Crunchy pays off the loan early, and other stories

crunchy_time

Morning all!

Struggling to get going this morning and having a really lazy day.

Husband has been paid now and I have done the money shuffle. The septic tank cost £140 to empty and a new pump cost £156 to install but it is up and running now. Next thing on the list is the slow puncture and then the car service although we are still paying off the last one! 

Both of us feel good about our decisions to focus on saving up to pay off our debts rather than focusing on paying them off now. We just need to tweak the way we do it along the way.

since the price cap news on Friday we have had discussions about little things we can do to reduce costs and decided on some changes we are going to make.

Washing - cutting back by spot washing some clothes so they don’t have to go in the washing machine as often. 

Reducing ironing - I only iron pillow cases and t shirts and blouse anyway but not ironing pillow cases.

boiling the kettle once in the morning for our coffees and then saving it in flasks.

dishwasher - is already on eco cycle but is often on twice a day despite us doing a load of washing up for those things that can’t go through. The solution could be to only fill it and put it on once a day at the end of the day and then wash up everything else. 

Birthdays - we have 3 birthdays in our household before Christmas and usually go out for dinner for each of them but shall cut that out this year. 

Christmas- we have already discussed having a pared down Christmas. I have been through the childrens rooms recently and a lot of the stocking fillers and gifts we bought last year haven’t been used! Shall have to give this some proper thought. I wonder whether wrapping up tickets for privileges would work e.g. an hour extra of screen time. My kids are at the right age for that sort of stuff. I also might put more chocolate in them this year to bulk it out a bit.

Just the start of some ideas! 

Husband has arranged for a solar panels company to speak to us and give us a quote. Our houses position means we are a prime candidate for solar energy. The costs have come down a lot since we investigated a few years back and they have 0% finance. Just an idea at the moment.

Happy bank holiday weekend everyone!

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Just back from supermarkets. We picked three meals that can be bulk cooked and frozen to have once a week during September - veggie curry, spag Bol and moussaka. And then every week we choose another three/four meals to have and shop for these. I just worked out the cost of the meals was £47 so £3.90 for each weekly meal! I have nothing to compare this to as we have never food budgeted like this before but this feels like a positive start. 

We also invested in some more food containers and a ceramic oven dish that was on offer - £2.99!

I have also had a discussion about Christmas with husband. He is usually the one that likes to spend more than me saying that he has been working hard all year and deserves a good Christmas. However he agreed with my £20 each stocking fillers and £50 each main presents. We will focus more on experiences. So I will need to save £70 per month end of august, sept, oct and nov. 

Husband and I have already talked about what gifts we could give each other. 

Today I have managed to clean the windows inside and out, was the windows and windowsills outside and clean inside one of the cars.

Just about to take the dog for a walk and then dinner and then read my book with a glass of wine. Perfect bank holiday!

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

We've been chatting about Christmas too....
We usually do £20 stockings and £200 presents for each child.  Which adds up with 5 of them, especially as we always overspend 
Then things like fancy advent calendars add up to a chunk!

DH and I never buy for each other as it is an easy save.

This year, we're having the same budget for the older children, but will definitely not go over it.  We'll trim the younger 2 childrens'  budgets a bit, but not so much they'd notice. We'll also give the trimmings like advent calendars a miss (just cheapy choc ones) and watch the food/alcohol budget closely as spiralled last year.

We're actually going to give each other a £25 budget for gifts for us... won't do the children any harm that parents can get gifts too

EssexHebridean

Having a clear idea of spending for things like a Christmas and then sticking to that budget is a really solid way of doing things. Do remember all the other stuff that goes along with Christmas/New year though - while your £70 a month will cover presents as planned, bear in mind also that you almost certainly spend an increased amount on food etc, possibly even travel and days out and this is absolutely the very latest that you should be putting a plan in place to deal with covering the cost of that, too. Next year I assume you will start in January budgeting an amount that will then by the end of the year not only cover Christmas spending but also the family birthdays you have through the year? As you rightly mention the increase energy costs mean that this sort of planning and budgeting has now gone from being a useful thing to do, to an essential. This year above all is one where families absolutely must have a plan to avoid putting Christmas costs on credit cards IMO, as the spare money is unlikely to be there in January/February to pay that debt back. 

crunchy_time

EssexHebridean said:

Having a clear idea of spending for things like a Christmas and then sticking to that budget is a really solid way of doing things. Do remember all the other stuff that goes along with Christmas/New year though - while your £70 a month will cover presents as planned, bear in mind also that you almost certainly spend an increased amount on food etc, possibly even travel and days out and this is absolutely the very latest that you should be putting a plan in place to deal with covering the cost of that, too. Next year I assume you will start in January budgeting an amount that will then by the end of the year not only cover Christmas spending but also the family birthdays you have through the year? As you rightly mention the increase energy costs mean that this sort of planning and budgeting has now gone from being a useful thing to do, to an essential. This year above all is one where families absolutely must have a plan to avoid putting Christmas costs on credit cards IMO, as the spare money is unlikely to be there in January/February to pay that debt back. 

We always start the year off saving but then have to dip into it for emergencies that our emergency fund just doesn’t cover because we never manage to save enough for what actually crops up. This year we had the lawsuit (£1000) and the car expenses (£1500) so we abandoned saving for it in the spring hence the setting of the budget now. 

I set a budget last year and stuck to it. We never got to any parties or have any days out and don’t plan to this year. I usually up the food budget a bit the month before. 

If I’m honest I don’t really enjoy Christmas and have to force myself to for the kids although I have in recent years. 

The year we were in that weird lock down changed for me.

I’m not anticipating any huge spends on entertainment. No pantomime. Maybe a visit to a statelet home but not to go inside. Just a walk. This will come out of our entertainment budget and fuel budget at the time.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

No panto?!  That's the best bit!   
Also love a NT place with pretty xmas lights etc... not sure where you are but Waddesdon (sp?) is lush

crunchy_time

ohdearhowdidthathappen said:

No panto?!  That's the best bit!   
Also love a NT place with pretty xmas lights etc... not sure where you are but Waddesdon (sp?) is lush

Ha! No not my thing! I have been before and my kids have too and sometimes go with school. We usually go to cinema but may hold off this year. See how things go.

We are East Anglia. Might go to sandringham this year.

Jellytotts

When money was tight (always) we used to make sure that the kids stockings were full of a mix of a few small treats (choccy, new colouring pencils etc) and then things they needed that would normally come out of the general pot....socks/tights/toiletries etc.  when they were small it was things like a new flannel, bottle of bubble bath and a mouldable bath soap spray then as they got older the preteen stage, smelly body wash, cheapie body sprays, lip balms, packs of tissues in fancy wrappers...then once they were proper teenagers (we still did stockings until they left home) it was the branded deodorant/body spray/make up wipes/nail varnish and remover pads, facial scrubs and masks.   It meant we weren't inundated with fiddly plastic tatt and stuff that didn't get used.  They used to call them their pamper stockings.

DD1 is now a step mum and I did little pamper stockings for her kids and she was so excited that I'd found the mouldable spray soap again, think she had more fun at bath time than the kids 😂

crunchy_time

Jellytotts said:

When money was tight (always) we used to make sure that the kids stockings were full of a mix of a few small treats (choccy, new colouring pencils etc) and then things they needed that would normally come out of the general pot....socks/tights/toiletries etc.  when they were small it was things like a new flannel, bottle of bubble bath and a mouldable bath soap spray then as they got older the preteen stage, smelly body wash, cheapie body sprays, lip balms, packs of tissues in fancy wrappers...then once they were proper teenagers (we still did stockings until they left home) it was the branded deodorant/body spray/make up wipes/nail varnish and remover pads, facial scrubs and masks.   It meant we weren't inundated with fiddly plastic tatt and stuff that didn't get used.  They used to call them their pamper stockings.

DD1 is now a step mum and I did little pamper stockings for her kids and she was so excited that I'd found the mouldable spray soap again, think she had more fun at bath time than the kids 😂

We do this too! I think one year when they were very small I panic bought cheap fancy tat and regretted it, never again. 

When I’ve been tidying their rooms I keep an eye out on what they need/don’t need - DD has a whole basket of rubbers so no more for her and DS hasn’t got any colouring pencils so there is an idea for him.  I also buy hair bands for her as they disappear over the year as well. Our stockings are mainly smelly things. 

When I am able to do the food shop alone between now and Christmas, I may pick up the odd cheap thing like glue sticks and sellotape. It won’t make much of a difference to the weekly shop!

my DS is ten now and I told him the truth about Santa earlier this year. I wanted him to find out from us. One of his questions at the time was how do we afford all the presents! Good question eh? So I have already told him our budget for each and he was very understanding. Last year his list was about £2k worth of stuff and he said that Santa should be able to afford it as other children get the stuff on his list! 

So I am thankful he is on board and can help with his sister AND he gets to experience Christmas a little differently this year.

crunchy_time

Morning all

Last day of the school holidays for me!  Kids still have a few more days but I have 3 INSET days so it's back to work for me tomorrow.  I have bought myself a really cheap new pencil case and A4 notebook from the budget range at Mr T.

Boiler service is booked in for October so we can use the extra money left over at the end of September to pay for that.  Fingers crossed nothing is wrong with it!!

We have batch cooked 2 meals so far so have 6 meals in the freezer for the next month.  I realised that September is a 5 week month yesterday so will have to eek out the food budget a bit more where possible.

We have about £350 of money for the month left over from budgeted categories.  The aim is to spend as little as possible of it and then add about £500 to it the following month and continue like this till we have built up enough that we can start overpaying the debts again and then we can pay off in chunks and stop living paycheck to paycheck.

Annoyingly the dog isn't right and needs to go to the vets tomorrow so that is going to have to come out of that money but this can't be helped.

Husband and I have been talking about future life a lot since we got back from holiday.  He is finding work stressful so wants to aim to retire from it and go consultancy in about 15 years so we have a loose aim to pay off our mortgage as soon as we can. I know I need to have a better-paid job for this which I am working on getting now.  We are a long way off this but it's good to properly have this in mind now so it keeps us focused.

We also want to split our annual holiday budget over more frequent smaller trips rather than one big holiday every year so that he gets breaks more regularly than currently.

Nice frugal autumn here we come!!  Bike rides and walks and cheap coffees with friends.  Maybe the odd roast dinner and beer garden trip.  I'm going to count NSD's as well.  Try for NSD's during the week once the kids are back at school.

Crunchy