The Edcawber Principle

edinburgher

I am not currently making breakfast burritos as I tend to boil a couple of eggs the night before and have these with some yoghurt and toast before leaving the house. I could revisit, but not sure how to transport these to work in an environment where I'm trying to create less waste. Each burrito was wrapped in kitchen roll and clingfilm previously and I'm trying to phase out the use of these single use products.

Watty1

Bento boxes? Somehow they make the idea of a packed lunch seem fun to me. And they are reusable..... but I do admit to being a sucker for something neat and trendy and colourful

hiddenshadow

Those baby steps sound promising! Yes, in the grand scheme it might still be small potatoes, but it moves in the right direction at least.

What does Mrs E think about working? Is she planning on staying P/T long-term? Would she consider going back to F/T temporarily (a year or 2) to get yourselves in a better position? (not sure if that's financially viable re: DD childcare)

Have her personal spends dropped based on her going P/T? Not that she should drop her personal spends according to the same % of her income drop (though that's an option...doesn't sound like she'd consider it!), but if your household income has dropped by %, then surely something else has to drop by % as well (or by £x raw amount).

edinburgher

Ooh I do like a nice bento box

Because our personal spends are a set % of income, our money did drop when she went back to work p-t, yes. I say p-t, but it is still pretty close to f-t (28 hours I *think*)?

Mrs E does intend to go back f-t when DD goes to school, but this probably won't be 'til 2021. This allows us both to spend a day a week looking after DD and I think it's a reasonable balance between earnings and developing strong bonds with DD. I think 3 days in nursery is too much for a 3 year old (probably transferring my own negative memories of organised childcare a bit here)

Fingers crossed DD will move nurseries in August and that will simplify things in terms of saving money and cutting down our car use.

Greying_Pilgrim

edinburgher wrote: »

I am not currently making breakfast burritos as I tend to boil a couple of eggs the night before and have these with some yoghurt and toast before leaving the house. I could revisit, but not sure how to transport these to work in an environment where I'm trying to create less waste. Each burrito was wrapped in kitchen roll and clingfilm previously and I'm trying to phase out the use of these single use products.

Good enough reasons ed - not that you have to impress me anyway - I'm some random stranger on t'internet....... Plus I didn't know you'd got brekkie sussed with alternative fare - again, not that you need to notify me what y'all eating on a daily basis.......

Greying X

edinburgher

Always happy to talk about breakfast

Or second breakfast. Or elevenses. Or lunch. Or an afternoon snack. Or dinner. Or supper. Or a midnight snack.

You could probably use eating opportunities to tell the time far better than an atomic clock :rotfl:

Busy_Mee1

Hi Ed, another long term lurker here. I have always enjoyed your diary and the intelligent chat that goes on here. I have never joined in because I never felt I had any thing to add, as your financial acumen has always been spot on.

However I thought I would pop in now to offer the benefit of my experience, having bought up 2 children (now in their 20s ) and struggled at various points during their lives with the middle class and skint scenario.

The first thing I would say to you is don’t beat yourself up....you are supposed to be skint when you have children. This is normal.
Children themselves are not that expensive, but the drop in income and eyewatering childcare costs, coupled with the need for a family house and a safe car all have a significant impact on your finances.

It doesn’t last forever and things do improve, but for now this is your reality and you will need to do things differently for a time.

Fancy pants dinners, with drinks and expensive baby sitters are out, and meals at home with friends who BYOB and their own offspring are in. We had a number of years where we just took it in turns to go to each other’s houses with the kids and had some great evenings. The kids had a great time and so did the adults. You probably need to make some different friends or take the initiative with the ones you have.

The other thing I would say is that at least you have identified that things need to change early on. Lots of people fall in to the trap of “we have good incomes....surely we can have kids and afford a night out, regular coffee shop trips and all the lovely things in John Lewis lifestyle “ There a a number of diaries on the debt free wannabe thread, where people haven’t had their light bulb moment until they are £60k + in debt. They get lulled into a sense of security with 0% credit cards and it is only when the minimum payments start to get unmanageable do they wake up to the fact that it all needs to be paid back. You will get this back under control quickly I am certain.

My final point is Child Benefit is paid to support families will the costs of bringing up children. It is very lovely that you have been investing your DDs CHB for her future but actually you could use it as it was intended. This would give you £80 a month towards the debt repayments. Even if you just did this for the next 14 months until your finances improved. Your little one already has a significant nest egg and you can carry on saving all the gifted cash. Our savings for our kids were always sporadic depending on how skint we were at the time, but they still had a nice lump of cash when they went to Uni.

You sound like great parents and I think with a bit of adjustment to your current reality, you will get this sorted.

PS I too bought myself a wrapping paper box at Christmas....easily led or what !

edinburgher

All good points Busy Mee1 :T

Our next two outings are afternoon drinks with friends who live within walking distance and a games night with the usual spendy bunch. Luckily a few of Mrs E's friends are also skint/have horrendous January work schedules, so we're getting some breathing space

You are so right about the additional costs of having a family - nearly £100k onto the mortgage; a car where there wasn't one before and the £350 nursery bill (and ours is smaller than many)! I think that a lot of the time I'm just impatient for all the financially crap bits to be over (being heavily mortgaged with no disposable income etc.), but that makes me feel guilty because I'm wishing away the years where DD will grow up and become even more of a 'person'.

I hear you re. CB. and rationally, I know that I could stop investing today and she would already be as well provided for as I was when I hit 16-18 and wasted all my savings. But this whole 'skint middle classes' thing is only going to get worse, so I'm motivated to do more. I will speak with Mrs E and get her input. Even if we do use CB for her current expenses, I'd feel honour bound to to pay her back plus investment losses. Probably a daft thing to be 'proud' about, but I can think of a lot worse :coffee:

Ps. The wrapping paper box has changed my life - getting infuriated by rolls of wrapping paper was a weekly occurrence in our rather cozy cupboards! In fact, inspired by getting rid of the wrapping paper, I cleared out a whole cupboard in our kitchen to be more user friendly and I can now read the meters without swearing :rotfl:

Busy_Mee1

You are dead right about wishing their lives on because of the finances. I think I did this all the time....can’t wait til they get free nursery, can’t wait for full time school, can’t wait until they can walk to school themselves....all because of the finances.

I don’t know whether you intend to have any more children (bit personal I know !), but we found the second child didn’t get gifted as much money as the first. We ended up having to top up the second child’s nest egg, to equal the first’s. My point being that you could perhaps afford to have a break from saving the DD as it will make things more equal later.

Also CHB is not DD’s money it is paid to you and your wife....I don’t know if that makes it any easier

edinburgher

Our current feeling is that one is enough

Ps. Our feelings on CB are purely emotional, not logical, away with your factual information!