Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

shangaijimmy

Back to home schooling today... Switched things up a bit and tackled the dreaded maths and fractions first to get my pain out of the way early!

20p TT to start the week off. Accounts posting at the end of the week but only a tiny amount of reports to OP.

Karmacat

You're home schooling on fractions?  Wow, Jimmy, thats really impressive - as well as the fence painting and the dog and  and  and and ... you do a lot!

shangaijimmy

I can't say I've been very successful at the whole fractions thing, and have been spotted banging my head on the table. As an example - DS2 does a simple division equation and correctly gets the answer 6. Then proceeds to write 12 in his answer sheet. " Son, why have you wrote 12?" Reply "I don't know, I dont understand any of it dad."

All things keep me busy, as I'm not one for sitting still. I don't really watch TV other than sport, so at the moment I reckon I watch on average an hour a day. I'd rather be out with the dog. That said I have become very re-acquainted with my kindle which I am very happy with.

Suffolk_lass

Have you tried dividing up a thing, like pasta on scales so the boy sees it is a form of dividing and can relate to the proportions? it worked for me. Three fifths I can still remember (my Mum's very very short pastry)

shangaijimmy

We're a touch past that stage. Now onto equivalent fractions! I think we may be making a little bit of progress! The boys currently on a 10min maths warm up challenge, so I've sneaked onto MSE!

Money wise I've TT's 70p this morning. I also checked on our S&S Isa's and happy to report that they have all but recovered. One is only 0.52% down. I suspect there'll be a bit more turbulence on the way but the main thing is what I've learned about my psychology towards the situaton and investing. Stick to the plan!!

Weather looks like its turned here. I got out for a 40min walk with the pooch before schooling started, so at least he's been out before the rain starts. I still need to find 7,000 steps to continues with hitting my daily target, as I'm currently at 138 consecutive days  ... so we may be getting wet afterall!

Suffolk_lass

I guess it is about finding the key that unlocks the understanding for each child. Scales still work for me for equivalence fractions as it's a way of showing that things described differently can be the same thing (and illustrations of ingredients in recipes explain why they are described differently - probably a legacy of a woman being taught in a domestic context).

It sounds good that your S&S ISA has all but recovered. I checked in on credit card balances ready for next month's payments and one of them also shows the balance of DH's DC pension pot. That has increased by about half of what it lost. I haven't checked our S&S ISAs for a while.

debtfreeoneday

Lego pieces are a good one for looking at fractions!

shangaijimmy

Suffolk_lass said:

It sounds good that your S&S ISA has all but recovered. I checked in on credit card balances ready for next month's payments and one of them also shows the balance of DH's DC pension pot. That has increased by about half of what it lost. I haven't checked our S&S ISAs for a while.

My DC pension is very similar, recovered by not quite half of what was lost. A quick visual maths would sit it at about 43% loss recovered.

Well I think DS2 has made some headway. He was great with his fractions this morning, woo hoo! Onto English now and both boys doing punctuation and grammar courtesy of BBC bitesize! And I'm sat here thinking about getting in the conservatory with my kindle!! This afternoon they have staggered live lessons so the lastg one will only be finished at 3.15pm, grrr!

eastantrim4

My S&S ISA is still very much down - a whopping 8.01%, however, as I'm in for the long term I'm not that concerned. I only started it last summer and intend it to run for 10-15 years. Just prior to Covid it was running at around 8% return. I'm sure it won't be long before it's back to that.
  I did go for one of the online ones, not sure if it was the best idea but sure, it is what it is! Keep going.

shangaijimmy

eastantrim4 said:

My S&S ISA is still very much down - a whopping 8.01%, however, as I'm in for the long term I'm not that concerned. I only started it last summer and intend it to run for 10-15 years. Just prior to Covid it was running at around 8% return. I'm sure it won't be long before it's back to that.
  I did go for one of the online ones, not sure if it was the best idea but sure, it is what it is! Keep going.

We're exactly the same, Mrs SJ's has another 8-11yrs on before we start to use the cash. Mine, which is a little further down than Mrs SJ's has another 15-17yrs before we start to use the cash. So plenty of time for more crashes and recoveries!!