Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

XSpender

I forgot to mention that I went over the £2000 paid off mark today 

apple_muncher

You forgot?!?! Whoops! And well done!!

brizzlegirl

Excellent news XS, well done xxxx

Suffolk_lass

That is great news - well done!

XSpender

School have refunded the money for DS sports trip  . No letter or anything, just the money back in my account.  I am going to cancel my cut and colour due on Wednesday and stay home.  No-one is going to see me anyway so what difference does it make, I would rather keep my family and every one else’s safe.  

Lovely day today so DS (on his bike) and I took the dog out. The amount of people I passed that had no intention of keeping their distance and the number of parents and kids out with grandparents was ridiculous.  We will force a lockdown if we can’t follow simple instructions.  

I am peed off/furious with my sister who lives 20 mins from my Mum and is saying she can’t drop anything off for her because she can’t leave her dogs and to rely on her neighbour who has her own elderly/ill parents to support.  My BIL is in the food wholesale business and selling fresh produce boxes to people to support his business but she won’t do anything for my 80 year old mother  . I am and hour and a half away and would gladly drive down and drop something off.  Luckily my brother and niece have offered support.  I am planning to send her some of her favourite chocs in the post if I can find some and the post offices are still open.

We have blown the food budget but have not stockpiled, everything is just more expensive brands than we would normally buy. Nearly £4 for 9 rolls of loo paper and 25% more on dog food!

Is it wrong to see being shut at home and having events cancelled as an opportunity to put ourselves on a better financial footing e.g. saving an EF and building a buffer I can use to pay off debt once we return to normality (subject to me keeping my job of course) when others are suffering financially?

Busy week ahead work wise with the added fun of keeping DS focussed and active.  We will agree a to do list for him in the morning with some reading, school work, chores and fun stuff on for a bit of structure.

apple_muncher

XSpender said:

Is it wrong to see being shut at home and having events cancelled as an opportunity to put ourselves on a better financial footing e.g. saving an EF and building a buffer I can use to pay off debt once we return to normality (subject to me keeping my job of course) when others are suffering financially?

I don't think that it is wrong at all. I count myself extremely blessed to not have to worry about being paid, paying bills, the mortgage, etc. I also view it as my responsibility - both now and later - to help and support those who are in need as much as I can.

f0xh0les

Use it as an opportunity to spend nowt and save.  When this is over, there are going to be a lot more people who are unemployed and or bankrupt or reliant on benefits.

You need to put yourself on the best financial footing because the future is so uncertain. That's my tuppence.

HairyHandofDartmoor

f0xh0les said:

Use it as an opportunity to spend nowt and save.  When this is over, there are going to be a lot more people who are unemployed and or bankrupt or reliant on benefits.

You need to put yourself on the best financial footing because the future is so uncertain. That's my tuppence.

Good advice I think. The future is very uncertain at the moment.

XSpender

Looks like I spoke to soon as both DH and I are in furlough from 1st April and I have been told to take holiday from today.  This just happened this morning. It’s all become very real    DH is for an initial 3 weeks and mine for 3 months!!!!!

We will both receive the maximum amount of furlough but it is a fair bit less than we normally earn and we have co car tax and other benefits to come off so it’s going to be very tight in the XSpender household. I have looked at the finances and if we can keep our food spends down we can survive the 3 months without missing anything or using the CC but we will have to cancel our winter holiday as we can’t afford the monthly instalments.  We will lose the £600 deposit unless we can transfer it to summer 2021.

With the 2 holiday refunds and DS cancelled trip and scraping as much together from our last full wage we should be able to pull together an EF of about £2500.  Not much is it?  Especially as I will probably be made redundant in July and DH does not think his particular work location will reopen.

Oh well, we have lots of jobs around the house to get on with and will finally have time to complete the massive amount of work required in our garden which we were going to pay someone else to start.  Pity the council are not doing the garden waste collections as we will fill our 2 pretty quick.  I will have to check if the tip is open.

My brain is really frazzled.  I was reading my book whilst eating my lunch and a character was going off to visit a racecourse and my brain said ‘that’s not right, he can’t do that, we are on lockdown’.  Think I’m going nuts 

brizzlegirl

Oh XS...this is hard to read and of course it’s then so much worse to be in it all. And after you were so buoyant after Xmas too. I am so so sorry that this has happened and things will be so tight. But ...I am glad to see you so positive and the garden will enjoy your time and attention I am sure! Keep us posted. Am sure 3 weeks will whizz by for OH.

keep in touch and enjoy the sun. Thinking of you 

xxx