£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

warby68

Morning, enjoy party day

I think I've seen some posts like the above one before. The ones full of not overly convincing 'justification' where shortly afterwards you make some positive change. I hope this is one. Scented candles are not a life essential - enough cash and bedrooms are lol. There are PLENTY of cheap, quick meals and you COULD make a much quicker cake yourself.

I sense a 'rebalancing' coming, I hope so. Its all a bit topsy turvy having time for home made iced gems when you still don't have bedrooms!!

Time spent with your children is wonderful - we made similar choices. I've been part time for 16 years and always tried very much to 'clear the decks' during school/husband's work time so we could have choice in the evenings and weekends. Its just that you're in a bit more of a spot with your housing and debt needs not sorted yet so the scales might have to favour those a bit more to get where you want to be on the long run.

Anyway, not for today - its party time, for us too . Enjoy the day and let your cogs keep turning in the background

Hillwalker11

Must admit I wouldn't be making iced gems, far too fiddly and time consuming, but being a SAHM and spending the time doing things with your children is priceless. Yes you have a large debt hanging over you, yes you need a bigger house, but you are looking at ways to address both of these.The time spent with your children will dwindle as they get older,you are spending the important time with them now.Financially things are tough but they will improve and when looking back you will realize that the time spent with your family is very precious. Yes you could go back to work full time but I think in today's society you have made the right choice for you.There is no right or wrong way, everyone is different and one size doesn't fit all.
You are able to give your children the most precious commodity of all, time,which doesn't have a price tag.

ToTheBatcave

Can't remember if this has been mentioned before but would it be worth investing in a slow cooker? I'm sure you're pretty efficient already but it could free up time for other tasks whilst cooking. Or maybe give your DH chance to get involved in the cooking?

Silver_Queen

Hope the party is wonderful! Happy Easter

Treadingonplaymobil

Phew, have collapsed in a heap with a cup of tea and logged on for a catch up of some other diaries.

Hillwalker11 I think you've summarised exactly what drives me in so many decisions, thank you!

Warby68 it's not so much a justification as me trying to think things through 'on paper'. I quite often don't even know quite why I do something, and writing down the thought process behind it sometimes helps me figure out what actually matters and what is unnecessary window dressing.

I know there is some 'window dressing' that can go, but some of the things I do make so much difference to my personal happiness levels, like having lovely scented candles or nice napkins or whatever, in a house that really isn't terribly nice at the moment (bearing in mind it was badly in need of doing up when we moved in 2.5 years ago and now is frankly hugely tatty).

Oh, and I am all ears for the quick and cheap and nutritious meal ideas, I am never closed to new inspiration! Particularly ones that have decent protein levels, good fats and greens.

Silver_Queen

I completely understand your dilemma. It's clear that you and your family do benefit from the extra stuff you do, but it's a case of deciding what stuff is the unnecessary additional and what stuff is really needed for your own emotional and mental wellbeing. As someone with no kids I can't even begin to understand properly. I wish you infinite luck, I honestly couldn't do all that you do.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 60: Day 1

Good morning! I am feeling ridiculously bright eyed and bushy tailed after three whole nights of nine-ish hours sleep (I usually get closer to seven hours). DH is laughing at me as I'm bouncing around trying not to wake the DCs. Just waiting for him to go for a run so I can do my yoga.

Anyway, a new week! Still feels like part of the old week thanks to bank holiday weekend, but the record shows we are into Week 60 of this malarkey, and into my fifteenth month of paying off debt. Crazy stuff.

EPIC MONTHLY ROUND UP POST COMING.... Get coffee before reading .

March roundup
March, like February, was a month of highs and lows. The biggest high is finally managing to build our savings pots, despite birthdays, after managing to cling onto them in February despite the expensive car service. To see £90 waiting for DC2's music lesson invoice, £150 in the holiday pot, £200 in the Christmas pot, a hopping £850 in the extension pot and so on and so on just feels ridiculously pleasing.

The building of the savings pots has been possible because I used my extra earnings from my 'busy period' of Jan-Mar to cover things that hadn't had a chance to build pots yet; the car in Feb, DC2 and 3's birthdays in March. It's not ideal, as it would have been nice to send that money to debt overpayment, but actually it has allowed the other pots to build, so hopefully that propping up will become less and less necessary as various pots build up, and any extra income will be able to go to the debt and/or extension.

The biggest low should be the birthday spends I suppose, as it was certainly a big spend, but actually I'm not upset with what we spent - it averaged £250 per DC, including £79 on the train for DC2's party, all decorations etc, and one off purchases like glass bottles and stainless steel straws which we can use for camping and future parties. I also got several useful presents for them, like lots of clothes for DC3 (who needed them urgently) and a stainless steel lunchbox for DC2, as he will finish getting the KS1 free school meals this year.

The biggest low was actually realising that I'm not happy with our food budget, and we need to shift something to increase it. I'm still not sure how that's going to work out, but I'm optimistic DH and I can figure something out once we take the time to sit down with the budget. That will keep cropping up in conversation on here this month I expect, as I play with ideas.

Because of the big birthday spends there weren't any exciting debt overpayments this month, so I'll update my sig at some point this week to reflect the payments made - somewhere around the £350 mark I think.

April plans
I don't have grand financial plans for April. The biggest challenge is going to be to stick to the family entertainment budget this month, as the DC are off for a full two weeks more. We have plenty of play dates and free things to do, so it's just a case of being sensible and planning snacks and meals when we do go out. We'll go to the zoo and the other nature place we get access to with the zoo membership,

I actually had a really silly realisation yesterday. I've been so busy recently that I've just been doing what the work planner I did at the start of the year tells me to do on a daily/weekly basis, without really looking ahead. I sat down to plan my week's work yesterday evening, and realised that one of the reasons I've been so busy recently is to get ahead so I can work hardly any hours over the holidays! So I've got a bit of an unexpected break myself - in my head the holidays were going to be a mad scramble to work the hours I needed to while managing the DC, but actually I only need to fit in about 10 hours work all holidays. Can't believe I forgot that I'd actually planned it out this way! I've done the same for the summer holidays, which I did remember, but I hadn't clocked that I'd managed it for Easter too. I'm such a fool, albeit an organised one :rotfl: .

Although I'm very un-busy for the Easter hols, I've just woken up to another good client enquiry this morning - if this and yesterday's come off (they are for work in late April/early May) it will be another £300 or so profit, which will enable me to boost my business account close to three months savings again - I am down to two months at the moment. Have also just invoiced (less work than usual) for my March contract work, which will be another £150 in. So although my busiest period is over, I'm continuing to get enquiries, which is great, as I really can't relax totally about my business account until I have my business expenses and salary covered for that dead summer period - it was that long no-earnings period that really did for my budget for the rest of the year in 2017.

All things considered, I'm not unhappy with the way things are going. I feel like it took at least 12 months to start to get our heads around the problem and begin to think about the changes we needed to make in order to actually make progress, and to shift the debt around to make our repayments manageable. This year I think there's still a lot of changes to make and juggling to do, but I do feel like we're getting to grips with our priorities and actually making progress on having a budget that genuinely balances.

To do today
1. Find the big list for March on here and see whether anything got done, then redo it for April :rotfl: .
2. Do contract work for this week.
3. Family meeting - plan out Easter hols with the DC to make sure we do everything we want to.
4. See architect for initial extension sketches :j :j :j .
5. Sit down with DH for a budget catch up.

Debt repayment:
- £0/30 April rounding down pot.
- £1,608.78/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

PositiveBalance

Morning ToPM!

I was wondering if you would have a bank-holiday lie-in or not.

You stayed in bed until nearly 7am, you devil!

(Seriously, as a night owl, I have no idea how you do the hours you do. I would die.)

It sounds like you have been doing a lot of thinking and it's always nice to find time we didn't realise we had and that we have accidentally been more organised than we realise (it's the only way I am, ever! )

The birthdays sound quite expensive to me given how young your children are, but I know that parties can get seriously pricey.

It also sounds like you've realised how big a mindset change you have had over the past 12 months. Good for you!

Treadingonplaymobil

March's list roundup

Looking back to find March's lists, I am reminded how much more difficult the snow made everything too - I lost a couple of full working days to it, plus the odd extra bit here and there due to things like having to revisit a client I had to abandon when the snow started. That made March extra challenging too - losing and having to recreate perhaps 25 hours work when you only have 86 hours over the month in the first place is quite significant!

Home/Family
1. Defrost the freezer. Ooh, I've actually done this.
2. Repaint bathroom tiles.
3. Tidy up the front garden.
4. DH finish front fence.
5. Plan/start veg planting. Well I have A Plan. Need to check when what I've been given can be sown/planted.
6. Put the word out about needing a little trailer for camping. Done, no joy yet, will chase once more before looking on ebay.
7. Mend DC3's dressing up costume (Elsa's plait is coming loose...).
8. Buy cheaper spoons for packed lunches - the DC have been taking in our proper cutlery and I'm fairly sure we've lost one or two of our nice (not cheap) spoons.
9. Try to get back into a daily laundry/ironing rhythm. This is going well.
10. Try some new budget recipes. DH was supposed to find some recipes and failed utterly. I will chase him today.
11. Experiment with greater food planning - snacks and lunches as well as dinners (we usually rely on there being leftovers or cheese/crackers/veg, which is OK, but I wonder if we could do better by cooking more soup and stew batches or something, especially for weekends when we are all here). This is actually going really well and definitely improving what I personally eat day to day.

Me
1. Stick to three things on my daily list at any one time. Mostly good, and made the really busy days the exception rather than the rule.
2. Eat proper meals and snacks, instead of grazing more or less continuously. Improving.
3. Self care - downtime, nice baths, morning and evening rituals. Ha. No.
4. Daily yoga. I'm only doing a short practice, but I am actually getting on my mat each day.
5. Finish handmade presents for friend's imminent baby. Yup.
6. Make any handmade presents for DC2 and 3 birthdays. Didn't even attempt this.

Work
1. 10% growth on my main social media platform (296). Didn't manage this - got up to 288 at the end of the month, 7% growth.
2. A new blog post for my website.
3. Get well ahead with contract work.
4. Focus on my key aim - of developing some passive income that allows me to move away from my current (not hugely enjoyable) main income source.
Well the work list was the biggest washout, wasn't it?

MSE
1. £31 minimum overpayment from rounding down YNAB pots.
2. List wooden marble run on ebay.
3. Fund birthdays somehow! Tick.
4. Keep the food and diesel bills down. This is going less well.
5. Experiment with smaller food shops, more often. We don't have masses of waste but I do feel we could improve a bit, and also up our veg intake - I often don't buy much veg because of the risk of it going off. We have plenty in the freezer, but it can get a bit samey. Ongoing. buying more often means less waste, but costs more.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Great news on all fronts TOPM but £250 for a birthday for small people (even with all the caveats) :eek: :eek:
I think that's a challenge for the future, maybe cutting £50 off to start with - that would be £150 a year extra to the debt pot (no idea what that does to the debt free date, but it would impact) and you will definitely be able to have lovely birthdays for £200 a child.