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

Bluegreen143

Red did fill the car up.

Went to Lidl to check out the coats they had in but they were thin waterproofs so I left it (wanted a warm coat for winter). Did spend £17 on bits to add to my gifts drawer - crafty bits for the kids and a big hardback knitting reference book for my mum. Wanted it for myself too along with a book of card making card but I resisted as no money left in my spends this month.

Will update YNAB totals later.

Meals yesterday:

B - banana & cocoa milkshake & toast (HM bread), orange slices

L - chicken & mushroom soup (made with carcass from a roast chicken) and HM bread

S - Bambi had pear & orange puree (used up last week’s pears) and oatcakes, I ate a pear, cheese and had a couple of biscuits later.

D - beetroot falafel, hummus, pittas, grated carrot salad (all homemade)

Bluegreen143

Just been checking over YNAB. In the last three months since I started keeping this diary, we’ve:

- paid £400 off our debt to MIL (now owe £850)
- saved £350 in our emergency fund 🙂
- currently got just under £640 in our Christmas/birthdays fund and roughly £175 put aside in our annual bills fund too, on track for paying the car insurance and road tax in January.

I think given our income isn’t that high for a family of four that’s good progress!

Baileys_Babe

Looking good @Bluegreen143

Have you and Red had any thoughts about what you will do with the money you are currently using to pay MIL once that debt is cleared?

Bluegreen143

@Baileys_Babe well I want to get the emergency fund up to at least £1,000 initially. I think I have a sort of vague plan of splitting it half and half between long terms goals (E fund, mortgage overpayments and contributing to a pension for me) and then the other half for shorter term stuff (holidays, new car). At some point I need to open a savings account for Bambi as Monkey has £1k he inherited as a baby and I’d like to save for her to make it roughly equal.

We will need to replace our car, which is nearly 12yo, at some point. It cost £2k four years ago (which we paid in cash by selling the previous car) but not sure how much this one is worth now and I think Red wants something just a little bigger as the kids are growing. I think he was looking at cars in the £3-4K range so would take us a couple of years maybe to save up for that. I really would prefer to avoid a car loan at all costs - we’ve never had one.

joedenise

It's well worth starting a pot in YNAB for the new car even if you just put a few pounds each month in it, perhaps just Tilly Tidying (all the odd pence in each of your accounts daily, weekly or monthly - frequency is up to you!). It's amazing how quickly it all adds up.

Bluegreen143

That’s a good idea @joedenise. I had been focused on paying off the debt but I am aware that in Feb the car could drastically fail it’s MOT. If I had to we could technically go without it - Red has a van for work so it’s just used for leisure and we do live in the middle of the city. But it would be a bit miserable as we are really used to being able to drive to walks/parks in all different places and regularly meet friends who live in the south side etc. Plus Red wouldn’t hear of not having a car (he can’t use his van for personal use) even though we didn’t have one til about 2015 (we’ve lived together since 2009) and just walked/bussed everywhere. He’s gotten lazy now and too used to driving 😆

I’ve got a function on my bank account that currently rounds up debit card transactions to put the pennies in my emergency fund (and it really helps build it up!) so I can always switch to the new car fund once the E fund is at target.

joedenise

@Bluegreen143 - I do it manually on YNAB - each week if the balance is odd pence I minus it from the balance and then add it to whichever pot I am adding to at the time (at the moment it's spending money for a planned holiday next year for our Golden wedding anniversary).  So you could do this in addition to what's happening in your bank account so some extra saving for the odd bits!

Baileys_Babe

I think once you have a car it is very hard to give it up.

Having some ideas at the moment is good. I like your plans emergency fund, followed by short & longer term goals.

Bluegreen143

Part of my current mission is to save as much as possible while still feeling really happy and fulfilled. I don’t want this to feel like deprivation, particularly for Red who works hard to keep us all. So my aim is to fill our lives with fabulous frugal fun so we are too busy to spend money and don’t miss expensive things 😅

One thing I did today which will be nice is I’ve written down about 40 parks/places to go walking on craft sticks and I’m putting them in an “adventure jar”. Actually two jars - half are places within 20-25 min drive or that are smaller, just for quicker visits, and the other jar is filled with places further away or where we can spend the day. Though I’ve capped it at an hour’s drive for now as our two are still very small and long car journeys are more hassle than it’s worth. I have a third list in my phone of all the suggestions friends gave me that are too far or where the walk is too long/too hard/not suitable for toddlers. So it will take us years to visit everywhere and tbh we are only scratching the surface of all the beautiful places that are nearby! 

The plan is that each weekend we will decide if we have time for a long or short outing, pick 3 random sticks from the appropriate jar then us parents get the veto on which is the most suitable choice. Then we can pack a picnic and drinks if needed and we won’t need to spend any money except petrol but it’ll still feel like we’ve done lots of exciting things with our time. I haven’t included our local park, nursery playpark, children’s wood or canal as we go those places all the time during the week anyway. 

Baileys_Babe

 I like how organised you are. I agree living whilst clearing is vital, sometimes a little bit of planning is all it takes.

One place we love which is probably a longer drive and more suitable for a few years time is https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/culzean
You need to be a member, but they have lots of places we enjoy visiting. We had membership as a family Christmas gift in the past.
They have a fantastic play park suitable for a huge age range, when we last visited ds was about 13/14 and he had fun, think the play park is closed due Covid.