Overwhelmed and ashamed

Drawingaline

Love reading your updates, keep going!

dprovan

thanks everyone.

pelirocco: the savings come from the £175 per week (the amount from this we don't need to spend) as well as money gained from other underspends (petrol, food etc) as well as money gained from other gains (selling stuff and matched betting). The LBM for us was realising we need to live to a budget!!

Just added another £310 to our emergency fund today. We pay rates monthly over 10 months so have two free months and the first of which has just gone into the savings. My wife also had £100 extra from work this month which is a massive bonus.

Thanks to everyone for your support and kind words.

dprovan

Our weekly budgeting continues well. My wife continues to jeep a spending diary each week which has been so insightful. Its amazing how much teenage children cost!!! I remember clearly when the kids were in nappies how we used to sit and think how much we would save when the nappy stage finished. Little did we know

It's fine, but our dd who is 16 has a busy social life which is costly. She has her GCSEs coming up in the next couple of months so we want her to use all her free time to study but after that she will be getting a job. She doesn't know it yet!! On the whole she isn't too bad in terms of expectations but she does have her moments (as they all do) where you think, you haven't a clue love what that costs. So some kind of job to pay for her lifestyle is a must.

Growing up I was 'working' form the age of 12 paper runs, milk runs, washing cars, fruit picking etc etc. If I said to my daughter that she would have to go to random doors and ask if they wanted their car wash she would report me to the authorities .

In truth our life doesn't feel hugely different. We are very lucky that our income means we can still live a decent lifestyle. The biggest difference is that we have stopped spending for non essentials. I have reflected before that I used to buy 'bargains' all the time. Now we buy things that we need when we need them. There are funny moments where you think should I really be buying a tub of jalapenos at 75pence and after some deliberation you reflect back to the old world...

We have also had a major opportunity to change our future. My wife has been informed that she will soon have an inheritance which is significant enough to clear our debt and leave a little in savings. Clearly we have very mixed feelings! The inheritance comes from people we love deeply and who have done so much for us so it feels like a precious gift that we need to treasure. We have talked lots and realised that this can enable us to set our kids up in their future. We have talked a little about what we should do and think we will clear a % of our cc debt but leave at least half which is on 0% for 3 years plus. We can then use the spare monthly money freed up to save to pay off the remaining cc debt whilst retaining a lump sum in savings invested for the kids moving forward.

We have been clear that we want to stick to our current budgets because we know we can live comfortably doing this and that any future spends for holidays for example need to come from what we save. It feels good and right and we both feel blessed to have the opportunity we have been given and couldn't live with ourselves if we weren't mature in making the most of it.

I bought my wife a large bottle of bubbles about 5 Christmases ago, yes I most likely bought it on cc. We agreed we wouldn't open it until we were debt free and it still sits in our dining room. I believe with this development that could be three years from now and something for us to earn and aim for....

I hope everyone else out there is well and content.

Bobarella

Good news on the inheritance. Sounds like some good planning going on too.