Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Well I had some friends over for drinks last night and was naughty and drank quite a bit of prosecco, at least a bottle 🙈🙈🙈 I’ve been hungover today and regretting it. 

I’ve not been a big drinker for years and normally stick to two drinks max, maybe three on certain occasions, and generally only drink once or twice a week, but this week, I had one cider at the pub on Monday, two vodka and cokes on Friday and all that prosecco last night so far more than usual! And because I’m no longer used to it, the hangover feels much worse 😂

Taking the children swimming with a hangover does not rank #1 in my favourite things to do, but we had promised and so we went 😂 I did make a lovely beef stew to turn into a pie for dinner. Those two things are my only productive moments of the day except for doing some knitting! 

Now need to go to grovel at Red, as a while ago he had a bone to pick about something and sat me down for a chat. His timing is terrible and in my defence, nobody enjoys being nagged while they have a headache 🙈 but I may have told him “if you want a productive conversation talk to me tomorrow, I don’t give a **** about this” 🙈 now need to go apologise about my extremely poor marital communication skills as he’s been huffing in the conservatory ever since…

KajiKita

Hope the conversation with Red went okay and the bone wasn’t a big one!! 😉

KK

Bluegreen143

Haha yes, all good now. Relevant to this thread as he was feeling hard done by and wants a few bits for the house like tea/coffee/sugar canisters (our coffee one broke and the other two have slightly broken lids!), some extra plates and glasses. We’ve agreed to have a look in the charity shop initially and if not grab something cheap 😅

I do have to confess to an UNPLANNED £22 spend tonight 😱 (forgive me, frugal friends), AND it’s not even from my 30 day list 🙈 

What was it that tempted me so? Fear not, it was a very practical spend of £22 on wellies in the Joules sale (price inc delivery!). 

I defend myself as follows: I’ve been in need of wellies for at least two years, and have been too cheap to ever buy them. So while they didn’t make my 30 day list they’ve really been pondered over for much longer than that and cannot be accused of being an impulse buy 😅

Other spending today

£3.60 Bus fares

£8 Swimming entry for all four of us 

£20.65 DD for my phone 

Bluegreen143

I *think* I can draw a line under my personal spending this month (I’m going to the pub during Beavers again on Monday, but I’m pretty sure it’s my friend’s turn to pay). I won’t round up our joint spending just yet, as we have a Tesco shop tomorrow.

My personal spending (January)

TOTAL £191.14

Socialising £89.15
- £34.70 Taxis to/from baby shower 
- £29.45 Drinks at pub
- £25.00 Food/alcohol for social events 

Notes:
REALLY pleased with this, because if it hadn’t been for the taxis (caused by the car issue and the bus not working out due to delays) it would only have been £54.45. I’ve been to the pub five times, hosted drinks here, been to a baby shower and hosted two playdates (where I’m friends with the mums, so get to socialise too) AND this amount includes alcohol I drank on date nights in with Red, which we’ve had most weeks. Socialising twice a week plus date night drinks once a week for £14 a week is surely the pinnacle of socialising budget optimisation?! I can’t go out less because I’m an extrovert and I need people 😆. 

Bills £46.45
- £24.31 Parenting community/ course subscription
- £20.65 Phone bill
- £2.49 iCloud storage 

The parenting subscription has another three months to run but I probably won’t renew it after that - though I really like the community, I’ve been in it since the pandemic and have done all the lessons now. Phone is in contract for another year or so but I think £20 is decent anyway - I got a good deal as didn’t opt for the newest model and used the MSE checker. 

Clothes £22.90 (wellies in Joules sale)

Hopefully, a well-thought-out minor splurge which will last for years, as a quality brand! 

Gifts £18.24 (baby shower for close friend)

Happy with this expense for a lovely friend having her much-anticipated first baby 😍

Hobbies £13.40 (knitting needles) 

Hmmm. I did need one set of these. The other I just picked up on a whim while there as don’t have that size for my circular needle set. Since I don’t need that second set for my current project I could have skipped them for now and halved this expense. Bad me.

KajiKita

I'm not quite sure I understand why the coffee, sugar, etc pots and a few plates or glasses was a 'bone to be picked' though? Glad it's sorted I was looking for a while for new handtowels for the kitchen - the ones we had were literally dropping to pieces! I had no luck but eventually came across some brand new ones in The F@ctory Shop - if you have one near you it might be worth a look as they do all sorts of homewares stuff of okay quality relatively cheaply. 

I know what you mean about the second round needle purchase .... it's almost like a reflex habit of, well, whilst I'm here ..... I recognise this in myself too    But, it was only £6 or £7 I'm guessing, so in the grand scheme of things, not a lot and you *have* noticed it, which means you will be more aware next time.  

Seems a shame about the parenting course subscription, though I understand why you are ready to cancel it if you have completed all the lessons. Is there any way of maintaining some of the key friendships you've made from it? 

KK

Bluegreen143

The bone to to pick was about me saying I couldn’t remember a previous conversation about the items and him interpreting that as me trying to not buy them. Like all arguments, it wasn’t about the thing it appeared to be about 😆

He is extremely triggered when he perceives he’s being controlled (probably a childhood thing due to his overbearing mum & sisters AND justified in that I WAS very controlling of the budget when I was a SAHM as we had £0 to spare ever). 

I grew up in a home where money was tight and a problem and with lots of templates about money that are hard to shift - ever present fear of financial ruin and also the subconscious template that men are irresponsible and not to be trusted with money due to my mother’s life experiences 😬

So money/purchases can be a very loaded topic 😬 we’re all good though. As I like to say, in about 40 years we will have no doubt learned to be perfect communicators and spouses with all this practice we’re getting at getting it wrong!! 

Bluegreen143

@KajiKita re the parenting course, there’s an announcement next week from the person who runs it as they are totally revamping and rebranding it all after this cycle. I highly suspect it will come with a big price rise as her other courses are ££££££ and this current course is now much cheaper than everything else. I did her marriage one and it was excellent but I won’t disclose on here what I paid for it 😂 

I reflected on whether I’m willing to stay part of it if she raises the cost and I’m not really, I have got SO MUCH out of all the lessons and genuinely found it a life changing course - I’ve learned a lot about family culture, values, setting yearly vision as well as time management, teaching your kids to play, decluttering/organisation and actual parenting techniques. But I realised this year I’ve not really engaged with it as much because I feel really happy with our family life, confident in my parenting and I just don’t need to work on play any more with my kids cos they do that. So it’s more a positive success story of feeling she’s really helped me but the time is right to move on. The community is wonderful but also does encourage me to spend way too much time on my phone 😬 we’ll see, I may re-evaluate if the cost isn’t increasing and if the revamp includes more content geared at parenting older kids/tweens/teens which would be interesting. 

Bluegreen143

Ok, I’m calling it for Jan, hoping I don’t spend any more 😂 will do the spending round up later. 

Next month will be pricier as need to pay for the car repairs (around £750), so I’m pleased this month was reasonably frugal!

£467.79 added to savings pots (for holidays, gifts, home projects etc - this is net money added eg how much they’ve increased after accounting for spending from some pots), £100 in Help to Save and £592.39 added to the emergency fund. 

Bluegreen143

Breakdown of the “family spending” figure - easier to put in the screenshot than to type it all out!



And a recap in the same format of our spends, so it’s all together:

Bluegreen143

Had a good chat with Red last night. He wants to increase savings for the garden and holiday pots. I think he wants to buy some ridiculously expensive statement shrub for the new area of the garden he created after the conservatory was put in 😅

I showed him the price list for the fairy & elf photoshoot and was surprised when he immediately said “just cancel it”. I only booked it because he got me it for my birthday 😂

He said the Wowcher was only £14 and there was no indication of the price of the photos on there, he thought it would be about £100 and we’d get the digital copies too, to do what we like with, and says he would never have bought it if he’d realised as he thinks it’s a complete rip off (example - £500 for 10 small prints + their digital copies) and quite sneaky how they hide the price til you’ve booked 😬 he wants me to use the money to get a tripod and look on eBay for costumes/props for the kids and we can do our own photoshoot instead, then we’re set up to do that whenever we want nice pictures. I really love that idea so that’s what we’re going to do! 

I think I may also lose the £35 deposit I paid but I’m not sure (it says you lose it if you cancel within 48 hours but it’s two weeks away so maybe I’ll get it back?!). If we lose the deposit it’s fine, Red pointed out there’s no point throwing more money at it now it’s a sunk cost.