The Edcawber Principle

themadvix

Ed, I've no advice on the parenting thing, but I do think MCI's suggestion of splitting the CB might be worth doing. However, I'm an anti-plastic evangelist, so if you want ideas please feel free to ask - I've been trying to live plastic-free for about 5 years now (I fail often, but trying makes all the difference). For your burritos, how about reusable beeswax wraps?

Karmacat

You got my hopes up there, madvix! That link comes up as "server not found" on my laptop

edinburgher

Brodiebobs wrote: »

but the things on the list inevitably get more expensive and although they know the value of money, like us all they see their friends getting things they want (one got a mac & newest iphone for xmas as well as other gubbins :eek:) so have a bit of a grumble.

Oh Lord - I know people like that. One work colleague (who budgets incredibly well, so good for her) felt bad because she'd bought her son a £350 bike but he "only had one present" :eek:

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

We had your view re CB Ed. We started off reserving the CB for our one and only DS. We had to stop when he was three because the finances drove us to use the money to keep our heads above water.

We started an investment life assurance thing at £30 a month for 20 years (working on the theory that at 18 he would blow it as I had done).

Nobody said parenting was this hard, even with a caring, lovely young man with an addictive personality and mild obsession/perfection tendencies.

We all do what we need to financially, I'm just trying my best to shimmy around using her CB for grown up stuff. Your investment thingy sounds very similar to my plan of keeping DD's money in adult ISAs so she has no visibility or control until it's a sensible time.

You sound very proud of your son In our case, everyone told us how hard parenting was, but they all focused on the sleep deprivation and the skintness. Nobody pointed out how much we'd be expected to up our game in terms of planning, making life work and struggling to actually see each other!

themadvix wrote: »

However, I'm an anti-plastic evangelist, so if you want ideas please feel free to ask - I've been trying to live plastic-free for about 5 years now (I fail often, but trying makes all the difference)

Will do - I'm a member of one of the ZW groups on FB, but it becomes a bit of an echo chamber of newbies asking the same questions over and over! Did you mean this? https://abeego.com/ Do they have a UK site?

edinburgher

Multiquote failed me again!

MCI - That's a sound suggestion. In fact, it might work better if we did month on/month off, as minimum payment to ISA is £100.

ZTD - You're a cheeky monkey We're actually doing quite well expanding our supply of reused plastic and glass tubs and jars, which covers most of our food transportation needs. Burritos are just a bit faffier because they're assembled individually in a production line stylee for ease of freezing.

Badmemory - We're definitely working on saying no. Current tactic is just to stonewall her/completely ignore it when she has a tantrum. Works most of the time, but if she gets shovey, a 50 second trip to the "naughty step" does the job No idea where she has the concept of the naughty step from, but less than a minute reduces her to sobbing wreck ready to apologise and behave :rotfl: It is our last resort, think she's been there all of twice!

edinburgher

DD is a wee git - had us up until 3 in the morning!! :eek:

We had her 30 month tests this morning and she passed with flying colours - took all of 5 minutes to answer all questions posed about toys and books, got bored and tried to leave and then decided to lie on the ground for a wee nap :rotfl:

The kind healthcare professional described her as a classic highly intelligent child - that's certainly one way of putting cheeky monkey!

I am like a half shut knife, so not expecting to get anything done until the afternoon. I've done some desultory tidying, paid £0.61 off a CC and packaged up an old IT textbook sold on Amazon (£11 or so profit).

Edit: Have taken the final step in dividing our household budget and our savings/investments/debts - the new account for household spends is no longer included in our NW figures. This means that we're now slightly poorer on paper, but our bills account remains sacrosanct and will not be fiddled with

themadvix

I did mean abeego and they are now available from Ethical superstore (and probably other places - I happened to see them on there the other day). I got a set imported from Canada a few years ago and ours are still going (although we don't use them every day). A great option for avoiding clingfilm on lids of pots in the fridge is to put a plate on it (I may be stating the obvious to the current audience, apologies!). It's so nice that this is now a mainstream topic, and I don't get weird looks when I ask for 'no straw' in restaurants!

edinburgher

We tend to use plastic tubs/glass jars and the tupperware we have should last a decade. Small plates are used for covering jugs or bowls that don't have a specific lid.

Have also taken my current account off our NW spreadsheet. If it covers fixed spends it can't be used to pay off debt!

This takes us down to £8,xxx savings, but at least I know they're all actually savings with no external claims on them.

Karmacat

Sounds like you're really straightening things out Ed, knowing what belongs where is so freeing.

edinburgher

Forgot to say - weighed in yesterday and I've lost another 2.4lbs :j

Back at the gym this morning, only another fortnight or so of C25K to go. Have also behaved myself with food - just a few coffees and cream, a bowl of rice crispies and some smoked mackeral with olives and veg.

Off round to visit friends for a cheap afternoon of drinks and chat now, so discipline probably out the window.

Have roasted off one of our dwindling reserves of giant joints of meat and some baked potatoes, so at least tasty food is taken care of when we roll back up the road this evening

Have a lovely weekend all.

Oh, £0.60 paid off a CC...

smallholdingsister

Good effort on the weight loss.