Running out of Time, Space and Money!

Bobarella

NoMoney - Dont be too hard on yourself. There is no point being disgusted. You are just at the start of learning a new set of skills & a completley new mind set. Soon you will be turning your nose up at your spend thrift relatives. It is like why the poorest people wear the most expensive trainers, (over simpliying my view but you get the picture) someone I know who grew up that way said she knew all the mums went without food to buy their boys mainly, £100 Nike trainers. How silly & how sad. But it was a mark of wealth on the estate. Buying expensive take away food is the same kind of thing. Why spend £10 on a drink & a burger when you are satisfied eating a picnic from the supermarket and putting the £10 towards the debt or in time to come the savings account.

You are in a stressful situation, but it will get better if you keep going.

All the best

Bob

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Hi you may find that your well off cousins may not be as well off as you think, maybe they haven't had a lbm yet. I would just say we are saving for better things to spend our money on and don't want to over indulge the children? xx

Kitten868

Ugh! 5 figures. Still though you could gain that back on the sale? That's the issue with small homes it's tough to justify the expense of doing it up as there's a more fixed ceiling on prices. Fingers crossed for you to sell.
Rich relatives my sister is such a snob with stuff - I'm a disgrace for not shopping at waitrose. But I know that I get more out of less money so I just don't care anymore. It's tough with kids comparing though.
Like has been said - you're learning! You improve with each mistake you make x

nomoney1010

Thanks everyone for your kind comments - I'm feeling a bit better about it now, what's done is done, I may as well move on. And at least DS had a fab day!

Made up for it slightly with a NSD yesterday and hoping for another today. More enforced than anything though since I have no money left to spend! :mad:

The chances of the freelance work are looking good - I'll find out for sure on Wednesday. That would go a little way to bridging the gap this month.
Also joined two survey sites, not sure whether to join more or not - think I'll try these and see how I get on - they seem very time consuming but I guess if it adds money to the pot it can't be a bad thing...

chevalier

Sorry I am confused, which account has the 250 shortfall, the ones the bills are coming out of (that is funded mainly by your OH) or your one?

If the reason you are getting into debt is to dress and feed your child, then wouldn't it be better to combine your incomes and expenditures so that it was all in one pot. You don't mention that you OH has extra money after bills, but it would seem pointless for him to be saving and earning pennies, whilst large amount are being paid out to service credit.

If I have got the wrong end of the stick, then I apologise
chev

nomoney1010

Hi Chevalier - the account with the shortfall is my OHs - all bills etc come out of his as he is the main wage earner. We are £250 short in this each month, which I am aiming to cover by earning extra.
So no, my OH isn't saving either, and is paying what he can towards the debts too.
I earn a small amount from my part time job, which covers a couple of direct debits and pays for the family groceries and baby items. I'm certainly not in debt due to feeding and clothing the baby - the debt was there long before he was!
Sorry if this wasn't clear from my earlier posts.

Bobarella

Fingers crossed the freelance work comes off for you. That would be a weight off.

nomoney1010

Nothing very exciting to report today - yesterday wasn't a NSD as we ran out of milk, but today has been so far, and expect it to stay that way - I have work tonight but will take food and drink with me and only have about £1.50 in my purse so shouldn't be tempted to spend anything.
The freelance work looks a definite - all being well I should make £30 tomorrow, and if that goes ok then there's scope for another £30 on Friday - time will tell, keeping my fingers crossed!

I think I'm going to attempt to meal plan for next week - I'm away for work this weekend so will have a few boring hours in a hotel room to write out a plan! We'll see if we manage to stick to it though - food is probably our biggest waste of money - it's embarrassing the amount of out of date and unused food we bin every week so anything will be an improvement on that!

Bobarella

Do you make a point of doing a fridge audit every week? That would help with spoiled food. You can freeze most things before it gets to the point of needing to be binned...

LabRatty

We own a ramshackle house which is unfortunately unliveable just now, so we are staying in rented accommodation, and paying double rent and council tax!

Hi Nomoney,

Just been reading your thread, and congrats on trying to get a handle on everything.

It may be worth asking your local council if the work required on your house makes it exempt from council tax - ours has a list of criteria which give you a six month exemption period if they define it as uninhabitable.

Also, is any of the work required claimable on buildings insurance? Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, it's just a suggestion.

PS: as the only l*dl shopper in a family who patronise W'rose, Sainsbys et al, I too am a supermarket outcast, but our food bill is less than ever before and I can get round and out with a trolley full in about 25 mins - what's not to like?:)