Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Baileys_Babe

That is good to hear that Red's money issues were caused by a one off situation and a second rare occurrence. Have you talked about how you save some of your personal money for various long term goals? 

I hope all of you get plenty of use out of the pizza oven. 

Bluegreen143

It’s been a nice weekend so far, albeit with a little frustration. 

I went on a solo walk along the river yesterday AM which was great. Then I was meant to meet two friends with their kids at soft play (my friends rather than friends of my kids if that makes sense). But they both cancelled last minute which was very annoying as I would probably have gone to visit my mum if they had cancelled earlier. (Side note - anyone else reckon mobile phones have made people flakier?!? Surely 20 years ago you just had to go anyway if you were meeting someone even if you did later regret making the plan!). 

I took the kids to soft play on my own (£17!!!) and then my friend without kids came for dinner and drinks because Red was out on his night out. It was lovely and I think she enjoyed playing with my kids in the garden and playing a board game with us all. 

Today it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s been a slow start and I’m not dressed yet but I think I’ll take the kids for a walk on the canal. Then we have a birthday party later, but thankfully it’s an outdoor one in a wood. Love that soooooo much more than going to softplay or trampolining parties where I get a sore head and resent spending two hours of my life inside a busy venue 🙈 

Did buy a present for the party yesterday - £8.50 spent - and some cheese, ice cream and mini eggs yesterday at Lidl. 

I’m doing the “No S” diet currently (“No Snacks, No Sweets, No Seconds - except on days beginning with S” - the latter being Saturday, Sunday and special celebrations). So I enjoyed the ice cream desserts I made last night much more after a week of nothing sweet! They were based on mcflurries - you whizz vanilla ice cream up with some milk, to soften it, and food in the chopped/bashed chocolate - mini eggs in last night’s case. The kids thought it was very cool!  

Bluegreen143

Red got paid - £1,952 went into the joint account as his usual contribution and £312 to repay his debt. He is waiting on a couple of refunds for returned items but I’m skeptical he will now make it all month on the small amount of money he has left for personal funds. But good luck to him 😂

We now have £1,041.59 in the emergency fund which feels MUCH better in case of a car breakdown or whatever. 

We also have £790 in the savings account for holidays and Christmas. Not enough given we have a July and August holiday to save for and want to buy decent camping gear. I’m still considering using my own savings to buy the tent and sleeping bags and leaving my wedding ring til later in the year 🤔 as realistically there is no point putting the camping gear off too long, it’s obviously a seasonal purchase. 

Once the standing order to my mum goes out on Tuesday, we’ll be down to £1,040 owed to her - I think I will try to pay half of that in May and half in June and just get rid of it. 

I’ve been considering trying to switch to a non-smartphone as part of my eternal experiment with a more analogue life. The main stumbling block is I really need WhatsApp to keep up with friends and acquaintances, the reality is that’s what everyone else is using 🤔 I need to use sat nav when driving too, but we could update the sat nav in the car rather than using google maps on our phone. And I would need to buy a camera. So there would be expenses to start with, although in the long run it would save money not needing to keep on the Apple treadmill of phone contracts. I need to experiment further with “dumbing” my existing smartphone though as that would be more MSE, using what I already have. 

KajiKita

Or go Android and buy a second hand handset?

KK

Bluegreen143

@KajiKita I absolutely HATE android phones 😂 I have one for work and Red has one. But it would probably help me use it less because I find it so offputting 🤔😂 

It’s not a money saving thing really, I don’t buy the newest model of iPhone or anything, my current contract is £20 a month and then once I’m out of contract I’ll switch to sim only. It’s that I find smartphones very alluring and distracting and also I want to model for the kids that adult life is not about being hunched over a glowing rectangle… that we are resourceful enough and resilient enough that we can handle our lives without the crutch of a phone to smooth everything over. So maybe I ought to give up Sat nav too but I’m not ready for that yet 😂 

Baileys_Babe

Do you use WhatsApp web? You do need a smart phone to set it up and possibly to update it occasionally - no idea about the latter as I use WhatsApp on both my phone and computer. You could then turn the notifications off on your phone and not have the icon not on you main phone screen and decided when you are going to use it to contact friends and family.

KajiKita

Unless you have someone else with to navigate, I actually see SatNavs / phones acting as such, as safety critical. It’s so easy to get lost, stressed and angst whilst trying to navigate and drive at the same time. 

I am 180 to you on android v. windows phones! 😉😂 I have a windows phone for work and hate it (it’s a horrible, heavy, basic, short battery life, useless because seems to have almost no signal, brick - that might explain it 😉) and I love my android 0ppo 😊 But also love my iPad, which I am using right now - no logic there at all! 🤷‍♀️😂😊

Perhaps set your phone to auto-dark mode after 6pm? I’ve done it for after 9pm - it doesn’t stop you using any aspect of it but it is far less entrancing ….

KK

LadyWithAPlan

I run both android and apple - went totally android but have an Apple Watch I love so had to switch back … 

I think we are watching April Red with bated breath on his overspend. Good way to learn though ! 

I had a expensive March as well but YNAB is keeping me in line for the most part 

Bluegreen143

Well I’m off work today until next Wed and Monkey is sick - typical! So a quiet day at home instead of our planned adventure. But I’ve caught up with all the washing and dried it mainly outside which is a big win (I ran out of pegs and line/airer space so the rest is inside on the lines we strung up in the conservatory and on radiators - I did three washes!). 

I also dug out most of the kid crap stored under the playhouse and have filled three bin bags to be tipped, along with some big items which won’t fit in a bag. Old cracked plastic toys, a rusty scooter, an ancient paddling pool, duplicates of buckets & spades, things like that (we had six buckets for sandcastle building 😅). I then filled one big reusable shopper with the seaside toys/water guns/badminton set and put in the bike shed, along with a second bag with balls in. Just need Red to do a tip run! 

I’m now down to £1,040 owed to my mum and it’s very hard not to just empty the savings and get it gone. It’s such a bind having a £400 a month bill and I can’t wait til it’s gone!

We bought a new tumble dryer (coming tomorrow) - I was hoping to wait a few months but we kept getting super behind with the laundry since the old one broke and it was very stressful. That was £299 which I took from the emergency fund. 

Current financials: 

Savings accounts totals: 

Emergencies £808.92
Holidays & Christmas £673.83
Help to Save £4,000 (locked away until December)

Personal cash ISA £485
Personal S&S ISA £297.24

Current account totals:

Personal £55.54
Joint £170.89

I’ll be paid on Friday 12th so just over a week to go, so these amounts should be fine - I don’t think we’ll need petrol before then. 

beanielou

Pay £40 to your mum. You know that you want to!