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

missymoo81

Hey BlueGreen loving your diary! Seeing your food and shopping budget is super inspiring. It’s so hard to budget food isn’t it?! I’m trying to get mine down to £66.

MagicCat

I love all the baking that everyone is doing, thanks for the tip about using oil in the muffins @mumtoomany, butter is so expensive now.

That was a bargain on the hand towels! We use cloth nappies too, it's definitely a saving even with the extra washing. I think I need to look into nappy wraps with poppers though as M has been undoing the velcro on hers    - not a problem I had with S as he was too lazy to try to undress.

Hope you all have a good day 

Bluegreen143

missymoo81 said:

Hey BlueGreen loving your diary! Seeing your food and shopping budget is super inspiring. It’s so hard to budget food isn’t it?! I’m trying to get mine down to £66.

Thanks @missymoo81! Good luck with your food budget. Remember we get a fruit & veg box too so that’s over £70 I think this week all in. Hoping to get mine down more too. 

Some surprising news here this morning - Red will definitely not be going back to work in July but they hope he will be back start of August instead. From a budget point of view it’s going to be quite tight as our mortgage payment holiday is coming to an end. But I have to say we are both secretly delighted. Getting this kind of extended time off when you have little ones is the sort of thing most dads previously would have only been able to dream off and he’s really enjoyed getting all the little projects done at home too. By the time he goes back Monkey will nearly be back at nursery as the schools are reopening 11 Aug here in Scotland. So it really will feel like life all going back to normal in one go I guess. The children will certainly miss Red being at home every day when he does get unfurloughed, they have gotten so used to it.

Mealplan 

Roast chicken
Chicken burritos
Chicken stew
Veg & chickpea curry
Bacon & broccoli quiche
Chicken satay & fried rice 
Veg & bean pasta

Think we will have the pasta tonight with a salad from the garden.

Bluegreen143

Meals today:

B - chocolate banana overnight oats & strawberries/pear

L - lentil & veg soup with HM sourdough, slices of cheese and blueberries/satsuma 

S - chocolate courgette cake (from freezer) with fruit and red peppers 

D - made a lovely quite summery pasta sauce with lots of veg in (aubergine, courgette, fresh tomato, red pepper, broad beans from the garden) and some lo cooked chicken I found in the freezer. Served with garlic bread (made with a part baked baguette so semi HM 😅) and salad from the garden.

Took the kids to meet friends this morning, in a lovely country park we go to quite a lot, they were all climbing trees and stamping in mud which I love to see 😆

I’ve been doing better at getting to bed a bit earlier and also started a 30 day YouTube yoga challenge, today was day 4. The videos so far have been 20-30 minutes long so doable. I’d love to sort out my diet/snacking too but I’m going to really focus on getting enough sleep and exercise (yoga and walking - must charge my Fitbit!) for a few weeks and not stress too much about what I’m eating. I find when I’m well rested I eat better anyway and exercising makes me more motivated to eat healthily. Plus better to make only a couple of changes at a time and actually stick to them.

Did the universal credit application today and sent off the info I’d been asked for to cancel off that old life insurance policy. 

missymoo81

Going to the park sounds lovely, and I love the sound of your overnight oats, do you have a recipe?

MagicCat

Glad it's good news for you that Red isn't back at work until August - even if it makes things a bit tight I think you're right that the extra family time is worth it. My DH is working from home, but no commute means he's here for breakfasts and bedtimes and it's been so nice.

Bluegreen143

missymoo81 said:

Going to the park sounds lovely, and I love the sound of your overnight oats, do you have a recipe?

@missymoo81 overnight oats are as below (this makes enough for the kids & I to share but they are younger than your kids so you might need to play with quantities):

OVERNIGHT OATS

1 cup oats
1 cup milk
1/2 cup plain/Greek yoghurt 

Banana, mashed 

Toppings
Chocolate peanut butter - 1-2tbsp cocoa powder + 1tbsp peanut butter

Berry - a good handful of frozen berries (strawberries, blueberries or raspberries are all really good)

Mango - a good handful of frozen mango 

Apple - a small apple grated, plus a good sprinkle of cinnamon 

Mix all the ingredients together in a tub and leave covered in the fridge overnight. In the morning, whizz up a bit with a hand blender - I prefer the texture of the oats like this but it also blends in the fruit which is really nice 🙂

Today was great, Red entertained Monkey during Bambi’s nap and then took the kids to visit his mum for the afternoon. I got the whole house tidied and cleaned from top to toe which was amazing! No spends today. Meals were:

B - cereal & fruit

L - scrambled egg with cheese, tomato & ham in, toast, cucumber and fruit 

S - Kids had their snack at MILs 

D - Made the kids fish fingers/potato waffles/veg and then Red cooked us date night dinner later - chicken satay, veg, fried rice, salt & chilli chips. Was a lovely treat. We almost always eat as a family with the kids but it is nice to have time just the two of us occasionally 🙂

Bluegreen143

Paid off the Halifax credit card which was £221.35 - yay! So just the £1,250 we owe MIL. At the same time as paying this off monthly my initial goal is to build an emergency fund - aiming for £500 by the end of the year (barring us having to use it for an emergency!).

A little update of where our YNAB budget is - YNAB makes it so easy to move money between categories so the budget does change a lot. This is what’s left in each pot (not including Red’s budget as he has his own bank account for that & his phone bill):

JULY BUDGET

Bills all on track & £150 in Annual Bills savings account 

Discretionary
Food £244.83 

Household £15.67

Petrol & parking £50

Fun £4.99 but Red owes me £21 as I got him beer in the grocery shop 

Home & garden £41.51

Clothes £19 but I owe Red for wellies he bought Monkey - think they were £12-15

My spends £19.71

Savings & debt balances 

MIL £50 to pay this month which will mean we owe £1,200

EF £142.51

Christmas & birthdays - £525

MagicCat

  Good news on paying off Halifax! Also such a nice feeling to get the house all clean and tidy (for a few minutes until the kids get to it at least!)

I've tried YNAB on a free trial last year but couldn't get my head round it, I know lots of people on here find it a game changer though so may have another look.

Enjoy your weekend!

joedenise

It's worth looking at the YNAB website for the online classes, or You Tube videos.  The classes can help make things much clearer.  It was what I did way back in, I think, 2014 when I originally bought YNAB4 (now known as Classic).  I haven't looked at the web based version as the Classic is still working for me.  If however it ever gives up the ghost then I'll definitely have a look at the new version.  I even bought a new to me refurbished Dell laptop so that I could continue to use it - was well worth the £99 I paid for it so that I could continue to use it.