Renovations and Repayments.

newgirly

Yes, what hidden shadow said ^ hope all is well

maman

Good news for music in schools Alex.


If you read carefully what it means is that existing music 'hubs' will be funded for another few years although some of the money seems to be for new initiatives.


I see that Derby is mentioned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-children-to-benefit-from-music-and-arts-investment


P.S.Sheku Kanneh-Mason is on BBC 4 this evening.

AlexLK

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Hope LittleK's birthday (and party) went well.

newgirly wrote: »

Yes, what hidden shadow said ^ hope all is well

Thanks, both.

My son's birthday and party went very well. He had a great time and received some nice gifts. It's been very busy for my wife and I, though.

maman wrote: »

Good news for music in schools Alex.


If you read carefully what it means is that existing music 'hubs' will be funded for another few years although some of the money seems to be for new initiatives.


I see that Derby is mentioned.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-children-to-benefit-from-music-and-arts-investment


P.S.Sheku Kanneh-Mason is on BBC 4 this evening.

It's certainly positive that the government is investing in music. Though I do have reservations about certain initiatives the "hubs" seem keen to initiate without any real plans for the long term.

By "Derby" I'm fairly certain the added investment will be for the city only. However, I can't imagine either the city or county have particularly high levels of social mobility: the city has it's own challenges, there's lots of small ex-mining villages and towns to the south and east and in my area of the county there's a lot of 3-4 generation families living in one house / farm and what used to be outbuildings etc. with occupants whom have very little in the way of ambition or care for the education of themselves or their children.

Will be watching that in a few moments.

AlexLK

Not really sure how to get the finances back in check at the moment. There's not a chance we'll make an overpayment this month (again) and we seem to have gone back to spending more than we're earning. For the majority of this week I've been ignoring the fact and failing to update the spreadsheet but I'm going to get it up to date before I go to bed this evening.

Not really sure what has gone wrong and why we're not doing very well but this coming week, I hope, is going to be a bit of a fresh start and we'll try to have a cheap December. Fortunately, we usually make Christmas presents and they don't tend to cost a lot of money. Mrs K and I have already agreed that we're going to book a few events we're both interested in attending next year as our Christmas presents to each other, so that's not going to be an expense until the new year.

I've also decided to have a mortgage overpayment target as well as a savings target for next year in the hope that will motivate us a little more.

Can't believe I'm talking about 2017 already, though. :eek:

AlexLK

Spreadsheet updated.

Whilst it doesn't make for good reading, at least we can see where we are spending the money and can improve this coming week. I was dreading doing this and avoiding it but now it's done I'm pleased we're back up to date. It does seem to be a continual learning process and the more I use the spreadsheet the more informed I am which leads to being able to do something about it.

One thing I did manange to do last week was to get myself into a routine of going to bed at a sensible time which started when we were showing the car last week and carried on into this week. Got to the point where I seem to be getting to sleep without great difficulty most nights but this is probably one of the reasons I've not been on here so much as my posts do seem to be late night musings / rants. :rotfl:

hiddenshadow

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd much rather read fewer posts from a happy/well-rested Alex than more frequent/longer posts that are ranty.

Hope the good sleep continues, and I'm sure you'll rein in the spending successfully.

newgirly

I think its possible to rant any time of day, my kids can confirm I do!

Are you thinking of any challenges for 2017 yet Alex? This year has just flown by and I can't believe it's almost time to set new targets!

maman

You do seem in a better place Alex . You really can't expect spare cash when it's Little K's birthday and you've recently had a week away.
BUT, you know how to sort it although not sure December is a good month to economise. All you can do is your best.:)

I thought you'd be interested in the links to music funding in general terms but it's good to be informed ready for your PGCE interview. When is it?

Watty1

Nice to read the early bedtimes are helping with the sleep and the mood. And we all have times when the spending falls off the wagon as it were...."to continuing improvements"

AlexLK

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd much rather read fewer posts from a happy/well-rested Alex than more frequent/longer posts that are ranty.

Hope the good sleep continues, and I'm sure you'll rein in the spending successfully.

I'll second you, hiddenshadow.

I hope it continues too, it is certainly helping. Also, hope we can sort the spending out.

newgirly wrote: »

I think its possible to rant any time of day, my kids can confirm I do!

Are you thinking of any challenges for 2017 yet Alex? This year has just flown by and I can't believe it's almost time to set new targets!

:rotfl: I'm not saying I don't tend to rant at other times of days, just that I often found myself on here late at night.

Challenges in 2017 I have not thought about beyond having a mortgage overpayment target as well as a savings target. This year has really gone far too fast, especially when I look back at the start of the year when my son had only just turned 5 and started Reception year. He seems to have really grown up over this past year and I'm just about facing the fact that he won't be at home all day ever again.

maman wrote: »

You do seem in a better place Alex . You really can't expect spare cash when it's Little K's birthday and you've recently had a week away.
BUT, you know how to sort it although not sure December is a good month to economise. All you can do is your best.:)

I thought you'd be interested in the links to music funding in general terms but it's good to be informed ready for your PGCE interview. When is it?

I am trying to be in a better place. Don't always have good days or weeks but generally things are getting a lot better.

You're right about the spending, though it's not all been on our son's birthday or the time we had away. Lots of silly spends and buying things we don't need and eating out again. Thanks for the reassurance, I do forget that I can be good with money. Can't really believe I'm saying that as I've been so awfully bad with it in the past.

We'll see how December goes. We shouldn't spend too much on Christmas and the food budget should be lower as we'll be having quite a few meals towards the end of the month at my parents' and my in-laws'.

I've focused on interest in wider areas for my interviews, my reasoning being I think it's fairly obvious I know a fair amount about Music but there are core subjects I haven't studied beyond GCSE level. Most of my time has been taken up with revising and starting to take my core subject knowledge beyond that of GCSE level and looking at pedagogical and policy research. Though it was interesting to read about the music funding. So far I have one offer and am awaiting two more interviews. I decided to go with school direct in the end as I think it offers a more consistent programme (within one school for most of the year) and a better insight into the actual job. As I have two MAs I don't really think I'll need much help with the academic side, so studying mainly independent of the university environment shouldn't be a problem (I hope).