*sigh* this may take a while

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck with getting to grips with YNAB. I could never get on board with it but lots of people swear by it.

Your mum needs a heavy dose of reality. How come she never worked? Did your dad leave her with a good pension?

ohdearhowdidthathappen

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Good luck with getting to grips with YNAB. I could never get on board with it but lots of people swear by it.

Your mum needs a heavy dose of reality. How come she never worked? Did your dad leave her with a good pension?

I've read mixed reviews and it seems a bit fiddly so far. I'm going to watch some of the online tutorials and get my head round it. I need a cast iron budget at the moment, we're still winging it a little too much.

My parents married and had children young, so Mum stopped working when she had me at 23. Dad earned plenty for years, but they lived on the never never; self cert mortgage, credit everywhere... in his mid 50s he got made redundant, couldn't even meet 1 month of his commitments. The bank seized their house and auctioned it, they walked away with virtually nothing. It was awful Dad found another job and worked until he got ill at 63, but they had to rent and still lived beyond their means. He was forced to liquidate his pensions and live off the proceeds until they dropped below £16k and then they were entitled to benefits. He was so ashamed and never got over it. Mum never once tried to get a job.... I have a lot of pent up anger about the whole scenario
She gets housing benefit, bereavement allowance and I drip feed her an allowance until she can draw her state pension next year. The ironic thing is that pension credit will top her up as though she'd actually worked?!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant

Buffythedebtslayer

OSHDTH,

I have similar feelings/financial issues around my family. I am just sending you.... I don't know, I understand your frustration and general pent upness.

enthusiasticsaver

ohshithowdidthathappen wrote: »

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant

Understandable and I would rant too. The entitlement of your mum would annoy me. You would think having been through all that she and your brother would be trying to sort their finances out not continue to be rubbish with money.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thank you both My parents built a strange relationship with money over the years, she didn't ask, he didn't tell. But it makes me very sad that after all those years of being provided for, she didn't try and help when they were in trouble. Dad basically ended up working himself into an early grave.
I'm surprised my brother hasn't learnt from it...
OH and I aren't financial angels (obviously, or I wouldn't be here ) but we try.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Having a bit of a negotiation at work, with the theory 'if you don't ask, you don't get'.

1) I'm trying to get them to agree to shorter days on the 2 days I work, so I don't have to put the children into after school club
2) I currently work Mondays and Wednesdays and I'm trying to change it to Tues/Weds because at the moment I get hammered on Mondays.... I have to use annual leave to top up Bank Holiday leave, as I only get 0.4 entitlement and yet most Bank Holidays are on Mondays Also most school inset days are on Mondays!
3) I'm trying to get a bit of a payrise

We'll see if any of them come off, but any changes would be helpful :cool:

mark55man

go for it - you never got anything you didn't ask for

ohdearhowdidthathappen

I'm getting the YNAB thing... I've spent about 5 hours today on it :eek: Watched a few tutorials and set to work. The biggest surprise to me was although we have £1100 in our current account, only £80 isn't spoken for if I want to keep to all the goals I've set. I know you can tweak and move categories, but it was still a surprise to see how few pounds were truly spare.
I have scheduled the direct debits as monthly and put goals next to all the other categories. I'm sure it will be a work in progress over the next few months, but I'm happy with my categories so far. I went back through 6 months of banks statements

I've already decided 2 new things (probably quite obvious to many, but I'm obviously a bit slow) :
1) we're still in the habit of putting anything that's not a direct debit on the credit card. Then when the statement comes, it's always a shock at how much the month's spending has added up to. We always pay it in full and mainly use it for accumulating points and we've always thought it's good to have one for our credit rating. However, we either need to stop using the credit card altogether or start paying into it during the month as we spend.
2) I've set up 2 new savings accounts.... one is a monthly saver that you get a 'good' rate of interest if you don't touch for 12 months. I've initially only set it up as £25 a month, but hope to increase that at some point. Not sure exactly what I'll allocate it to.... maybe holiday fund or Christmas fund eventally, although would have to be paying much more into monthly for wither of those!!
The other account is for transferring money that's been allocated, but not yet needed as not a monthly expense ie TV licence, car maintenance, gifts, Christmas, holiday. That way there should be a slush fund building up to pay those bills when they come in.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Kids were all due hair cuts, last time I took them all to the hairdresser and it was £100 :eek:

This time, I got my husband to cut two of the boys' hairs with his clippers as that's all they have done anyway! My other son has an awkward hairline that really needs a professional or he ends up looking a bit strange so I took him and my youger daughter to a walk in place that has barbers and hairdressers, both of their cuts came to £20. Bargain. So just my older daughter, she's 16 and I'll take her to a hairdresser, so hers will be more like £20-25. But still, all 5 for £40-45 is a big improvement