Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Thanks @MissRikkiC - not tried pinwheels in years - wonder if he would eat them 🤔

I made banana muffins in the end, and after all that effort, this morning I clean forgot his school bag 🤦‍♀️ well Monkey should have noticed too, but I didn’t even get it out and fill it with a fresh water bottle and his snack 😅 luckily noticed before he got on the bus - it was too late to go home and get it but I nipped into the mini Tesco next to his bus stop and bought a pack of cereal bar type things to put one in his pocket. They give them water at school anyway if they don’t have any and he informs me there is always fruit leftover from the two days a week they get a free piece of fruit, so if any child forgets snack they get given some fruit. So it wasn’t too bad. His bag had nothing in it except the snack anyway. 

Been very good and walked the school run two mornings in a row which is an extra hour’s exercise a day for me. I always drive the pick up but going to try to walk the morning each dry day (except when I’m going into the office which is once a week). We’ve also spent over an hour in the playpark after school/nursery the last two days, and this evening we went for a family walk round our estate before bed. Helpful in trying to catch up a bit with 1,000 hours outdoors as we have slipped majorly behind from self isolating last week. 

Dinner tonight was griddled tikka-ish chicken (didn’t put any chilli in the marinade), butter chicken curry sauce, rice, HM naans and broccoli, plus the kids had a big bowl of carrot and tomato first. I served the sauce and chicken separately to encourage them to eat it and they did both eat all their chicken and rice (a miracle as Monket doesn’t usually like rice), a good bit of a naan and both tried a taste of the sauce and broccoli. Very pleased with that! Even better, I have a portion left for tomorrow’s lunch 🙂

Bluegreen143

Little spending update for the month.

JOINT £1,738.03
Home bills £622.13
TV & subs £122.34 (YNAB annual fee mainly)
Petrol & parking £49
Food £228.43
Treats £29.78
Cleaning & toiletries £17.61
Misc Household £47.93 (bulk toilet roll order mainly)
Pets £194.53 (vets bill)
Family & fun £36.36
Eating out/takeaways £33.15
Misc £20.85
Birthdays £41.10
Home & garden £292.83
Kids (education/activities) £1.99

ME £116.91
Bills/subs £100.61
Hobbies & stuff £16.30

TOTAL £1,854.94

Looking at what we’ve got coming up before the end of the month - lots of social stuff inc a kids’ party and night out this weekend, need clothes for Monkey in the next size, energy bill still to come out and need to fill the petrol tank - but most of all we are due to pay the balance of our caravan we’ve booked in June - I think we will come out higher than last month’s spending despite my good intentions 🤦‍♀️ 

Of course if we were skint I’d look at what we can cancel (the night out etc) but we will still save a decent chunk so I’m ok with going ahead with our plans. However I think I’ll challenge myself to a storecupboard/freezer challenge for the rest of the month as our food bill is frankly ridiculous!

EDIT just realised a typo - eating out at £233 rather than £33 - was very much skewing the figures making me look £200 worse 🤣 corrected above now. However I still think we’ll be close to last month’s total and what I said re the store cupboard holds.

Second edit - I haven’t included the £29k loan for the conservatory as income, and so I won’t include any spends on the conservatory up to the £29k in this spending report. Once we have spent the whole £29k spends will come from savings and I’ll track those. £28k of the £29k is earmarked for the builders anyway for the build and the flooring.

joedenise

How much is YNAB a year now @Bluegreen143?  Looks expensive!  I bought YNAB4 way back in 2014 I think and it cost me £60 as a one off payment.  I even bought a cheap 2nd hand windows laptop so that I could continue to use it when my main laptop was updated and I couldn't use it anymore!  Certainly paid off as I bought it for £99 2 years ago!

Bluegreen143

£86.99 @joedenise, it’s gone up lots this year! Was only about £60 last year. I do feel it’s worth it still but will have to reassess if it’s worth it if it goes up more.

joedenise

Thanks @Bluegreen143.  I'll have to have a think if it's worthwhile if my YNAB4 packs up as I do find it really useful and after not using spreadsheets since I retired 10 years ago I'm not sure I'd be able to set up anything like it!

Bluegreen143

Right faff today. Monkey is in desperate need of new clothes - he’s outgrowing age 5-6 and I’ve been hanging off replacing for a while so he can go straight to spring/summer clothes rather than buying warmer clothes in a new size for just a few weeks. Decided today was the day as realised that he’d put a hole in the knee of his last pair of navy PE joggers today at school AND had holes in his trainers 🙈 (poor lad with a frugal mother 🤣 I don’t mind holey knees on garden clothes but hasten to add I don’t generally send him to school with holey clothes…). 

Took him to the giant, slightly further away Tesco to do a “big” clothes shop for him (I like to just get it all in one go, twice a year, from one shop for ease) but had totally forgotten that Tesco do such lovely baby and girls’ clothes but I really dislike their older boys’ clothes 🙄 they also have about 1/4 of the space dedicated to boys’ clothes as they do to girls’ and there was barely anything in his size. I didn’t think I was overly fussy but I really don’t like slogans, TV characters, logos etc on kids’ clothes (free advertising for them, no thanks!) and I find the Tesco boy stuff is always too “old” for Monkey with quite grown up comic book style or scary graphics and promoting characters he isn’t into yet - he’s still quite innocent and very happy with nice plain, stripy or printed digger/dinosaur type tshirts. 

Anyway I just bought him a pair of trainers for PE tomorrow (erm, and some creme eggs 🤣) and went home.

I ended up doing an online order from Sainsbury’s Tu. Cost about £160 which seems a lot but I got 4x joggers, 2x shorts, a pair of jeans, 8x tshirts, a set of PJs, plain white PE tshirts, socks, boxers, wellies and trainers. Do still need a hoodie for him, a smart shirt for parties and sunhats. But that will then be him til we need long sleeved stuff and jumpers in the autumn. Well, depending how quick he puts holes in this lot 🙄 of course I also haven’t sorted through Bambi’s stuff yet to see what she needs - hopefully very little as I’m sure we have hand me down summer wear in the cupboard 🤞🏼

Bluegreen143

Last night I paid the remainder of our caravan in the highlands for the long weekend we’re having away with friends at the start of June 🙂 £224 down. This month is super pricey 🙄 but I’m loving how keeping a much closer eye on all the YNAB spends is helping me see that. 

We’re also going away for a week (also in Scotland) at the end of June/start of July, which is the first week of the school holidays here, though don’t need to pay that up yet. Must admit this is the nice bit about me working as we never took the kids away before. I really want us all to explore this beautiful country we’re so lucky to live in so this is us starting. At the moment I have no interest in holidays abroad. 

One of the guys from the conservatory company came to take measurements and photos today so we seem to be making progress there. Hoping we get a date for them to start soon!

On the downside of being a dual income family… I’ve been feeling really stressed, busy and overwhelmed a lot lately. Red has taken on a bit more house stuff which helps. But I just feel stressed all day til I finish work, have a nice enough late afternoon/dinner but then am exhausted each evening and finding it hard to get the motivation to do much with my evenings. Watching far too much TV right now. I’m sure the tiredness is psychological and a stress thing as I’m getting enough sleep.

More positively, work have approved me taking two weeks annual leave and two weeks unpaid parental leave this summer, and Red has requested the same (we are overlapping a week for going away together and the rest is to cover the other six weeks holidays), fingers crossed it’s accepted. While it would be cheaper to use holiday childcare than to take unpaid leave, I just feel really strongly that it’s worth the extra expense to be off ourselves. Not just for being with the kids (though that is very important to me too) but I feel we both need extra time off for our own mental health anyway. I’m only taking a few days split up over Easter for various reasons which is a shame, but my mum is helping for three days which is really good of her.

Bluegreen143

So I’ve had a lovely week: spent a lot of time outdoors and Bambi had her first ever sleepover at my mum & stepdad’s house last night (Monkey too but he’s been lots). So Red and I had a barbecue and an impromptu walk down to the west end to have a drink in a pavement drinks bit of a bar.

We’ve definitely overspent this month but consoled ourselves that it just means a bit less to savings; we are still spending a decent amount less than we earn.

Then today I was meant to be meeting my dad and papa in a country park for a day out but my car broke down (luckily still on our street). Argh! Likely to be expensive to fix and also a huge pain in the bum.

So we’ve both agreed we will need to be pulling the belts in now for a little while. Back to basics on food with less treats in our weekly order and not buying random stuff on eBay (Red’s weaknesses), and I need to start saying no more often to social plans and ebooks (my weaknesses!).

Will come back with budget update tonight.

Baileys_Babe

Glad Bambi was able to go to her first ever sleepover, I hope both her and the grandparents enjoyed it so it can become a regular thing.

Boo to car troubles.

With the social plans instead of saying no can they be tweaked so they are less costly?

Bluegreen143

Yes, definitely @Baileys_Babe but I am a sucker to just saying yes when invited to things - for example only yesterday I agreed to go to the ballet with two friends - no regrets as I really enjoy the ballet and the friends’ company, but there are cheaper ways to meet up. I’ll still do that as already committed but just thinking over the next while being a bit choosier when friends suggest going out for drinks or mum friends want to meet at softplay, and inviting people here or to the park instead.

The other thing is being very busy is when we get disorganised with food and stuff in the house which ends up costing. 

I know my personality and I thrive on a lot of social engagement but I can use it as an excuse to be out a lot and then suggest a takeaway because we’ve got back late. To be fair though I do find spring/summer much cheaper as we almost exclusively go to parks/the beach as an outing and we do like being at home much of the weekend so we can do the gardening. It’s all about a balance, I’ve had seasons of wanting to be at home more, cooking and crafting and baking, and seasons of wanting to be out more.

No news on the car, Red’s brother used to be a mechanic years ago so he popped over to have a look but he couldn’t sort it. Will phone the garage on Monday and will need to organise a tow there.

Have just been enjoying making a Mother’s Day card for my mum, and am about to bake a cake to take to my sister’s tomorrow (she’s cooking us Mother’s Day lunch). I know Red will get the children to make me handmade cards tomorrow and he’s making a chocolate cheesecake (he only bakes for Mother’s Day and my birthday and he always goes to a good effort!). And that’s all I could ask for, we don’t spend on presents here for mother’s/fathers/valentines days, anniversaries etc but we do make our own cards, write a thoughtful message in them and enjoy some tasty treats.