Sashybo - Back Again

DancingInTheRain

Oh my goodness your parents-in-law's antics make me angry on your behalf! You do well to tolerate them at all nevermind in your home.

Sorry to hear you're struggling a bit on the financial front, is it worth doing a review of your monthly bills in addition to the food spending? Even reducing just one or two bills might help.

If you did balance transfer the overdraft, could you set yourself a challenge to pay it down using survey money or selling a few more bits and pieces? Difficult I know when you're already balancing work and young children (& insufferable in-laws 😉).

Hugs xx

Sun_Addict

The outlaws sound very challenging to say the least. I could never be like that to my DS. It’s so difficult to manage money when you’ve got a young family, we were the same back in the day. 0% balance transfer would be better than overdraft charges.

beanielou

My only thought is don't do another BT until you can identify where the money is going.

sashybo

Thanks all, I think the overspending is mostly down to us never really adjusting to the fact that we no longer have two full time incomes plus two kids and the extra expenses that come with that.

I know we have spent far too much on takeaways on top of the food shopping, which is ridiculous when we have plenty of food in the house. We just get to the end of the day and one or both of us has either been doing shift work or looking after the kids (or both) and we're just so tired and fed up that we order a takeaway to "treat" ourselves.

The other thing is probably that we just buy things that we want/see rather than waiting and I know I buy too many clothes for the kids. I need to stop buying, they don't really need anything apart from DD needing shoes as she still hasn't had her feet measured properly. 

I have already suggested putting things we see and would like to buy ourselves onto a shared list for birthdays/Mother's/Father's day/Christmas rather than just buying straight away. I also said to DH that we should have a set amount each per month to buy stuff (to stop us feeling deprived and going on a spending spree). DH's hobbies are his computers and brewing beer - obviously these both cost money, so a limit would be a good thing and I'm sure he would agree to that.

I have considered taking extra from the money transfer and using it to pay off our smallest loan which costs £181 p/m. So including the O/D, that would probably be £4-4.5K on a 0% money transfer for 18 months. The minimum payment would be around £200 p/m at first as I still have £800 on the card from a 0% BT (caused by unexpected car repairs). Atm we pay £181 to the loan plus £50 to the BT so it would be a small saving of about £30 p/m and one less DD going out every month. However the full amount would most likely not be paid off before the 0% period ended so it would have to be BT'd to another card. 🤔 I'm not sure if it's worth it or not but the minimum payment on the card would probably go up to £100 p/m with the O/D money transfer so we would be paying out more every month.

Just getting it onto paper (as it were) is a help. DH earns a good wage and I'm pretty well paid  for a job share so we shouldn't be in such a mess. It's so disheartening but I think we've just not been strict enough with ourselves and have went back down the slippery slope. 😔 

beanielou

It's easy done.
We have all done it.

Honeysucklelou2

Totally empathise with the feeling tired after getting in from work and needing to feed the family. Can you get ingredients in the freezer such as frozen fish portions that can go from freezer to oven quickly? On a quieter week, is it worth  batch cooking - not something I do because my normal amount for us all fills a huge dish anyway but perhaps useful if you can eat half and freeze half? Soup is always a good one to freeze!

Willowtree222

The Satan comment made me laugh. Your outlaws are off the scale. X

sashybo

Hi guys, thanks for the encouragement. I have been MIA this week as the kids have had a bug - DS wasn't too bad with it, just sniffly, lethargic and a bit of a temperature but DD was really not very well. She spent her worst day just crying constantly and wanting me to hold her (really not like her) and was up crying at least 3 times in the night every night for 3 nights in a row. I had to sit holding her until she calmed down and fell asleep then transfer her into the cot - she never does that and never has, even as a tiny baby she wanted to be put into her cot and fall asleep on her own.

She must have been feeling really rotten as she went off her food and that's also really unlike her as she loves food! She is a lot better now but still not quite right. DS has only been at nursery once this week (today) - it was closed on Monday and again on Thursday anyway so I kept him off to make sure he was better.

I feel like a zombie and of course now that they're better I'm coming down with the bug. Thank goodness I used annual leave to take today and tomorrow off work. 

DH & I sat down and looked at where the money is going - we are definitely overspending on food and takeaways (which we already knew) and on our own credit cards just buying "stuff". We've agreed to keep the joint cashback CC (for food, fuel etc paid off in full every month) under a certain amount and cut right back on takeaways and personal spends. If we go back to menu planning every week I think that would help a lot too.

We took a big amount on the 0% cash transfer so we could pay off the O/D, our smallest loan and the bigger 0% CC balance. We also took extra to buy new couches as the one we have is really awful and making our sore backs worse. At least this way there will be several debts under one payment then we only have 2 other loans  in the way of debt repayments every month.

As long as we stay strict with ourselves there's no reason why we can't make this work and not go back into the O/D. It's overspending pure and simple. I'm going to use survey money (anything over £5, anything under goes into my Christmas savings) towards paying off the cash transfer and DH has a few bits and pieces to sell when a cheap listing offer comes up.

I'm hoping to get some survey vouchers in the next two weeks to use towards a teepee tent for DS for his birthday. If I can even get half the cost in vouchers I'll be happy.

DancingInTheRain

Sounds like a solid plan, great that the 2 of you have discussed and agreed it too as it will make it easier to stick to if you're both on the same page.

Pleased the little ones are better, hope you get to rest a little over the weekend and that the bug doesn't wipe you out too much x

Sun_Addict

Makes it so much easier when you’re both on board with the finances. Plus you’ve identified where the budget leaks are and can make adjustments.

Hope that bug disappears quickly.