Crunchy pays off the loan early, and other stories

crunchy_time

No spend day today! In fact - husband found £5 on a field so I have used that to pay off a little bit of the vets fees.

photos taken of stuff to go on eBay - ready to go on tonight!

crunchy_time

Evening!

Still not been able to get anything on eBay. Had to reactivate various parts of my account and have been very tired due to work. We are still really struggling to get into a routine since Christmas and not doing as much homework with the kids.

My pay day was yesterday so have £360 saved in various pots for various bills and things coming up this year. Nothing off debt as yet. 

Husband and I have done a very frugal online shop using up the last of the money with a £10 buffer. I think this is the first time in several months that we haven’t gone over our budget! Clearly online shopping is working even though Aldi is cheaper. This is a huge win for us. I really feel We can get back on track now.

Just got to make it through this next week to husbands pay day next Friday.

crunchy x

crunchy_time

Morning

Not a good start to the day.  Had an argument with 7 year old daughter as she found the bag of clothes for ebay and decided she wanted some back (after saying she didn't)  She gets very cross and argumentative and accuses us of doing things we haven't done and then doesn't listen to us explain what has actually happened until we are all on our knees crying.  It is so frustrating and usually happens right when we need to leave the house.  I've come upstairs to calm down.

I've made the min payment of £25 to my credit card so that has gone down to £1026.

We have about £150 in a slush fund.

But we also have to pay off the car service - £250 ish, pay for a new cambelt - £500 in a few weeks time and also pay £600 ish to sort out the air conditioning in the big car.  We are putting this off until we actually need it but so far we have had a lot to spend on the cars.  We didn't last year.  I know we have the emergency fund but I'm going to see if we can sort the service and cambelt out ourselves and then use the emergency fund to pay for the air conditioning.  Hopefully then the emergency fund will be over £2000 so £600 won't be such a big dent.

I've had to buy daughter some new school shoes as she has ripped off the sole of one of her others.  She has chosen a pair that will be fine for winter and spring but not for summer.  Its likely that she will go up a size by then but it just annoys me that we fly through clothes for them and it's a never ending carousel of clothes.  They don't actually have that much either.

This weekends plans are frugal.  The house is a pigsty so that will be a focus and I have my hair cut later which is all budgeted for.  We are both feeling a bit meh at the moment.  Anybody else?  January is so bleak and grey.

Crunchy x

ohdearhowdidthathappen

January is a crappy month, dark and dreary and everyone feels fat and poor after Christmas  
Girls can be tricky, I find my sons much more reasonable than my daughters.  That saying of 'they'd argue black is white' always comes to mind, they just want to argue.  Drives me mad, because I try and reason with them and my husband is like 'there's no point, you'll just wind yourself up more'.  Meh
Rubbish news on the car front, they do that don't they... behave for a while and then Bam! big bill.  Ugh.

crunchy_time

Evening all

Husband's payday today so just done the money shuffle.  Things are tight because of £500 cambelt but we will keep on trucking.  We have a trip to CP at half term to look forward to for a special occasion so we are focussed on that.  Just two weeks to go until half term and then I get paid the day we go away in half term, then husband gets paid the week after so just got to get through it.

Sains have just delivered.  Was chatting to the driver about how great it is to get it delivered and that it only costs £1 and saves so much time and money as you know what you are buying.  We have just got to keep up the organisation to plan food meals every week.  This is much easier now I am not a teacher and perpetually exhausted.

My loan payment is £262 a month.  £200 goes on paying off my new (but 7-year-old) car and the £62 goes towards the house renovations.  Although it hasn't gone out yet, I have adjusted my signature already.

Still nothing on ebay after a stressful week but I did sell my old phone on music m and need to post it to get the money.

Walk tomorrow and then a quiet Sunday.  

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Hello diaryland!

I am pleased to announce that I finally have the pile of stuff on bay of e.  12 items.  Let's see what this week brings in terms of extra money.

I need to go to the post office tomorrow to post the phone so that will be £36 towards something.

For a couple of years I have been agonsing over whether to do my masters or not.  I finally picked my specialism and researched courses.  The one I want to do would cost me £10k over two years.  I would not be eligible for any student loans or bursaries and my employer won't pay for it.  I would have to take out another loan and then pay it off at around £100 a month for 8 YEARS! 8 YEARs! Not including interest.  All to raise my salary from my current £16,500 to £41,000.  

Simply put - I just cannot afford this and could probably get to this level of money myself in a few years time with some careful career management.

So the world is my oyster now with regards to what to do next in my career.  I will take any suggestions so please please comment below.  Here is my situation:

I am 40, my kids are primary school age.  I have 4 years of marketing experience then 10 years of primary teaching experience with the last 2 years being spent in secondary pastoral and SEN support.  My salary is £16,500 a year but I don't work in the holidays so I don't have to pay for childcare then.  I worked out that if I did a normal job and I did have to pay for holiday clubs
I would need to earn about £25k gross per annum to cover this extra cost.  I'm really good at mentoring and building rapport with young people, organising and communicating with different stakeholders.  I love learning and working with a variety of people.  Definitely a team player.  I am creative and have a good sense of style.  We have a home office so happy to work remotely but must be at least £25k a year.  Perhaps in an education organisation or a charity or NGO.  I do live in the sticks about 40 mins from both a large town and a city and about 1hr 20 mins from London on the train.  Happy to be trained up to do something or do further qualifications.  I'm happy to move away from teaching it has served me well and given me loads of confidence.  I would love a job with lots of variety.

Any thoughts on a new career for crunchy??

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Oooo, I'll be interested to see what responses you get.  Elsewhere on MSE there might be a forum page where you'd reach a wider audience with it?
You've got loads of transferable skills... is it worth seeing a careers advisor too?
My initial thought is working in FE, but no idea about potential roles One of my past colleagues moved from health care to lecturing and she earns loads with lots of flexibility.

EssexHebridean

First question I would ask myself in your situation is - if money was taken out of the equation altogether, what would you want to spend your working hours doing? Finding the route that means your work will make you happy is as good a starting point as any in deciding which paths to explore further. Also - decide whether you want a career - with associated pressures around being promoted, gaining further qualifications etc - or whether a job will suit better so long as it pays the amount you need. 

crunchy_time

ohdearhowdidthathappen said:

Oooo, I'll be interested to see what responses you get.  Elsewhere on MSE there might be a forum page where you'd reach a wider audience with it?
You've got loads of transferable skills... is it worth seeing a careers advisor too?
My initial thought is working in FE, but no idea about potential roles One of my past colleagues moved from health care to lecturing and she earns loads with lots of flexibility.

Thanks for responding. I could consider a careers advisor, that would be good. 

My thoughts are FE as well. I’ve been keeping an eye on the jobs boards. Problem is due to our location. We are very rural. The one I like the look has a 45 minute commute each way. My current commute is half an hour so not much more but the hours a longer at the college so the day would be longer and affect the kids attending some clubs - although we could plan around this. The other FE and uni are in the other direction but the same distance commute time. I ideally would prefer the first FE college as i could drop off my son to secondary school when he goes next sept.

The other thing I have thinking about these last few days is working from home for in hr or training. I love the idea of a flexible job.

I wonder whether speaking to some recruitment agencies would help.

crunchy_time

EssexHebridean said:

First question I would ask myself in your situation is - if money was taken out of the equation altogether, what would you want to spend your working hours doing? Finding the route that means your work will make you happy is as good a starting point as any in deciding which paths to explore further. Also - decide whether you want a career - with associated pressures around being promoted, gaining further qualifications etc - or whether a job will suit better so long as it pays the amount you need. 

Thanks For replying.! 

If money was not an issue I.e I was a footballers wife then I would spend my time setting up a charity and doing good in the world. Building something from the ground up. Something to do with education abroad or reading or something like that. I definitely want a career. I feel like I am at the bottom again so the only way is up. I’d love to work for a good brand with good leadership (don’t we all) so perhaps a remote job for an education charity I could work my way up in? Easier said that done though. I don’t want it to be a knee jerk reaction so I’m taking my time with this one. 

My fear is not being around for my own kids because I am so stressed at work as that is what happened with my own parents and it changed our family dynamics negatively forever.