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

Bluegreen143

Aw thank you @Baileys_Babe! You’re right of course. It’s only now I look back and realise I was struggling more than I realised for the first 15 months post partum. At the time I’d have said I was doing OK but it’s only when you’re in a good place you kind of see the difference I think!

Thought I’d share a pic of my homemade V day card 😆 think I could get into card making albeit I’ll never be a perfectionist with it, I haven’t the patience! But it is much more enjoyable than just going to buy one.

Red has ordered greenhouse panels (£220) which we budgeted from my salary this month, which is a very nice feeling! It’s our frugal fix rather than replace the whole greenhouse as that would have been double, though I would love a real glass one at some point as they look so pretty. The greenhouse was in when we moved in 5.5 years ago and no idea how old it was then so it’s done us well.

Also put £200 into our holiday fund, £575 aside for childcare and most of the rest into the emergency fund bringing this to £342. Aim is to get this to £1,000 then I’d like to start budgeting my salary to the next month on YNAB to create a bit of buffer so I can eventually budget my salary to the following month every time which means we can do the whole month’s budget in one go as Red gets paid the last day. And after all that start on the mortgage OPs. 

Baileys_Babe

That is beautiful, I am sure Red will appreciate it.

Bluegreen143

Dinnertime success today! Made sausage & puy lentil tomatoey stew with carrot/red pepper/celery/red onion in it chopped small (but so you could still see them). Served with mash and broccoli. Good frugal way to make 6 cheap sausages feed all of us too.

Now I knew both children would eat the sausages and that Bambi would also eat the mash, but wasn’t sure if anything else would get eaten. But Monkey tried his obligatory microscopic taste of broccoli and mash then wired into his lentil & sausage stew - ate three full bowlfuls without stopping to pick out the veg!! This is a truly remarkable success 🙌🏼 Bambi ate lots of sausage first, then went back for her mash, then had a good few mouthfuls of lentil/veg bits. So success all round. Think this meal (which I rather invented on the spot) will become a regular. Also thinking I could use it to “bridge” to a tomatoey chicken stew, which he doesn’t currently eat, if I make it exactly the same with the veg/lentils except using chicken instead of sausage.

Baileys_Babe

Congratulations @Bluegreen143 when you have a fussy eater it can make meals so stressful.

Spendless

The stew sounds great. Did you add anything other than what you've listed? I'm always on the lookout to add lentils to something, due to vegetarian daughter who lacks iron.  

Bluegreen143

@spendless it was 6 sausages fried off (you could use veggie sausages of course) then lots of red onion/carrot/peppers/celery all chopped quite fine, gently fried til soft, added two huge cloves of garlic. 1.5 tins of tomatoes, a stock cube and some dried basil in, chopped the sausages into quarters and chucked them in, added a tin of drained puy lentils, let it bubble away til thick. I would have added some red wine if we had any. You could also add different veg depending what you have in, I’d have probably put courgette in if we had any. Obviously you might need to increase quantities a bit depending how many you are cooking for.

Bluegreen143

Hello all! 

I’ve been loving playing with YNAB ever since I read the book so that’s what I’ve been doing since I last posted 😂

Red’s sister had a windfall and sent him £150, he kept £50 and sent me £100 so I put it all in the emergency fund which is at £400 now 🎉 in fact I could share current category balances:

FIXED BILLS
All paid except phone which is £45, we have this month’s childcare all ready in the tax free childcare account too

FLEXIBLE SPENDING (other categories are empty and this doesn’t include Red’s money for his spends)
Food - £149
Household supplies - £9
Petrol - £15
Kids - £12
Me - £23

FUTURE (sinking funds) (there are more but with no cash in at the moment!)
Gifts - £79
Car bills/repair - £259
Annual subscriptions - £10

GOALS (there is also a conservatory fund and a long wish list which we will fund one at a time!)
Emergencies - £400
Holiday - £200

Kind of redone my categories again after reading the book and watching lots of YouTube videos as I think I was trying to go too simple. One thing I’m trying is splitting the food budget into weekly amounts in YNAB so I’m more aware if we are overspending. We’ve decided to take a break from the veg box for now too as it’s not been amazing the last few weeks so it’ll be interesting to see if that helps us stay in budget better or not.

joedenise

This time of year is pretty bad for veg boxes @Bluegreen143; I had a few about this time last year and they definitely weren't good value.  Probably worth trying to get one of the Lidl £1.50 boxes to replace it but of course it's very hit and miss whether you can get them and also what's in them but it certainly makes the food budget go further when you can get them!  I've only managed to get one I think 3 times.  I'm going to try and get one when I go shopping tomorrow otherwise it'll mean a stock up of other fruit and veg as don't have much left at the moment.

Even if you can't get one of the Lidl boxes it'll still be cheaper for your fruit and veg than the delivered veg box and of course you can choose what fruit and veg to buy.  You now have a better idea of what your kids will eat and you can still try and introduce new ones from time to time.

Bluegreen143

Agree @joedenise. £22 for what is mainly a bunch of apples, oranges, onions, carrots, potatoes and cabbage just is too much. I might sign up again in the summer as it was really good then. The kids always get excited about the box arriving and would dig in and choose carrots, tomatoes or fruit to eat right away which I liked to see but from next week they will be at nursery when it’s delivered anyway. Hopefully we can start in the garden soon and get them excited about growing a few things.

Bluegreen143

Got out for a walk after work with the kids and a friend/her kids today which was nice! Realised I’ve hardly been out much since the start of Jan and not met a friend for a walk for three weeks... just getting used to being a bit busier I suppose.

Car is going for its MOT so keep your fingers crossed for me that it doesn’t need much work. It’s about 12 years old and it passed the last MOT so I feel we are due a big bill 😬 I want it to last another year (actually I want it to last at least 2 but Red is keen to change it next year, we’ll see what happens).

Also need to pay a £60 bill for my Gaelic course which annoyingly I hadn’t budgeted for. I did know about it, but had forgotten as they didn’t want us to pay at the start in October in case the online format didn’t suit. Now they’ve said we can pay and it’s near the end of the course so I’ll need to pay for the level 2 course soon 😆 I’ll need to take this from my emergency fund but will put it back when Red gets paid. The only other categories with enough are Gifts, which I try never to steal from otherwise it doesn’t build up for Christmas, and Car which I can’t take from in case it’s needed for the MOT. Never mind, at least the money is there even if a bit of shuffling is needed.