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

PositiveBalance

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Well one good thing - with the budget adjusted to the most recent proposal, my daily earnings requirement (in order to meet the £5k target for our pre-build costs) is a truly horrifying £3.56 . That's really quite reassuring actually.

Silver linings! :A


Sorry to hear about your relative. I hope they are OK in the end. X

joeyjimbles

Hope relative is feeling better, and you too.
DS1 went to grammar school and it was a great option for him, he's now just finished his first year of uni so it was all a while ago and I think things are even more competitive now.

Can heartily recommend the CGP books to help prepare for the tests - they have an answer booklet for parents (thank goodness) and an online version so they can be quite fun to do for your son on his own. You can often pick them up on eBay and Abe books websites.

MatyMoo

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Ha. This is totally true. I spent £40 on a top up shop full of treats yesterday (within budget), and the french press I bought DH for father's day was, erm, not the cheapest one I might have purchased (not within budget).

Sorry my warning wasn't quick enough :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 71: Day 1

A new week. Let's hope for a more positive one, on all fronts. Thank you so much for all your kind thoughts over the weekend. My relative (a child, for added upset) will be fine in the end, it's just going to be a slow process.

I've looked over the suggested budget I posted on Saturday afternoon, and I'm 99% sure we're going to go with it, at least for a few months, then maybe we'll have another reassessment. I feel so empowered by having a genuine and easy to access record of our spends, as it's made it so much easier to see what we really and truly spend on - even my best SOAs before now were partly guesstimate, as trawling through three or six months of statements was such a drag - I usually used one month and extrapolated. It almost feels like a new LBM (well, as close as I get to them - my dimmer switch has maybe turned up a tiny fraction), not because I'm horrified at what I'm spending, but because the more I know about my true income and outgoings, the more able I am to tackle the debt with my eyes open.

I'm still here with my teaspoon, facing my lake, but I can see that the lake level has dropped a little bit, and that my little teaspoon and my paltry efforts over the past 16 months or so are starting to make a difference.

Another decision I've made for definite - thank you Suffolk lass - is to bite the bullet and do my own tax return again. £450 is at least two days work for me, maybe three, and I know it will take me less time than that to do it, since I already do all the book keeping, utilities calculations etc, so it's only the actual submission and account summary I'm not doing. I figure it might take me longer this year while I work everything out, but after that it should be quicker. That decision meant I could free up the £200 I had already saved towards this year's accountant's fees, and stop saving £38 per month towards them, so although my business account buffer still isn't great, I have July and August's expenses, July's salary and am up to £380/£700 for August's salary. Armchairexpert you are totally right and reframing what I bring in is already making me look at my income differently, and feel more motivated! I'm easily fooled, me, both when it comes to denial about my debt and persuading myself to earn more. :rotfl:

This weekend has been a real journey in terms of understanding myself and my budget more thoroughly, and I really feel I'm starting this week on a more realistic footing. I'm pleased it's less than a fortnight till the end of the month because it means I can start a new month with my new budget, but equally I want more time to earn money before I get to the end of the month so I can build my buffer before I take July's salary!

In slightly less exciting news, I've just checked the 0% dates on the CCs and reminded myself that the Barclaycard 0% (applies to about £3k of the balance, the remaining £7k+ is on a longer 0% period) ends in September. DH and I are going to check our filing cabinet and our credit records this week, as we're fairly sure we have one or two CCs still open with £0 balances (we are terrible about closing them once they're cleared, and we've shifted around 0% offers so often that inevitably there's a couple!), so we're either going to check them for offers or close them and apply for new 0% deals, depending on what's available. We've still got a couple of months to play with and I suspect Barclaycard will come up with another offer if necessary, but I'd like to be sorted ready for September.

All the shuffling and restructuring of the budget over the weekend has resulted in a few quid extra going into the extension pot, so that combined with the much higher monthly saving amount (£460) means that the total shortfall for my £5k pre-build costs by the end of the year is set to be only £153 in total - I've stopped looking at it as a daily amount because that's only £0.78 per day, and instead am just looking at that total shortfall. Of course, it's going to be much harder to earn 'extra' on top of my monthly salary now, as I've set my salary so much higher, but I'm hoping I can scrape together that much.

I have a moderately quiet week (no clients, anyway), although I have two unpaid meetings to attend which will break up my days slightly and stop me getting as much done as I'd like. Slightly regretting agreeing to one of them, as I don't think it will lead to much work. I have generally got much better at protecting my working time, but this one sneaked through and I allowed it to disrupt my week.

To do today
1. Make oatcakes for DC3's preschool snacks.
2. Sow salad and tie tomatoes to longer canes (finally bought some yesterday - my tomato plants are all tied to twigs from the hedge and they aren't really cutting it).
3. Write a blog post for my website.
4. Prep some social media images.
5. Finalise plans for this weekend - we are attending a birthday party in London and need to plan when to travel (staying with family, luckily, and it should be cheap apart from the diesel).
6. Check DH has booked wildlife survey - he collated all the quotes yesterday and has found someone who will do it for a not too hideous sum.
7. Read another chapter of Getting Things Done (can't you tell it's just my kind of book? :cool: ).
8. Plan and make something for dinner using the contents of the cupboard!

Mini goals:
- £19.39/30 June rounding down pot.
- £2,805.26/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £153 total extension pre-build shortfall.

armchairexpert

I bought Getting Things Done the other week as well (concidentally), I really should Get Reading It Done.

warby68

Good morning ToPM, glad you feel a bit better and that there is a positive outcome in the future for your little family member.

Your budget looks much more real now

I am going to ask one question and go bravely against the masses on another.

The question.... your pots. The ones which should have had money in them by now, have you checked whether the new allocation for each for the next 6m is enough to cover the actual expected cost for the next 6m . If I remember correctly you have had to plunder most pots. I think your holiday spends are weighted to Summer and Christmas of course is not til the end.

The exception - the tutor - I sympathize here. I know you can't truly afford it but when their peers are all doing it, its extremely hard to be the parent who doesn't. We did it, not for 11+ but for specific entrance exams. We knew there almost certainly wasn't a need for our son but the nagging parental 1% doubt wouldn't let up. However we were lucky in that the tutors we employed were very quick and perfectly willing to say our son needed very little and reduce the planned sessions to just a few practice/familiarity ones so the cost ended up only a third or so of what we expected. And he got in of course:). Hopefully you will get lucky like this too. Just before I give you a full green light though, I do think you should look at giving something up to help towards short term commitments like this - eg reduce entertainment for a few months or cancel the swimming for a while, one less camping trip, or shave x% off Christmas/birthday that year. If something jumps to the very top of the priority queue for a short time its perfectly ok to downgrade other priorities a little until its done - a trade off is entirely appropriate when you are as stretched as you are.

Joeyjimbles tip will also be a dead cert as well for back up/Plan B

DawnW

Sorry to hear about your little relative TOPM


I was using an accountant for my little business till last year, in exactly the same way as you, just to do a profit and loss summary and file my tax return, but then she retired and moved away. Rather than look for someone else, I reasoned that, having previously filed the actual tax return submission a few years back when we were renting out our house, it was really just this summary thing that I was apprehensive about. I simply copied the layout and calculations from her earlier ones, substituting the new figures of course, and it turned out to be pretty easy

enthusiasticsaver

I think doing your tax return yourself is a good idea to save on accountants fees and glad you have upped your income even though your buffer will be reduced.

I think I would urge against reducing the Barclaycard monthly payment. To put yourself in the best position for additional lending in say 18 months time after you have used the £20k from your relative it would be best to get the borrowing on paper as low as possible. £30 to the parental debt is a drop in the ocean but putting the whole £318 towards the credit cards would see them repaid in 41 months if no interest paid. Then I would focus on the by then presumably £40k family debt as you will have no unsecured debt hopefully.

Treadingonplaymobil

armchairexpert wrote: »

I bought Getting Things Done the other week as well (concidentally), I really should Get Reading It Done.

:rotfl: it seems pretty good from the chunk I have read so far, especially if your problem is with over stretching and getting stressed rather than under achieving in terms of what you're getting done.

Treadingonplaymobil

warby68 wrote: »

Good morning ToPM, glad you feel a bit better and that there is a positive outcome in the future for your little family member.

Your budget looks much more real now

I am going to ask one question and go bravely against the masses on another.

The question.... your pots. The ones which should have had money in them by now, have you checked whether the new allocation for each for the next 6m is enough to cover the actual expected cost for the next 6m . If I remember correctly you have had to plunder most pots. I think your holiday spends are weighted to Summer and Christmas of course is not til the end.

The exception - the tutor - I sympathize here. I know you can't truly afford it but when their peers are all doing it, its extremely hard to be the parent who doesn't. We did it, not for 11+ but for specific entrance exams. We knew there almost certainly wasn't a need for our son but the nagging parental 1% doubt wouldn't let up. However we were lucky in that the tutors we employed were very quick and perfectly willing to say our son needed very little and reduce the planned sessions to just a few practice/familiarity ones so the cost ended up only a third or so of what we expected. And he got in of course:). Hopefully you will get lucky like this too. Just before I give you a full green light though, I do think you should look at giving something up to help towards short term commitments like this - eg reduce entertainment for a few months or cancel the swimming for a while, one less camping trip, or shave x% off Christmas/birthday that year. If something jumps to the very top of the priority queue for a short time its perfectly ok to downgrade other priorities a little until its done - a trade off is entirely appropriate when you are as stretched as you are.

Joeyjimbles tip will also be a dead cert as well for back up/Plan B

I can more or less 100% guarantee that the allocation for the next 6 months isn't sufficient, but I don't have any other bright ideas. I think pretending I'm going to cut back on things like entertainment would be disingenuous (because I'm not). I will do my best to balance between the pots, but if I need to turn to a CC at Christmas because of it, I'm ok with that (I know many aren't). As long as it's an improvement on last year (where I spent the whole of Christmas in the CC, plus plenty other purchases in the latter part of the year), I'll consider it a success - unless we get some sudden influx of cash that's just the way it is. Unlearning and making up for the habits of 15+ years is taking time, but as long as I can look at the same period 3/6/12 months ago and see we have moved on (and, crucially, the debt is lower) I just can't get worked up.