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

PurpleFairy26

TOPM not wanting to encourage any spending but have come across this website and it's the best one I have found with a range of plastic free products https://www.peacewiththewild.co.uk

Some have some air miles with them but not all, lots from the uk.

Also re pots, I quite often let mine go in to negative particularly in the first year or so of a 'pot' as it takes some time to catch up. Even after a few years, some still do at particular times, I.e. when smalls bothe need shoes in the same week :eek:

Hope you've enjoyed your break.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 80: Day 7

Honey, I'm home!

We were actually meant to come home tonight or tomorrow morning, but the forecast for today was so epically bad that we took a last minute decision to pack up last night and drive home - got back at 1am! Naturally the weather today isn't quite living up to the horrendous forecast (if someone in West Wales could assure me that it's still fairly dire, I'd be so grateful ) but it's nice to have an extra day at home to sort everything out. We might go for a walk tomorrow if the weather cheers up a bit too, to drag out the holiday feeling a little.

My budgets. Oh, my poor budgets. Balancing September (especially without any overtime payment from DH, which I was expecting and banking on to cover some of the awful spending) is going to be a total nightmare. I'm not going to round up properly until the end of the month, but I know we've overspent by well over £500 over the course of the month overall, divided between family entertainment kitty, clothes for the DCs, diesel, food and a couple of other categories. And let's not forget the inadvertent £422 debt overpayment :eek: .

Looking back at last year, I was in almost exactly this position in August, and it paved the way for a fairly poor autumn on the debt repayment front. It's significantly less dire this year in that I haven't had to turn to the credit cards to survive (I used the CCs from August through to December last year to get through each month, although generally paid off fractionally more than we spent). My sole aim is to improve on that state of affairs this year. I am resigned to the fact that we will use credit to get through Christmas (and we've debated that at length on here when I've mentioned it before, so feel free to comment about it but don't expect a change in my intention there ), but I don't want any other spending put on the CCs this autumn and I very much intend for the debt to be lower on 1st January than it is on 1st September.

In other irritating news, we are having an absolute nightmare with our architect, who is trying to charge us extra for work already completed, invoiced and paid. We are looking into alternatives for getting the work through the building regs application (I guess some kind of architectural technician who can do the technical drawings and liase with a structural engineer for us? Not really sure) as his fee for doing that has also doubled to £1k, and I think the relationship has just totally broken down now. We know he doesn't have a leg to stand on for the work already done and paid for, but are so worried that as well as doubling the fee for the technical work that some other bill will come out of the woodwork and we'll have to fork out even more. The problem is, I think, that he under-quoted in the early stages of the work and the project has expanded in scope and complexity beyond his original estimate, but of course it was his responsibility to deal with that before undertaking (and invoicing and being paid for!) all the work to this point. I can't really argue with the fee increase going forward as it is more work than originally planned, but equally it is a sufficiently large increase that we need to think about looking elsewhere for quotes.

Along with all of that, DH and I are rowing about money a bit. Not badly, but lots of little issues that I am getting disproportionately cross with because they waste small sums of money - little cafe trips, or wasting bits of food or needing to buy a few new tent pegs because he hammered them in badly and bent them or whatever - which feel triply frustrating to me as I am the one desperately trying to hold the financial ship together and keep the debt moving in the right direction, and I really resent every single penny that gets wasted. It's so annoying though, as basically I wouldn't care at all about these little extra spends if we weren't so financially tight. We also really need to spend some quality time together and can't afford (a) a babysitter or (b) to go out, and I'm slightly worrying that we're going to be one of those couples who realise they have nothing left in common when the DCs left home. We have had two breakfast dates of a couple of hours each this year and that's been literally our only time together without the DCs since DC3 was 1 (now 4) - any parental childcare we can scavenge needs to be used for me to work and even if they would do an evening we can't afford to go anywhere anyway.

So it's all a bit dreary here chez TOPM, along with the dreary weather. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a slightly chirpier attitude.

To do this week
1. Confirm balance transfer to Santander. This hasn't gone through - DH has just phoned and it's pending though. Next week when we're home he'll move some of the remainder onto the Virgin card too, so hopefully only a few hundred will be charged interest.
2. Attempt balance transfer to Virgin of remainder of Barclaycard balance (this might have to be next week if we need details we don't have with us). One for next week.
3. Phone a couple more builders to arrange meetings/quotes. Also abandoned until next week.
4. Finish next week's contract work.
5. Check on the planning portal to ensure revised drawings are up. Don't ask. Architect hell. Suffice to say it should be done today.

August money goals:
- £15.04/31 August rounding down pot. Um. I might not add to this much more this month after the accidental £422 overpayment .
- £3,684.18/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £382/£932 extension pre-build costs predicted shortfall.
- £214/864 income needed for September :eek: :eek: :eek: .

WelshKitty85

If it helps at all, I'm in Wales and the weather is horrendous! I've not even opened the blinds, I can just hear the rain hammering down. It's still August and I am sooo tempted to put the heating on!

Silver_Queen

TOPM, it seems that you're having a little bit of a rough time at the moment.

Firstly, the architect. Is it possible to just find a new one? I would absolutely refuse to pay the extra amount he wants, it's his problem and not yours. It seems as though this architect has just been a mess and a liability the entire way through. Would it not be easier to just switch to a new architect and give the new one the plans that the old one drew up? Any decent professional will be able to pick up the work done by a previous professional and work from there, so there shouldn't be too much of an overlap.

About your budgets, oh no! That's a bit of a pain that things aren't balancing nicely. It sounds like you have a handle on it though so don't be too worried about it. I think that it is a testament to yourself that your budgets have busted but you are still trying to cling on to fixing them by getting cross at unnecessary spends. The TOPM at the start of this diary would have just thrown caution to the wind and spent wildly because the budget was already busted. You have to sometimes take a step back and remember how well you and your family are doing, I think.

I feel as though every time I comment on here, my opinion changes, which is not very helpful. Take this advice with a pinch of salt seeing as it's coming from someone in her mid 20s who has never been married...

Your and your OH's relationship is a rare breed. You seem to be very strong and supportive of each other and you both put your heart and soul into your family. I know I have always said to work as much as possible and snatch every single hour and make it earn money. However, since you've voiced concerns about wanting to spend more time with OH, is there any way you can squeeze 2 or 3 childminded hours in the week where you two just sit down and spend time together? Go for a walk without the kids? Long shot but is there any way that OH can arrange with his work so that he gets Fridays off and works Saturdays instead, or something like that? I know it impacts on your overall family time together as well but if I recall, he already does overtime on Saturdays and only half days on Friday. It may be good for both of your mental health and wellbeing. You two are already incredible people who run on a surprisingly tiny amount of time together and extremely small personal budgets.

Basically, what I'm saying here is maybe you should see if you can give yourselves a breather in a minimally-impacting-the-budget way.

System

It's persisting down in Manchester as well. You made the right decision going home. I hope after a good nights sleep you pull a plan out of the bag about all the things mentioned in your post. If anyone can do it , it will be you.

armchairexpert

A babysitter is cheaper than a divorce, as they say! I know the feeling of rowing about the little spends, though. Mr Expert loves to shop, so while he tries to steer clear of the completely frivolous shopping he's always looking for excuses that he 'has' to buy something - like, Little Girl mentions her shoes are too tight and he's off to the shops, and they had a second-pair-half-price sale so he got two, never mind that she's got 10 pairs of shoes already and form for pretending that she's outgrown things to get new ones. Etc.

But at the end of the day, I try and tell myself that domestic harmony is worth more than a few pounds, so absent any really ridiculous spending I take a deep breath. A few deep breaths. A lot of deep breaths.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 81: Day 1

Well inspiration hasn't exactly struck overnight about how to magic up a few extra grand, but at least we're into a new week and almost a new month.

Silver Queen thanks for your nice words about DH and I. I think we do need to prioritise some time together, although not quite sure how that will work - maybe ring fence a couple of days of his annual leave to spend some time together, as he still almost a week left for the rest of the year (plus Christmas leave which is already booked). We both enjoy time together as a family so much and fight so hard to carve that out that it's really hard to remember that actually occasionally we need to have conversations without the DCs at our feet the entire time too.

We absolutely won't be paying the architect the extra money - I can't see that he'd have a leg to stand on even if he took us to small claims, although I could live without the hassle. We are investigating alternatives, and will ask the builders we have coming round this week if they have any contacts who might be some use.

Last full week of the summer holidays, must start trying to get the children back into some kind of sensible routine - they are staying up later and waking up later, and I need to shift them all just slightly earlier. I think we're going to go for a walk on the moors today, as DC1 is such an avid walker and the other two are really keen to play a scavenger card game we were given for Christmas and still haven't used (just a deck of cards with things like 'find something spiky' on). Anyway, the walk should help tire them out a bit, so as long as we can get dinner on and get them into bed at a sensible hour that should be a good start! Feeling pleased with all the batch cooking I did before we went away, as I had curry ready in the freezer for last night, and have soup and risotto available for tonight.

To do this week
1. Tidy all the camping gear away (I'd like this done today in an ideal world).
2. Update YNAB with the new SOA I posted the other day.
3. Clear emails and respond to all client queries that came in while we were away.
4. Confirm balance transfer to Santander and transfer additional balance to Virgin.
5. Check birthdays this month and write cards.
6. Research alternatives to current architect and get some quotes.
7. Batch cooking:
(a) granola
(b) vegetable soup
(c) soft bread rolls
(d) black bean chilli
8. Look through the calendar for this autumn and see how busy it's getting - we need to think about how we will manage commitments already made if we don't have a car (cancel or manage by public transport).
9. Next week's contract work.
10. Contract work for the following week.
11. Clear the laundry backlog from camping (not actually too horrendous as I used the expensive campsite washing machines and dryers, which was a rare treat).
12. Tidy the DCs' room.
13. Reassess pre-build costs for the extension and establish what still needs to be paid for and how that's going to happen over the rest of this year.
14. DH to phone a handful of additional builders to get more quotes in.
15. Pack orders for smaller business.
16. Order stock for smaller business.
17. Figure out some sort of plan and incentive strategy for weight loss - I usually motivate myself by buying clothes or similar every time I lose a pound, but can't exactly do that at the moment!

August money goals:
- £15.04/31 August rounding down pot. Um. I might not add to this much more this month after the accidental £422 overpayment .
- £3,684.18/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £382/£932 extension pre-build costs predicted shortfall.
- £214/864 income needed for September :eek: :eek: :eek: .

Honeysucklelou2

Is it possible to do a babysitting swop? E.g. One parents babysits for you one night and one of you babysits for that couple on another occasion. No money is needed and both couples get chance to have time together.

I have known a couple of families approach a trusted TA from school to ask for babysitting services.

enthusiasticsaver

When our daughters were young we started up an NCT babysitting circle as most of us found it too expensive to pay for a night out plus babysitter. Payment was in one hour tokens and we carried it on until the children were teenagers and able to be left. We just found others in the same position we were so no family nearby. Of course this only worked if your DH was around in the evening to look after your own so single parents excluded. Meant that we knew the babysitters so no payment and the girls were familiar with them. You could set up a friends/neighbours circle with people in similar position. We used them for day time as well sometimes but usually added a few tokens on as harder when they were awake but did mean you could babysit and have your own at the same time. This was pre CRB checks etc though so not sure if it would be as easy now.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Baby sitting swaps are brilliant. That's what we do with friends. The only challenging night is the one night a year we all go out together, trying to find 5 babysitters for the same night is always a little challenging.