eek: DH now goes away tomorrow and has just told me he needs some money which I don't have available so will have to transfer some more out! Today's spends were £25.01 (damned penny!) on petrol as the red light had been on since Saturday and i'd sort of ignored it and then it told me there was ---- miles left :eek: usually it is at --35 and I panic so when it went to ZERO I thought I had best give in and go get some It lied to me anyway as it is 4.5 miles to @sda and it got me there on ---- apparently :rotfl:

I just hope all the owing money comes in within the next day or so. £450 is a lot of money to my budget and the budget is failing without it atm! :eek::o

Anyway not much else to report (I like that!)

debtfreewannabe321

Oh forgot to say I've made some ice cream and it turned out great :T It is delicious if I do say so myself We have a red currant bush and it's absolutely huge with hundreds of berries so I picked a load and used some frozen blackberries too and made ice cream! Have yet to test it out on the kids and DH yet so i'll be back with the overall verdict