One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

missymoo81

Hey BlueGreen, so pleased that the first day of nursery went well! My two loved nursery but love school more! And your choice of school sounds amazing. 

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat your new area sounds lovely with the walks/countryside... I do lust after that a bit living right in the middle of a city. But then there are advantages to that too!

@missymoo81 you’ll have a couple more weeks til you’re are back at school won’t you? Monkey’s had his second day now and really enjoyed it 🙂

We had sausage casserole (cooked in the instant pot) for dinner with rice, some HM bread and steamed broccoli & Romanesco which I tossed in butter and used my garlic seasoning mix grinder on (I gave this one I have an obsession with and use on everything haha). So tasty! We both thought the Romanesco was reminiscent of Brussels sprouts, which luckily we both love. Even Bambi chewed on two bits which I was gobsmacked at. Of course Monkey insisted he didn’t like it. Sometimes I wish I could send them back in time to wartime rationing for a week to shake some gratitude into them 😂

Took Bambi to meet a friend and her 2yo for a picnic at a sandy beachy bit they have on the river - was lovely. I think it will take a couple of weeks to get into a good routine especially as the nursery days are now different lengths. I totally forgot to give Bambi her snack this afternoon in the scramble to go pick her brother up (on the later days he gets an afternoon snack at nursery before pick up) but she can’t have been that hungry as she didn’t complain.

Think I need to YNAB tonight - Tesco order came last night. I definitely find the most important thing with YNAB is keeping on top of it. Not been doing much spending apart from food and ordering a couple of gifts from amazon (planned and from the gift savings account).

Bluegreen143

Nice evening out in a friend’s garden for a birthday party. It’s lucky we are getting the weather just now that makes all these outdoor events possible - will be a bit grim if we still can’t have indoor parties in the winter!

Haven’t yet updated YNAB so it’s on my must-do tomorrow list. Really need to not get behind with it as I find it so hard to catch up. Luckily I’m not spending much at the moment so I’m not getting as overwhelmed with transactions.

Homemade pizza tonight made by Red - was lovely 🙂

MagicCat

Glad the romanesco was nice! I know what you mean about the weather, we had planned a few friends coming round in the garden in a couple of weeks for DH's birthday but the forecast isn't looking good, hopefully it will be better by then!

Bluegreen143

Been a busy couple of days. Had my sister’s 30th birthday BBQ last night which was really loved, she’s a great cook (not really into budgeting which is fair enough as she has plenty money, so you always get really lovely “cheffy” meals - I love to cook too but much more “stretching the budget, from scratch cooking” type meals if that makes sense!).

We did have a laugh as I thought I’d bought my mum the same food processor attachment for her Kenwood as my stepdad did and I was raging he hadn’t used the amazon list properly. However it turns out happily it was a separate attachment 🙂 though my mum got me a pasta machine and it seems Red has got me one too so he’s now unhappy and has to return it to Amazon! I think I get to choose something to replace it though.

Bit stressful and worrying today. My stepdad has had an extremely bad back for a month now and it got much worse two days ago. He’s unable to stand or walk at all and was blue lighted to hospital by ambulance this morning. We are all worried but I’m also glad he’s in as his GP has massively fobbed him off until now. It can no longer be ignored and he’s already seen a consultant whose ordered tests stuff is good. It is a bit scary the thought of being in hospital during this Covid situation and not sure yet if visiting is allowed in his ward.

On a happier note 🙂 I rearranged the furniture in the living room and it’s making me so happy having a change without having had to spend any money! We’ve lived here five years and I have never liked the layout of the living room but every time we discussed it I couldn’t see a way to rearrange it because of awkwardly placed doorways and our sofas being big. I regretted not getting one sofa and two armchairs but no cash to replace them. However I’ve discovered that we can move one sofa to another wall if we don’t mind having to climb over the side of it to get into the under stairs cupboard. This is actually an advantage as that cupboard is dedicated to the kids’ art & messy play supplies, puzzles, games, educational supplies, science kits etc (basically all things they may need adult help or supervision to use at their ages) and having it a bit blocked by a sofa means Bambi can no longer get in and make a mess. The two sofas are now in a L shape rather than far apart which means you can finally reach the coffee table from both of them (and you can more easily chat when on separate sofas). Plus the kids have a slightly bigger floor space to play, and we can swap the 2x2 kallax we store toys in for one of the 2x4s we have upstairs so more toys downstairs and less upstairs which fits how we actually use the space. We have moved the little kids table and easel out into the outhouse for now but that’s fine as they are rarely used. It did cause an argument as Red was very resistant to the change but he was talked round in the end and I think we all much prefer the layout (even if Red won’t admit it!).

Picked a bag of blackberries out on a walk on the canal this afternoon. Not enough to make jam but I think enough for a batch of muffins and an apple & blackberry crumble too. The kids also ate their fill while we were out. 

Bluegreen143

Meant to say I finally updated YNAB. Turned out Red had chucked out the Tesco delivery receipt so I just estimated £5 household/£50 food which I think was about right. We are on track for food spends. Red had to order chicken feed £15 so think that’s all the household budget gone now. It’ll last about 6 weeks I think.

missymoo81

Well done on sorting the lounge BlueGreen. I used to love moving furniture around, I’m going to have a look at the children’s room and see if I can move it around, it’s very cramped!

yay on blackberry picking, I’m still to try and find some where I live 🙄.

Baileys_Babe

If Red is unhappy still unhappy with the new layout of the living room, suggest that you try it in the new layout for a while (6 months or so) and then review. If he complains that is too long remind him that you had the previous layout for 5 years.
If you put up seasonal decorations (Christmas tree or similar) consider in advance where things are going, so you don't end up with the situation where Red is standing there holding a box of decorations moaning that the tree always goes there but now it cant as a rearranged piece of furniture is in the way.

When our children were little we put things that needed adult supervision out of reach to save our sanity.

Bluegreen143

That’s a good point re Christmas @Baileys_Babe. We actually seem to put the tree somewhere different every year (usually moving furniture to do so!) and where it went last year is where the Kallax is which is a new piece of furniture this year so we would have had an issue regardless of moving the sofas. I think there is a spot that will work well though. Think he has accepted the new layout though we did agree it doesn’t need to be permanent. It’s actually really nice for us sitting in the evening as the sofas used to be quite far apart and if you wanted to face the TV then the person on one sofa (my husband) would have his back to the other one so it stifled conversation. Last night after I moved them it was lovely watching TV and although sitting on different sofas we were so close together and able to chat much more easily 🙂 need to go and touch up some gloss on the woodwork now as we never bothered to do behind the sofas when we painted in January but one yellow patch is now exposed 😆 we have an opened tin of gloss in though so no expense.

MagicCat

Sorry to hear about your stepdad, it's scary waiting for results, not an easy time to be in hospital. Try not to worry too much about Covid, if the hospital is anything like where I work everything is so careful monitored and controlled he's probably safer than anywhere!

Good work on the living room, it's nice to have a change. We have kallax too, I love them!