Banishing the black cloud

WelshWoofer

Wow Maggie - that's a night out and a half! I'd be a bit put out too...
Are you really attached to the dress? As you haven't worn it could you take it back for a refund? May be a few more pounds towards the month for you?

Good cunning plan for the school uniform though - I like your thinking:rotfl:(Size 16, I ask you!)

maggiecon

WelshWoofer wrote: »

Wow Maggie - that's a night out and a half! I'd be a bit put out too...
Are you really attached to the dress? As you haven't worn it could you take it back for a refund? May be a few more pounds towards the month for you?

Good cunning plan for the school uniform though - I like your thinking:rotfl:(Size 16, I ask you!)

I can't decide what to do with the dress I really love it, but need the £30 more. DD has two school blazers her proper size one and the one her dad bought her. He is really OCD and insisted on buying her a new one for second year as he said the first year one which was perfectly fine, was too scruffy. DD now pretends to wear the one he bought her to school when she stays over at his house and then I meet her at school bus stop and we swap it over with her other one. :mad:

maggiecon

Sitting watching golf on TV, cheering on "our Rory"

Got a big shop done today in Asda for £63, saved loads by buying Asda own brand, their own brands are definitely much better than Tesco. Stocked up on lots of store cupboard essentials and washing powder etc.

Cooked a nice dinner tonight, which I am really happy with given it was an experiment. Blitzed spinach, ricotta and sundries tomato and then stuffed chicken breasts with it.

Meal plans for this week
M. Bacon and courgette pasta
T. Slow cooker pulled pork
W. Ditto
That's as far as I have planned.

So I am now £30into my overdraft and have £23 in my purse to keep me going to Thursday. I can do this

Oh on another note when I was trying on clothes on Friday evening. Those horrible changing room mirrors which give you a 360 degree view of you butt, made me realise, it is starting to get a bit saggy and heading a bit south. LOL. So I have just downloaded a butt workout app. So day 1 of that done. :T

maggiecon

Another very testing day to say the least. Woke up this morning to discover hubby didn't go to work, he said he needed the time of to study, but given that he lay around the house all day yesterday I knew he was hungover. Home after very stressful day at work to walk in to the house stinking of drink and hubby lying half drunk sleeping on the sofa. It's something I have got used to but I don't know how much more of it I can put up with. I have been feeling sick since last Tuesday and always have an upset stomach which I think is coming from the stress of living like this.


I got offered two free tickets at work today to a match in Dublin on Sunday, they are in the company's corporate box so it would be a good day out, but Dublin is over 2 hours drive away and I don't want to go anywhere with hubby because as usual I would drive and he would drink. Waiting for son to come home from his football training and see if he wants to go before I decide. It would be nice to spend some time with DS, I cant ever remember us doing something together like this and he is 16!!


My family own a B&B which has an industrial size tumble dryer, I have three loads of washing done but cant get dried due to all the rain, so I am going to try and get all three loads in the dryer tonight. I have already been down and put the first load on and heading back now in 10 minutes with next load. I am then going to clean the kitchen and fill a bubble bath and try and distress some.


After my grocery shop last night I thought I was £25 overdrawn now I realised that I had calculated my money wrong, I paid a £100 bill on Friday which came out of my account immediately so I was counting it twice!! So I have just went from being £25 overdrawn to £75 in credit.


Silver lining for today.. I am £100 better off, even if is only because I discovered I cant count LOL, and I have 2 free tickets for the All Ireland hurling semi-final on Sunday.

maggiecon

So hubby seems to have straightened himself out a bit and has been studying since 7am this morning, too little too late I suspect for his exam, which is tomorrow morning.


I didn't have any motivation last night for my saggy butt workout or to clean the kitchen so just had a bath and got into bed.


I put the pulled pork in the slow cooker this morning, I hope it turns out okay. I just put a small amount of veg stock in the bottom of the cooker and rubbed a mixture of spices all over the pork. I don't even know what was in the spices, I just started lifting jars out of the spice rack and chucking them in.


No breakfast again this morning, I have instead resorted to my usual two cups of tea and a bun at work routine. I really need to sort this out. I have porridge and a banana in my handbag I just need to get up from my desk and go the staff kitchen and make it. I have zero motivation!!


I have a tenner left in my pocket from the £20 I had on Sunday, two more days to pay day, I think I can make it stretch. I transferred £30 from my bank account into my bills account to cover the next D/D for the internet, so I now have £45 left in the bank. I still don't know whether to go to the match on Sunday, it will cost at least £40 in petrol and then parking is another £10. but then it would be so nice to treat my son as he gets his GCSE results next week, and its not often you get premier level tickets for a big sporting event!! Ohh decisions, decisions.


Right I'm away to make some porridge

maggiecon

I have become addicted to reading other members diaries over the last few days and I have been amazed at all the ingenious ways that people have devised to save money. I think the fact that I have never come up with a suitable solution is half my problem.


The one that struck a cord the most was a poster who allocated herself £10 per day to live on. If she overspent one day she had to claw it back the next etc. I think this is a great way to micromanage your money, but I am not sure if it would work for me given that I have two kids and a husband whose spending is erratic to say the least. He doesn't go on mad shopping trips or anything like that, he just seems in capable of holding onto money. For example my sister told me she worked in the bar one Saturday when he was in for a few. She said he was never done buying drink for other people and every time he ordered a drink he broke a £20 note, rather than using his change. As for the kids they are constantly asking for money to go here and there so some system involving chores and rewards needs to be implemented.


So my challenge is to come up with a solution that works for my family and our situation. I know I posted an SOA on here earlier but everything I put on it was a complete guess. I said £x on groceries, electric etc, but I actually don't know what we really spend and judging by the money I should have left over my estimates are not even close . I need to therefore record my spending for a week or two and then A. try to reduce it and B. try to devise a system to maintain it.


Some heading scratching required over the next few days.

maggiecon

Cooked the pulled pork yesterday and although it did turn out delicious, there was barely enough meat to cover last nights dinner!! most of the joint was the top layer of fat. So now I have to go and find something for tonight's dinner. Hubby took my last £10 to go to Uni so there is no money until pay day tomorrow.


I have half a bag of spinach, half a tub of ricotta, sun dried tomatoes, streaky bacon, parmesan and some pasta in the cupboard. Surely I could make some sort of dinner from that?


On the budget front, I have spent over £70 on groceries from Sunday and I still have to buy for four more days this week, so my initial budget is completely wrong. I checked the electricity meter last night and since topping up last Thursday night we have used £15 that works out at £3 per day for electric. I had originally budgeted £20 a week.


I put £30 of petrol in the car on Friday evening and there is definitely enough to do my to this Friday so that seems about right for my budget.


I have down loaded a great excel spreadsheet, which helps me compile all my meal plans, recipes, ingredients and shopping lists into the workbook. I am going to try and keep this going this month and then I will have a good basis to work with next month and develop it from there. I just need to find some good meat free or store cupboard recipes to help keep food budget down.


Still no further forward in finding a budgeting solution. I initially tried to work with a petty cash jar with a £200 per week budget, to try and stop us using the debit cards which is how we lose track of our spending. I stuck to this for about two weeks, I kept forgetting to go to the bank and take the money out, and then when I put the money in the jar, hubby was taking money for everything and it was gone within a couple of days.

maggiecon

It has just occurred to me that I didn't include my overdraft in my debt calculation another £700.


Total debt is now £7409.


Oh dear I need to go and lie down somewhere.

DollyDreamer

Keep going you are getting there I also feel like things are an uphill battle and I havent budgeted for uniforms or the fact children eat constantly when at home but somehow I need to keep moving forward and manage best as I can.

I also totally agree with what you say about other peoples diaries and ways they seem to slice chunks off the debt - I think a plan of attack is required !!

Nintud

I'm reading too. Caught up in Cyprus holiday stuff at the moment but I'm reading in chunks.

I think you need dh to be more accountable for his spending. Where does his money go?