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

warby68

Have a big hug from me ToPM

Fundamentally, I don't think your plans are sustainable without a material and pretty much permanent boost to income. To me it seems you can afford to live life and pay debt OR live life and have an extension. Its trying to do all 3 which is killing you. It might be time for a more drastic rethink.

I couldn't live with the thought of 10-15 years of this type of financial constraint and vulnerability. Its too depressing and demoralizing a prospect to accept for the long term , fair enough for a couple of years but its difficult to look forward and see your situation easing much if you stick with the current plans and lifestyle.

Gently urging you to have a major re-think for your own well-being.

You are now a first class budget manager - you aren't failing in this at all but you simply have too many calls on your current income and each small but painful juggling act and savings pot raid is wearing you down. You wanted your current income (and lifestyle, especially your personal one) to stretch to ALL your wants/needs without having to make significant change. It just might not be possible. I wish it was as you have a lovely lifestyle and set of values but there is still too much of a mismatch between your income and the desired calls on it. From experience, I am also very aware of how much more expensive children get as they grow as well - yours are 'cheap' at the moment but that change is coming.

I know I always chime in with something rather downbeat but I hope you know the intentions are the best. Its funny how you can worry about someone you've never met and want to help even when your help is not the most welcome

If you do decide to just plough on, I think you need to redirect more energy and time to generating extra income (positive) and less to micro-managing the budget in the hope you can squeeze more from it ( a bit negative). I think its all wrung out for now.

This may be a bit counter-intuitive as well but if you're still hell bent on this extension then perhaps accepting that the unsecured debt has to stand still for a few years might be the only option to balance the books. Although a big health warning with this - I don't know how much it will impact on your ability to fund the extension if you just stand still and you run the re-finance risk for ever too.

By the way, the £6k debt reduction IS brilliant as it probably excludes at least the same amount again that you would previously have overspent. But I fully understand why it doesn't feel enough

Well, an essay from me (can you tell I'm off work this week?!) but I hope you find a way to revitalize yourself today and am STILL rooting for you to beat the odds x

wishingthemortgaheaway

Big hugs from me too, Warby's points echo my thoughts while I was reading your post.

We all know in the world of financial management the only way to change things is to up your income or reduce your costs. Both of which are proving to be a challenge.

Please please please don't consign yourself to a 'credit card Christmas' in June. You've had a Little wallow, now time for some determination. It will not be a
Credit card Christmas. I am going to make a suggestion that I know you won't like, but I'm going to make it anyway and give my reasons.
Your children's stockings cost what my little boy (I accept he's only 2) had spent on him for his entire Christmas.
As your children are getting older, and need to learn to budget why don't you give each of them £10/£20 (I would say £5- but you really wouldn't want that) and they have to research, source and buy the presents for the stocking of one of their siblings? Just don't then divert the saved money to what you spend on 'main presents'

£6.5k in 69.4 weeks is brilliant, but remember £2.5k of that has been achieved in only 26weeks ish since January. So you are moving forward more rapidly and it will only pick up as interest charges reduce.

Go back a few posts and remember what it was like when you felt happy about having so much money in the bank, yes you were 'ynab poor' becuase the money was all assigned, but you had the cash. Now you've spent the cash, some planned, some unplanned, your motivation is lacking.

I've recently added some additional lines to YNAB, these are for subscription and bulk purchased items. I'm diverting some of the household goods money each month (while I've still got plenty of laundry powder & dishwasher tablets left) so next time I need them it's not a bigger amount of money to find from the pot, once you are in the cycle it gets easier.

You and I differ on our feelings about owing money, I absolutely hate it. The fact there is a huge red chunk on my YNAB (the mortgage) makes me twitch, which is why I'm trying to get rid of it as quickly As possible.

I hope your day improves, onwards and upwards and don't fall off the bandwagon when you've come so far.

One final thought, what would hubby's reaction be if you suddenly threw all your frugal ways aside and returned to your previous lifestyle choices? Would he encourage it or would he try to return tou to the mse way?

enthusiasticsaver

I think the reason you are finding the debt reduction plan such a slog is because you haven't had your LBM. You are being dragged down this route of watching every penny, cutting down on spending like a recalcitrant teenager because you don't care whether the debt goes or stays. It is simply the necessity of you needing that £400 back in your budget to fund your extension and other things you want or need that is making you toe the line.

Those who have an idealistic view of being free of debt are generally more motivated. They would see £6k reduction as brilliant and that bit closer to being debt free. That would make the sacrifices worthwhile. They also will make the sacrifices that at at the moment you are resisting. Being debt free tops the lifestyle choices.

I agree with Warby that you are trying to do too much. Your DH earns £47k and you bring in a reasonable self employed income but not massive. It fits in with your preferred lifestyle, cooking from scratch, nice clothes for DC, ethically sourced goods and minimal waste. I know from experience this does not come cheaply. I think you either have to resign yourself to keeping going as you are or let some things slide. Buying bulk is all well and good but it throws the budget out and I doubt it saves you a huge amount in the long run. Clothes for kids can be bought cheaply from Primark or Asda. I also think long term to get the higher income you want and need it means regular salaries from an employer without all the self employment costs that go with it. There may be childcare costs on school holidays if you and your DH cannot stagger holidays but spread over the year I think your monthly income would be higher even with no family help. As you said on an earlier thread this week you bring in a healthy income but once you have deducted the costs of being self employed and dealt with the insecurity of erratic income the take home pay for the hours you work is extremely low.

Every so often you do have a day or so of feeling rotten about your situation and usually get back on track so well done for that. Hopefully one day you will look back on this and realise this is worth doing. I too urge you not to put Christmas on a credit card. Manage your DCs expectations and cut back in your usual spend , cut right back on everyone else and do it within budget.

DawnW

TOPM, I am just popping in the say what a nice idea it is to do home made candles for your children's teachers' gifts. Much better than yet another mug or similar. They will be used rather than ending up in charity shops or landfill

enthusiasticsaver

OK. I might be a real scrooge here but since when was getting teachers gifts at the end of each school year mandatory? How much ridiculous pressure do people put on themselves to do this? How about a simple thank you from the children or a nice home made card? This was never done 20 years ago when my kids were in primary school I am sure.

Treadingonplaymobil

Thanks for all your kind words. I actually feel better just for getting it all down, instead of carrying it in my head, even though I know the solutions are neither easy nor necessarily realistic.

Income - it's really difficult to know the right answer. My profit last year was around £9k, and is likely to be more like £11k for the 17/18 tax year (I might actually do my tax return one day and find out...). For me to bring that in after childcare expenses with a part time job (either flexible and therefore lower paid or with childcare costs and higher paid) would be genuinely quite tricky I think. I also see this income rising (albeit not endlessly) in the coming years, as it has risen every year since I began doing what I do (I earned £1,300 profit the first year I was self employed!). My pre-children job was as a writer, which if you think of jobs like journalism, copy writing etc, is not a wildly well paid industry, and I have no qualifications for anything else, so would be looking at shop/admin type jobs if I was to get an office job. Plus the impact on my mental health can't be underestimated - I have never been so miserable as whenever I've had a 9-5 job, even jobs where the work was interesting and varied. A friend is an employed chartered professional and only earns the same as I do p.a., because she works part time, and that's before childcare costs and commuting, which eats a noticeable chunk of that income.

enthusiastic teachers gifts is by no means essential, but this year has been a total nightmare for my DCs' school, and I'm happy to show my appreciate for the work the teachers have put in to make sure the children weren't impacted.

Warby I'm quite impressed that I get the accolade of first class budget manager :rotfl: .

As you all say, I'm trying to do too much, and I'm well aware of it, but equally I'm wildly unwilling to drop any of the spinning plates, because, well, I don't want to. < insert toddler tantrum>. Postponing the extension for a year, slowing up on the debt repayment or abandoning the idea of holidays would take the pressure off, but each of those seems like an even worse scenario than the current one.

I also need to remember, as others have pointed out, that not only have we paid £6.5k off the debt, we were accruing debt at a rate of maybe £500 a month on average before then, so we've actually saved another £7.5k from our previous spends over the period since beginning this process. That's some quite serious money saving from a net income of around £45k pa.

I know that, for now, I'm going to carry right on slogging, because it beats the alternatives for me, but I just don't know how long I'll do that for before exploring other solutions. I think the next chink of light in the tunnel will be when DC3 is at full time school and I have one extra day per week, and each day is half an hour longer. Not a lot of extra time, but a noticeable chunk. Once we're at that stage we truly are in the childcare/lifestyle situation we'll be in for the long term, and we can make a more realistic assessment about how we move forward.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

warby68

I think you've hit the nail on the head with ' I don't want to'.

The thing you need to ensure though is you don't leave it too late and that you retain the element of choice and not back yourself into the corner of 'having to', no options etc.

The extension is foolhardy in my view - I think you know that. Too ambitious, too complicated and too open to cost and time overruns and stressful living for an extended period for people who literally have nothing behind them but do have 3 children to support. This is your 'want' not your need, however you present it. My only hope is that somewhere at the back of your mind you feel there is a family safety net for if everything goes absolutely tits up.

I know the extension is currently non negotiable but perhaps you will give some thought soon to some of the other things that are currently also non-negotiable to fireproof yourselves a bit more as you work through it. A couple of years of working more, modest Christmases and no holidays wouldn't kill you - I know you think it will but it won't I promise . A means to an end.

Even if you still have your fingers firmly in your ears lol just hear the bit about maximizing earnings - firmly convinced that will help the most whichever way you go.

Anyway, enjoy your day and give your brain a rest - a down day is not the best one for making change.

Silver_Queen

TOPM, no wise words of wisdom from me but I just wanted to say that I think that you are managing in the best way possible given the circumstances you're in.

mfmaybe

Warby has very gently and eloquently said what was in my head. So I will just add another cheerlead. In the voice of Dory "Just keep paying". You are doing very well, but it's going to be a slow process and you must keep at it. If it wasn't for the extension I'd have said perhaps aim to get the debt down to a much smaller number (say £5k) and then reduce the amount you are paying to ease the pressure. But in your circumstances it doesn't really work so if you want to have it all, there is no choice but to keep plugging away as you said. Maybe you need smaller targets to focus on.

One thing I've never got to the bottom of is your wardrobe. If you have to be presentable and have a relatively decent budget for clothes (albeit much smaller now) what happens to the rest of it? Can you not sell some of the older out of season/date stuff? I think in your circumstances it really is Every Little Helps.

Edit:Not presentable - we all want to be that! But I think you need to be up to date with trends, perhaps?

Treadingonplaymobil

mfmaybe I tend to wear clothes out completely (like, to the point of holes). My 'clothes' budget also includes skincare and make up (also expected to be presentable), and I had the added complication of needing to really start my wardrobe from scratch about a year ago when I finally lost the baby weight. Although it's been discussed a lot, I don't think that my budget before the recent shift was absolutely insane - I used to have closer to £150-200 a month, of which maybe £40 went on skincare/make up/beauty stuff, and now I end up with something in the region of £80-100, with maybe £30 going on skincare/make up/beauty stuff. I know that to frugalistas on here that still might seem indulgent, but when I speak to my clients my budget is a tiny fraction of their available spend, and I am trying to operate from a position of authority on style/looking good etc so need to be aspirational for them. It's really really hard on that budget, so I tend to prioritise work clothes, which means my everyday clothes are always completely and utterly worn out by the time they get replaced.