My 2016 Diary of impulse control and staying on a strict budget.

StressedSteph

Morning

No nightmare last night...phew.

The dog has had me awake since 4am letting her out to the toilet :mad:, all my fault though as I gave her a tiny bit of off-cuts from our pork roast yesterday, I should have known better. From now on I will not fall for the desperate looks from her for some scraps as it only backfires on me and her the next day .

Got a treatment this morning at 930 and them the hairdressers straight after to cut loads off my hair. It has gotten ridiculously long and its driving me crazy. Back to shoulder length will be nice and the salon I am going to seems pretty cheap. so think it will only cost me about £22.

Not alot to report apart from hubby now saying that this job will definitely take the rest of the week maybe abit of next so not to expect a large amount of extra cash coming our way, even though he said exactly that last week. Grrrrrrrr. Will just have to wait and see what happens.

Hope you all have a lovely day

xx

chanie

Morning Steph,

Good luck with your treatment this morning. Its a shame about hubbys job, though.

StressedSteph

Morning Diary

Sorry I have been absent for a few days. I didn't really have anything to report.

I have cut out a few jobs from this weeks paper that I am tempted to go for. Two are in local schools doing admin etc which I thought might be promising as there is the hope that it is only term-time work.

I am also brewing up a business idea of turning our pork into Charcuterie. I saw it on Jamie & Jimmy's programme last week and it seems like a fairly easy start up business and one that is so far quite small but will hopefully turn into a growing business.

I would need to invest £100 into converting our spare fridge into a curing chamber but after that it is just getting the product correct and then finding outlets to sell to. It is even something I could slice and vacpac and do farmers markets etc.

I keep searching the internet to see if there is really a business there but I guess the only way to find out is to get going and give it a try. These things don't tend to take off overnight, it will take quite a while to get the recipes right, they take quite a few weeks to cure etc.

I have so many ideas in my head that i feel like I need to shut down lots of non starters and concentrate on ONE thing otherwise i will only do a haf baked job on everything.

So far my options as I see it are as follows:-

1 - Just try to be content and concentrate on home (not earning)

2 - Persevere with my craft business

3 - Try to get into a term time only job and hope that I end up earning enough to offset loss of CTC.

4 - Set up this fledgling Charcuterie business and work on turning that into a small income generator.

5 - Look at selling more things on the small holding - eggs, meat, veggies, plants, wreaths etc. (Which could actually be done amongst the charcuterie business)

I know i am off again with my crazy ideas and plans, I laid awake half the night with my head jam packed with confusion.

I don't need to become a millionaire, I would be quite happy with an income of about £200 per week. I feel that unless I can juggle a regular job then I need to have lots of fingers in pie like some of the ideas above. I am worried that just concentrating on one thing will not be enough.

Sorry to spiel out the same old problem. I mainly just wanted to post my ideas on here to try to get them out of my head for a while

hiddenshadow

StressedSteph wrote: »

I don't need to become a millionaire, I would be quite happy with an income of about £200 per week. I feel that unless I can juggle a regular job then I need to have lots of fingers in pie like some of the ideas above. I am worried that just concentrating on one thing will not be enough.

You won't know until you try. If it were me, I'd rank those options both in terms of likely income (both amount and regularity) and ease to get into. e.g. option 1 would be #5 (no income) and #1 (very easy as you're already doing it ). Once you have that list it should be evident which one(s) have the best possible chances - pick one and try it, when that's either stable/well-established as your routine or proves unsuccessful, add another to it.

If, as you say, you try to put your fingers in too many pies at once, you risk having none of them turn out because they didn't get a chance to be well-established.

Just my 2p. All of your ideas sound like they have promise.

wantabetterlife

Steph re the CTC they have an online calculator...so you could put your figures in now and then figures for the school job and see what difference it makes. If it was worthwhile I think it would be the most sensible option because a. You are qualified b. It's local c. It's term time so no childcare costs and having to rely on other people and d. It's a regular reliable income, that you really lack at the minute, so it would reduce your stress levels and finally e. I think it will improve the self image you have and your confidence. Think that long enough..lol

StressedSteph

hiddenshadow wrote: »

You won't know until you try. If it were me, I'd rank those options both in terms of likely income (both amount and regularity) and ease to get into. e.g. option 1 would be #5 (no income) and #1 (very easy as you're already doing it ). Once you have that list it should be evident which one(s) have the best possible chances - pick one and try it, when that's either stable/well-established as your routine or proves unsuccessful, add another to it.

If, as you say, you try to put your fingers in too many pies at once, you risk having none of them turn out because they didn't get a chance to be well-established.

Just my 2p. All of your ideas sound like they have promise.

Thanks HiddenShadow

Think I am definitely going to concentrate on building up the smallholding with little money making enterprises, keeping books for each project to see if it should be ditched after a while or not, also doing my occasional cleaning and massage work.

Fingers crossed eventually all of that might add up to a half decnt part time wage. Think If I kept proper books it might make me feel abit better, I can then convince myself that I AM actually helping towards the family pot. As all my money comes in little bits its easy for it to get swallowed up and not noticed.

Thanks for your help xx

wantabetterlife wrote: »

Steph re the CTC they have an online calculator...so you could put your figures in now and then figures for the school job and see what difference it makes. If it was worthwhile I think it would be the most sensible option because a. You are qualified b. It's local c. It's term time so no childcare costs and having to rely on other people and d. It's a regular reliable income, that you really lack at the minute, so it would reduce your stress levels and finally e. I think it will improve the self image you have and your confidence. Think that long enough..lol

Hi Wantabetterlife

Think I am just scared of my lack of support childcare wise. I am going to apply to one job that is 3 days per week although it is 22.5 hours so would have to weigh up income vs breakfast & afterschool club for those days to make sure i am not working for nothing. Doubt I will get as far as the interview but I will give it a try. xxx

Thanks for taking the time to help xxx

StressedSteph

Morning Diary.

Spent a good half an hour jiggling my YNAB budget today. Think I have finally gotten it set up to work well for me.

I had slipped into the bad habit of budgeting after the expenses not before , but I have restarted it since January and I think I now have it well that I can see that I definitely do not have any spare money until Dh gets paid this Friday .

Everything is budgeted for and i have used the scheduled payments area alot more this time, entering EVERYTHING that is due to go out so that it pop up into the budget on the correct day.

If I stick to the budget I am on course to meet the Mortgage payment easily on the 1st January and then my extra payment to catch up on the 8th January.

After this payment i should be able to set up the direct debit again which will be a real success for me as we haven't been paying it exactly on time for over 2 years :eek:.

House is abit of a jumble today so going to concentrate on setting that all straight again.

Hope you all have a lovely day xx

hiddenshadow

StressedSteph wrote: »

Morning Diary.

Spent a good half an hour jiggling my YNAB budget today. Think I have finally gotten it set up to work well for me.

I had slipped into the bad habit of budgeting after the expenses not before , but I have restarted it since January and I think I now have it well that I can see that I definitely do not have any spare money until Dh gets paid this Friday .

Well done! YNAB works so much better as a planning tool than a "tell me what I did" tool.

Everything is budgeted for and i have used the scheduled payments area alot more this time, entering EVERYTHING that is due to go out so that it pop up into the budget on the correct day.

I love scheduled transactions - I use them all the time. One thing I do sometimes is to enter all the scheduled transactions into the register at the start of the month so that I know where I stand for the full month. e.g. our veg box payment is on Monday, so on Jan 1 I put all 4 Monday payments into the register, and found we had an extra £1.02 in there. I also like that it updates the account balances as well so that I know if our direct debits will put us in overdraft (some people prefer the account balances to reflect transactions up to today, though).

If I stick to the budget I am on course to meet the Mortgage payment easily on the 1st January and then my extra payment to catch up on the 8th January.

Hooray! :j

mummytogirls

Evening Steph,

Re the school job, if you need any advise on the appl etc give me a shout as I work in a school office. You might aswell apply and if you get an interview great. This doesnt mean you have to take the job if you don't think its right for you.

I would also make an appointment to look round as our head really likes it if people do this!!! xx

wantabetterlife

Hi Steph..re the Afterschools and breakfast club...I also use these for our kids. Do you know that these can be counted as childcare under tax credits. I didn't believe it when I read it so I phoned up to check and yes it's definitely right. If it is in the school it's classed as a wrap around service and can be included. This might offset a chunk of the cost as it can be expensive. In our school breakfast club Is £1.10 each and Afterschools is £2.