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

joedenise

My DH often makes a sandwich when I give him omelette for breakfast, LOL!  I'm quite happy to eat it with a knife and fork (particularly as I try not to eat too much bread and it's always wholemeal for me too).

Bluegreen143

Another nice sunny day here today!

Spends 
Tesco £12.01
- kids face masks x3 £3.50 (as Monkey has just turned 5 he needs to wear these before and I’d forgotten I was going to make him some until I was just outside Tesco, so I just bought a pack)
- Food (bread, YS rolls x2, filo pastry x2) £5.71
- Household (Food bags) x2 £2.80

Goals & habits 
- did some Gaelic on the duolingo app
- got the kids outside (mainly Monkey). Red and I spent maybe an hour and a half working in the garden, the kids came in and out a lot during this time. And then I took Monkey for a walk to Tesco and back (about 45 minutes of walking). So I’m going to say another 1.5 hours of our target met.
- No snacking/junk today 
- Did some knitting
- Hoping to make this my first night of getting to bed before 11, I did make it at 11.15 last night which is an improvement.

Meals 
B - blueberry & banana overnight oats, kids had an apple too

L - kids had chicken roll sandwiches, grapes, satsuma, cucumber. I had half a chicken roll sandwich as had my breakfast very late.

S - kids had a plate with raw carrot/mangetout/kiwi, a bit of their Christmas chocolate each and slices of cheese. I had the remaining leftover beef pie to use it up.

D - made a really nice new recipe. Korean style stir fry - beef mince, lots of veg, a soy/brown sugar sauce and rice to serve. Less than enthusiastic reactions from the kids but Red and I loved it. We are both REALLY appreciating meals right now due to the dieting making us extra hungry 😆

Looking back, not terribly healthy in the middle of the day though I didn’t eat a lot. More snacking on fruit/veg tomorrow! I’ve cut up a box of salad bits for the fridge and hard boiled some eggs so that will help keep food easy tomorrow (sadly I don’t like hard boiled eggs but Red and the kids do).

Bluegreen143

Update from yesterday:

Spends 
Red spent £5 on chicken bedding & bird seed 

Meals 
B - weetabix and banana

L - “build your own” rolls - big wholemeal rolls with a board of different chopped up ingredients for the kids to choose from - a huge success! And fruit too

S - kids had a plate of fruit & salad veg and hard boiled eggs (+ milk for Bambi), I made gourmet cheese on toast with goats cheese, Gouda and a grated apple in

D - minestrone soup (made with the leftover beef stew base - was so good!) with bread and then ice cream to finish.

Bluegreen143

Quiet day today. We played at home, got out in the garden and just pottered about.

Spends 
99p on Amazon on an ebook which was on offer for today (A Year of Living Simply). Naughty but it looks really good.

£12.99 also on Amazon on four pairs of thick fleece lined mittens for Bambi as Tesco has sold out of the mittens in her size. These were pricier but to be fair look much warmer than the Tesco ones.

Goals & habits 
- got the kids outdoors for 45 mins today 
- no unhealthy snacking
- did a good bit of knitting 
- read some of my new kindle book
- haven’t yet done any kind of workout and am behind in Gaelic learning - must remedy tomorrow!

Meals
B - blueberry & banana milkshakes 

L - goats cheese, broccoli and pea pasta

S - kids had a fruit/veg plate, cheese and oatcakes; I had the last of the chicken roll rolled up into little tubes filled with cream cheese plus grapes & carrots 

D - build your own salads to start; beef/sweet potato/brown rice samosas, daal, mini naans (YS), raita, mango chutney. This was a new recipe (well the samosas were) and they were really good! From Jamie’s Superfoods cookbook.

Bluegreen143

Meant to say, UC will be £126 this month so split with Red that means £63 extra for the emergency fund.

Sarahwithlove

Do you not put the UC into the family pot rather than splitting it between the two of you? 

Bluegreen143

@Sarahwithlove it depends. If Red is furlough the whole month we need the UC to cover bills etc so yes I’d take all of it, that’s what I did when we first claimed. It fluctuates each month depending on how much he works v being furloughed. If he worked full time + on call I think we would stop being eligible tbh, we had had never claimed before August so it’s a bit new to us (I didn’t even know we were eligible til then after he got furloughed in March). 

Anyway this month (and last as well) his salary has been enough to cover the bills, usual spending budget and savings targets so the UC was just an extra bit on top. We agreed we just would split it - though I’m putting my half in the emergency fund (through choice, Red would be perfectly happy for me to spend it on me but nothing I could buy myself would match my satisfaction at saving tbh!). 

When I say it’s Red’s spending pot I don’t mean he spends it all on himself, as well as his usual junk food/beer he buys wood and tools for doing house & garden projects for example. Tonight he bought Monkey a bike off gumtree (£20, I’ve taught him well about bargains!) out of his own money. He bought me a phone charger when he got paid as I’d been moaning my downstairs one had broken and he knows I’d never bother to replace it 😄. It’s just important to him that he doesn’t need to account to me for and feels he has control over. And works better for me - I used to lump all our money together and keep track of every penny in YNAB but it just led to bickering as I demanded he account for every penny spent and pretty much treated him like a child. Now I send him his money and just ask that he doesn’t go into his overdraft each month and otherwise don’t track.

Sarahwithlove

That's good I'm glad it's working out for you. Hopefully he might soon get into the saving mindset. If not at least he is doing some work around house for you with it rather than it just being wasted 👍

Bluegreen143

@Sarahwithlove me too 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼 

First veg box after 2 weeks off, the kids get so excited when it gets delivered!



Leeks x2
Red onion x2
Onion x2
Butternut squash
Potatoes x4
Big carrots x2
Big tomatoes x4
Pears x4
Apples x4
Satsumas x4
Bananas x4
Lemon
Garlic 

Thinking of switching back to getting a veg only box + a fruit only box (right now I get one mixed box). It’s an extra £5 a week but you get masses of extra fruit for that and I think we’d get through it now that we’re all on healthy eating kicks and Monkey is off nursery.

joedenise

Do you need to buy extra fruit at the SM with buying the mixed box?  If so then it's probably worth having the 2 separate boxes rather than the one mixed box.