*sigh* this may take a while

ohdearhowdidthathappen

No big in roads made so far; current account still on track to stay in the black, CC still on track to be £1500 by the cut off.
I'm still using YNAB and finding it very useful. I don't use it as religiously as I should, it's definitely an area to improve on!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

I looked back over past years and OH usually gets his bonus in February pay pack, so that's sooner than I thought and he should hear first week of February what it'll be. Last year he got £17k, which worked out at £9.6K after tax etc (I'm always slightly depressed at how much gets knocked off for deductions ) Anyway, still a lovely amount and we're hoping for similar this year (although absolutely no guarantee):

We're pondering 2 scenarios based on the £9.6K figure:

1) Pay back the entire family loan and have £1.1k left over
2) Pay back the £4.5k that we've committed to and then keep the £5.1k back

My FIL is in no rush for the money back and isn't charging us interest, but on the other hand it would be nice to be debt free (apart from monster mortgage).
On the other hand, if we kept back the £5.1k we could pay off the lingering CC balance (£1500) so that we weren't living a month behind, save £1k for upcoming summer holiday, save £1k for Christmas 2020 and put the last £1600 into our house renovation pot for this year (currently have £1500 in there).

We go back and forth, guess we'll wait and see what he gets and go from there

Savingtomove

Just read your diary! Sounds like you do really well with the expenses associated with 5 children! I struggle with two very small ones. Well done for the CC balance post Christmas!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

An extra shift done today, £130 earned after deductions. I now work 2 long Saturdays and 1 short Saturday a month.... these earn £330 a month. I guess they'd be classed as a side hustle as they're on top of my main job during the week. We have Sundays as our family day and we're very protective of them; if we're not seeing family, we do a roast for lunch and play board games in the afternoon. Kids love it and it gets them off their screens!

We've been keeping to our £150 a week food budget for a few months now (apart from Christmas), which is good. I'm sure we could trim more, but not without noticing and I'm happy with this amount. I meal plan and cook in bulk, we've got really good at taking lunches to work too.

We've stayed away from the sales apart from a few bits of kids clothing in their next sizes up, around £100 spent in total.

I've signed up for another annual National Trust membership as that's a complete bargain for a large family and pays for itself within 2-3 visits, last year we visited 15-20 times, so well worth it.

mark55man

what type of board games do you like. I know quite a few that would be good 12-13 up, but maybe not so many for younger

Debsnewbudget

My family love the game called 5 Second Rule
Such a simple concept but sometimes your brain freezes

mark55man

That looks fun - here are some card and board games for between 4-7 players mainly age 10+ but zombie dice could be played by young ones with a bit of help

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5782/coloretto
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24068/shadow-hunters
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148228/splendor
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/62871/zombie-dice

Plenty more where those came from

ohdearhowdidthathappen

ooo thanks, I'll take a look at those.

We currently play things like Game of life, game of great britain, monopoly, frustration, labyrinth etc

mark55man

The ones above are a little less mainstream, but in terms of raw enjoyment Zombie dice is good - its about odds and risk. Colorettot is similar but has a bit more of playing others with it.

Splendor is middling complex its about having a strategy but being able to change your mind, and is quite simple in its rules with a balance for playing your own game but watching out for others

Shadow Hunters is a bit more fanciful - its my favorite at the moment - you have lots of different things going on, and is popular whenever we have younger (but still late teen) players in our group

The last two are probably a bit heavy for post Sunday Roast!!

Isitdoable

New here and just started working my way through your diary! Really enjoying it, and you look like you are doing amazingly in paying off your debt!