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

Spendless

Mine were older but when I first went back to daytime working I had a school hours job. I loved it. I could see the kids off to school which was round the corner and then I was home (just!) before they got back in. I did find that tiring having little 'come-down' time from arriving home to kids being back, especially when DS in yr6 took to inviting a friend back every day (even more so when I became suspicious that this was because friend's Mum was at work herself and was looking for somewhere for her child to go to for half an hour after school) but it terms of kids not really knowing I worked and only paying for childcare in hols when our own annual leave didn't stretch far enough, it was fab. Think I'd still be there to this day, if they hadn't lost their contract and closed down. 

Bluegreen143

That sounds ideal @Spendless! Though a friend home every day certainly sounds a bit much. It’s only a 12m fixed term contract at the moment as they have a hiring freeze but my manager is hopefully it’ll turn into a permanent post as they have been understaffed for a while. Hopefully I’d be able to keep similar hours or even if it was 5 days working 9-3 from home that would be ok (I’d prefer to keep the Friday off until Bambi goes to school though so I can spend that day taking her on outings etc and getting time just with her which she has sorely lacked til now).

Been reading the YNAB book which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed! I wasn’t sure if it would be useful as I’ve been using YNAB for years but actually it was. Even if you don’t want to use the YNAB software its more about the principles behind it and you can apply those to using your own spreadsheet, another app or paper budgeting - though it’s much easier to use YNAB itself in my opinion. It has useful chapters on budgeting as a couple and teaching budgeting to children too. Would recommend especially for those who want to try YNAB, are new to it or are finding that other budgeting methods aren’t working well.

Sarahwithlove

Ooo didn't know there was a book. I might have to look. Love my YNAB there's so many resources on there as well. 

Bluegreen143

Just booked a Scottish holiday for the end of June/start of July. Gorgeous wee lodge type self catering place right by the water at a Loch and just one neighbour nearby. We only realised after booking it’s billed as a “digital detox” holiday as there’s no WiFi, TV signal (there is a DVD player and DVD library there) and mobile signal may be patchy or unavailable. I don’t know if we’d have been brave enough to book this on purpose as we are pretty bad for being on our phones too much but actually we both agree it’s probably exactly what we need! And there’s a pub/restaurant 5 mins drive away and 10 minutes away a wee town and holiday park so there are things to do, but mainly I expect we will be paddling in the loch or cosied up at the log fire the whole time 😍 very excited and hoping that we are enough out of lockdown by then to be able to actually go 😬

Bluegreen143

Re finances, it’s £800 for the week payable by May & I paid £100 deposit today... five paydays to go til the holiday so will need to work out a proper budget including spending money and split it 5 ways for saving up.

joedenise

That's brilliant.  Hope we're out of lockdown by then so that you can go.  If you save £200 from each payday that'll give you £1000 which will pay off the holiday and give you about £300 spending money which would probably be enough for the week's spending money, particularly if you start now with buying food to take with you like tins of beans, tomatoes etc.  We self cater for most of our holidays and I usually also take a few home cooked and frozen ready meals, things like curry, shepherds pie etc.

It's good to have something to look forward to, particularly at the moment!

Bluegreen143

@joedenise funnily enough I literally just said to Red “if we save £200 a month I think that will cut it” 😅 I can add that week’s grocery money into it as well given we won’t need to get a shop at home going away for a week. 

We’ve hardly ever gone away as a family - since having Bambi we’ve had one week away in Aviemore with my extended family in 2019 (which my mum paid most of so we could go), and twice we took Monkey away in Scotland for 2/3 night stays before we had Bambi. We were meant to be going to Portugal for a week last May as basically our first proper family holiday but it obviously got cancelled due to Covid and we frittered the money on ordering stuff off Amazon and takeaways during lockdown mainly (it was before starting this diary!!). Oh and because of furlough pay and not knowing to claim UC. So we are really excited to all get away together for a week (hopefully anyway!). 

I am kind of hoping for a Portugal holiday next year as that was where I always went as a child and it has such fond memories for me, it’s lovely to get some sun too. But we are also really really keen to start properly exploring Scotland and in future years would love to visit some of the islands etc, especially with the kids (and me) learning Gaelic it would be good to visit places where it’s still spoken in the community.

Spendless

That's lovely and your kids so young, they'll absolutely love it. I daren't be that optimistic and book anything for us. Daughter has a hol abroad planned with boyfriend, but they booked that last summer when things were looking different. 

MagicCat

Hi @Bluegreen143 just catching up on everything, it all sounds great! Congratulations on starting your new job, so glad it's going well.  I just wanted to say, my mum was looking after my youngest but has been shielding since last year so obviously had to stop, we had the same problems as you looking for childminders and eventually had to find a nursery place - I had wanted a childminder if possible for the smaller, homey atmosphere while she was so little, but nursery has turned out to work really well, she loves it and I'm sure Bambi will too. Great news about the school place too!

Bluegreen143

@MagicCat thank you for sharing - sounds like you had similar reasons for wanting a childminder as I did and I’m so pleased to hear nursery has turned out great instead. I really loved our childminder before but then Monkey was just 1 when he started - Bambi was 2 in December so I guess there is a big difference there and she is much more ready for a group environment than he was anyway I think, she is much more independent and sociable than he was at this age.