Starting again ... again

WinterWarrior

A brilliant start, well done! It makes absolute sense to cut down the interest. 

BalanceBy50

Found you! and will follow if thats ok?😊
Childcare does get easier but its a horrendous cost.  I just pay £32 a week for a childminder 2 evenings a week now plus school holidays.  Due to lockdowns not paid this for over a year but dreading the cost when the world starts to get back to normal.
I have a delivery pass with Asda and find it very good value at £5pm. I now do a weekly menu plan, write a shopping list & then do my online shop.  I try and factor in all the after school activities so don't plan tro make stuff that takes hours when we need a quick tea before football training 😊.  Its the trips to Aldi that derail my budget - I do like a full fridge and freezer though!

Good Luck xx

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Me and hubby worked out that by the time DS2 will start school, we'll have spent well over £150k between childcare and rent since we've been together. Depressing doesn't come close! Could buy a house outright with it ha! Just shows why we're in debt thought, there's never enough money ha. 

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

BalanceBy50 said:

I have a delivery pass with Asda and find it very good value at £5pm. I now do a weekly menu plan, write a shopping list & then do my online shop.  I try and factor in all the after school activities so don't plan tro make stuff that takes hours when we need a quick tea before football training 😊.  Its the trips to Aldi that derail my budget - I do like a full fridge and freezer though!

I find I buy too much fancy stuff online. If I go to the shops in person, there is only so much I can cart home in my granny trolley  so I have to be more selective.

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Just checked about the dresses I want to return and turns out today is the last day for this - off to the post office I pop!

Sunshine_girl2

Love your username and you seem to be raring to go , good luck will subscribe . 

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Sunshine_girl2 said:

Love your username and you seem to be raring to go , good luck will subscribe . 

Thanks Sunshine girl, welcome aboard haha!

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Another £5 Prolific survey done and it was a fun one. It pays off to be bilingual, I think I get double the surveys ha!

Parkyp

Omg that’s some amount of money on rent and childcare. Universal credits sounds awful I thought the whole idea of that was to have all benefits together to help people budget, obviously not 🤷🏻‍♀️. My son has just finished uni so I’m looking forward to him getting a full time job and giving me some keep money for a change 🤣🤣. I think the biggest issue with food is trying to be organised. do you have a slow cooker so meals can be ready For when the kids get picked up. Wishing you luck with you clearing your debt you’ve managed before, you can do it again. 

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Thanks @Parkyp! It's an insane amount of money isn't it! 
Just goes to show that it's true that it's expensive to be poor. If we could have afforded a house sooner, we wouldn't have wasted all that money on rent. If we had had a mortgage earlier, we could have equity by now, allowing me to go part time and thus saving on childcare costs. Etc etc. 
Oh well, it is what it is, at least we had our LBM in time to hopefully get a mortgage eventually  and pay it off before retirement. 
I don't have a slow cooker, but I do have an instant pot. I need to make more use of it. I use it often, but mostly for cooking rice, quinoa, soup or pulses in it. Need to look into cooking proper meals in it instead. 
It's not easy finding dinner ideas that everyone will eat when there's 4 people including a toddler going through a fussy phase haha! 
I've got a bit of work to do tonight but will try and do some kind of meal prep tomorrow night maybe. 
Work and life with a toddler who doesn't sleep have been zapping me so I usually just collapse in a heap once bedtime is done, need to pull my finger out of the proverbial and get organised!