Mumof3.12kindebt .. dfw again ! - 15 dec 2020

mumtoomany

Well if you want some snow,we can send some. Now snowed in! managed to get 100yds down the road, to take DD3 to work. Turned round and came back. Plenty of food in, might only need milk, but will walk to petrol station for that if needed. Enforced frugality now. Mumtoomany

mumof3.12kindebt

Bluegreen143 said:

Well done on such a big payment! Bet it feels good to start off the new year (well we are nearly there!) with such a big chunk off 🙂

Thankyou blue green. It does feel good. But I'm also now very anxious due to our income drop. There was a point a few years ago where our income was around £3k but back them I was earning nearly double an hour and was doing double the amount of hours. Unfortunately my health atm won't allow me to do those sorts of hours  and the higher pay was due to me doing alot of agency work. Im at a real loss now tbh. Our roof still needs to be repaired and due to the additional costs for the fire there is no money left for that repair so I'm going to have to try and find it from somewhere. I am going to keep my goals the same and just hope and pray we manage manage achieve them. I'll try my best anyway. Funny how things can change overnight. 
I know we have savings but I don't want to touch this as we have some damage on our lease car that we will be billed for so I don't want to touch the savings 
I'm definitely going to call tax credits and make sure we are getting what we are entitled to. 
I'm going to do a food shop today. But first I will check the cupboards etc and make a list. If we want to make extra payments to the debt and save for the rest of the house repairs we need to stick to the budget or come under budget where we can. I'm also going to get DP to sort my vape out. And hopefully starting tomorrow I can use that and save us some money there (I will leave it up to DP on whether he is going  to quit too) 

Off to make a list..

Eta 
Made a list. Need to remember bags and my keys to put my trolley thing in the £1 slot. I'm going to attempt aldi I think. Although tesco price match alot of stuff and I know some of it is cheaper at mr t surprisingly ... hmm I'll have a think. Aldi you also have to go up a bank to get onto the Car park and its still icy here so not sure I want to risk it tbh ... oh jeez I don't know what to do... don't you hate being an adult sometimes 🙃

mumof3.12kindebt

mumtoomany said:

Well if you want some snow,we can send some. Now snowed in! managed to get 100yds down the road, to take DD3 to work. Turned round and came back. Plenty of food in, might only need milk, but will walk to petrol station for that if needed. Enforced frugality now. Mumtoomany

Oh no ! Hope you get through the next few days  okay. Xx

Bluegreen143

@mumof3.12kindebt I remember back before using the kids, there was a time when we had £3/3.5k a month coming in between us, no debts, lived in a council flat with £200 a month rent! Where did it all go 😆 we usually get £2,000-£2,400 in each month now with four of us (only my husband works) and a mortgage and I don’t really think we save much less than we used to! Hopefully you’ll find that you’re still able to make good progress even with the drop in income, and hopefully your health will improve.

mumtoomany

Sure we will, thanks. It looks to be clearing a bit. Had around 4 inches so far.There is enough food in the house to alst for around eight weeks. Not that I over buy you understand. haha. Which survey sites do you use? Mumtoomany

mumof3.12kindebt

Bluegreen143 said:

@mumof3.12kindebt I remember back before using the kids, there was a time when we had £3/3.5k a month coming in between us, no debts, lived in a council flat with £200 a month rent! Where did it all go 😆 we usually get £2,000-£2,400 in each month now with four of us (only my husband works) and a mortgage and I don’t really think we save much less than we used to! Hopefully you’ll find that you’re still able to make good progress even with the drop in income, and hopefully your health will improve.

Thank you for understanding. 🤞 we will be okay. We will ever sink or swim whatever happens. Tbf when we had the £3k income we had about the same in outgoings. Our council flat was only £30 less than our mortgage is and our council tax was only £20 less. Dd was a baby then and didn't eat.. I mean waste so much food 🙄 .. and we did save our deposit and pay off our previous debt at that time so I suppose we have something to show for it. 

Just taking each day at a time and trying my best to be as frugal as possible. 

Also re daughters food waste, from today if she doesn't finish meals and asks for something else to eat in between she will be given her meal to finish (she doesn't have milk on cereal so it's not like it's going to go really soggy and horrible in a few hours, and she doesn't have cooked stuff for lunch. And her dinner, well she goes to bed about 90 mins after dinner so... 
I don't know ..  does anyone else do this ? Or should I not ? Is it cruel to do that ? 

Also if they don't eat all there meal they don't get pudding or snacks till the next meal.... I worry so much that this sort of thing is cruel and mean but I know lots of parents who do it and honestly it upsets me the amount of food my kids waste. Especially when I know 100% they like what they have been given.. 

 

mumtoomany said:

Sure we will, thanks. It looks to be clearing a bit. Had around 4 inches so far.There is enough food in the house to alst for around eight weeks. Not that I over buy you understand. haha. Which survey sites do you use? Mumtoomany

Ah bless you as long as you will be okay. I use the qmee  app and atta poll app  




 I did our food shop in a!di . Took ds1 with me to help and also managed to get a disabled space (yes I have a badge) , remembered my bags and my trolley token, so I was chuffed. And then we went to Mr t  to get the few things we couldn't get from a!di 
 also managed to get some yellow sticker items (some of which were on my list) so I was happy 😊

Total was £40.10p
Also put £20 petrol in the car 
And got bacci and filters £24.42 hoping the bacci will last us a week  

Have a lovely evening everyone. 
Happy new year to you all 

Love hugs positivity and prayers ❤

Bluegreen143

It’s quite a personal one! 

I don’t subscribe to making kids finish their plates - I think that overeating and obesity are a bigger risk to kids of their generation than the impact of a bit of food waste. So I’m very very keen to teach them to listen to their bodies. But it’s so frustrating with waste! I serve very tiny portions and they are welcome to have seconds and thirds etc. I also don’t give snacks/grazing between meals except an afternoon one at 3ish - just breakfast, lunch and dinner apart from that - in an attempt to make them hungrier at meals! Good luck whatever you do.

Bluegreen143

Re pudding, we don’t do it much. Once a week usually. They can have a piece of fruit after their dinner if they like (regardless of what they’ve eaten) and once a week on a Monday we make a “proper” pudding (crumble, baked apples, ice cream or sponge pudding type things usually). I certainly don’t think it’s cruel to not do pudding, as we rarely do, but I don’t link it to whether they have eaten - again I don’t want to teach them that to get pudding they must stuff themselves rather than listen to their bodies. We rarely do sweets (I don’t buy them at all except at Christmas/Halloween) - my 5yo sometimes does with his pocket money or they get them off the grandparents. I usually let them eat those when they are given or save them for a pudding night. We do bake together and have the muffins etc at their afternoon snacks. Who knows what’s right, my 2yo eats well but the 5yo is picky 🤷‍♀️ I usually go by the rule that it’s my job to provide healthy food, structure their eating routines (eg set the times and places for meals/afternoon snack and not allow grazing) and it’s their job to decide whether they are going to eat it - but they know that there isn’t anything else til the next meal if they don’t (except one piece of fruit if wanted). 

mumof3.12kindebt

Thanks both.  I'll try to figure something out..

I'm going to try 
Breakfast around 7.30/8.00
Snack around 10.30am (keeping in line with school, which will be better for ds2 and dd) 
Lunch at 12.30 
Snack at 3.30 (when they would be home from school) 
Dinner 5.30pm 
Supper 7pm 

They can have healthy options on top If they want. 
And healthy options ie fruit, veg etc or yogurt, toast, pancakes,  cereal bar, cake etc as their snack . 

Anything outside of meals and the 2 snacks has to be fruit etc 

Supper can be 3 biscuits and milk  or hot chocolate etc 

They each have a water bottle too that I fill first thing in the morning. But ds2 normally has milk with his breakfast, dd prefers to have her water bottle and so does ds1. their water bottles are different sizes depending on there age and for them to consume the recommended amount they should drink 2 bottles a day each. Its great because it means I can keep an eye on their fluids (dd and ds2 doesn't drink much at all without encouragement) 

The reason I asked for advice is because ds1 is fine he eats his meals and if he gets hungry will have 1 or 2 snacks a day and a supper before bed. Hes in the normal weight range and always has been 
Dd again in the normal range for her weight but she really doesn't eat much at all and I've tried everything I can think of even offering her 5 mini meals a day instead. Today she ate the most she has ever eaten with some encouragement she ate all her breakfast all of her lunch and onyl left 1 fishfinger at dinner. She also had one snack . and she doesn't have big portions, because she can't cope with too much in front of her  she's 3 (will be 4 in March) I'm going to ask for some advice off the health visitor I think  

And then we have ds2 . He has additional needs and doesn't know when to stop eating. He will constantly ask for food. And I mean constantly. If we piled his plate he would eat it all and then go to the toilet and then ask for more to eat. He's actually classed as over weight. We don't pile his plate and we don't tell him if he doesn't eat it he doesn't get anything  else due to the over eating.

I suppose now I've explained it makes more sense but basically the two little ones I've got one that eats very little and one that will eat everything in sight .. that's why I'm struggling I think 🤔 what I mean is do I have different rules for each kid or do I do the same for both 

Im going to make a food routine chart for ds2 as I mentioned above with the times etc and I think I will try it with dd too . I'll let you know how I get on. 

What I did today ( mentioned on previous post) as much as its probably not recommended and I've never done it before because it seemed cruel and mean ... it worked for dd .. she didn't ask for snacks as much and she ate more at meal times. 


I'll see how it goes anyway and let you know how we get on 

I appreciate your input so thank you for the advice 

mumof3.12kindebt

I've never figured out a system with food that works for the 2 younger ones . Ds2 has the mental age of around 3 and so they both copy each other alot . It's like having twins except one eats too much and one eats (what seems like) not enough 

Oh and we have recently stopped giving dd milk at night. (About 4 weeks ago) We hoped that it would encourage her to eat more in the day because she was no longer filling up On milk at night but so far it seems to make no difference   

And yes we know she is quite old to stop having cows milk at night 🙄🤣