Learning to walk before I run

Suffolk_lass

On Prime - we normally don't but I accepted a 30 day free trial that was due to finish on 20th, and they offered us (him) a one month free extension so I have accepted that too as it is handy at this time of year.

I use Big River Subscriptions for some regular things - Pet food with 15% off (for the months when there are five items) - I have a monthly subscription for a sanitary product that is £2.55 but means we get the 15% off most months, and I actively manage it - so I go in and skip or change the monthly interval or move things forward/back to try and be a little bit savvy. I buy OB toilet paper for the food bank every other month too, to salve my conscience about the bags I no longer pick up because I only go to the SM infrequently. With my garden produce preserved I am trying for a second (mostly) freezer month and sticking to a list. Back to Prime - we rarely watch anything (different for you) - so we don't really use the premium parts and as others say, free delivery is often available, once the basket is over £25. Like others, I wait, unless I can't. It is very easy to get sucked in. I started with a brand of coffee and added the dry dog and cat food, toilet rolls and bin bags. Toiletries, groceries and cleaning products are rarely cheaper than SM offers and I buy multiples when these are on offer. My instant coffee is always cheaper on BRS though, my FG coffee is not always, but it is sometimes. And teabags, 4 boxes of 100 branded everyday for £12. Take £15% off and it helps not give up all the premium things. 

I know our DH and DS both used the free version of Spotify (DH still does) and it just means adverts, from what they have said. 

Life is too short for you to spend hours trawling for bargains, but being prepared to write a mealplan, substitute things and swap things around lets me take advantage of YS bargains. So I might have "roast" on the plan but the choice of meat and veg is driven by seasonal offers, wonky stuff and YS. The reason we are having a mostly freezer month is because we had a freezer full of stuff we had paid the SM to store for them. Bonkers. I still buy 3 for £10 meat, but I try to keep track now (except when I found 6 chickens because I inadvertently left 3 in my app basket). I make a small chicken do 3 things - roast, stock and leftovers. HM soups, thick and filling for lunch with a lump of bread is a wonderful thing. I didn't take it to work but you could. 

I wondered if you have a sacrificial bank account you can transfer? Our Coop account is offering £125 to each if I refer a friend, if you want to tart around with offers like that, I'm happy to help - the Everyday Rewards are less now. £800 paid in, 4 DD and a couple of other conditions (paperless statement, log-in once a month, stay in credit or within agreed OD limits) - £1.38/£2.20 max possible for us this month.

As @Cornish_mum says, you've got this, and we are cheering you on. x

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - we are going to can big river in March.  Currently  getting it discounted via O2 and didn't  realise there was a minimum term! Still, cheapest way to get it. 

Spotify is getting the boot this evening, neither of us defended it fiercely enough...

Cheery Daff referred me for the coop but I will send Mrs E your way when the dust settles on her Barclays switch I should try and keep a sacrificial account but I have a good? Habit of closing accounts as I go. 

Oddly enough, we are now getting our shopping delivered from Morrisons, who are pretty poor value (plus Lidl for vaguely affordable smoked salmon, Asda for nappies and coffee from an independent roaster). It was a "time poor" thing. Despite the higher costs, the fact that we have to meal plan more consistently has actually  dropped our weekly spend, I suppose I have less "bright ideas" while shopping this way? I do miss yellow and orange  stickers tho...

LadyWithAPlan

I love a YS shop - 80 % of my shop last night on way home was reduced (tesc* at 8.30pm)

6% ouch but I am very sure that this will focus you both so much that you will look back at it as a blip that made you get that mortgage paid off asap 
I read some frugalwoods yesterday and whilst extreme for my london lifestyle so good motivation there for me. 

edinburgher

Yesterday was a bit

Mrs E was due to find out what her pay rise was going to be for the year. She believed that it would be backdated to July. I had misunderstood and believed that it was going to be backdated to April (like my wage). £££ in any case.

It turns out that her wages were not due to be backdated and that while this had happened before, it was a one-off because the process was delayed on a previous occasion.

The feeling of £££ disappearing felt like an absolute punch in the stomach and I was frankly quite cross. I explained to her that I felt unsupported in the realm of finances and that the only thing I expected of her was to know when and how she would be paid. On the one hand, she is constantly sleep deprived and that is dreadful. On the other hand, she has been with the same employer for 4 years and I cannot for the life of me imagine not understanding how your wages and pay review functions after 4 years

I was also screened out of a £4 Y Live survey and earned about 20p on Prolific, so yesterday felt a bit like a -£700 sorta day!

QueenJess

Oh Ed. I hope you sleep on it and feel calmer. This just sounds like an unfortunate misunderstanding and maybe Mrs Ed misunderstood that it was a one off last time as Companies aren’t always the best at communicating. Plus sleep deprivation is dreadful and might easily have impacted her understanding. Severe sleep deprivation leads onto hallucination and I know I was pretty much there at times.

Have you discussed finances with Mrs Ed? What is it you want her to do to feel more supported?

edinburgher

@QueenJess - I know I can be a grump and try to rein in my moanier tendencies because I appreciate how much of a burden DD2's poorly established sleep pattern is. I'm not 100% Mrs E would agree with that claim I'm really not sure that offsets the 2+ years she has been through the pay cycle when she wasn't pregnant/looking after a baby at nights...

In terms of finances, I want her to either make more of a practical contribution or get out of the way of attempts to trim our budget. 

She earns a respectable wage but 80% of it as she is part-time. Not great, she'd earn more as a public sector employee of similar level. She isn't exactly passive at work, perhaps just less pushy than me and has an approach that basically consists of waiting to see what happens. One example would be the possibility of a promotion was mentioned c. 6 months ago. She has discussed it twice with her boss in that period and just expresses a view that promotion is a "black box" where she'll basically be told what her bosses decide. Be that as it may, there's never any consideration of moving elsewhere, basically because current work are vaguely flexible re. childcare. All employees for the sort of role she does are likely to be similarly flexible for a mother with a toddler in a skilled role (she's been in the same sector for 15+ years, current employer for 4). 

It has taken 18 months to get her to sign up for surveys, she never attempts to get cashback of any kind and none of the vaguely entrepreneurial things that I do to keep either our family cashflow (or my personal bank balance) afloat seem to be of any interest to her as something that she could do. She only replicates them if I essentially do the work but in her name.

As regards budgets, she will often play devil's advocate whenever I try and trim anything and this sort of inertia means that things are left unchanged when they probably shouldn't be. I've recently just started ignoring some of these comments, as I no longer have the luxury of waiting to see.

We're all different, I appreciate that and her laissez-faire approach was fine in a low inflation world. This is no longer the case when our finances are hurting. I can't put that into words that will register as anything other than gripes.

That's all very negative. I dearly love my wife. She is a warm, loving, tolerant person and a wonderful mother. 

*Edit: I have unsubscribed from Netflix, YNAB back up to 21 days

Eldi_Dos

edinburgher said:

Yesterday was a bit

You mention going to the library. Philip Gwynne Jones's To Venice with Love is a good read.
He was of a certain age when he took the package from the bank in Gorgie and it follows the journey the couple went on. I found it interesting and entertaining, although his attitude to spending and future financial wellbeing would be anathema to many of us.

It also reaffirmed a longstanding puzzlement I have as to why otherwise sensible people find Leith attractive.

Cornish_mum

Hi Ed, MrCM is also not interested in financial anything. Expenses claims he takes months to organise (I have to prepare them for him), he never claims for his side income work (similar figures to mine so £100-200 a job); he also never knows what and when he is going to be paid. I do all the organising and have to make a massive effort to explain to him what’s going on… as he’s just not interested… CM

South_coast

I'm not sure if you've always worked in the public sector Ed, but things like salaries and promotions genuinely are very opaque in the private sector, so it might not be the case that she is just vague about it. I've never had a role where pay rises were discussed (either with the bosses or amongst the team - you just get your letter from the boss or in the post and that's that), and the one promotion I've received while in the same business (I've moved companies for the others) came as a complete surprise as there was no vacancy and it hadn't been mentioned previously - I just got called aside one Friday afternoon and told I had a new role from Monday

greenbee

South_coast said:

I'm not sure if you've always worked in the public sector Ed, but things like salaries and promotions genuinely are very opaque in the private sector, so it might not be the case that she is just vague about it. I've never had a role where pay rises were discussed (either with the bosses or amongst the team - you just get your letter from the boss or in the post and that's that), and the one promotion I've received while in the same business (I've moved companies for the others) came as a complete surprise as there was no vacancy and it hadn't been mentioned previously - I just got called aside one Friday afternoon and told I had a new role from Monday

It's the same here - pay rises are confidential and individual, and don't always happen at the same time of year. Promotions sometimes happen, but generally you have to apply for a role that's being advertised externally as well as internally as a result of someone leaving/dying - not just because you meet the criteria. If you do get a 'promotion' it's generally a different job. There are rumours that this year's (performance-related) pay increases aren't going to be generous. And we only ever get performance increases - no cost of living or centrally negotiated payrises.