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

Bluegreen143

Oh lovely @Baileys_Babe!

Such a busy day today!

- met a friend with our littler ones for a walk/park visit this morning 

- Red was off sick (his tooth they couldn’t do the root canal on is badly infected and he’s on strong antibiotics for it - he did start to drive to his first job today but his boss called him and told him to go home). Quite handy as while Bambi was napping it meant I could nip out without the kids, get packing materials from Tesco and post a whole bunch of parcels - nappies to sell and the extra pasta machine to return.

- took the kid to the Riverside (transport) Museum for the first time in 6 months! Normally we go a lot. It’s a bit weird - was so dead as they are heavily restricting numbers (you book in advance now). And all the interactive displays are closed which was disappointing - you can’t actually get onto the buses/trams etc, just look at everything from the outside. And it shuts at 4 now not 5 (which I had missed) so it was a bit of a flying visit as our ticket was for a 3pm entry! Never mind, was nice to do something different and we will go again.

- in the evening I filled up the car and did the monthly Lidl toiletries/cleaning stuff shop. I’ll go through the receipt tomorrow as it’s getting late now!

- also spent ages setting up our printer properly to work wirelessly/print from our phones and set up a 2 month free trial of an HP ink contract where they post your ink out automatically as you run low and you pay per page rather than by cartridge (after the trial it’s £2 a month for up to 50 pages then pay as you go). May cancel after the trial but it may beat our current system of running out of ink, swearing at the printer a lot as print outs get progressively more faded, and then having to spend £25 in Tesco to replace it... 

The impetus for all this was having to print a bank statement for social security Scotland as proof of our details for the school age child payment I’ve applied for. I might have to call them tomorrow as could only get it to print in purple in the end 🙄 our local library is (needless to say) not open. If they won’t accept the purple page I’ll need to just get the £25 cartridge from Tesco.

LOADS of post payday spends today report but generally planned or cheap! Little things like a couple of ebooks (cheap ones) I’ve got myself, the Lidl and Tesco shops etc etc.

Have so far made about £60 selling (maybe £50 after postage) so chuffed with that 😁 must update YNAB tomorrow.

Bluegreen143

Updated YNAB tonight though I think I’ve forgotten to put in the cash I spent at the car boot sale. Luckily with this diary I’m
less likely to forget amounts for YNAB as I can check back what I wrote on here!

Doing well so far though it’s only two days into the month! But I’ve made over £70 selling online. I’ve spent about £15 on postage and packing so about £55 profit made which I’m happy with. Still got all the night nappies and two daytime ones left so may make another £10-20 hopefully. One of the buyers even added an extra £2 to cover the PayPal fees which was so sweet of her and totally unexpected. I think she was really pleased with her bargain tbh as I priced everything to sell fast instead of for maximising profit and she got 18 nappies off me for £50 - mainly my cheaper/older ones which I obviously disclosed, but six of my best & newest ones too so she did get a good deal with all that. It’s nice to get something for them but I also like passing on a bit of good fortune as I remember setting up with cloth nappies and getting given some handed by a couple of friends and it made me so happy at the time 🙂 not to mention all the masses of kids clothes etc I’ve had handed down.

When I had Monkey I didn’t have anyone to give me stuff as he was the first baby in the family and I was first of my friends to have a baby (and the mum friends I made were all having their first too). But I got lucky with Bambi and got bags and bags of stuff from my friends who had girls and were either done with kids or having a boy this time. Obviously I reciprocated and passed on any of my boy stuff I wasn’t keeping. Though Bambi is a very MSE baby and often sports her brother’s hand me downs, and very nice she looks in them too!

Bluegreen143

Meant to say what I’m doing with the cash I’ve made. I’ve left £50 in my spends account as I want to buy myself some (cheap) clothes with it as mine as all wearing out/don’t fit. Just comfy basics like leggings, tshirts and a pair of jeggings. It probably won’t cost that much tbh though I may get wellies too. The other £20 and anything else I make is straight into the MIL loan. I’ve been sweeping any leftover pennies (I round bills up in YNAB so get little extras left) I sweep into the emergency fund. My bank also rounds up debit card transactions and puts the change into the emergency fund too.

Baileys_Babe

I used cloth nappies for both of mine, some were passed on from my sister and some of those had been her SIL and the rest I got on freecycle or whatever it was called back then, from a lady who was making them professionally to sell and these were her samples and trials. When I finished I past them back to my sister for children 3 & 4.

My both my 2 have been the lucky recipients of past on clothes from family & friends but my dd treasures those past on by her brother and her big boy cousins. Last week one of the cousins past on a checked shirt she is wearing it all the time and working out which outfits it goes with.

Bluegreen143

Tesco shopping delivered tonight - total after Red’s beer £68.38. I forgot to log in later last night and “edit” some of Red’s additions - though he’s still unwell so I do feel quite sorry for him and probably wouldn’t have edited too much!

Food: £49.48

Greek yoghurt 49p
Hummus £1.45 (annoying as I made a big jar today not knowing he’d added this!)
Salted butter x3 £4.47
Beef mince 750g £3.70
Celery 35p
Pastrami x2 £3
Gammon joint £3.40
Grana Padano £1.65
Cheddar £1.79
Wafer thin ham 86p (again annoying as I bought the gammon to make sandwich ham!)
Frozen spinach £1.50
Frozen sweetcorn 77p
Baked beans x4 £1
Pot noodle £1
Tinned pineapple x2 £1.60
Tomato puree 27p
Carrots x5 62p
Skips crisps 6pk 99p
Chicken stock cubes 50p
Veg stock cubes 50p
Dried pinto beans £1.15
Creamed coconut 90p
Instant coffee £2.74
Baking powder £1.40
EV rapeseed oil £2.10
Tesco 30pk crisps £2.99
Potatoes 2.5kg x2 £2.20
Spaghetti 20p
Sliced bread 59p
Chopped tomatoes x4 £1.12
Cola x5 £1.95
Tinned tuna x2 £1.18
Croissants £1.05

The rest was on household items (electric toothbrush heads, baking paper, food bags and cat litter - things we either can’t get in Lidl or are heavy).

This is probably a touch over budget as adding on the milkman and veg box it’s just short of £80 (plus I spent £1 on milk today as well). Ideally looking to keep it under £75 a week. Still, not a bad start to the month.

MagicCat

Good work on the sales!
Hope Red is feeling better, I had an infected wisdom tooth earlier in the year and hadn't felt so ill in years, tooth infections are nasty.

Bluegreen143

Thanks @MagicCat.

He went back to the dental hospital and they still couldn’t get it out. They think the antibiotics need more time so he’s going back on Monday.

His manager is discussing changing him to a different contract (ie working for a different client) which is fine but they may furlough him for one week next week as the other contract isn’t starting til the following one. And he’s been off sick all week this week so wouldn’t have got the first three days pay. 

We are getting £138 UC this month - didn’t know if I’d get any as Red’s salary was more normal after working half the months. I think going forward if he gets his base pay we will continue to get maybe up to £100 a month but if he does overtime or on call to boost it we won’t get any (which is fine & to be expected! Just good to know what to expect roughly. 

I used the £40 I’d budgeted to add to home projects savings + £20 from fun money to buy blinds for the living room from dunelm. We really need something as Red decided he disliked the floor length curtains and how they were sitting with the sofa in front of the window (they came with the house so to be fair neither of us were super attached to them or anything and we have talked about replacing them over the last 5 years but never got round to it). So he hacked the bottom off them with blunt scissors(!) making them both too short and lopsided in the process and then used a stapler instead of hemming them(!). In fact he didn’t understand what hemming was and actually just stapled the lining to the curtain without folding over the bottom so they are still frayed 😂🤦‍♀️ Then now I’ve moved the furniture the sofa is no longer in front of the window and it is now VERY obvious. Red is amazing at all kinds of DIY, woodwork, general “making” and “bodging” but he has been well and truly banned from ever touching any soft furnishings again 😂 in his defence he did ask me several times to take them up but I had been stalling as couldn’t really see the need myself. We will need new curtains too but will save for them and will just have the blinds for now. They are white wood Venetian ones. The window is 170cm wide and I worried it would be very expensive for such wide ones but I thought £60 wasn’t too bad. 

Bluegreen143

Oh we also got a KFC last night as our monthly payday takeaway. Red basically had to shred the chicken to eat it but it cheered him up no end as he’s been surviving on soup, weetabix, toast, mushed up meals, pot noodles etc. £15 from the fun budget.

MagicCat

Poor Red, hope they get it sorted soon.
That really made me laugh about the curtains - we inherited some awful ones in our bedroom which I can't justify replacing at the moment, so tempted to take some blunt scissors to them now!

Bluegreen143

Haha thanks @MagicCat! Luckily for Red, I see the funny side too 😂

My papa and dad came to visit today from Aberdeen for the first time in 6 months ❤️ We are currently in local lockdown in Glasgow but the only additional restriction is we can’t host in our homes, but can still meet others outdoors and restaurants are still open. So they still came and luckily it was a glorious day. We spent time in the garden then went for a walk in the park then lunch in a local restaurant - I left Bambi at home with Red for this as she needed a nap which also prevented the “wild feral toddler escaping round the restaurant” scenario i was dreading. And my sister and her boyfriend came for lunch too which was lovely. 

Lunch was on my dad and my papa is exceedingly generous (he is well off). He brought us masses of household goods from Costco which he likes to do a couple of times a year to help out. So we have wipes, kitchen roll, shampoo, dishwasher tabs etc. He also gave me £100 for my birthday which I wasn’t expecting it to be so much - so kind of him. Will probably add this to the emergency fund as can’t think of anything I need so much as a healthy savings fund!