Are we nearly there yet?

enthusiasticsaver

Haha yes good memory. My daughter had a second baby girl last April 3 weeks early. She is 10 months old now. I think my DD is looking forward to the jumperoo going too as it takes up a lot of space.

Pauper1

enthusiasticsaver oh wow, I imagine it's a little bit of a shock when they come early! Luckily DS2 doesn't like the jumperoo so it was easy to decide to get rid!

Yesterday ended up not being a NSD, because I used a Not On The High Street voucher to buy my SiL her birthday present. Only cost me £3.50 so I'm happy with that

This morning I paid the preschool fees. I decided to use a bit of the F&F settlement savings for it, so I didn't mess up the smaller pots. It's still over £1000 so it's all good.

Checked banks and updated spreadsheets. Also replied to some emails, so my inbox is a little smaller.

We're off to a science festival today, only doing the free events obviously :T Have got some bread out of the freezer to make some sandwiches to take with us. Will also take a coffee in my flask

Right, gotta be off. DS2 is grumping. Will update with a list later.

enthusiasticsaver

Enjoy the Science festival. How much are you paying monthly to the DMP? Hopefully things will improve once you go back to work. How old is your DS1 and does he get free hours?

Pauper1

enthusiasticsaver We only pay £50 a month at the moment so we can build up a settlement fund (I know it's not how you are *supposed* to do it, but we paid £50 a month when we lived in our old house, so we just kept the values the same when we moved back to my parents house) Yes, DS1 gets 15 free hours at the moment and will get 30 when I go to work, but we won't need that many. I've added on lunch club for this half term so I can gradually increase how long he is there, but they can't increase his funded hours until the end of term so I have had to pay for it. I don't mind, his happiness is more important. It took him a long time to settle, so I want to make changes slowly.

Pauper1

Spends today:
£2.30 cash on the car park (found the cheapest one online before we left)
£19.92 in H&B (£17.98 of it was my brother's birthday present, but also some chocolate and a packet of crisps for DS1 and I.. oops.)
£20 diesel
£6.98 cash on coconut sugar and more chocolate

Since logging in to banking I've seen that DH has spent £7 on his lunch today. Grr. That's 11% of our weekly budget. I've just said to him that our daily budget is £9, for the four of us! Hopefully that makes it sink in it a bit. There's ALWAYS food at home, and he's ALWAYS ruining my budgets. I am aware that I'm being super hypercritical as I spent so much on chocolate today, but that was at least for two people haha. I think the actual difference is that as soon as I did it, I felt bad and annoyed at myself, whereas he wouldn't have thought anything of it, and it's the mindless spending that we need to change.

Weekly spends left - £34.29 (as I'm not including the cash spends)

enthusiasticsaver

Pauper1 wrote: »

enthusiasticsaver We only pay £50 a month at the moment so we can build up a settlement fund (I know it's not how you are *supposed* to do it, but we paid £50 a month when we lived in our old house, so we just kept the values the same when we moved back to my parents house) Yes, DS1 gets 15 free hours at the moment and will get 30 when I go to work, but we won't need that many. I've added on lunch club for this half term so I can gradually increase how long he is there, but they can't increase his funded hours until the end of term so I have had to pay for it. I don't mind, his happiness is more important. It took him a long time to settle, so I want to make changes slowly.

I was just asking about free hours so hopefully you don't have two lots of childcare costs now you have DS2 as well. My DD timed her second pregnancy so that her DD1 would get the 30 free hours just as she returned after maternity leave so she only has to pay for DD2. That helps a lot.

I think that is a good idea to save for F and Fs. You have to do what is best for you and if you can get the debt cleared for less than 100% I am sure you have paid more than enough in interest over the years. I would focus on getting yourself into the best position to hopefully get your house in 2020 or whenever.

enthusiasticsaver

Pauper1 wrote: »

Spends today:
£2.30 cash on the car park (found the cheapest one online before we left)
£19.92 in H&B (£17.98 of it was my brother's birthday present, but also some chocolate and a packet of crisps for DS1 and I.. oops.)
£20 diesel
£6.98 cash on coconut sugar and more chocolate

Since logging in to banking I've seen that DH has spent £7 on his lunch today. Grr. That's 11% of our weekly budget. I've just said to him that our daily budget is £9, for the four of us! Hopefully that makes it sink in it a bit. There's ALWAYS food at home, and he's ALWAYS ruining my budgets. I am aware that I'm being super hypercritical as I spent so much on chocolate today, but that was at least for two people haha. I think the actual difference is that as soon as I did it, I felt bad and annoyed at myself, whereas he wouldn't have thought anything of it, and it's the mindless spending that we need to change.

Weekly spends left - £34.29 (as I'm not including the cash spends)

Yep that would make me mad too. My DH now has his own personal spends account so he does not ruin my budgets. I am sure it is sheer laziness when they don't take food from home or is it forgetfulness?

Pauper1

enthusiasticsaver that's clever planning! Luckily both grandmothers are early retired and are very happy to help with childcare, so they will do preschool runs and have DS2. But I'm only working half days for 3 days, so it's not too much of a commitment (well, until the "terrible twos" and then they might change their minds haha)

That's exactly what I think re. the settlements as well. We've had this final debt since 2013, and it's been sold on, so the original creditor didn't get the full amount for the debt anyway. It's frustrating that they declined our settlement offer last year but then sold the debt on a few months later.

Good idea to give DH his own spending account. I'll work out what his spending budget would be, probably not a lot, and that might shock him in to behaving haha.

Pauper1

Ah maybe not. I just worked it out at £28.45 a week (£11 haircut and £100 petrol a month, then a quarter of the rest of the spending budget, so £1.25 toiletries, £12.50 food, and £1.25 clothes). I broke it all down for him, including that it works out at £4.06 a day... but it seems all he heard was £28 a week, and thinks that's loads... is there an eye roll emoji on here?! Trying to work out how to give him that as an experiment, but I'm not sure we have a card for any other account.

Pauper1

Anyway. Today we have a family forest school that we booked and paid for ages ago. It's about an hour drive away, so we're going to head up this morning to make the most of the drive. I've found a free activity for this morning, and I've made lunch to take with us. Just got to do all the hot and cold drinks now, and today *should* be a NSD. Which for a weekend day would be a blooming miracle haha.

Hopefully will get a workout and a shower in this evening as well. I've finished my Disney packing list so that's off my list from last week. Apart from that, no list again today!