Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

MrsWenger

Hello Bluegreen, good service and trust in a car dealership is something that isn’t always the experience so as long as you and Red are comfortable with the quote etc then that is the main thing.

I completely understand the perspective of letting this one sit with Red; you do a very good job of balancing a lot of other stuff so best not find yourself with another job on your list and avoiding cross words is always a good thing! 🙂

You are so right about hindsight, we have all been there for sure! As you say, hopefully this will be the final major issue with the car and then it will just be the standard costs of servicing etc moving forward. 

Best wishes to you all.

LittleGem

Bluegreen143 said:

Ah thanks for dropping by @LittleGem! Congrats on your baby. I can imagine it’s a tough one making mat leave budgets balance given all these price rises, good luck! How old are your children? 

Thank you, DD is 3 and little one is 5 months. Yes it’s something I wish we’d put a bit more thought into beforehand but impossible to know how much things were going to rise, but coming back to MSE has already been a big help!

Bluegreen143

@LittleGem I’ve got three years between mine too and you’re reminding me of when Bambi was a baby. Difficult to get anything done due to the lack of sleep! Hope your littlest is an ok sleeper 😆

I FINALLY went to the gym yesterday (yay!) then for spontaneous drinks after with my friend who l went to the gym with me. She texted a couple of hours before so not totally spontaneous but spontaneous for me! I may have mentioned before that I have a slight issue at saying no to social plans 😆

I spent £7.50 on one round - friend paid for two as I also had to get a taxi home whereas we went for a drink in her local area so she could walk. So that was £10 too. I had had high minded ideals of leaving early to get the bus but then stayed for the third drink and it was 11.20pm by then… Money well spent anyway, as my friend is going through a slightly tough time and needed to talk and we had a laugh which I think cheered her up.

Anyway the upshot is in my weekly spending allowance experiment I only have £21.80 left total for the next three weeks. I won’t buy any clothes or hobby stuff, but I am planning to meet another friend (and maybe other friends if they are free) on Friday for drinks. I think what I may do is sneakily offer to host here rather than go out, then I can get a couple bottles of wine in and crisps and still have a few £ left in the personal kitty 🤣 realistically if I do go out, I’ll need to drive rather than drink on the budget I’ve got. I don’t mind that too much though - just happy to see the friend!

As for the family spending budgets, we have £161.50 in each week 3-5 so have overspent but not too horrifically. The weekly spending is just so I can keep an eye on patterns of spending, in reality we will have some higher spend weeks and lower spend weeks.

Here’s the monthly spending breakdown so far (leaving out bills, which are just as normal):

JOINT SPENDING
Food £197.57
Non Food Groceries £22.50
Diesel £49.50
Other Travel £17.60 mainly taxis to pick up car 
Fun £67.50 takeaway and inflatable city day out
Kids Education/Fun £39 football subs & pocket money 
Misc £86 new chooks & Red driving license 

Also spent £48.76 on zoo entry, from Kids Savings pot and £130 on holiday accommodation from Holiday pot. 

MY SPENDING
Fun £27.50 drinks (two separate pub visits and cider for the house) and a taxi fare
Clothes £15 trainers

Much of my personal money went into the holiday pot which is why I’m skint even though I’ve not spent much 🤣

savingholmes

Hosting does sound like a good option to help you stay on budget ands till have fun.

Bluegreen143

Ok well I’ve SLIGHTLY irritated Red now, as one of the friends wants to bring her husband, which means he needs to join in rather than get his own projects done… he was already a bit miffed even when it was a girls’ night as he’d prefer not to host til our garden looks good again so wanted me to go out. Whereas I don’t give a toss about that, I want to see my friends - not show off a pristine house/garden. I THINK he’s forgiven me now after some time has elapsed 😆

Only thing is, I’m not sure I have enough wine. Though hopefully they bring a bottle each, but still not sure there will be enough. My besties and I always do bring your own for drinks but these are different friends, more well-off ones and I’m not sure if they’d usually provide all the booze when hosting. We only have two bottles of Prosecco and one red wine, plus beer and cider… there is a bit of vodka and whisky I think but they probably won’t want that. Originally there was only me and one friend going to be here and I knew she’d be happy with prosecco, and Red won’t drink the wine. We aren’t the sort to keep a stocked cupboard, we just buy alcohol as we want it 😆 may stop by Tesco to get another bottle of wine to be on the safe side. That definitely will wipe out my budget though! 

savingholmes

I'd just say - bring a bottle. Sorted.

themadvix

savingholmes said:

I'd just say - bring a bottle. Sorted.

Agreed - surely they can’t be that posh?!

joedenise

savingholmes said:

I'd just say - bring a bottle. Sorted.

Agree with this.  You can just provide some nibbles which will obviously be cheaper than buying loads of wine!  Will also keep your spending within budget.

Bluegreen143

Had a lovely time both Friday night and last night (a friend had a drinks party). 

Unfortunately my parents were meant to have my kids for a sleepover, but have caught Covid! But my sister stepped in and babysat and her husband drove us to the party and picked us up. We gave them £40 for a takeaway - because we live near the city centre and west end, we get a lot of fancy restaurants who deliver to us (which we ourselves never take advantage of 😂) so my sister was excited as she missed that since they moved a bit further out a couple of years ago. They got a Japanese takeaway with lots of different bits and enjoyed it. It would have cost more than £40 for the taxi there and back so we weren’t out of pocket, but it was such a relief not to have the uncertainty around when a taxi would arrive. Since covid/brexit there’s been a huge shortage of taxi drivers. A few months ago we hosted drinks at ours and one couple had a nearly 2 hour wait for a taxi! This may be the norm in more rural locations, but until the pandemic we were awash with taxis here 😅

Today we are going out for dinner (curry), courtesy of MIL, who wants to treat us and BIL & his fiancée, because of all the help we both gave her when she was moving earlier this year. So that’s really kind of her and after a late night last night and a cocktail too many I’m very much looking forward to a curry 😅 not had such a busy weekend socially in ages!!

Did have an interesting conversation around unpaid parental leave at the party last night. One of the attendees, who has no children, was horrified it exists “on top of maternity leave too” and was a bit outraged she doesn’t get extra leave just to live her life. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and I’ve heard similar before. Just think it’s a sad bit of evidence of how poorly regarded caring for your own children is in our society if she really thinks we should be entitled to no extra leave for it (bearing in mind we were discussing the right to unpaid leave, not getting extra paid holiday!!). Actually I do think there should be more provision for unpaid leave and sabbaticals and flexible working for everyone to take mental health breaks, care for elderly parents or pursue their own interests too, but just something about the way she was wording it left a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth, that she really sees the role of mums and dads in so little regard to society.

Sunshine_girl2

Hi delurking re the parental leave etc. Not all employers are the same , we have parental leave and unpaid leave for all staff regardless . We also have a brilliant flexible working policy. Take what they said with a pinch of a salt , I read what you do with your children and it's a lot more than some do. 

Good to hear you have enjoyed a sociable weekend , hope your parents stay well with Covid . 

Enjoy your curry later .