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

moving_forward

I have subscribed Bluegreen.  You seem to have things in control.  We love the rain here, waters the garden.  No such luck as yet!

MagicCat

Thanks for the oatbar recipe, will give that a go too - I forsee a busy weekend of baking!
That's good news about your possible work - it sounds great to have something that fits around childcare even if it's not the most interesting work.
I don't have a diary at the moment - keep thinking about starting one to really make me focus on budgeting properly.

Bluegreen143

Really nice day today, if very stormy. My parents, sister and her OH all came for a wet social distancing garden visit today. We have a seating area you can pull a roof over luckily but it was still pretty wild. Lovely to see them though.

Need to transfer my sister £39 as she sorted out my stepdad’s birthday present and asked me if I wanted to just chip in half instead of getting my own as she had overspent. It’s meant I’ve not cut back on the cost as I would have tried to, but it was great to not have to worry about it and just have it done for me. I have money in the presents pot anyway.

Meals today:

B - banana, strawberry & kale milkshakes with some toasted sourdough (Red had a lie in so skipped breakfast)
L - ham & sweetcorn pasta salad with carrot/pepper/cucumber sticks 
S - my mum brought some HM muffins then the kids also requested porridge for their snack after our very wet walk. In retrospect not a good idea as it was getting a bit late by then and even though I only made a small bowl each they didn’t eat their dinner 🙄
D - pan fried halloumi, Mediterranean veg & tomato sauce, wholegrain couscous

Have started using YNAB for budgeting again as it worked so well for me a few years ago when we were saving for our wedding. I’ve just never managed to get back into keeping it up to date since having the kids. Hopefully I can make it a habit this time.

Bluegreen143

One teeny-weeny spend of 99p to report... I saw that the kindle version of Feed Your Family for £20 was only 99p and I can’t resist a frugal cookbook 🤦‍♀️ I do prefer cookbooks to be actual paper books as love flicking through them but as I can’t get it out the library for now until they reopen (and don’t want to spend £9 on the paper copy) 99p for the kindle version seemed OK. I think if I read it on my phone instead of my kindle you still get colour pictures etc.

Child benefit has come in as my bank (Monzo) alerts you when you are getting paid and asks if you want it a working day early so I clicked yes. Have allocated towards starting to pay next month’s bills etc on YNAB. Once he have been paid Red’s salary (Tuesday), assuming I still have cash in my account from June, I will pay £40 off my credit card. This is my incentive not to spend anything more 💪🏼

[Deleted User]

Is your kindle connected to the internet? There is a programme called Borrow Box which is accessed through the library. You can borrow books for 3 weeks, thought it might be useful for the children, you have time to read a book in stages and you can also borrow adult books. Sometimes they are available straight away, sometimes you have to reserve them and read them as they come in. We are both big readers, we live in a village and the library van comes once a month, we have relied heavily on Borrow Box whilst we have been in lock down, We borrow up to 10 books each from the van each month, so being without that, it has been a life saver being able to download books as well. We both have tablets and read them on that.

Bluegreen143

Deleted_User said:

Is your kindle connected to the internet? There is a programme called Borrow Box which is accessed through the library. You can borrow books for 3 weeks, thought it might be useful for the children, you have time to read a book in stages and you can also borrow adult books. Sometimes they are available straight away, sometimes you have to reserve them and read them as they come in. We are both big readers, we live in a village and the library van comes once a month, we have relied heavily on Borrow Box whilst we have been in lock down, We borrow up to 10 books each from the van each month, so being without that, it has been a life saver being able to download books as well. We both have tablets and read them on that.

Thank you! Our library uses Libby which doesn’t work on a kindle, I read them on my phone which is OK but obviously a small screen - I will look into BorrowBox and see if the library do it! Never thought of kindle books for the children, I try to minimise TV for them to once a day and they don’t yet get to play games etc so they aren’t yet very familiar with screens but I’ll look into it! They still mainly use picture books which are better as a paper book but my 4.5 is starting to get into me reading chapter books to him which of course I could do on my kindle/the library app - I hadn’t even thought of that! I do really love paper books but ebooks can be handy too. I didn’t think I’d ever use a kindle but my mum gave me her old one and I actually use it a lot now.

MagicCat

Let us know if the cookbook is any good, 99p sounds a bargain!
I use the Kindle app on my phone and find the pictures do appear for cookbooks, it works quite well though the screen is small.

I'd second borrow box, our library uses it too although I think different areas use different systems, ours has borrowbox for audio books and has lots of kids options which are all free. Also I don't know if you've tried Cebeebies radio but you can get the programs on the BBC sounds app which are a nice alternative to audio books, they have some Andy adventures which my DS loves.

I've started a diary too to keep me on track, fingers crossed!

Bluegreen143

Nice day today. Red let me have a lie in (Sunday is my day and Saturday is his!) though I did get up with Bambi who woke at 6 and spend half an hour trying to get her back to sleep in our bed before giving up and waking him. He’s actually meant to do the “night shift” on Saturday nights but she never really wakes at night anymore so I don’t actually mind, I knew I had more chance of getting her back over than him. That’s 3x this week she has woken at 6 which is very disappointing when she usually wakes at 7/7.30am, I know I can’t moan as 6 isn’t that early for a toddler but neither of mine have ever been early risers.

I want to work on some health goals as well as the financial ones. Been having a think and I think they will be:

1. Go to bed by 10.30pm Sun-Thurs (I’m very bad for staying up quite late)

2. Charge my Fitbit and get back to doing 10k daily steps

3. Do yoga every second day (the youtube one I use has all different lengths so no excuse not to do them. On busy days I could do 15 min ones which would be better than nothing!). 

No spends today except the 99p. Meals today:

B - for once I didn’t have as sleeping in, kids had cereal I assume (as Red isn’t terribly inventive with breakfast 😅) and he will have had bacon or eggs no doubt.

L - made scrambled eggs for the kids with HM bread and some cut up cucumber and red pepper. I had some of it but also made a big portion of garlicky mushrooms and spinach with herbs from the garden in to have with mine, it was gorgeous.

S - nectarine muffins from the freezer and HM ice lollies for the kids. I’ve been awful today and been binge eating HM brownies as snacks instead of anything healthy, that’s the problem with enjoying baking... I actually made myself feel sick earlier, like a child!

D - instant pot roast beef, Yorkshire’s, roast new potatoes, carrots, sweetcorn, gravy. Meant to do kale as need to use it up but ran out of time at the end of dinner.

We need bin bags and milk tomorrow now I’ve cancelled the milkman so hopefully Red doesn’t go off list when he goes to the shops.

missymoo81

Hi Bluegreen! You’ve been so good at posting on my diary I thought I’d pop in and say hello! I love your diary already, I’ve just read it from the start. Love all of your cake ideas. I’m wondering if I can make peach muffins as have tinned peaches! Keep up the amazing work.

Mumoffourkids

I know what you mean about children suddenly starting to wake up early. None of mine are early risers and it does make a difference to your sleep. I feel your pain with your youngest suddenly starting to wake at 6am. I know it’s not early but it’s earlier than you are used to. My youngest is almost four and regularly sleeps in until 10 am if I let her. I have to wake her up to go to nursery four days a week and the majority of the time, she is still half asleep when she gets there!

I have screenshotted your muffins recipe and will be making some this week. I have made banana muffins before which are lovely but going to try other fruits this week.