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

Bluegreen143

Exactly @Baileys_Babe. Waiting til payday to buy an out of budget treat is a bit of a foreign concept to Red. He thinks that if he wants say a bottle of whisky a few days before payday why not just go into overdraft or raid savings then pay back on payday. Whereas I’m trying to drum into him that when you do that you’re just kidding yourself on that you can afford it and if there’s nothing left in your spending budget you just need to go without for a few days. It’s a tricky balancing act as I don’t want to act like his mother telling him off 😅 but he is definitely getting better. He sees that we have friends with much, much higher incomes who say they can’t afford to stay home with their littles and he has started saying that he knows we only have the lifestyle we have on our income because I’ve encouraged frugal habits and saving over the years. 

joedenise

You are doing amazingly well @Bluegreen143 and enjoying life as a SAHM.  I'm so glad it wasn't worth my while going back to work when mine were little.  We worked it out we would have been about £5 a month better off with me working full time by the time we'd paid childcare so just not worth it (£5 then was about £50ish now probably!).

Baileys_Babe

Both me and my sister are SAHMs, I did go back part-time for a couple of years but it was always a short term plan, we reduced our childcare costs by moving both mine (I started late and worked late plus alternate Saturday mornings) and OH's (started early and finished early) hours around so we covered most of it ourselves. This worked well for us and meant we both had time 1 to 1 with ds. As a general rule we eat late anyway and on the evenings I worked we still ate as a family so I didn't feel I was missing out on being with ds (or OH).

By me being a SAHM parent we are able to live much more frugally, thus we need less income to live on, thus we can live happily on one income. Sorry preaching to the choir. 

Bluegreen143

I love being at home and totally agree it saves lots of money. I think I will need to work at least a bit once Bambi is at school but hopefully we can balance it all so I don’t need to work too much. I feel like all that would happen if I went and got a full time job is we would end up stressed and tired and then spend the extra cash “treating” ourselves to holidays, takeaways and “stuff”, feeling like we deserved it for working so hard... So I don’t think we would really see much benefit in terms of long term financial gain! Not to mention childcare costs, commuting, having to buy smart clothes etc. When we talk about what we want from life it’s plenty of time with each other, time to cook/garden/do projects in the house, cosy nights in with friends. We do all that already 😆 working more (for either of us - Red has turned down the chance of promotions a couple of times the last couple of years as he was worried about the stress) needs to be balanced against losing some of the time we have to do things we love.

Poor Red, I thought he needed two fillings but one tooth got pulled today and he needs root canal treatment for the other which they are booking in as couldn’t do today. He looked VERY sorry for himself and was in bed by 8.30 (normally he’s a post midnight guy so I could tell he felt really unwell). On the plus side apparently the dental hospital aren’t charging for treatment currently and he got the tooth pulled for free... but he was so nervous about his appointment he forgot to pay his parking and got a £30 ticket bless him! Never mind, could be a lot worse as I didn’t think his treatment would be free. 

Monkey is a malingering scamp and was fine by 11am today so he will be back at nursery tomorrow! I did enjoy having a lazy day with them both though. It was very sunny so we spend a lot of time in the garden, playing rather than gardening - was lovely to spend proper time with them - sometimes it’s easy to be too focused on the cooking, cleaning etc! We also walked down to our favourite playpark and spent an hour there - it’s the one next to nursery and we always see people we know there at school/nursery finishing time so was nice to get a chat in with other parents. 

 Made sweet & sour veg with egg fried rice for dinner. Poor Red could only manage the rice then went to heat a tin of soup! And the kids only really ate the egg out of the rice. But I enjoyed it at least 😆 we had some peach crumble and custard after. I’m enjoying all the peaches and plums we are getting each week in our fruit box 🙂

MagicCat

Glad Monkey is ok and you don't have to isolate.
Poor Red, root canals are grim. Excellent getting treatment for free though!
It's so interesting what you're all saying about being a SAHM and attitudes to money. I still have a long way to go getting on top of things, but we do have emergency savings now.  The anticipating payday and spending what you don't have yet us something I'm guilty of though. Currently I work about 10-12 shifts a month, so not much, but now my little one is in nursery (my mum used to look after her) I barely make £50 a month. It's really good to hear how you've all managed on 1 income, definitely food for thought.

missymoo81

Ah poor Red and his tooth! I love the SAHM chat. I wish I could but running our own business is the next best thing I guess. Your dinner sounded lovely. I wish I could have come round, I’d have eaten it!

Baileys_Babe

As well as being a SAHM we also home educate our children, which judging by what people spend on school-related costs, we save a fortune. We don't need to buy a particular colour or style of footwear or a school uniform. We buy or acquire what is best for their and our lifestyle. 
Home educating gives us a lot of flexibility on our we run our lives.

blue_eyed_girl123

Delurking to say good luck to Red with his tooth, I had an impacted wisdom tooth out last year, in which they bruised the nerve, so I can recommend an ice pack and plenty of painkillers. They suggested eating food at a cooler temperature as well so as not to further damage anything. Hope it's sorted soon . 

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat it’s tough when you are working so hard and hardly seeing any financial gain for your time. Such a shame your mum can’t still have her as childcare is so expensive! Staying at home is lovely and lots of opportunities to save as discussed, The downside of giving up work entirely of course is that some find it very difficult to get back into a similar job. I know I don’t want to work in the same field though as it was sucking my soul out 😂 so I don’t feel I’ve lost anything by leaving and I’ll need to retrain or start somewhere else at the bottom which is fine by me. I was 27 when I had Monkey though (having done a four year degree) so had only had about 6 years of “proper” full time work and wasn’t in a senior position at all. Obviously if you are invested in your career for the long term I can understand working even if you aren’t bringing much home after nursery fees.

@Baileys_Babe good point on the money saving aspects of home ed, not to mention the potential for taking holidays out of peak time too. 

Thanks for the good wishes for Red @missymoo81 and @bl@blue_eyed_girl123. He texted just there to say his mouth feels slightly less like he’s been hit by a hammer today. He will be dreading the root canal treatment though, he hates the dentist as it is. 

Tried to book myself and the kids dentist check ups as they were already a few months overdue but booked in March, then they obviously got cancelled due to lockdown. So I’ve been feeling very guilty as now we all haven’t been seen in over a year. My teeth are usually fine but I think I may need an old filling redone. However our dentist said they are currently only allowed to do emergency work because they have no windows so it’s been deemed they aren’t compliant with all the guidelines to reopen fully - and other dentists don’t appear to be taking on new patients just now - very frustrating!

Baileys_Babe

Taking our holidays in term time saves us masses, as well as most places, being more accessible as they fewer visitors.