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

cocalls

PositiveBalance wrote: »

*Interrupts*

Really? I did not know that!

That's my Thing Learned for Today knocked off nice and early. Thank you, cocalls! :T

no problem this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aIHWeNTUP0 is an interesting video on how its harvested and how small farmers depend on it.

Treadingonplaymobil

It is worth being aware that (a) not all balloons are natural rubber, (b) the ones that are generally still have artificial dyes and other additives put in, (c) best case scenario for them is up to four years to decompose in open compost (much longer in landfill, which realistically is where they will end up for 98% of people) and (d) if they blow away or otherwise make it into nature after being thrown away, they can choke and kill wildlife.

It's a bummer, as I get the small-scale farmers relying on this income, but unfortunately I personally can't see them as an eco friendly option.

Treadingonplaymobil

PositiveBalance wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is contradicting everything I had just said, but have you ever tried making soaps? You could make lovely quality ones for personal use and they make nice presents (Christmas, party bags etc.).

*Hits self on head for giving ToPM more ideas about HM stuff*

I did have soap on my list of things to try, but it occurred to me it's a whole other set of equipment and 'stuff' to buy to start out, so I have resisted thus far. Slightly wish I'd made the time to make bath bombs for party bags as I wanted to though!

ellen_vannin

Parties sound lovely and it is nice to hear that the DC'S actually appreciated them. Good point about the re-useable stuff to , impacting on future spends.

I must ask a question - how did your DH react to finding out that his extras at petrol stations were coming off his personal spends?

Treadingonplaymobil

ellen_vannin wrote: »

Parties sound lovely and it is nice to hear that the DC'S actually appreciated them. Good point about the re-useable stuff to , impacting on future spends.

I must ask a question - how did your DH react to finding out that his extras at petrol stations were coming off his personal spends?

I'm not 100% sure he's noticed yet! He hasn't tried to buy any clothes yet, so hasn't had any cause to look at the budget. I have noticed that fuel receipts aren't getting left in his wallet though, which makes me wonder if he has noticed and we are having some mad passive aggressive war! Maybe I should just ask for fuel receipts and admit I've noticed, as I would be annoyed to find he was buying snacks still.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 60: Day 2

I had another lie int his morning till 6am. I don't know what's the matter with me, I seem to be getting rather used to this relaxing lark! :eek:

Yesterday's list
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. One day we might manage this

So yesterday's big event was going to see the architect. He had some brilliant ideas, and some terrible ones, and I think over the course of a very unrelaxing 90 minutes (we had the DCs with us, never good for serious decision making) I think we've managed to compromise between 'no extra space at all' and 'grand extension which will dwarf the house and take our debt up to the level of a small country'. There's still a lot of fine tuning of the design to do to shuffle everything in, and it's looking, as I expected, like moving the staircase might be the best option to give us the space we need. Apparently our staircase is easy to move, as it's in a (relatively) large hallway and against a wall, and it would be moved within that hallway to another wall. Still going to have a cost attached though, obviously. Anyway, I think we're another few weeks away from the next iteration of designs, and we already have enough to pay the architect for this stage of the design process, so at least we're keeping ahead of the expenses on that front. The architect is going to send round a few of the sketches we looked at and we can begin to very roughly measure out the amount of extra square footage we're building, which should help us begin to reach some rough ballpark figures for the build and ascertain how feasible it is.

Back to today, aiming for a quiet one with the DCs - we need to pop into town for a top up shop, and the younger two are desperate to spend their birthday money, but other than that we have no grand plans.

To do today
1. Menu plan and top up food shop list (the freezer is stuffed with food, so I'm hoping to get by with just milk/fruit type shops for at least this week and some of next week).
2. Keep on top of work emails.
3. Log on to CC accounts and check debt totals to update signature.

Debt repayment:
- £2.10/30 April rounding down pot.
- £1,608.78/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

Treadingonplaymobil

Have just updated signature, so the totals stand at:

£11,613.48 Barclaycard (0% until Sept '18)
£2,808.71 Virgin (0% until Feb '20)
£20,000 parental loan
£34,422.19 total

Mortgage stands at approximately £192,200 (I can't log in to the online banking for it, so have roughly calculated it, I may be miles out!).

The next mission is definitely to get under the £34k barrier which should take more than one month's payments to get to, but I'm going to try to do it this month. I feel like I need another little psychological win with the debt, so that would be a good goal to aim for.

Got paid for contract work and one client booking last night, so have covered July's business expenses and £40/250 of July's salary, so inching back up to the three months buffer.

wishingthemortgaheaway

TOPM: are you encouraging the children to save some of the money they get each time to begin to instill good habits now?
I know my little one doesn't understand yet but, when he gets given money we put some in one money box (to spend) and some in another (to save) it may all go terribly wrong but, I'm a firm believer in start as you mean to go on, rather than trying to introduce something later when it's difficult.

Treadingonplaymobil

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

TOPM: are you encouraging the children to save some of the money they get each time to begin to instill good habits now?
I know my little one doesn't understand yet but, when he gets given money we put some in one money box (to spend) and some in another (to save) it may all go terribly wrong but, I'm a firm believer in start as you mean to go on, rather than trying to introduce something later when it's difficult.

We have discussed it, but not enforced it - one is a natural born saver and currently has more spare cash than I do, one is a total spender and it completely burns a hole in his pocket, and the third struggles to remember from one minute to the next that she actually has money, so probably would find it easy to save. I don't know how to introduce it without forcing it at this stage.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

We have discussed it, but not enforced it - one is a natural born saver and currently has more spare cash than I do, one is a total spender and it completely burns a hole in his pocket, and the third struggles to remember from one minute to the next that she actually has money, so probably would find it easy to save. I don't know how to introduce it without forcing it at this stage.

I suspect the spender will have an eye opening moment when the saver just goes out and buys something because they've saved the cash and the spender can't.