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

Humdinger1

TOPM

Wonderful news re the house!  All your plans have an air of quiet organisation and realistic optimism, exactly what's needed at this point.  It's too easy to feel overwhelmed while we work out the new normal, but that's not helpful so steady plodding,  as well informed as possible,  looks like a good way forward.  

Onward and upward! Love Humdinger x 

Treadingonplaymobil

Thanks for the positive comments enthusiasticsaver and humdinger. I really appreciate it.

The first childcare challenge has hit - the school don’t have enough non-self-isolating teachers to stay fully open, so DC3 is off from today (and presumably will remain so indefinitely). A bit of a juggle lies ahead! Luckily a friend has offered to help me out for an hour today, and then DC3 can help me with my order packing.

Between the partial school closure and having waaaay too many things on my list yesterday and today, I ended up in a bit of a tizz by the evening. NC ended up sitting me down and getting me to write a time estimate by every single item on my list and put them in priority order. Yesterday I had about 12 hours worth on my list, and then I had another 19 hours on my list for today. To be clear, I get six hours working time a day, while the DC are in school (and clearly that’s going to be less from today). No wonder I was feeling overwhelmed and like such an underachiever! Ended up pushing everything non-urgent down the line and spreading the remainder of yesterday and today’s lists over the rest of this week (which mean also pushing down the line the further 20 hours or so worth of stuff I had on Thursday and Friday’s lists 🙄😳).

I’m feeling much better for doing it, and a little foolish for giving myself so much to do. I know I’m much better at it than I used to be, but I should know by now that if I’m feeling overwhelmed it’s usually 90% because of self imposed To Do list deadlines!

Anyway, I hope you all have a positive day in these uncertain times. Sending good vibes to you all.

Humdinger1

TOPM

Nothing wrong with a bit of child labour!  When I worked in a different sector, I'd often get my DD to check stand numbers and co names with me, to get her to understand some of the routine stuff that went into any job.  Her school is due to close I think at the end of this week and remote learning will start.  If this is likely to be the case with you, could all the DCs help you slightly? Not in the place of school work, but in the extra time they'll have as there'll be no travel/timetables might be different etc?  An extension of getting them to help around the house idea?  It could be good fun and a real bonding experience.

Thanks for all your news TOPM; it keeps things normal to a degree and your writing is more appreciated than ever.

Humdinger xx

enthusiasticsaver

I think lots of people will need to be creative if the schools close in keeping kids amused and work and if they are able to help you with packing orders etc so much the better.  Otherwise it is as Humdinger suggests just do blocks of time while kids amused doing something else.  Not ideal but just making the best of a bad job.  I have a feeling we are in for a month or two of this so thinking of jobs they could do around the house and maybe a fun way of recording that could help you even if it takes them an hour to clean the bath or shower. My daughter worked from home yesterday and she said it wasn't the kids who were hindering progress but her cat along with colleagues dog.  On a video meeting the pets could not stop howling at each other and every time she left her chair the cat pinched it.  Seeing the lighter moments among all this doom and gloom is essential. 

Try not to feel too overwhelmed and remember this is a temporary situation. 

Treadingonplaymobil

Another couple of days between posts, another world of change. So I'm going to be home educating from Monday. Eek!

I'm actually really looking forward to the time with the DCs - I'm always complaining that it's too rushed with them and like I don't make the most of my time. What I'm nervous about is trying to work within that. However, I had a good chat with XH yesterday (who is working from home full time for the foreseeable), and we've come up with a schedule where we help each other out a few times a week, so during term time I will have only one day during the week completely by myself with the DC - every other day I will either be giving him a three hour chunk of time to get work done, or he will be doing the reverse for me. Plus my weekend days every other week. It's not ideal, but hopefully enough to keep a bare-minimum workload going.

I've come up with a bit of a home ed schedule, and I'm going to treat next week as the warm up act, with a view to making any changes that we need to after Easter - we'll still give them a full Easter holiday, which we're sharing 50/50 so should also be possible to work within. My plan is to have 'formal' home ed a minimum of three days a week, and if we have something planned on the other days which feels educational (life experience stuff, or helping with my work and therefore doing maths, logistics etc) I won't stress too much about a formal schedule as long as they are doing some reading and getting outside.

I'm looking at the budget positives: with so little open, the only option is going to be to find cheap/free entertainment when we want to go out. So bike rides, picnics, nature trails, long walks are all going to feature heavily. That's basically my idea of a perfect day anyway, so I'm hoping the kids enjoy it - they're pretty good outdoors, as long as they are well fed and clothed. I think if we make a really big thing about picnics and taking nice food and a blanket they'll get quite into it.

So, all in all, it's weird and a bit scary, but I'm reasonably confident I can make a good job of it, and the DCs and I will all remain relatively sane and happy throughout.

Verbatim

You're such a good planner topm. If anyone can make it work you can! They'll have a whale of a time. 

Treadingonplaymobil

Home education officially begins today! I'm kind of excited about this time with the DCs. They're all old enough that they'll remember it (DC3 maybe not as clearly as the others) and I think it's a chance to really reinvigorate their love of learning and let them see how much there is to learn and explore in the world even if you're stuck in your own house much of the time.

I've scaled back my work expectations of myself to no more than an hour or two a day on the days when I have the DCs most/all of the time, but a decent emergency schedule with XH means that I'll be able to do maybe three hours most days, plus obviously work more on the days/weekends when I don't have them.

I'm finding stocking up on food without blowing my budget a real challenge. I have a food shop coming today, and another on the 7th, but I can't actually get a delivery slot beyond that. It makes me sad that the panic buying means I will effectively be forced to panic buy, as I have needed to load today's delivery up to last until the 7th, and on the 7th (if supermarkets are still under-stocked) I will need to stock up massively. Today's shop will cost me £160, but hopefully include plenty of store cupboard bits - if everything arrives, anyway. Haven't had the missing/subs email yet. My aim, following the lack of delivery slots, is actually to freeze as much as possible from this shop, then shop fresh day to day from the supermarket as far as possible to make this food shop stretch further. It's a really tricky time to be on a tight budget.

I'm going to focus on right now though. I have extra time with my children, I have a stable income for the immediate future, and I have the ability to think my way creatively through the situation and ensure my family and I come through this as positively as possible.

Honeysucklelou2

I do sympathise, balancing budget and food is tricky here. In fact keeping the teenage boys filled up is a challenge at the moment!

Treadingonplaymobil

Day three in the Big Brother House and we're all still alive, more or less. The DC have been brilliant with home education, really keen and throwing themselves in. But I. Am. Exhausted. 

It's not just the home educating (although that's not exactly a piece of cake, despite being mostly pretty enjoyable), it's that every time they're occupied for five minutes I'm rushing to do the washing up, or get a couple of minutes work done, or start cooking the next meal. I am literally flat out from dawn till dusk. I can actually feel a bit of a stuffy nose coming on and I know it's purely because I'm pushing myself too hard, but I can't really see what choice I have right now.

There is every chance XH will be furloughed in the next few days (expecting confirmation from his employer any day now), which means our budgets will take a massive hit, but will mean he can take over home ed full time and I can work. This is a double edged sword as I'm well aware he isn't nearly as good at being with the DC all day as I am, but equally it will free me up to work, and my contract work really will take almost everything I can give them at the moment, they are desperate to keep the community feel up among their customers, and I'm spearheading that (and it's going really well at the moment). I suspect even they will have to slow down within a few weeks if nothing changes, as they can't keep ploughing money into the business with little or no return (they do sell online, so are still making some money, but nothing like the amount they should, I imagine), so I feel like it's a bit of a race against time to keep producing work (and invoicing for it) while it's still wanted.

Budget-wise, things are somewhat alarming, but not in total crisis. I've overspent massively on food over the past few days - initially I held off really well with the panic buying, but the trouble is that when everyone else continues to panic buy, eventually you have to start thinking in terms of self-preservation and start stocking up too. So my food spend is over budget, my spend for the DCs birthdays (two of them coming up in the next few days) is over budget because I've bought them extra bits and bobs to make up for not having parties - thankfully almost all of it has arrived already - and my emergency fund has been spent on things like extra hand towels (trying to get them in the wash much more frequently), home ed supplies etc etc. But there we go. These are weird times, and all my over-spends are minor and recoverable as long as I can hold things together for April. Beyond that is anyone's guess, as XH's furlough salary will be less which means my maintenance will have to fall.

Treadingonplaymobil

May you live in interesting times, as the apocryphal saying goes.

Well, we certainly are, aren't we? I can't believe how rapidly life shifts. And there was me thinking that 2019 was a crazy year for me; it increasingly feels like it was nothing more than a bit of a warm up act for 2020. But I'm feeling weirdly ok about things (caveat: I personally know nobody who is severely ill, which means I am radically insulated against the scarier aspects of what's going on). Sure, life is turning on a sixpence every second day or so, but actually I'm still here, I'm still able to think my way through things, I still have my health, the DCs, NC beside me all the way. I'm pretty lucky, all things considered.

Financially, things are shifting daily, so it's hard to be clear where I sit. XH kindly didn't quibble maintenance for April at all, despite being informed he will be furloughed any day now. He got full pay at the end of March, so we have the whole of April to try to figure out how to balance our budgets from here on in - his income will be reduced by around £1,300 I think, which will dramatically affect the maintenance he can afford. I guess later this week, once his furlough is official, we'll begin the task of phoning the mortgage, CC and loan companies and trying to arrange payment holidays etc to at least get us through this bit.

I am still working, albeit fewer hours in my contract work. My own business is an online one, and I've decided that, for now, I'm happy to stay open. I'm a one man band so no infection risk in my workplace, but I did have to wrestle with my own feelings about sending non-essential goods through the post. I've decided I'm OK with how that risk is being mitigated for now, although I will reassess if further information about the risk to the postal service workers suggests I should. I'm going to have a conversation with XH this week about him taking on some of the daytime childcare after easter weekend (we have 50/50 care anyway for the duration of the official school holiday), to enable me to work more hours and try to help plug the gap in our finances. He seemed quite reluctant when we were having a text conversation about it, but we haven't had a face to face conversation about it yet. And the reality is that if I can work and he can't, it makes cold logical sense for him to do childcare so I can try to earn more. I don't like the idea of seeing the DCs less, but I think it's the only real solution in the short/medium term. We'll see.

In the absence of being able to set any meaningful financial goals/plans, here's what I'm hoping to achieve before close of play Friday:

1. Discuss and agree a post-easter childcare plan with XH. Within that discuss how home education will work (chopping and changing between us last week was a bit of a challenge).
2. Create a new 4 week plan for my business. I normally work in quarters, but a 12 week plan seems meaningless at the moment, I can't begin to predict how things will look in three months. I'll set a loose 12 week outline, but I'm only going to make any sort of meaningful plan for the next month.
3. Invoice for March's contract work.
4. Consider my daily routine and how to create a really minimalist simple rhythm for the next few weeks, so I have structure to my day without feeling overwhelmed by how much I have to do.
5. Completely free up my time with the DCs in terms of work expectations - I am fortunate enough to be able to give myself very nearly zero work expectations while I have them this week, so I'm going to take advantage of that while it lasts and expect no more than an hour a day of clearing emails etc. If I end up doing some work in the evenings or whatever that's fine, but I'm not going to pressure myself to do it. I have nothing to do now that can't wait until XH takes over on Sunday.
6. Focus on nourishing my body with good healthy food and exercising when I am able to. I know how much difference it makes to my overall mood and approach to life, and that feels more important than ever. Also a little self indulgence, whether that's painting my nails or spending half an hour in the bath with a face mask and a book, wouldn't hurt.