When life sends you lemons..... Well I guess you just knuckle down

natsplatnat

Happy New Year LT - wishing you all the very best for 2020!!


xxx

EssexHebridean

Hope all is trundling along well with you LT and that the mortgage payment made its way back to you OK.

Lemon_Tree

Sorry for being absent, the mortgage money did make its way back and some of it went into the emergency pot. 
January in summary, we won £25 on the bonds so that went to debt along with any payouts with Prolific. With some other savings I managed to totally pay off the two 0% balances on the Argos card so that's now clear. I spent way too much time playing aound with a snowball calculator so I've been following that. We did overspend on the credit card but I had the emergency savings to sort that this month, and the card balance was the least it has been for about two years which is great progress.
February so far.... 
We won £50 on the bonds, this has again gone against debt, an overpayment on the car loan. I've also increased the money sent to the 0% credit card to ensure it's clear before interest gets applied.
I'm about to cash out on Prolific so that will be the second extra payment to the car loan. 
This month I have a nephew and neice who have birthdays, their gifts are built into the budget.
Today we went to a local farm shop and stocked up on meat, it will last quite some time and I like the fact its all from local farms. This month we're going to try beef shin in the slow cooker I'm expecting it will be a winner, these 'old fashioned' cuts seem to be. We're also going to try and get our unreduced veggies from the local veg shop, again were trying to support the local community but I certainly won't be turning down reduced price veg if I see any, specially now we have two new family members (kids got Guinea pigs for Christmas).
All in all I'm working hard at being mse but it's not plain sailings and I'm certainly not being perfect. 

Lemon_Tree

Other news.... 
The tumble dryer has died, it's only two years old and was rarely used, OH thinks it may be the heating element but isn't sure, it's apparently happened because we kept it outside, I may YouTube to see if I can fix it, otherwise I'm assessing if we really need yo replace it and if we do can it wait til much later in the year.
We've paid the deposit for a weeks camping, it's a temporary holiday site attached to a main site so we're only paying £16 a night for us all including electric. Just got to find another bargainous site for later in August, we'll going local for a few 4 day breaks. Definitely need to make best of the money we spent last year on camping gear.
Last night the builder came around and It looks like the work on our extension will start the end of this month beginning of next, I can't wait for it to finally kick off, we're making a list of the other jobs we need doing so we can save for them  some will be pretty expensive including replacing the living room patio doors and window which will include replacing the concrete lintel with a steel beam ££££££ I've no doubt

Sarahwithlove

I noticed you said that hubby spends his allowance within the first couple of weeks, would he be better having it as a weekly amount so that he only has to go a few days then before the next weeks payment. I think taking the credit cards away could be a good idea as otherwise it will just keep being a habit to fall back on them when he doesn’t have the money available. 

Lemon_Tree

I've tried to suggest he takes it weekly but it's like there's a race to see how quickly he can withdraw the money after payday. I actually switch the housekeeping cash into fivers as he tends to take a note when he goes shopping and keeps the change. 

EssexHebridean

That's a sneaky crafty plan with the fivers @Lemon_Tree - love it! We mostly use the cashback CC for shopping but I do sometimes get cash out - the rule is that the food money lives in the same place and all change from notes goes back to that location as well - otherwise I found that we both tended to forget to put change back into the pot again - so making it a "rule" focused both of our minds to make sure we did that. 

Sarahwithlove

Is he the sort of person that needs a shock to encourage a change?  Could you work out how much extra on top of his allowance he has spent in last 6 months and then how many extra hours at work he would have to do to get it back? 

Lemon_Tree

Hi, I'm of the opinion that nothing I say about finances really sinks in, I've tried explaining it so many ways and he's just someone who will spend til it's gone, it got worse when I was on maternity leave and got him a card on the cc account. He has recently accepted that he needs to up his hours at work to help pay for the increased mortgage so that is a step in the right direction. Although, I think he asked for an extra shift at work alternate weeks thinking he could do a couple then strategically forget, but work have changed his contract to include those extra hours 😊

Lemon_Tree

Eh, the fiver trick does seem to make the money last a bit longer, and also hides the fact that I syphon off a fiver each month to go in the camping cash purse so we can afford ice creams or a takeaway or something. I'm sneaky.