Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

@joedenise 😂😂😂 that made me laugh! Funny now, but I bet it wasn’t at the time 😆

joedenise

You're quite right it wasn't funny  at the time but it is now looking back!

Baileys_Babe

Little children can be so funny, in hindsight 🤣🤣

Bluegreen143

So it’s been a bit eventful... Monkey’s nursery has had Covid cases so now he needs to self isolate 😔 originally he was just to stay off this week but two more kids have had positive tests meaning they were all exposed on Monday too, so he’s off nursery now til Mon 22. Feel so bad for him & the other kids missing more nursery, he’s only been back 2 weeks since they reopened and then when he does get back, he’s just got one week to go until it shuts for the holidays. His Covid test did come back negative at least. 

Red has been furloughed this week which has been good for childcare. Next week though he’s on call and could be off or could have to work every day (he worked 6/7 days last on call week though not full days). However if I do need to work around a child, better it’s Monkey as he is very self-sufficient.

Bambi is getting on a bit better at nursery this week thankfully. She is still very unhappy when dropped off and cries at pick up, but will now play/engage with activities, is eating and has started to use the toilet at nursery so no accidents this week so far.

Will be getting paid on Friday so have been working out how to budget it. Red & I have agreed that when we get paid we will put 80% of our salary into the joint account for bills, living expenses and joint savings. The kids’ expenses can come from the child benefit. And the other 20% of the salary is for us to budget as we like for a mix of fun money, our own phone bills, our own savings and using to top up our joint savings goals (eg Red will probably choose to put some of his into the conservatory fund, I will likely top up some of the things I’m more interested in!).

So with that in mind - payslip says I’ll get £1,320 and so I’ll add £1,056 to the joint budget as follows:

- £500 childcare (only monthly bill not paid yet)
- £64 holiday fund (to top this up to £200 this month) 
- £100 car fund 
- £100 help to save 
- £224 emergency fund 
- £68 to Red, as half the cost of a big wood order he’s just done. The wood is for a joint expense (an upgrade to the children’s playhouse) but he’s just gone and ordered without asking for me to budget for it first so I’ve offered him half & told him he’ll need to take the other half from his own spends and he’s agreed that’s fair.

Trying to decide whether to let the annual Disney+ subscription auto renew. It’s £60 as an existing subscriber but I know it’s £80 for new ones & I read that next year the price will go up to £80 (at least) for everyone. We do use it for kids’ movies and I’m ok with £60 but I think I’ll want to cancel in 12m rather than pay £80. At that point I’ll probably regret not having invested the £60 in just buying a few of the kids’ favourite Disney movies on Amazon (they already have a few digital movies from before we got the Disney sub including Peter Pan, Robin Hood, Winnie the Pooh and 101 Dalmatians which are all Monkey’s favourites) 🤔 I think I’ve talked myself into cancelling it but Red is less sure so we are going to decide in the next few days.

Bluegreen143

Hello diary friends!

Thursday is always my busy day - it’s my busiest day at work purely as I scramble to get everything done before finishing up for the week... I have a 1.5 hour zoom Gaelic class at 6.30pm which always totally fries my brain 🤯 and then we always book our Tesco delivery for 8-9pm on a Thursday. Sitting relaxing now with a single vodka and coke which was the last vodka left in the bottle. May have to venture to the shop tomorrow for some wine as I didn’t get any in the delivery and it’s payday tomorrow so I’ll be able to allocate myself some spending money in YNAB!

Will need to budget £60 for the next Gaelic course as that was the end of level 1 - the last 16 weeks have flown by - and level 2 starts next week. It took them until near the end to bill us this time but will take it from Red’s next pay I think so it’s sitting there ready.

Tesco delivery today cost £93.01 in total.

Broken down as:

Red’s spends - £16 (a crate of beer + one pot noodle - I’d have taken this from the food budget but he sent me the money for it off his own back 🤷‍♀️)

Household stuff - £11.21 (bin bags, cat litter, shower gel, baby bath, kitchen roll, dishwasher powder, bag charge, 3x white vinegar Red wants for cleaning something 🤷‍♀️)

Food £65.83

Radishes
Cherry toms
Onions 1kg
Sweet potato 1kg
Peppers 3pk
Lettuce 
Grapes
Strawberries
Mushrooms
Celery
Spring onions
Bananas x14
Cucumber
Courgette
Baking potatoes x3
Apples 6pk
Swede
Carrots 1kg
Raw beetroot
Melon

Butter x2
Goats cheese 
Feta
Cheddar
Whole milk 4pt x3
Greek yogurt x2

Sliced ham
Lean mince 750g
Bacon
Ham hough 

Part baked baguette
Burger buns
Sliced white bread
Sliced brown bread

Frozen chicken breasts
Wheat biscuits cereal
Tomato puree
Wholemeal pasta
Pickled onions 
Oatcakes
Tinned cannellini beans
Lasagne sheets
Dried chickpeas
Wholegrain mustard
Tinned green lentils 
Pitted green olives
Chopped toms x4
Passata 
Tinned tuna
Instant coffee 
Peanut butter
SR flour

Variety crisps 30pk
Cola x6

Mealplans 
Kids breakfasts - cereal, toast, overnight oats, milkshakes, eggs
My breakfasts - fruit & yogurt, leftovers, milkshakes, overnight oats, mushrooms or eggs on toast 
Red either skips breakfast or has eggs/bacon as brunch or a bowl of cereal

Work lunches for me usually salad or soup or leftovers, Red will have sandwiches/toasties if he’s having anything
Friday/weekend lunches with the kids sandwiches/toasties or pasta salad or soup or eggs/toast 

Snacks when the kids are home in the afternoon I make a big plate with chopped up raw veg and fruit, and will add something filling (cheese or hummus, hard boiled eggs, maybe some oatcakes) or will do hot cocoa for them. Haven’t baked much in ages due to the diet so could make muffins with them this weekend. For me I tend to have Greek yog, a bit of fruit or cheese/oatcakes to nibble on if needed.

Dinners 
HM burgers & chips, salad
Soup + pudding night 
Lasagne & salad
Falafel & hummus pittas 
Chicken baguettes
Instant pot 5 spice chicken 
Tomato & lentil pasta 

May actually go back to doing a little salad bar as a starter most nights as that worked well particularly with Monkey.

Bluegreen143

Payday today!

Allocated pay along lines already discussed:

£264 (20%) kept in my account for my own budgeting which is how Red & I have agreed to budget now... I budgeted this as follows:

£50 - LISA
£27 - general savings (I want to start my own wee savings pot as post-lockdown now I’m working I may be able to swing going away for a night/weekend with my friends at some point 🙌🏼 or just anything like that.
£35 my phone bill
£15 clothes (need jeggings)
£55 fun 

I then put £40 into one savings pot for doing up Monkey’s room (want a cabin/storage bed plus bookcase) and tidied the £43 left into the emergency fund. 

The other £1,056 (80%) remaining went straight into the joint account:

£100 help to save
£191 emergency fund
£500 childcare
£65 holiday fund 
£120 car 
£80 home & garden 

I also added £50 to the emergency fund today which my mum sent over as a thanks to Red who is making them raised beds for their garden (she sent £100 but he got to keep the other half 😉).

Anyway it works out that the emergency fund is now at £592 which I’m delighted with. Once it’s at £1k I want to build it up to £2k, but will do the second half more slowly as I want to start some mortgage OPs after we’ve got the £1k in 😁

Baileys_Babe

Ouch to your phone bill, is this paying off your handset?
Don't forget to update your signature with your larger emergency fund.
I like the savings for you to have time away with your friends.

Bluegreen143

Well remembered about my sig @Baileys_Babe, I always forget it! I’m at 7lb lost too, slowest weight loss ever but at least going in the right direction 😆

Yes, it’s an iPhone but not a particularly new model. My last phone was totally broken as I’d dropped it several times over the 2y contract and it’d gotten wet once too so each time Red repaired it for me using parts off eBay (£20 for each new screen but much cheaper than the £80 the local shop charges) but each time you do that it decreases the sensitivity a bit so by the end of the contract it just didn’t work at all! So I had to upgrade to a new handset straight away especially as I don’t have a working laptop (well I now have a work one but didn’t then) and at the time didn’t have a tablet either so basically did really need a smartphone to do banking, emails, use for satnav, general life stuff. I’ve resented paying it the whole time (as had never gotten to use the last handset out of the original contract) and have only got 4 months left on the contract now. I’ve managed to look after it much better and not drop it this time (I blame baby brain with the last one & sleep deprivation making me clumsy!!) so I’ll be able to go to a cheap deal as soon as my contract ends in July!

Red is £45 for his phone which is even worse, he will no doubt upgrade as soon as he’s out of contract too! Only good thing is we haven’t got a landline and as I said currently have no personal laptop etc so we do get our money’s worth from our phones. 

Bluegreen143

Oh meant to update with spends/meals today.

Went a walk to Lidl with Bambi to get batteries for Red + a bottle of wine (which he did say he would buy me but I haven’t received the money 😆) but ended up browsing the dangerous middle aisle 😬

£36.85 spent -

£20.50 on me/fun/treats - crafting stuff eg 2 packs patterned card & a pack of stickers for card-making, a nifty wee circle paper cutter, a bottle of wine, a pack of creme eggs***

£5.48 on stuff for the kids - 2x of the wee sistema water bottles as they keep losing theirs + a pencil sharpener as again they seem to have none

£10.87 - household supplies - 2 pots of hyacinth bulbs, 2x packs of seeds (lettuce/sweet peas), 2 packs batteries, a pack of 2x fridge organisers as the one I keep my cheese in has cracked

In fairness most of this was stuff on my list to get over the next wee while especially the seeds/water bottles/fridge organiser tubs and it was just luck it all happened to be in Lidl today! 

*** I bought these under pretext of treating the kids but must here confess I ate 2.5 of the 5 pack myself 🐷😂 (where is the ability to make the text super tiny & change the colour when you need it btw!)

Meals 

Breakfast - kids had peanut butter on toast & strawberries, I had yoghurt, banana, maple syrup and a few dark chocolate chips

Lunch - kids had soft boiled eggs & soldiers (not at all a popular option with them it turns out 😳), yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes & cucumber. I had leftover veg & chickpea curry on toast which was yum!

Snack - an apple & a creme egg each for the kids... the aforementioned 2.5 creme eggs for me 😳

Dinner - HM beef burgers, HM chips, salad

Tonight - one VERY large glass of white wine as Red poured it and he just fills it up 😂

Diet needs some work tomorrow! 

Bluegreen143

Good morning so far today! I’d gotten in a bad routine on Red’s Saturday lie ins of being so knackered myself that I’d stagger downstairs, let the kids have far too much TV while I look at my phone and before I knew it it’d be 9 and nobody would be dressed, the kitchen a mess etc. So today I resolved to put a bit more structure in place and told them they can still have an hour of TV on Saturday mornings but we need to get all our stuff done first. So got them dressed and fed (to facilitate this I made chocolate overnight oats in advance, everyone’s favourite breakfast unsurprisingly!) and did all the dishes/kitchen first. Makes such a difference as I feel like I’m ahead of the game. Going to go and have my shower while they are watching now rather than just sitting on my bum.

Got a loaf of sourdough on the go as my new starter is finally ready. It’s risen amazingly and now in the fridge to bake later. I’m excited, we’ve all missed sourdough since I killed the last starter! Plus it’s meant to be healthier for your gut because some of the flour gets fermented or something - I’ll use that as my excuse when I scoff it later 🤣 also got a bag of dried chickpeas soaking - I cook the whole bag at once and freeze in “tin-sized” portions. Means I can make hummus today. Hard boiled a few eggs yesterday so my next task is to prep up raw veg, fruit and salad.

Think I’ll aim to get my gardening done today - have seeds to sow and germinated sunflowers to separate into their own pots. Need to turn the compost at some point too but waiting for a warmish day as it’s not fun in the cold!

Thought I’d share the Mother’s Day card I made yesterday to post to my mum ☺️ Messed up the word “day” when stamping but I really like it apart from that! Used one of the fancy printed papers I got from Lidl.