“Debt is normal. Be weird.”

CRANKY40

I thought that it was just me that still had clothes older than my 15 year old son 🤣

WinterWarrior

CRANKY40 said:

I thought that it was just me that still had clothes older than my 15 year old son 🤣

Nope, me too. Some of my favourites are really ancient! I have a beautiful bashed leather jacket that was the first ‘expensive’ thing I ever bought (30 yrs old)…I still remember crying when a huge gust of wind blew me into a fence post and made a small rip in the sleeve (and my dad was cross). I superglued it back down, but it still makes me sad….plus nothing more than a tornado would blow me off track these days 😬

[Deleted User]

I've still got clothes which are 15-20 years old that I wear (well, when I can fit into them!).  I rarely buy myself new clothes these days

mumtoomany

I read your post and at first thought you were going to try to mend the broken needle! That would be taking it a bit far i think. I love the idea of mending father than buying new. We do just the same. Even my wellies have patches on them! You might want to check out the Lidl weekend deals. Three or four items that are on offer Friday through to Sunday, different ones each week. Keep up the good work, mumtoomany.

badmemory

I still have a small number of items that are older than my 39 year old son & still wear them so it isn't just that I'm a hoarder.  I still regret the suede coat that I sent to a charity shop because there was no way I was ever going to fit back in it.

browneyed_girl

I’m so glad everyone has the same attitude towards clothes!  Most of my friends and colleagues don’t seem to understand the concept of mending and keeping clothes for years - they look at me as though I must be mad.  Then again, I know of a good number that are definitely living beyond their means and could probably do with adopting a similar attitude, so I’ll keep mentioning it and see if it catches on!

browneyed_girl

Had a very productive day yesterday.  Came home determined to sort out school uniforms, so that I’m not rushing around the day before school starts and only finding out then that all DDs have outgrown their shoes (nightmare scenario ).  Thankfully, after getting DDs to try on every item of uniform in the house, I have fewer items to buy than anticipated .

Subsequent trip to Mr T saw a £32.22 spend on a few top-up items, some YS items to put in the freezer for next week, some school items and £6 on a lunchbox for DS (still can’t believe he’s old enough to need one!).

Annoyance of the day was an email from our energy provider stating that their prices were going up again, with them estimating it will cost us an extra £2.16 a week.  I swear their last email was only about 6 weeks ago telling me the same thing.  I am signed up with the MSE energy club and haven’t received any notifications recently telling me I’m paying too much, so I can only assume that prices are going up across the board.  I did have an email last year to say I could save by changing provider, but as the cheaper option didn’t have any information about their customer service, I opted to stay put.  I also quite like our current provider as their electricity is 100% from renewable sources - as we only have electricity in the property, it makes me feel as though we’re being very green.  We also do what we can to minimise our usage, with our current monthly payment being £80 and I know we’re in credit by about £60.  I don’t think this is bad for a family of six in a detached house, but I don’t really have any reference point for this as I tend not to ask other people about their utility bills!  On that point, our latest water bill saw them reduce our direct debit by £7 to £41.50 as we were being very careful and ended up building up a significant amount of credit .

Need to finish updating on a few things and on today’s spending (spoiler alert: so far it’s nothing!!), but need to finish prepping the kid’s dinner.  Back in a bit!

browneyed_girl

Kids all fed and happy so back to detailing my life for all to critique!

Focusing on the positive first, I’ve been able to cash out £10 on one survey site, £5.60 on another (which pays instantly and is therefore already in my EF) and bank £5 from my rewards account, which will also find its way into my EF once it clears.  As mentioned above, it has also been a NSD - the second one this week!!

The not so positive has been receiving an estimate for the work needed on my car, which rather spectacularly failed its MOT.  We were expecting it, but not quite at the level it has apparently sunk to over the course of the year.  Current estimate is £450, not including issues with the door and the handbrake as they haven’t yet determined the underlying cause of the problems.  I think that I would like to mentally set aside at least £800 for the repairs, then hopefully be pleasantly surprised when the total is less than that.  We do have a Monzo pot for car maintenance that unfortunately has been drained by “the incident”.  We’ve only just managed to start adding to it again this month, so no help there towards the cost.  The EF is also far from this amount, so there will be lots of playing with figures to see how to best pay for the impending doom bill.

As it’s payday for me tomorrow, I’ve been busy updating spreadsheets and looking at next month’s planned spending.  When factoring in the amount left in our current accounts, income for the month and all usual outgoings (direct debits, food and fuel budgets, plus minimum CC payments), we should have a buffer of exactly £805.07 for the month.  At first glance, this seems perfect in order to accommodate the expected garage bill, but from this amount we also need to buy remaining school items, pay for DD1’s birthday outing, cover unexpected costs and ideally put more than the minimum payments towards our CC balance.  I’m already formulating a plan to pay the garage bill over 2 months - something I’ve never thought to do before because I always need to pay bills or invoices immediately (I hate having them hanging over my head and I feel it must be such an inconvenience, particularly to the smaller businesses).  However, if it saves us adding more to our CC and the associated interest, it would definitely be worth it. 

mumtoomany

Ouch about the car bill! Regarding electric, we are a family of 8, 5 adults and 3 children, Our electric is usually around £60-£70 per month. We have solar panels, so around another £20 per month free and heating and cooking are both calor gas. So yours sounds quite good to me. Mumtoomany.

browneyed_girl

Thanks @mumtoomany - that’s really helpful!!  I’d love to have solar panels and possibly even a little wind turbine in the back garden, but obviously need to wait until we buy.  I’m noticing your signature regarding the frugal living challenge - it looks very intriguing and just the thing I would love to focus on!  How have you found it?