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

feeldaburn

Treadingonplaymobil said:

On a self care note, I love knitting, and have just taught myself to crochet! It's made me really happy. Planning to have a bit of a handmade gift year this year, ideally using up my current yarn/fabric stash so it's all cheap/free, and am going to make amigurumi for as many children's gifts as possible - planning to start a little stash of presents asap. It's really satisfying how quick crochet is compared. Tempted to buy a pattern book like but there are loads of free tutorials online so going to see how I get on with those 

I taught myself to crochet last year + there are loads of free patterns online. If you look on the website ravelry you can search for free + available online patterns of whatever you want - may have to create a free account to do so. You can also see projects other people have made with the pattern and reviews/comments of the pattern.

Treadingonplaymobil

Thanks for the knitting tips - hadn't thought of the library! And I'm a member of Ravelry, but have only recently started to sort by 'free patterns'. So much good stuff on there.

Onebrokelady no one who has ever visited DFW is going to forget washingbowlgate.  . I'll check out the DMP thread, thank you.

Humdinger1 and ratters7470 so much yes to this! I think the compromise inherent when there is more than one adult calling the shots makes things trickier - we all have things we are happy to spend on and happy to cut back on, and if those don't align it's hard to find a balance. I have found it so fascinating how much more financially competent, confident and happy I have felt, despite more limited money, since separating, and XH really is a very decent person, not in any way financially controlling or anything, so it's not like I had it remotely difficult before. Just the natural compromise of being in a relationship, but not in a positive way, when it comes to two people with a big debt.

Isitdoable I have definitely had my fair share of 'phew, made it' moments, then been really surprised when i still feel worn out, run down, and unable to cope with even the smallest of challenges. The past eight months or so have been absolutely exhausting, far harder than babies, marriage, house buying or anything else I've ever done in my life.

Sea_Shell the plan is definitely to move in with NC eventually, although I'm not sure if we'll be able to skip straight from here to living with him - depends on timescales, how it feels with the DCs etc. Although the DC are doing really well with him (and he with them, but he's a functioning adult so I'd expect nothing less), and even the most dubious of the three seems to have come round pretty impressively over the past week or two. The plan is definitely for XH and I to both have space to have the kids at our own houses. We don't have a final childcare plan fixed yet (indeed, we intend to focus on exactly that in our next mediation session on Wednesday). It might mean both of us moving out of the town we're in to a slightly cheaper area in order to afford the space, but that needs to be balanced against running another car, as the DCs will stay at their current school (although DC1 off to secondary in September, eek!).

Enthusiasticsaver I've had the same thought re house buying, but XH's credit record is abysmal now because we have so much debt, and although my score is good, my affordability is appalling due to earning so little, so I'm not sure there's a huge amount more damage we can do! The debt is mostly (0% cards) in XH's name, with one joint unsecured loan.

Purplefairy26 yes, I gather than the family loan will be ignored, but I'm hoping that we can finagle the budgets sufficiently that we can scrape together a small monthly repayment to my mum.

I'm just writing a list for the week. Still finding the balance of work/home life one of the trickiest things to manage, and although I've dramatically pared down the amount of output I expect from myself these days, I still have major 'should be doing more' guilt. The financial pressure, as always, makes it tricky to hold the right balance, as there's a real and present need to be working harder, earning more, but also the stark reality of my somewhat tenuous mental health at the moment (and, indeed, physical health - I've been more ill over the past few months than in the past few years combined - feels like I have absolutely nothing left in reserve). I really don't know how many hours is reasonable to expect myself to be working in my situation - I have school hours to work in, but because of the small amount of time I have at home in the evenings - because XH and I swap in and out of the house - I end up trying to do housework during the day too, and working in the evenings is never as efficient as working during the day. Really tricky to figure out the best solution, especially with life/time/money in such flux, and, to be honest, the distraction of NC as well, because obviously I want to spend time with him instead of working all evening every evening when I'm away from the kids. I think once XH and I have a long term childcare plan figured out I'll also feel more motivated to come up with other long term solutions - at the moment everything from living arrangements to childcare schedules to working hours feels very up in the air, and it will be nice to get at least one thing nailed down.

Anyway, I hope you all have lovely Sunday evenings, and a super week ahead!

debtfreeoneday

We are a family of 4 and spend no more than £300 a month on food, that includes both dog and cat food.  I do online food deliveries but the cost of that is far outweighed by what we save not being tempted going around the supermarket.  I have a set amount each week and flex the meals so that we meet that.  I use checkout supermarket to get cashback on any food shopping that I can.
My kids have a mixture of decent clothes and cheaper clothes, but the decent stuff is always from fleabay.  I sell it on afterwards as well.  You can get some real bargains on there is you're prepared to be patient and have a good look around.
We haven't really had holidays for 8 years as we just couldn't afford it.  It's only now we feel able to and that is after we save up for it in full first.

kindofagilr

Woo hoo for the crochet, I am self taught, I've been doing it 18 months now I think, and I just love it, it destresses me and I am actually making money off it mainly just hat and glove sales but I love it xx

Onebrokelady

I think work life balance is one of the hardest things to sort out but hopefully it will get easier once you have finished your mediation and got everything organised as to where you will all be,I listened to a podcast recently where the host told everyone to "stop shoulding all over yourselves" so to try to reframe it to doing only the things you want or definitely need to do 

I also involved my daughters in doing chores around the house when they were young and it gave them an appreciation of how hard it is to run the house as well as everything else,it's good to get them involved 😊

FiscalPickle

There are some great YouTube channels and tutorials for crochet, I like Bella Coco. I made the amigurumi octopus from that channel, it went down a treat as a baby shower gift last year for the price of a skein of cotton yarn. 

db2016

oh dear on the potential DMP
plenty of knowledgeable folk about though!

DawnW

Hope all is settled for you soon TOPM. Hugs.

Isitdoable

TOPM - having been through a (perfectly amicable) marriage breakup myself, I know exactly what you mean.  Emotionally it is incredibly draining.
I don't think many of us nail the work/life balance, as women especially, I think we are destined to be pulled in every single direction!

Treadingonplaymobil

Morning gang! Hope you're all having a good week. XH and I had our second mediation last night and the big news is that I basically got exactly the childcare schedule I have been fighting for, which I'm over the moon with. It's not necessarily the schedule that works best for me, but it is the one that works best for the DCs, and I'm so pleased XH has been able to see that (previously when we were discussing it without the mediator's help he couldn't come round to it, as it's a slight reduction in how much time he spends with them, but offset by both of us having quality time with them, instead of split evenings, being exhausted because of early morning hand overs etc, which our current interim schedule has because DH was fixated on doing a minimum of 40% care and at the point we separated I was prepared to agree to anything to get him to actually move out and get started on things). Both of us have a couple of longer gaps (a few days) a fortnight where we don't see the DCs, but the constant handovers of our current schedule were exhausting for everyone, so I know this is going to be better for them. And for me, because I can get stuck into either being with them or not.

The downside of the schedule for all of us is that the DCs are going to need to be in a lot more childcare, because where XH was previously doing morning/evening/morning school runs (giving me a day and a half to work my butt off), now he will only do evening/morning (giving me one longer afternoon and one early start). This is also coinciding with me getting an extra bit of contract work (HURRAHHHHHH!) which will mean a couple of hundred quid extra month for me, but also the extra work that goes with that. I think it means the DC are going to have to do after school club virtually every single day, plus breakfast club a couple of mornings a week. I know this is exactly what many children do who have two working parents, but I'm still feeling a little bit blue about it, and hoping it doesn't feel like a negative impact on them. At the moment they LOVE going, but they only go one afternoon a week on a regular basis. DC1 is already happily bringing himself home each day instead of going, which saves me money and keeps him happy, so I suppose it's going to be a maximum of another year for DC2 and maybe four years for DC3 before that's happening with them too. But I still feel quite guilty.

Other big news is that XH spent a loooonnnnnng time on the phone to Step Change on Tuesday. A DMP was unequivocally recommended, but they've recommended an outgoing so low (£60 per month compared to £700 on debt repayments, off the top of my head) that it's opened up some other options in terms of him keeping the house, which we didn't previously think was possible. It may still prove to not be the best solution, but we're going to sit down and discuss it tonight after the DC are in bed, as I haven't seen the numbers he discussed yet, and he definitely doesn't have a numbers brain, so has been unable to explain it clearly to me. Whether he keeps the house will inform the debt split (he keeps the house, he keeps the debt, has always been the deal), and whether I also have to go into a DMP. Hopefully all will become clear later on.

I'm about to do a menu plan and book a food shop for next week. We're still slooowwwly eating our way through the freezer contents - I reckon our (smallish chest freezer) is probably only 1/3 full now, and most of that is frozen milk  . Once I've managed to clear that and defrost it, I'm going to start us on eating through the food cupboards too. There isn't loads in there, but I really want to eat to 'freezer-and-cupboard zero' then keep the contents of the cupboards fairly minimal beyond the really useful stuff like tinned tomatoes, herbs and spices, tinned beans for emergency dinners etc! Food spend has been a little bit more so far this month than in January (£177.10 on weekly food shops, plus £40.89 on bulk food shopping - herbs and spices and maple syrup - which will last for months). Next week's shop needs to include a couple of batch cooking inclusions, because I'm away the following week (NC is taking me on holiday!!!!) and I need it to be as easy as possible for XH and my mum, who are kindly splitting my childcare days. Need to try to bring all of that in as cheaply as possible too, as always.

Gosh, it feels like I've written a lot. I feel like there's something else I was going to add, but I'll pop back later if I remember it!