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

wishingthemortgaheaway

Another huge vote for ynab here. I was able to save for 15months of maternity leave, give up my job and return to a significantly lower paid & lower hours role & still overpay the mortgage all thanks to YNAB

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 69: Day 1

Morning! Back home and ready for a new week and a new month.

Balancing the budgets at the end of last month was not a joy, but at least we are starting again with a clean slate, and without money borrowed from this month's budget before we even start.

Camping was fine, but safe to say we won't be rushing back to visit Cornwall during school holidays again. SO BUSY. At least the weather was lovely. And we didn't spend a total fortune either, <£40 for the whole time we were away, which included fish and chips on the beach one evening. The campsite was dirt cheap (and felt like it!) and came out of the remainder of the holidays budget.

This month is all about staying on track with earnings, savings and spending, to let the savings pots recover a little. It's also a chance to earn some extra money before the summer slowdown really kicks in - my sister is getting married in July, so I know July is going to be half wiped out by prepping for that, then school hols start towards the end of the month, and then August the DC are off for the entire month and I only have the odd day of work scheduled in. And half of September will be taken up with DC3's half days settlings into school, so June is my last chance to make some extra money before autumn. Really going to try to focus, not get distracted by too many coffees with friends or other 'essential' daytime things which take me away from work.

I did loads and loads of laundry, cleaning and tidying when we got home yesterday, so don't have too much of a pigsty of a house to deal with this week, beyond the usual everyday mess. So no excuses for not cracking on with work today! I am experimenting with assigning one of each of my four childcare days to a different aspect of my business, and my weekend work days to my tax return and book keeping, rather than flitting between things each day, so we'll see how that works out for me.

Right, debt figures:

Waiting for the Barclaycard statement to appear so I can pay that, but the figures for the beginning of the month stand at:
£10,805.64 Barclaycard
£2,752.81 Virgin
£20,000 parental loan
£33,558.45 total unsecured debt

£191,971.44 mortgage

This represents a reduction since 1st May of £416.48 in unsecured debt, and £1,038.39 for the mortgage (this includes two months payments, as the payment hadn't cleared when I updated the mortgage figure last month. And I think there is interest to be applied this month, but whatever, I'll take that £1,000 reduction while it's there). This means that my hypothetical net debt figure - all my debts set against the value of the house at the mortgage valuation in January - is a down to £529.89. I can't wait to get that net debt figure into the positive! It's obviously totally meaningless as it's not like we're going to sell the house, but it's nice to feel that our assets outweigh our debts for the first time in, well, ever.

Oh, and I have very nearly reached the halfway point in my £5k 2018 debt repayment goal. As soon as the barclaycard statement comes in and I make the payment, I'll reach it. I've already overpaid £35 off the barclaycard this month, from my May invoicing, and another £3.08 from the rounding down pot.

Extension savings figure update - my shortfall for the year is standing at £1,367, which with my earning percentage divisions works out to be additional income of a shade under £5.5K for the rest of the year to create that total in the extension pot. I'm still fairly optimistic I can make it as my daily earnings figure for the rest of the year has been steadily dropping on average, and today is down to £25.91 (from a starting point on 1st May of £28.69). Mainly due to a bumper month of contract work, almost £1,000 in the invoice for perhaps the third time ever (although not all of that profit, obv).

That's probably enough chatter from me this morning, time to get on with my day!

To do today
1. Clear the ironing pile before the rest of the dry laundry from camping gets added to it.
2. Plan week's work.
3. Clear emails.
4. Check stock for work.
5. Check life coaching goals for this week.
6. Make flapjacks.
7. Menu plan and food shopping list for rest of week (we have lots of food, anticipating a small fruit/veg/milk top up shop).

Mini goals:
- £3.08/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,487.86/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £25.91 daily earning goal.

Treadingonplaymobil

DH came home with some interesting news tonight - his work are offering overtime to salaried staff (ie him) for the first time ever. They want staff to take it in big chunks - ie working several extra hours on a Friday (they normally finish at lunchtime) or a full day on a weekend, but even with his higher rate tax payment it's still worth him working the odd weekend day instead of me working on the weekends. Will be a bit of a switch, but it's only on offer short term, and I think the guaranteed extra income (rather than my not-guaranteed, although higher hourly rate income) will be a good boost to the saving/extension pots.

Speaking of the extension, there's lots of fine tuning going on with the extension plans at the moment, but still hoping to be on track to apply for planning permission in early July.

To do today
1. Clear the ironing pile before the rest of the dry laundry from camping gets added to it.
2. Plan week's work.
3. Clear emails.
4. Check stock for work.
5. Check life coaching goals for this week.
6. Make flapjacks.
7. Menu plan and food shopping list for rest of week (we have lots of food, anticipating a small fruit/veg/milk top up shop).

Better get on and do a menu plan now.

Mini goals:
- £3.08/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,487.86/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £25.91 daily earning goal.

pennywisepoundstupid

Hi I don't post often but do read/lurk.

Great news about the overtime for your DH especially if your work is quiet at this time of year, might be a way to boost the extension pot.

Hope it works out.x

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 69: Day 2

Well, DH is going to investigate the overtime more fully today. Still not an absolute certainty, but he's found a few dates he could do and we'll see what they say.

I spent another two hours red-penning extension plans last night. It feels like iteration after iteration, and each one takes us a little bit closer to the final design. We're really only making tweaks now, and it's simultaneously exciting and frustrating. Am absolutely astonished at the sheer amount of time we've spent on it though. Even in my most realistic moments I didn't imagine we'd spend so many hours just shifting walls on a piece of paper back and forth by 20cm!

Is anyone else feeling like this is the first actual summer (albeit a month early) that we've had in about five years? I feel like it's been genuine t-shirt weather for about a month now, and all I remember from the last few summers is being disappointed at the cold damp weather! Hoping to clear more laundry today, which will be the last of the camping backlog.

What else exciting is going on? I don't feel like I'm being frightfully interesting at the moment, but such is life I suppose! I'm very wrapped up in the extension, and also trying out this new method of splitting my working time (one day per 'area' of my work). Yesterday was my first day of it, and it was amazing to see how much I have got used to procrastinating

To do today
1. Contract work (this is my 'day' on it under my new work regime, so I need to get ahead by a week in order to keep up the current system).
2. Check stock for work.
3. Make kitchari for dinner.
4. Clean bathroom.
5. Bake something for after school snack - trying to limp along as long as possible without another food shop and have run out of the obvious snacks.

Mini goals:
- £3.88/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,487.86/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £25.96 daily earning goal.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 69: Day 3

Barclaycard statement came in today, so have made that payment, which takes me well over the halfway point of my £5k repayment target for the year. A few days later than hoped, but better late than never! I've now paid £2,779.62 towards debt so far this year. It's so pleasing to see that I'm making payments of £40 over the minimum payment on this card now, having kept my budgeted payment the same over the past 8 months or so.

This means that the CC debt is down to £13,264.95. Can't wait to get it under the next thousand barrier, will be very exciting to be in the £12,000s!

Also pleased to report that my daily earnings goal has dropped another tiny fraction - down to £25.74 today. I'd love to have another big chunk of income in to drop it significantly, but I'm trying to be patient.

Had to order DC1 some clothes yesterday. Really struggling with that £60 budget per month (£20 per child). It's really not enough, but as with everything else, simply has to do until our financial situation changes. DC1 is growing like a weed now (almost 10) and is incredibly fussy about what he'll wear - will wear items he loves with holes in and 3" too short rather than new things that he isn't keen on. Luckily DC2 manages mainly on hand me downs and we tend to get given hand me downs from other children for DC3 (everyone buys more girl clothes than they need apparently, so the clothes we get for her tend to be in good condition and 'nice'. She's the best dressed of all of us!). Neither of the younger two are remotely fussed about their clothes being mainly hand me downs so far, and long may it continue.

I am trying to empty the cupboards, so did a teeny weeny £7 top up shop yesterday, which I'm hoping will see us through until tomorrow, when I can go and spend maybe £20 on fruit, veg and milk to get us through until after the weekend. The cupboards are heaving still, so I know we can make actual meals for a good few days yet.

Cheap meal alert - I made a soya protein curry a couple of days ago and the kids loved it. Used this recipe and substituted at random, adding tinned tomatoes and leaving out the yoghurt (the DC like to add it as a garnish). a 500g packet of 'chunks' and four tins of tomatoes made an enormous pan of curry and the DCs absolutely wolfed it down with rice and chutney. They've been asking for it for lunches in their food flasks too. It's quite a processed product, so I wouldn't want to feed it on a weekly basis or anything, but as an occasional meal I don't have a problem with it. We're eating a lot of curry/indian inspired food at the minute, it seems to lend itself well to budget meals and once you've stocked up on spices it's really easy.

To do today
1. Work on my website and social media (I'm quite enjoying this 'focus on one thing per day' plan, even if all it's doing so far is showing how much I was procrastinating by flitting between tasks previously).
2. Make dinner at some stage during the day.
3. Clean the bathroom! This is the third day on the list for this chore, and it's getting silly. Make time to clean the stupid bathroom.
4. Tidy the front garden a bit - only needs 15 minutes or so spent on it to clear the worst of the weeds.
5. Bake some snacks - didn't do this yesterday.

Mini goals:
- £6.61/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,779.62/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £25.74 daily earning goal.

warby68

A chunk of extra income sounds brilliant at the moment for you. Its what you need more than anything - your budget is tighter than a drum and really not working in some areas so boosting the coffers really does look best.

Not to worry you unduly, but just wondered where husband's salary sits on the higher income Child Benefit tax charge scale. I can't remember but guessing he's not a million miles from £50k - if just below and it tips him over, there will be a cost there. You probably know this already but thought it worth a mention.

Treadingonplaymobil

warby68 wrote: »

A chunk of extra income sounds brilliant at the moment for you. Its what you need more than anything - your budget is tighter than a drum and really not working in some areas so boosting the coffers really does look best.

Not to worry you unduly, but just wondered where husband's salary sits on the higher income Child Benefit tax charge scale. I can't remember but guessing he's not a million miles from £50k - if just below and it tips him over, there will be a cost there. You probably know this already but thought it worth a mention.

He's on £47k, so even with a bit of extra overtime and his recent bonus I don't think he'll scrape £50k gross.

armchairexpert

My eldest is almost 10 as well, and it's exhausting trying to keep up! Her younger sister also exists entirely on hand-me-downs, but it's getting difficult now that they're exerting more will, because Eldest likes very gender-neutral clothes - jeans and tops in blues and greens - and Youngest is more of a Fancy Nancy. School uniform all day every day would make life easier.

I wonder if I could convince them that your linked recipe is real meat. I fed them tofu stir fry tonight and Youngest was horrified when she realised there was no actual meat hidden in it anywhere.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 69: Day 4

I am feeling worn down by debt and managing money today. I feel like we are never allowed to slip up, never allowed to get it wrong, or the entire house of cards will collapse. I see posters on here who go quiet for a few months and come back having added exactly what they've paid off, or even with a slightly bigger debt and I actually feel jealous of them - I want to forget it all for a little while and go back into denial and enjoy having nice things again. I can honestly say that I was a lot happier when our debt was growing than I am paying it off. I was thinner, fitter, worked less and had nicer stuff. I'm sure I'll feel simply super when it's all gone, but at the moment I just feel worn down, bored with it and tired of not being able to live the life I want. Yes, I know it's all 100% self inflicted, but right now I don't care.

The trouble is that we have to keep going. If we want to give our children a home with enough space to grow up in without having to move areas, if we want to be able to contemplate retiring before the age of 80, we have to keep on doing it.

As I've said before, I don't feel I've had some epiphany lightbulb moment. My debt doesn't horrify me in the least. I want it gone because I want to free up £400 a month, not because I actually care about the fact of being in debt. I can't really get any more worked up about it than I do about the mortgage.

And the thing I find the most depressing of all is that after 15 months of slogging it and budgeting and saving and working hard, we've paid off £6.5k. Not tens of thousands, not half our debt, not even a quarter of our debt. We still have over £13k of credit card debt, £20k of parental loan, and whatever we add next year with the extension, never mind the mortgage. That's a lot of years of paying back £5k a year and slogging and being tight with money.

It's not that i think there's any other solution particularly. We made this bed and we have to lie in it, I'm just plain old angry that we have to do what we have to do and that it has to be such hard work and take me away from enjoying life with my family.

Our budgets are looking terrible again this month. The savings pots have been raided in order to keep things balanced, and I am well aware that I am pushing a problem down the line (I know already that Christmas is going to be going on a CC, as it did last year). This is because actually despite all our work, our budgets don't really balance. Yes, we can pay off the debt and not add to it each month at the moment, but really only because we are pushing a £2,000 CC bill down the line to the end of the year, once Christmas, birthdays, the car MOT etc are covered. The things that have thrown the budget out this month are:
1) bulk buying laundry powder because it's 'cheaper'
2) our energey DD being raised from £49 to £140 because they reduced it too much at the end of last year. I'm going to get it reduced back down to £100 next month, but it was still £100 extra to find this month.
3) overspending on food on the way to our camping holiday last week - I'm hoping this might balance out as we still seem to have a lot in the cupboards, but I've made the mistake of moving money away from the food budget before, then finding we actually need it.
4) bulk buying (loose leaf) tea, again because it's 'cheaper'. Only one or two places online do decaf loose leaf.
5) Massive clothes order for DC1 - over £100, so £40 over the children's clothes budget. And I will need to buy full new uniform for DC3 in the summer, as well as top ups for the other two, which will far outstrip July and August's budgets.
6) Trailer for camping - yes we had £200 saved, but it was £280, which more than wiped out our holiday budget, and we still have two big camping trips to pay for in the next month or so (£200 for one, £100 for the other). That might feel a lot, but it's their only summer holidays and non-negotiable, they get so much from being outdoors in the summer, and we tend to spend virtually nothing when we are camping.
7) Not bought yet, but I need to get something to wear to my sister's wedding and since reducing my clothing budget dramatically I don't actually have the money for it. I have absolutely nothing appropriate and will be expected to look civilised.

Right. Moving on. Whinge over. Time to get on with my day and attempt to bring in a few more pennies.

I made the worst dinner ever yesterday - it was meant to be courgette and potato rosti, but I didn't squeeze enough water out and it was more of a courgette and potato sludge. The DC were really good and still ate a fair bit, but I did feel a bit of a parenting failure! I did actually manage to clean the bathroom though, so at least the house is hygienic. :eek:

To do yesterday
1. Work on my website and social media (I'm quite enjoying this 'focus on one thing per day' plan, even if all it's doing so far is showing how much I was procrastinating by flitting between tasks previously).
2. Make dinner at some stage during the day.
3. Clean the bathroom! This is the third day on the list for this chore, and it's getting silly. Make time to clean the stupid bathroom.
4. Tidy the front garden a bit - only needs 15 minutes or so spent on it to clear the worst of the weeds.
5. Bake some snacks - didn't do this yesterday.

To do today
1. Make dinner early in the day - swimming lessons tonight so dinner is super early.
2. Try to get some clarity from the council on whether we need a bat and bird/wildlife survey done for planning permission. Apparently we do, which just seems mad in a terraced bungalow with no loft space and a patio where we are building our extension - nowhere for any wildlife to live!
3. Spend some time on my smaller business - this has been totally neglected of late, and I'm hoping my new working strategy of 'one thing per day' will boost this business - it used to bring in an extra few hundred a month and is currently bringing in more like £50.
4. Plan end of year gifts for teachers. It's been a really challenging year at the DCs' school and I think they all deserve something nice, but I need to stick to a small budget. Going to see if I can find some cheap candle containers online, as homemade candles would be a good budget option, and the DCs can decorate the jars/containers.
5. Clean the sitting room. I'm buoyed by the success of my bathroom cleaning and have ambitions of a clean sitting room too!

Mini goals:
- £6.95/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,779.62/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £25.79 daily earning goal.