A new royal start

MagicCat

Hoping for a better week for you next week. 

QueenJess

Another week gone. It was the work xmas party on Thursday so nothing done that day and now it’s winding down, so I am doing as little as possible. I finish Tuesday to coincide with the last day of school for DS.

Still struggling this week, but have to get on with it. Just a bit irritated that I have to sort out/fix everything for everyone; kids, DH, my family, work. Who is looking after me? (Answer no one and I am rubbish at doing it too).

No heating still and it’s miserable. Trapped in one room in the day and can’t do much in the house in terms of sorting things out/tidying as it generally involves going between different rooms and it’s too cold. However, the suspected broken part has arrived and someone is coming to fit it this afternoon. So hopefully we will be able to use the rest of the house again.

Felt like a long week and so made the really expensive lamb from Waitrose last night that was a general xmas holiday treat. It was so good 😋 Made it with roasted potatoes and vegetables and have leftover lamb for some tasty sandwiches for lunch today. Also had a lovely glass of wine. Didn’t get much work done yesterday. I am having a washing crisis because I’ve been trying not to do any whilst the heating was broken. Now I have to do it and dry most things in the room we are in. So yesterday I did two loads and still got another 1-2 loads to do today. I also made 2 batches of shortbread for my dad packaged up in an old M&S shortbread tin and wrapped up presents for my mum. My sister is coming today to play with the kids and will take the presents as she will be with them for Xmas. I also changed all the beds in the freezing rooms, did a load of tidying and prepped all the dinner before picking up the kids.

Won a couple of free things from our local buy nothing site this week. Got some play pots and pans earlier in the week that DD absolutely loves. Last night (whilst dinner was on and doing its own thing), I picked up two books for DD that she already loves and a pile of Xmas cards (looks like they sent what they wanted and just got rid of the rest!) that’ll be useful for DS as he writes loads for his class. As I was driving right past the front of Co-op, I popped in to get cheese and spent £3 on ys goodies. I got a loaf of bread, 6 apples, 2 massive yogurts for the kids and 2 slices of lemon cheesecake. We had the cheesecake last night and it was amazing! Well worth 70p; I can’t believe the full price was £3.50! Who’s spending that on two slices of cheesecake?

I’ve decided it’s too close to Xmas now and so no food shopping will be done. I’ll just pop out for the odd thing if we run low. The freezer is already 1/3 empty, but without even thinking about it I can think of 8 meals in there. I know they’ll be enough in there to feed us for a couple of weeks. I will have to do a major shop come January as we’ll be very low. At least if I see any ys bargains I can grab them as I have space!

Dinner tonight will be veggie sausages, mash and veg. The kids will eat up some yogurts and the adults will have some more chocolate brownies from the freezer.

Tomorrow we are video calling my parents in the morning, then in the afternoon we’ll go on the local Xmas lights trail. There’s some very bright houses out there!

Trying not to spend too much money at the moment. I did have to buy a windscreen scraper yesterday though as DH broke mine so that I now get a lovely stripe pattern on the windscreen, but it takes forever to fill in the stripes 🙄. Better go as I want to read my book whilst DS is in gym and get a tiny bit of relaxing time.

QueenJess

I'm already off work and DS finished yesterday.  DD has got until the end of the week and then I'll have to feed everyone 3x a day when DD refuses to eat anything but hot food for lunch and dinner.  I've been trying to prepare and yesterday made 2 portions of cottage pie (now in the freezer).  I also melted some chocolate shapes for DS and DH's xmas pressies and made myself my annual candied peel dipped in dark chocolate... yum!  Today I am making two portions of fish pie for the freezer and a fig and apple crumble to use the last of the stewed fruit in the freezer.  Given that I am cooking most the day, I'll get DH to make fish and chips for dinner.

I think I generally have enough food round the house, although DH will pick me up more cheese, some frozen veg and another loaf of bread on Friday.

I've been looking at the budget this morning and it is terrifying.  Our energy fix comes to an end at the end of this month and their predictions are definitely scary.  Given that we also expect to cut our salaries next year, I really think we are going to have to cut back everywhere.  The trouble is the nursery fees are just so high and although taking DD out for a day or two reduces the price, it barely makes a dent.  I can't quite make the figures add up, but we are going to have to make them work.  I did have to estimate the energy and things like council tax increases, so they might be less than my worst case scenario.  I have calculated my new take home salary if I drop to 3 days a week and am going to pretend that's all I have from Jan to start practicing.

I've been trying to get a balance between tracking numbers and not spending my life doing admin.  Therefore, I have stopped tracking my individual outgoings since they only consist of personal gifts (not many a year), car expenses, dentist/opticians and then any personal spends like clothes etc.  Seeing as I barely buy anything not needed and have pretty much no subscriptions, I am not worried about frittering this money away.  Instead I've kept things simple and aim to keep £X in my current account to cover everything.  Anything else gets swept into savings.

I still keep a very close eye on the joint account as this is where all the real spend is happening.  I do budget for the year and use it to estimate the amount we need to each pay into the joint account (based on the split of how much we each earn).  The expenditure in here needs to come down, but it's difficult to know where since the vast majority of the expenses are required and not changeable (i.e. mortgage and childcare).  These two alone are way more than 50% of my spend.  I can't assume the mortgage payment will decrease when I re-fix anymore (due to overpayments) because the interest rates have shot up and the childcare I will just have to wait out another couple of years.  I am going to keep the joint account payments the same for now, but will see how little I can use of it each month in the hope I can get this amount down.  The more I can save, the more we can overpay the mortgage and hopefully get those monthly payments back down again.  2023 overpayments are already saved up, so we will start to save up for early 2024 (when the mortgage fix comes to an end).  I've already opened a regular saver with the intention that this money can go towards overpayments.

It's going to be hard to change things overnight, but I'm sure I can find ways to cut back/spend less and be a bit more savvy with money over time.  It's not helped with things like DS coming home with a hole in his school trousers I'm going to have a go at sewing it up as it is a very small hole and I don't want to have to buy more trousers yet.  I did the same with his PE jogging bottoms and you can't tell.

The heating is now fixed (was fixed on Sat)... yippee!  Weirdly I got used to the cold (although it was playing havoc with my skin and breathing post having a cough), although I'm relieved we can actually use the whole house again.  I'm finding it a bit hot though in comparison, so everyday I turn the heating down just a little bit until we find the right level.

Money saving activities for today:

• Batch cook a huge fish pie with the crumble at the same time
• Put the homemade melted chocolate shapes into a bag for DH/DS pressies
• Cheap lunch based on things to use up (sandwiches for DS, egg and tomato bake thing for DH and I).  Loads of fruit and yogurt for snacks.
• Plug the Tapo plug into the TV to see how much power it is using
• Turn off all the lights that DH leaves on everywhere (*sigh*)
• Sew up clothes (DS school trousers, home trousers, my jeans)
• Send back some warm trousers that didn't fit

DS's party organisation is ongoing.  Venue booked, entertainment booked and paid for, invitations sent out.  I've found a place locally to hire decorations and tableware that seems very reasonable (I don't want any waste).  Just need to fill out the form to get that booked.  Then it's party bags to order (already found some with no plastic) and then the food/cake to think about.

badmemory

Sorry but I had to laugh at your DSs trouser holes.  I still remember my DS going into school the first day after the easter hols in brand new trousers & falling over & tearing a hole & I do mean a hole in them before he even got in the door. That was over 30 years ago, some things you just never forget.  As for scuffed toes on his shoes!

themadvix

You used to be able to get iron on repair patches specifically for school trousers - I don't know if you still can, but they match the fabric, so fairly quick and easy to use.

Can you set overpayments to reduce the monthly cost rather than the term for now? It would then help with your wage reductions.

QueenJess

Thanks both. @badmemory it’s the constant random marks on the white school tops that really get me. I spend my life trying to get those out. DS’s home trousers have more hole than knee, but I have some spare fabric to do a patch up on and it’ll do.

@themadvix thanks, I didn’t know you could get ones that matched. Fortunately this one is a teeny tiny hole, so I think I can just sew it up. I’m sure I’ll be needing some of that in the future though! All my overpayments reduce the monthly payment and not the term, but it only comes into effect once each fix ends. Usually it means the monthly payment comes down every 2 years, but I think the interest rate increase next time will more than offset it 😬. I prefer the flexibility of a reducing amount. If the mortgage ever gets really small I can just pay it all off so the term doesn’t really mean anything to me.

QueenJess

Ugh. So the tiny hole in one knee turns out in the light to be a larger hole in both knees 🤦‍♀️. I’m in a dilemma of whether to bother trying to get patches for them or buying new ones. They’ve lasted 4 terms at least and I’m concerned that even if I patch them behind, he may destroy them quite quickly. However, I’m not sure when he might go into the next size.  Ugh kids… with that and DD thinking she is a walking canvas, I have clothes being destroyed daily here! At least we give DD the hand me downs and give her the worst ones for nursery so I’m less bothered about those.

At least the cooking is complete, although i am making and decorating fairy cakes tomorrow with DS. Just need to tidy up the tip of a house before Sunday now 😬. I think everything else is pretty much done.

QueenJess

Just realised DS will live in shorts at school as soon as I let him, so I will patch them up and they will hopefully last the rest of the school year that way! Probably only a term left anyway. 

badmemory

Then you can cut the bottom of the legs off if the situation gets a bit dire, although they do not hang quite right but sometimes needs must.

QueenJess

badmemory said:

Then you can cut the bottom of the legs off if the situation gets a bit dire, although they do not hang quite right but sometimes needs must.

He does still have shorts the same size from last year.  They should be fine as the waistband is adjustable.  I think it should all work.  Hopefully no purchases needed until next school year (fingers crossed).  My mum also volunteered to look at their other clothing needs and I gave her a list of the next size up requirements for both of them.  Hopefully I need to buy nothing or almost nothing in 2023, which will really help!