*sigh* this may take a while

crunchy_time

ohdearhowdidthathappen said:

So far, so good!  Behaving ourselves and sticking yo budget

Well done! You e inspired me to have more of a long term plan once we come back from our holiday so we don’t fall into lifestyle inflation trap. Xx

savingholmes

Great progress then. Woohoo

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Crunchy and SH

I've looked back over the last 3 months and there were three trends where we overspend; house, kids and amazon.

- We've constantly got a house project on the go.  Over that period we spent £2k on trades, 2 days builder, 2 days electrician etc etc
- kids - OMG - we spent around £1k a month on the children (mainly the older 3)- sports clubs, pocket money, cinema, driving lessons, proms, clothes, £20 here, £20 there
- amazon, various small purchases, but approx 15 orders a month averaging £200 per month

Summer hols are always painful money wise, keeping them occupied and off screens and the need to assuage parental guilt for working 3 days and therefore organise fun the other two.  Plus if they're invited out on the other days, I agree as keeps them off screens!  I have allowed for it this year and had a little pot saved... it's doing ok and it should see us through  

mark55man

sounds like a good balance

kids have always been expensive - but don't dismiss screen time is a way of keeping bills down - especially for the older ones where "things to do" are more expensive

savingholmes

Well done for having a pot for the school holidays.

I've been re-listening to a book called the £ or your life - and it talks about life energy as being what we exchange for £. One ways to keep better control of said £ is to write down every spend - considering that one as I'd find that very difficult. Also to then mark at the end of the month whether we felt it was worth the life energy it took to buy it. She then has a way of calculating life energy too - as your hourly wage minus commute, special work clothes, childcare, transport to work, lunches at work, any time stressing about work etc. It's in the context of financial independence - and that it's more achievable than we think - if we save / invest and reduce our spend on unnecessary items. I'm going to post this in my diary too - as that's the challenge I've come back with from my mini holiday!!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Mark and SH
Agree re screen time, you try and keep them occupied (usually in an expensive way) and they'd often rather just be on their screens!  

Sounds interesting SH, I'll have to look it up.  I often think those that can learn to live a simpler life are happier... and not in any derogatory way.  I remember reading a meme and it said along the lines of 'we work to buy stuff and then spend our free time having to tidy up all the stuff we bought'.  Something like that anyway!  

savingholmes

That sounds about right. I gave my cleaner some candles today and some moisturiser and told her that she'd had her xmas gift

I said otherwise - I'd just be asking her to keep tidying them away for me. She was happy.

EssexHebridean

Hey OhSh... - loving the thoughts of long term planning - and will be interested to see more as you go along. I absolutely have to factor in ensuring that money is saved when it arrives for the bulk of our savings - come the new year our regular savers all start maturing and I'm hoping a few more institutions might head back towards having £500 as a monthly limit as then I could condense what we currently pay to savings into just two, rather than the current little flurry of various different amounts going to different institutions which makes everything a bit messy. I'll not complain too much mind because we're incredibly fortunate to be able to save as much as we currently do - albeit some of that "fortune" of course is off the back of the clearing of the mortgage... 

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks EH
I can't even imagine being mortgage free, our monthly payment is nearly £1800, we'd be loaded I really don't like that we don't save, it frustrates me hugely.  Whenever I make a saving in one area, it just seems to get gobbled up elsewhere.

savingholmes

Hi Ohsh.... Definitely need to take the money out of the budget for savings first...