A Frugal Maternity Leave

crunch_time

Evening diary

Ebay parcels packed and paypal money transferred ready for postage. I think I have earned around £20 so the rest will go on my credit card to start paying off YNAB that I bought a few weeks ago.


Husband has done his expenses and is owed a whopping £1943 from his company!!!!!!:eek: He needs to submit around another £800 alongside the other payments which we are waiting for and he has chased.


This left £621. £432 of this is our holiday (naughtily booked on credit but only so we could get the week that we wanted. This then leave £189 which is about £80 less than I thought so I guess that's a little bit of a win. Husband needs to claim for the last 12 months of broadband which is 12 x £15 a month = £180 so that will wipe out his credit card pretty much. Just need to get him to do that now. Give me a few months :rotfl:


I'm planning to go into work this week to talk about my return.


I also spent some time this morning browsing the forums here and decided that we need to do a lot more work on our money than I previously thought. One user recommended doing 5 year plans and annual expenses. I've never thought of this before! No wonder things have really worked for us before - w have been living month to month. This hasn't really registered with me until now. I'm planning to spend some time this week really working out what we spend our money on and why and creating an annual budget and a five year plan.


Has anyone else down this? Are there any good tools out there??


Night all
Crunchy xxx

mum2one

I think with a five yr budget - it has pros and cons. ( just my thoughts)

Pro
You know what u want to achieve in 5 yrs
Project savings and costs

Cons
Life can change at a moment - good, bad and inbetween - winning the lottery, job chAnges, family life.

For a yeAr plan - I would go with that

Easier to project a yes expenses, incomes, cc rates etc - there may be changes there be easier to implement

I think you need a fall back with either plan - say one mth you have a great financial income- you meet your targets the. U find £400 spare - do u spend it or do you have an emergency pot that overs go in and shorts can come out of.

I think a 5 yr plan is gd - but as a general we'd like to be here in 5yrs - think it's not flexible enough for life.

---
What is hubby doing allowing these expenses to go on so long - he needs a lecture.... As you said it would clear his credit card - I know you mentioned his expenses and the hrs he works - even if you start off with a note pad and he jots the expenses daily and maybe weekly you transfer to a spreadsheet.


----
My parents worked for mth too month basis - this went ok for yrs until something throws a spanner in the works - which in our case was my father last ur when he had cancer and was in hosp 2 hrs Away - the house is mortgage free, there pensioners so the income stayed the same - but having to stay on, to ad hoc shopping, travel etc this sounds so daft but just worked it out in 4 weeks he was in hosp (we had extra week up there, 20 trips back forth, instead of eating home - supermarket shopping etc - it was eat out ) - we spent over 3k and have nothing to show for it - even now it's impacted on the bills in terms of gas and electricity - simple things all washing tumble dried, heating needs to be on longer - from sept to march based on last yr v these bills we've spent £600 extra.

I ended up having to look after their bank accounts as there old fashioned that the men did the money - mum hasn't got a clue - we've managed but now I need to sit down and budget the yr as I know Xmas /new yr - house ins, all bills etc - that was 1.2k in one swipe - need to plan the next yr and try to replace some funds

X

crunch_time

Dear diary


Thanks for your insight mum2one - its really good to hear other peoples points of view. Its horrible how health can really affect finances. Did you have critical illness cover? We roughly know what we want to achieve in 5 years but also want to allow for some flexibility. I definitely want an emergency fund as this was annihilated during the move so that will be the first thing me thinks. After this month is over I'm planning to do some work on it.


Its a bit of a weird few weeks as we have been waiting for husband to get his bonus and know what pay rise (if any) he has before we make plans for our finances for the rest of the year. We got some good news today - he got an 8% pay rise which he worked out as roughly an extra £200 a month!!!!


:j:beer::T


Ill believe it when I see it in his pay packet!!:rotfl:


I'm really proud of him as he works really hard for us and has to put up with loads of rubbish. Of course we celebrated with a bottle of wine and some chocolate!!:rotfl:


We still don't know what his bonus will be. His payslip will be published by mid next week so holding on till then really!!


Meanwhile, I've been thinking about how we spend it!!:rotfl:


Ive been trying to get to grips with YNAB but finding it hard this month with all up in the air with my work and husbands bonus, so reverted back to my trusty spreadsheet at least until 1st June.


I get paid on 19th and husband gets paid on 25th. Child benefit comes out somewhere in between and we rely on this to pay some bills and for some food. This is not good enough in my mind. I want to run 1st - 31st June using May 19th and May 25th pay which is what YNAB suggests.


With this in mind, I calculated where we will be paying double bills this month to make this happen and thankfully this can be absorbed by hubbys pay (without the payrise) so I'm very glad we are doing this now.


My month will be a bit tight as I will be paying 2 loan payments as one will come out on 19th and then the next on 1st May as I arranged for the date to be changed so I'm making a loan overpayment essentially this month. Its going to be very tight but that's fine - I'm on mat leave so not really doing anything anyhow. I'm going to focus on sticking to budgets!! especially food!!


I'm hoping hubby's bonus will enable us to chuck another £1000 at my parents (not literally ha ha!) to get that down again. We shall see. We also need the following:


- a shed £500-£600
- spending money for the holiday £100
- patio furniture - £400


Arrgh!! I just want to pay off the parents now. Its been hanging over for soooo long. They don't know we are going on holiday yet. Not sure if they would be annoyed since we haven't paid them off yet.


Crunchy xx

mum2one

He never had any insurAnce it was just hope for the best, touch wood he's in remission and come throb the other side.

That is brilliant news about the payrise and the impending bonus, how you juggle it all I don't know.

How are you finding ynab, is it worth keeping it after the trial...

Dx

crunch_time

mum2one - that's great he's in remission!!


Re YNAB - I'm yet to use it properly. I set it all up and then decided that I would change how we manage our accounts so needed to revert back to my trusty spreadsheet just for the rest of April and May. I will let you know how we get on with it!!


Crunchy xx

crunch_time

Evening diaryland!!


Cor I feel I really need to do a big catch up its been so busy on the money saving front....with thoughts more than actions.


Children's clothes


I made £30 on the bay of e for the first round this month and then about £8 when some things were relisted. I used the first £30 to pay off children's clothes from last month off my credit card and then bought a top for baby off bay of e for £5 so used that credit up on that.


Since then I have had to buy both toddler and baby some bits for the summer all of which have had to go on the credit card as they have been opportunistic finds when we have been out and about. I have £70 in my clothes account and decided to use this to pay off all of the children's clothes on my credit card at the moment and then I'm going to use ebay to fund their clothes going forward. I always seem to have about 20 items a month to sell and bring in about £20-30. I can keep the money in my paypal account and then use it to fund the clothes they need. I have found a great little secondhand clothes shop. I spent about £12 on 4 pairs of leggings and 4 t-shirts for baby - all really good quality. So happy to have a strategy for this. Hopefully it will work out.:j


Pay!


I got paid on Friday - £100 more than I budgeted for !! That's our spending money for the holiday sorted:beer:
Husband gets paid on Friday. He wont get paid his bonus - that will be next month.


Decisions about the house


We went shed shopping on Saturday and found a very good summerhouse for husbands office for £1400. A little more than I wanted to pay but on the way home we talked about our options. We decided that the new house is our transitional house and we are going to chuck as much money at the mortgage as possible so in 5 years time we can move to our 'forever home.'


It feels so good to have a 5 year plan now. I was stressing so much about trying to find money to pay for an extension and all the other fancy things we wanted to do if we were here long term but now I don't. We shall just move a few fences and then install the new summerhouse then hubby can work from home!!


Just got to work out how to pay for it now!!:rotfl:


So determined to stick to the budge in May to make this all work out!! Frugal May is on its way!!


Crunchy xx

abba1772

Well done on the clothes sales I've just got rid of a massive black bag full of baby clothes on fb xx

Nice to have some space ...........for a little while :rotfl:

OrangeFairy

Hi Crunchy,

Well done on the clothes sales...I have been listed some bits on line hoping to make a bit of money towards our holiday.

I hope the summerhouse is a success!

OF x

crunch_time

Thanks abba and orange fairy.


Had an up and down few days.


Husband consolidated both our loans into one under his name. This is good on one hand as it has lowered the payments from £419 a month to £274 a month meaning we can concentrate on other things at the moment especially with me only going back 2 days a week. On the other hand it means having a loan for the next 5 years - unless we pay it off early. Other problem is he overestimated by £500 so that will be given back to my parents.


Husband was also expecting about £2k as a bonus this year but the performance of the company has meant that it will only be about £750. SO after 40% tax and pension = NOT MUCH. I was relying on this to chuck a chunk over to my parents but it wont happen. It will go towards a desperately needed suit for husband.


Owing my parents so much money has been a real issue for me and always has been and I have been embarrassed to have had to ask them. They know we didn't pay mortgage for 2 months and despite what my husband believes, I don't think they can afford to be like 'no you keep it.' With this in mind and my realisation that owing them has caused me a lot of anxiety over the last 9 months, I have taken out an overdraft to pay off the last £2k. This means I can pay it off when I like and I don't have to worry what parents think when we make purchases for the house before paying them back.


It feels a bit weird to have robbed Peter to pay Paul, but I feel like a massive weight has been lifted. I've proved to myself I can pay things off quickly so I shall we this £2k.


Just need to wait for husbands pay day tomorrow to see what we have for this month.


Crunchy xx

mum2one

sorry to hear about hubbys bonus, I know something is better than nothing, sounds a good idea getting the loan together, it frees some money, and you can also chuck more at it.

At least no your not feeling guilty about buying anything for the house, it soon fall back into place, look how far you have come so far..

When so you go back to work? xx