Sunken's attempt to float...

Sunkencosts

Going through noddle today found my OH had a credit card and current account with LLoyds from 2008 - at an old address - who knew?!
Phoned to get those closed, which was entertaining as we had absolutely no info about them. Credit card had a balance of nearly £3. Cash back!!

Sunkencosts

We caught ourselves in some old bad habits tonight though.
Started planning an inexpensive meal out at the end of the month. Which then turned into maybe a posh meal out and a cheap overnight stay somewhere. Then we started looking at groupons and secret escapes. Suddenly £250 started to seem very reasonable for dinner bed and breakfast in a country house hotel.
Then we caught ourselves in this behaviour and closed the internet windows.......

Sunkencosts

Lidl shop today, 60 instead of planned 50 but I made the mistake of straying into middle aisles! I spent ten pounds on two electric toothbrushes for me and dh. Been meaning to get some for a while, so am pleased with these.
Funds running low in Bank though, and the bacs payment hasn't arrived yet..... Another call to payroll tomorrow I think! Not good enough.
Haven't exercised today - just too tired from night shift really, but have eaten well and batch cooked some bolognese, so don't feel too useless.
Bring on the next week!

Sunkencosts

Noticed some strange habits of mine rearing their head today.

Was looking at raised airbeds for camping. Ours has a puncture somewhere (impossible to find on a king size raised airbed unless you throw it into a swimming pool) and so I will need to get one before our camping trip in June

So, was looking at them all, and think I've decided on the one I want when I started considering whether I should put in on credit, I. E get an argos card, catalogue payments etc.

Somehow I've got in my weird little brain that paying it off little by little makes it somehow more affordable, and we won't notice it. Whereas paying cash (which I could do with money from our holiday budget) would feel like it was too expensive at the moment.

!!!!!!?

I've earmarked it to come back to in a couple of months, when I will hopefully have given my head a wobble and realised if I don't want to pay for it using my money instead of someone else's, then I don't really want it.....

Sunkencosts

Finally got paid the last part of my salary today, and it leaves us a bit better off than we need to be to survive the rest of the month. I know from experience if we feel too comfortable we take our eye off the ball with spending, so I have skimmed £250 off and added it to savings pots. This leaves us roughly where we would be with savings if we had started our budget from December/January. Also means the money is there if I have hideously miscalculated and we start to starve in a fortnight.

Set up new bank account with First Direct today. When my salary goes in at end of month they will add the £125. Happy days!

Sunkencosts

SO this week is the first week of my new working regime.

I had two job, did one three days a week for 6 hours a day, then the other was ad hoc as long as I did at least six hours. Job one I commute to a set place and job two was peripatetic - i.e had to travel round to different places (more of a freelance thing).

I found out that job 1 had work I could do from home at a higher rate (£20 an hour) whereas job 2, although the work is more interesting was only £13 per hour and less regular. So i was finding that on one day I could be driving for 45 mins, do 1 hour session and driving home. Neither travel nor fuel was covered. This made no sense at all. So i finished up with my last client last week and now I have two spare days midweek -
If i do two hours work on each of them that's £80 and I still have most of those days to myself and to keep on top of housework. I could do more than 2 hours, but we're trying hard to find a balance as a family, and actually keeping on top of debt is easier when I have time to plan, shop and clean (and snooze in front of fire with a book!).

So today it's kids at school, 2 hours work and then the day is mine!!!

Sunkencosts

Had planned lots of energetic things to do today, then typically only managed about 2.5 hours sleep for no apparent reason. Feeling wiped out and under weather today. Luckily having today mainly free means I have been able to do the hot bath/paracetamol/chill out in bed for a few hours.

Exercise has fallen by the wayside a bit. Despite keeping alcohol free and sticking to my diet I don't yet seem to have got the sleep/energy balance quite right. Will keep trying.

Been reading lots of diaries and going over our figures again. It's that frustrating time of the month when all that can be done has been done and we're now just waiting it out for 20 days til payday!

I've made one decision though - we have tickets for a London show end of this month (bought as a birthday present for OH last year). It's one we've seen several times but is my husband's favourite.

We're struggling to get childcare for the day, and were looking at having to pay for babysitters, so I've told him to take someone else. I don't mind missing the show - I'd rather that than the stress and expense of organizing childcare for an entire Saturday. Plus, if he gives his ticket to a friend and drives them there then there is a good chance that they might treat him to lunch which will also save money (if it was up to me I'd pack a lunch but as it's his birthday treat it would be mean to begrudge him a subway or similar!). So, we'll see if either he finds someone to go with or a member of our family steps in to help. Either way, I don't want the whole day costing in excess of £100 right at the end of the month.

Also going to be booking our camping trip for June this month. Pitch will cost £163 for 4 nights, which is quite expensive but it's a great place we're going to with loads to do for the kids so I'm happy with that. We're taking them out of school for 2 days too - slapped wrists all round!!

Bigskies

Love camping! We do a fair bit, weekends and so on. Will you you get the kids out for free, or will you get fined? I!!!8217;m very much looking forward to when we can holiday off peak again!

Sunkencosts

I think it will be fine. Our school is very sensible about things like that and the trigger is 10 sessions missed, I. E 5 days.
Kids will only miss 4 sessions - so as long as we let the school know where they will be it should be fine.

Sunkencosts

Feeling good today - still in bed having had breakfast in bed (always helps to start the day off right!).
My husband is going to a football match this afternoon and we had a serious conversation about the best way to keep the cost down - i.e drive self, pay parking or get a lift, but have to buy that person a drink etc.
It feels so good to know that he's taking it as seriously as me. Also, he hasn't spent anything all week as he's trying hard to schedule lunch meetings so he can put the food on company credit card that's my boy!
As for me, I have no desire to spend anything, but it's amazing how easy it is to get drawn into buy and sell facebook pages etc. Always see stuff I want at really good prices, and yet two seconds later I've forgotten about it. It's the urge in the moment I have to be careful of - I'm so impulsive!

There's still a perfume I really want that no one got me for xmas/birthday despite asking for it - but perfume seems like such an indulgent thing. Really need to sell some stuff to raise some funds to treat myself. I have to police myself, as I'm in sole control of the budget so no one would even notice or query if I bought it - but it feels like it matters that it doesn't come from family money.

Maybe I'm over thinking it, it's only £30, but still, feels like a principle.

That's the problem with having a birthday at xmas time - If you don't get something you've asked for you have to wait a whole year!!