*sigh* this may take a while

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Been taking lunches in to work, so feeling virtuous.
Bought a whole load of chocolate-y stocking fillers from L!dl and I'm pretty much ready to start my Christmas wrapping, with paper from a bargainous stationery company.
This is when my smugness will be undermined by all the black friday deals I see over the coming weeks!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Soooo close, I can see our salaries pending for Monday!!

Bought a 2020 diary for £2 today and have spent all morning putting stuff into it, I had a massive list of dates to add, luckily there were no clashes!!
2020 is looking spendy with 6 school/activity trips booked for children already plus 3 weddings and a (UK based) family holiday. Ouch

[Deleted User]

Wow that sounds like you have a busy year planned!

You're very organised sorting all the dates out already!

Lemon_Tree

That's organised, I looked at diaries on Wed but couldn't commit to one

savingholmes

Good that you got some money for your old car. £500 up on wbac - also good. Hope your new job is going well. Congrats on having an EF. Have you stopped using a CC now?

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Moguline wrote: »

Wow that sounds like you have a busy year planned!

You're very organised sorting all the dates out already!

Such, a busy year. Makes me tired just thinking about it!

Lemon_Tree wrote: »

That's organised, I looked at diaries on Wed but couldn't commit to one

Haha! I'd been doing this too. But the list off dates I had was the length of an A4 piece of paper and I was so worried I was double booking myself, it forced me to commit! I had been eyeing up lovely ones, but as I'd left it so long, I ended up with a £2 basic one. Serves me right!! I guess it saved me money though :rotfl:

savingholmes wrote: »

Good that you got some money for your old car. £500 up on wbac - also good. Hope your new job is going well. Congrats on having an EF. Have you stopped using a CC now?

New job going ok thanks, not liking the 3rd weekday tbh as makes the juggling harder with the kids, plus I'm still working Saturdays and the 4th day is a killer. But because I make next to nothing from the 3rd day, need to persevere
We've stopped increasing the credit card balance, so it's stuck at the £1500 mark (down from the previos average of £2300-2800) for a few months now. But because we pay the £1500 off every month out of our salaries and that's our 'spare' money, we kind of can't get ahead of it. Christmas isn't helping!! We need a few quiet months to get ahead of it, it's still very much on my radar!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Bit of a spendy weekend, 2 dinners out with friends- one on my own and one with OH too. Came to £140 in total :eek:.... our friends are all high earners and this was as affordable as we could get the restaurants.. we always split bills evenly, so no real point in not drinking and picking cheaper food options as wouldn't make much of a difference on the bill. Ouch though!
Haven't got any more social stuff planned for the next month though, OH and I have both opted out of going to our respective work Christmas dos, which will save hundreds of pounds. And I've got out of several other social things by saying no babysitter or already have plans etc

Yesterday, we went to Legol@nd, it had been heavily subsidised by one of my employers who'd hired it for the day, so cost less than £100 for the 7 of us. We bypassed the merchandise shop, took snacks with us and kept the lunch bill to £30. So although it wasn't a cheap day out, we felt it was a lovely treat for the children (they even got to see Santa ). Was a lovely day out

clearmydebts

Ouch to the £140. Was it worth it though? I always think if you've had a nice time and it was worth it then that's a good thing! We are all in it for the long haul and can't become hermits!

L*goland sounds great! Making memories for the kids and not a bad spend for 7 of you either!

Drawingaline

Ah legoland cooperate days. Love them. I am hoping to take the big two to an alton towers day in march when husbands employer (who I believe is the same as your sat one) does this. Have the date in the diary, just waiting for the tickets to be released.

Lemon_Tree

ohshithowdidthathappen wrote: »

Such, a busy year. Makes me tired just thinking about it!

We've stopped increasing the credit card balance, so it's stuck at the £1500 mark (down from the previos average of £2300-2800) for a few months now. But because we pay the £1500 off every month out of our salaries and that's our 'spare' money, we kind of can't get ahead of it. Christmas isn't helping!! We need a few quiet months to get ahead of it, it's still very much on my radar!

This is what we've been like, paying off the card in full has left us with no money so we've had to live on the card again. I'm planning to set up 2 pots, food and petrol, our main card spends, which we'll build up over about 6 months so we put the money in one month to use the following whilst gradually building them up to our agreed monthly budget. Does That make sense? May be worth a try