“Debt is normal. Be weird.”

dawnybabes

Congrats to your DH - I hated swopping from weekly to monthly at first, once I’d got over it it was better. Do you claim UC ? As this might fill the gap till May as his income will be Lower till then. 

browneyed_girl

Thanks @dawnybabes.  We've never claimed UC - assume that I earn too much.  Am currently looking at where I might earn a bit extra - even one extra shift will really help.  DH has already picked up extra hours so that his payday should be more than enough to get us back on track after a tight month.  

LzzyIsGod

Hope all is well @browneyed_girl

browneyed_girl

Argh - this last month has been so full of stress I think I might explode!  Work has been hectic for both me and DH, the inevitable spends on credit cards happened as a result of DH's change to monthly pay, DH had a car accident which meant car was written off and we've taken in a rescue kitten who needs frequent bottle feeding - it's like the baby has come early!

My spreadsheet currently looks horrendous - only small additional spends on credit cards initially this month, but then we've just had to buy a replacement car before the insurance company pays out.  DH opted to buy a cheaper and smaller vehicle since he's doing so many miles for work at the moment (up to 150 miles daily), though this does mean that once baby comes he won't have enough seats for all the kids and we'll have to trade cars as necessary according to who is ferrying the kids around each day.  Still, I like the fact that his insurance is £40 a month cheaper, the car tax for the year is only £35 instead of over £700 and running costs will be so much less.  Once the insurance payment comes through, we'll actually be in a better financial position than before.

DH gets paid on the 10th which is when I can finally make some decent debt payments - it really can't come soon enough!  I've only got another 7 weeks at work before maternity leave so it's all starting to feel very urgent, though I do get 8 weeks at full pay which will help set us up for the remaining months.  Have realised that we haven't bought anything for baby yet so need to factor this into budget over the next 2 months.  Having looked at only the things that are completely necessary, I only have about four items on the list!  

Need to try and get some sleep if baby allows (the constant night time kicking and heartburn is starting to become an issue), but hoping that I'll be in a better mood in the coming weeks to allow for more updates.

LzzyIsGod

That does sound horrendously stressful and just at a time you least need it. I hope you are doing ok now - I was a bit worried when you went quiet x

browneyed_girl

It's finally DH's payday, which means my spreadsheets are about to look much healthier!!  He's bringing home about £1000 more a month in his new job so I'm really keen to make sure that gets put somewhere useful rather than disappearing into the ether with lots of little spends because we've decided we can afford to treat ourselves a bit too frequently...

We've also had the car insurance pay out for DH's car so have paid off the cost of the new car, as well as having £1000 leftover to put into the car maintenance pot (because you never know with second-hand cars...).  That way, if we do end up needing to spend a bit on an unforeseen problem with the car, we're not really any worse off. 

Have made sure today to pay off all the little balances on CCs that accrued over the past month whilst waiting for DH to see a full month's pay.  We can also pay off the remaining Very balance this month (currently at £750.49) which will feel like a small victory.  Once that's paid, it's only my 0% CC which is being used for purchases related to the house, plus a couple of loans which both have reasonable monthly payments that would allow us to overpay a fair amount when we want to.  The 0% card currently has a balance of £2900, but this will unfortunately go up once our new front door gets fitted and they take the remaining charge for that.  I need to make some more payments into the EF so that this can be used to pay off any balance remaining when the 0% comes to an end - I think this will be where £500 or so of DH's raise will go over the next few months before my maternity pay goes down.  

Over the past few days I've started making daily to do lists, which I used to do a lot but tend to stop when I'm having a busy spell at work.  It's definitely made me more productive and made me focus on little goals that can be achieved rather than stressing over the bigger picture!  Today, for example, I had "make soup" on my list, which meant I finally got round to using up all the veg in the fridge that I'd got into the habit of just staring at hopelessly every time I opened the door, before reaching over it to grab the chocolate bar hidden behind it.  I've now frozen 4 portions of soup and have another portion for myself tonight, so that's five meals from what DH would probably have thrown away this weekend had I not been motivated enough to save it!  I think for me that I really need to stick with the planning in order to not stray from the MSE path - lists are definitely my friend in this battle for financial sanity...

Not got a huge amount on my to do list for tomorrow, but as DD1 is doing her volunteer work at the charity shop in the afternoon, I can take some boxes I've been holding onto in the garage at the same time and kill two birds with one stone.  I also have the weekly grocery shop to do (meal plan and shopping list completed today after taking a fairly thorough inventory of the kitchen cupboards ) and a few more things to organise in the garage (a lot of boxes got dumped in there when we moved).  Not sure that DH will have much energy to make any real progress with house/garden projects this weekend as his week at work has been very long, but I think I'll at least be aiming to have a bonfire to clear a lot of what's recently been chopped down/dug up in the back garden.  Might even get the kids some ingredients to make s'mores and turn it into an activity for the whole family...

Anyway, hoping I can get back to posting most days as I need someone holding me accountable for my spending decisions!  Now back to making the kid's dinner and putting away the freshly washed and dried baby clothes that came down from the loft last weekend - I think the nesting instinct is starting to take over!! 

LzzyIsGod

Hope your doing OK @browneyed_girl and all is well xx

browneyed_girl

So, I've been trying to force myself to post on here for the past few weeks, but each time I've backed out because it would mean facing the fact that our finances are in worse shape than before and then I just end up feeling horribly depressed 

I have, however, had a few revelations during my MSE absence:-
1. Owning and renovating a house is stupidly expensive
2. If you let it known to my DH that we have use of a 0% CC, he will interpret that as "free money, spend what you like"
3. DH is officially cursed when it comes to vehicles (as we prepare for a huge bill to get the clutch replaced) and should only ever be given ownership of a bicycle
4. Schools these days are really taking the mick when it comes to asking for financial contributions from parents (most recently £300 with 2 weeks notice for a trip to the West End for GCSE drama students which was highlighted as essential to their course)
5. My kids actually can keep a secret - they've now known about baby for 6 weeks and nobody else has found out!

Anyway, I'm currently on day 2 of my official maternity leave and trying to focus on the positives so that I can be in a better place emotionally before baby makes an appearance in a few weeks.  Yesterday was quite a good day - took DD2 and two of her friends to the local funfair, DD1 to her volunteer job and then ran some errands with DD3 waiting for them to need picking up again.  Had a look around the second-hand shop where DD1 volunteers and DD3 picked two items of clothing for a total of £1 which she paid for with her pocket money.  A friend who works at the shop had also put aside a number of baby items for us, which will end up saving us a decent amount of money.  I also found a hiking backpack for DD1 to use for her qualifying DofE expedition (she'd previously used DH's but found it quite uncomfortable on the last practice expedition she did).  Friend only charged us £3 for it and I've then seen they sell for up to £300 new!  It's in really good condition so feel that I bagged an absolute bargain with that one!

Spent a further £6.90 on snacks and drinks at L!dl for myself, DD1 and DD3 whilst waiting for DD2 to be done with her stuff.  Also collected a parcel from Boots which was DD2's skincare that she had paid for with her pocket money - all the items she bought were half price so I'm hoping the kids are learning to manage their money well!  DD3 saw a few hair accessories that she liked for £4 which I then bought using my points (I always get excited when no money changes hands!).  I'm not normally one to give in to the kids picking up items from shops, but we're really trying to reinforce good behaviour in DD3 before baby arrives (much harder than with the other kids in view of her ASD) and this was in response to that.  

Day at home today to sort housework and get a few more things organised before due date.  Trying not to stare at my spreadsheets because it'll just upset me.  It's not dire straits by any means, but we still have £275 to pay off on the Very account that I had wanted cleared by April, the Virgin Money 0% CC now has over £5000 on it because of things that have needed doing around the house AND I have £890 on my Amazon CC (still at 0% until October) because of unexpected expenses this month (school trips being a significant part of that).  I've set out a plan for payday which includes clearing the Very balance and putting at least £500 onto CCs, but nothing seems to be going smoothly these days so I'm trying to keep myself prepared for the worst! 
 

in_need_of_direction

Your finances may be in a worse state but your financial outlook isn’t as you now have a handle on exactly how things stand.  Hang in there, it’ll all come right

browneyed_girl

Thank you @in_need_of_direction - I hope you're right!!

Payday for me is Friday so I've only got a few days to get through.  Did the weekly shop last Friday so shouldn't need to buy anything more before payday, though DH might want to put in some more fuel depending on how many miles he needs to do for work this week.  He's in my car whilst his is in the garage so I don't have access to a vehicle during the day.  I suppose it's lucky that his car broke as I started maternity leave and don't need my own car for work, but it does mean that I'm going to be limited with what I can do over the next few weeks - living in the middle of the countryside makes having a car essential for just about everything!

I've got a mountain of laundry to get through today whilst the kids are at school and need to go through the fridge and kitchen cupboards to check on what needs using up to avoid the despised food waste.  I know I have some peppers that need using but can't think of a way to use them creatively - might just end up putting them in an omelette for lunch.  Dinner for everyone is going to be pizza (we have regular 'Pizza Mondays').  Usually, we would make these from scratch, but I've bought some in this week as I don't have the energy or bladder capacity to be stood for ages in the kitchen! 

Trying to be more positive about everything, but the hot weather and being heavily pregnant are leaving me feeling a bit fed up!  Am going to be really on it with monitoring finances and keeping the house in check now that I'm on leave though - hoping this sense of control will improve my mood (it usually does!).