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

Bluegreen143

More decluttering here today, you will all be pleased to hear - I filled an Ikea bag from my wardrobe. My actual in-use wardrobe is already clutter free but last time I sorted it I took the cowardly path of bagging up the unwanted stuff and putting it on the shelves - today I had a quick rummage through the bags to rescue a couple of sentimental things and formal dresses and then the rest finally got donated.

Took the kids to donate the bags at Barnardos. Monkey took his wallet with his pocket money (£3 - he gets £4 but chose to put £1 in his piggy bank he’s saving up in) and found a fire engine (his obsession) for £2.50. Valuable conversations had about value for money, about how buying second hand helps the planet, and about how the money he paid to the charity shop would be used to help other children. 

£4.10 spent - I nipped into Greggs on the way home as Red had complained there was nothing for lunch, so I picked him (and myself) up a couple of pasties. Not done this since before lockdown and I must admit to enjoying my pastie even if it wasn’t a lovely homemade one! 

Bluegreen143

Small spend today - £1 on a puzzle in a charity shop for Monkey’s birthday and £2 on a couple of cakes to go for Bambi and I while we were out for a walk with friends. 

Decluttering going well and the house is looking nice and cosy and neat (I mean obviously there are toys, cushions, clothes etc strewn everywhere all day but in the evening it’s neat!). Hoping to be able to give it all a good scrub before we decorate for Christmas. I must admit that while I like it reasonably tidy and decluttered I’m not a natural with cleaning so there is a lot of dusting and scrubbing needing done... I tend to just do the basics every day/week and tell myself I’ll spring clean every so often but that never seems to come around 😆

Moved some furniture and other stuff around between Monkey and Bambi’s rooms which I think looks much better now. Also sorted out their books and put a bunch into the higher cupboard in Bambi’s room so they are there if wanted but there is a smaller amount actually out in each of their rooms at once and I can rotate them. They are both guilty of pulling all the books out just to make a mess and we have masses (one area I cannot declutter, I have tons too) so it was a big frustration. 

Soup and pudding night tonight - lentil/sweet potato/squash soup with homemade malthouse bread and baked apples. 

Bluegreen143

Can’t believe I’ve not been on since Monday!

Got a Tesco delivery (to last a fortnight with a small top up shop in between) for £98 - around £15 household stuff (cat litter, £5.50!! On vitamins for husband which he has reimbursed me for etc) and £83 on food. Would love to get the shopping under £50 a week again which was quite a while ago now but it’s ending up more like £75 at the moment. Not sure £50 is achievable with the veg box (currently £17 now I’ve cut it back but means I’m topping up some fruit/veg from the supermarket too). Feel like I’m not 100% on top of food waste at the moment either with a bit too much wastage going on of leftovers so will need to double down on that.

Money will be very tight from now til payday. Bills paid, savings allocated and debt paid off, but spent every spare penny more or less except what’s left in the food budget. But then if I can get to payday without extra spends I’ll be starting next month debt free (except student loan and mortgage) and £293 in my emergency fund of my £1k target. 

From next month I’m going to put money into a “short term” fund for things like holidays and car replacement and doing stuff to the house. We will need to sit down together and decide which goals we want to save for first and how much to each so for the moment I’m going to just keep it all in one fund for simplicity then we can split it up later. And everything after that can go into the emergency fund for now. After that I’m toying with the idea of prioritising mortgage overpayment. I guess I should make a mortgage free diary but I’m going to stick here til after Christmas I think 🙂

Bluegreen143

Had a nice, but spendy, couple of days, then unfortunately discovered that one of our chickens has died 😭 we have three girls left now. She was 5 which isn’t super young but not old either and we aren’t sure what’s caused it but the other chickens seem fine so hopefully not some kind of contagious illness.

Took the afternoon off from kids yesterday - left them with Red to nip into some shops nearby mainly to get Christmas presents. A couple of charity shops, an independent knitting shop and a zero waste shop that has opened on the same street as Monkey’s nursery but I’ve not managed to pop into yet. It was so cool! All sorts of beans, grains, nuts, oil, vinegar, cleaning supplies etc loose in bins and you take your own containers and not use plastic packaging. Glasgow has been really lacking in this - I think there’s only one similar but it’s in the south side miles away but none in the west end near me - so I’m delighted that one has opened on my doorstep. It would be too expensive to do all my shopping there but I’ll certainly be picking up bits and bobs when I can 🙂

Took Monkey for a rainy walk this morning with my sister and her boyfriend to a lovely loch walk near hers (she lives just within Glasgow city too so we can still meet her thankfully). I haven’t seen her in person in three months which seems so long! Was lovely to get a good proper chat in. Monkey adores her partner so he was happy playing with him too.

Red had a chat with me to say he’s happy eating veggie food during the week but likes to have meat meals Fri/Sat/Sun so we are going to try out a rough mealplan template as follows:

S - roast dinner/pie
M - soup & pudding night 
T - veggie
W - veggie
T - fish 
F - fakeaway 
S - meat (probably using leftover meat from last weekend’s roast that I’ve frozen)

Hopefully this will make coming up with the weekly meals quicker and easier with less thinking required!

Baileys_Babe

Anything that makes meal planning quicker and easier is welcome.

Wish there was a shop like that near here.

Glad you were able to meet up with your Sister.

I am looking forward to being able to go to charity shops when they reopen after lockdown. Both my children have been complaining as they haven't been in a charity shop since February or any other shop but they are only complaining about charity shops.

Bluegreen143

That’s really cool that they love charity shops so much @Baileys_Babe!

So this week is a mixed bag so far...

Have volunteered in a Covid vaccine study so got my first dose on Monday which was very exciting. Though there’s only a 50% chance I got actual vaccine as half of us get placebos. Now if I get Covid symptoms I get to bypass NHS procedures as have my very own home Covid tests to do instead which they’ve already given me (am bricking it at the thought of having to administer it myself so fingers crossed  I don’t actually have to!). Second dose in three weeks.

A wee bit spendy. A friend of mine wanted to meet up at the tall ship and get lunch in the cafe with our littlest ones so we did. Spent £10 on lunch and £3.50 on parking (the actual ship entry is free). We are headed back into full lockdown here on Friday evening so felt worth it as a last fun thing to do. I’ve overspent by about £25 I think and have taken it from my annual bills savings fun so will try to make that back up before I need it.

Went to Lidl today and overspent a bit there on food too which I haven’t worked out on YNAB yet. Will need to be very good for the rest of the money except ordering Christmas/kids birthday presents (budgeted for separately).

Feeling a bit down about everything the last few days. The weather is rubbish, Bambi hates going for walks in the rain and everything indoors is shutting ☹️ I know it’s necessary but it feels harder this time around - at least in spring we had all that nice weather!

Meals today:

B - cereal & toast, grapes 
L - leftover veg curry with HM sourdough and cheese
S - HM scones and jam, Bambi had milk and fruit too
D - poshed up mac & cheese with bacon, cauliflower and broccoli in

MagicCat

Vaccine trial sounds exciting, well done for taking part.
I totally get what you mean about feeling down, it's wet and miserable her and we can't do any of my usual wet weather things apart from park/puddle walks in rain gear which we're all sick of. It's much harder going than the summer. Hope you're ok, we'll get through it eventually.

Sarahwithlove

Caught up on your diary, well done for paying off the debt that must be a relief. Is your other half still having 250 a mon the spend allowance? It's a crazy amount. Have you thought about giving him a weekly amount instead. AT least then he wouldn't look at his account and think ok still got loads left and buy something for sake of it and you may find he manages to make things last longer if he only has to go a week. I only have £100 personal spends a month for myself and I buy my takeaways from that as well. have you done the government save scheme yet? If still getting UC it's worth doing it. 

Bluegreen143

Lovely to hear from you @MagicCat! So sorry you are finding it tough too - I expect most people are, to one degree or another.

Had a lovely two hour walk along the river all by myself today! Felt rather guilty at not taking the children, as they didn’t get a walk today. But Red offered for me to go on my own and I couldn’t resist the chance. Monkey would have been fine and really enjoyed it but Bambi is a nightmare on walks - won’t go in the pushchair, walks off then wants carried, cries at full volume once she gets cold or bored of walking (even though I wrap her up warm she will insist on taking gloves off etc).

Need to get YNAB totals posted on here. Not the best month with a small amount of overspend but still much better than before this diary. Think I feel a bit in limbo now I’ve paid off my MIL debt so need to get really motivated by my emergency fund goal.

Sarahwithlove

I found viewing it as a debt helped me. Move the money I to an account that's not easy to access or even premium bonds as they take 2 to 3 days to appear in your current account.