In years to come I will laugh

dprovan · 5 January 2022 at 10:05PM

Well jut back from the gym and ran for 1 hour solid and did 5 miles- where did that come from? Not exactly the flying Scotsman at that pace but 'slow and steady wins the race' which come to think of it is not a bad approach to tackling our finances. Good evening everyone!

Tahlullah.H · 6 January 2022 at 8:49PM

You are doing great!

dprovan · 8 January 2022 at 12:10PM

Went out for a family meal as a 'send off' for the two eldest kids who head back to uni tomorrow- most of the meal was paid for with a Christmas voucher. My wife and I prefer to cook at home- the kids love the place we went to- we find the food stogie. Despite this, it was great to spend time with the family and daughters boyfriend- and expense was kept to a minimum due to voucher. I then sat with both boys to 2am as they played FIFA and chatted. It is just beautiful watching 12 year old son look at 18 year old son through eyes of admiration and pride. Also great that 18 year old son would chooe to sit with us on a Friday night when he could be out with his mates. Well we are off today for him to get his covid test to travel to USA to university tomorrow. Hopefully he has a negative test- or he cant fly!! But at the same time negative test means he is away for 5 months!! I will miss him and always get a bit emotional thinking about him being away for 5 months! I know ill be fine in a couple of day! And he cant wait to get back so that makes things easier. Daughter heads away same day- but she is closer and will be home every 4-6 weeks. Grandparents gave them both some money to take which was lovely and every bit helps. On a moneysaving plus we will go from a household of 5 to 3 so food and household expenses will go down significantly- the oldest are more expensive to accommodate in terms of food. Both kids are good with money- daughter works part time and is precious with every penny- go her! Son spends very little- I worry he doesn't have enough money to do the things he wants to whilst in US- but he most likely does and as my wife says if he doesn't it will motivate him to get a p/t job- she is the sensible one as I say!

As for our own moneysaving- things are going great- no additional frivolous spending at all- everything budgeted for- had to pay for sons covid test, haircut for him etc but all out of weekly budget- each week we have had money left over from our weekly 'pocket money' to put into savings pot. I have totals- and I will update this blog near the end of the month- now that kids uni is paid etc- so i have a visual total to monitor and record and to see progress. Wife and I have started to talk about the future more realistically. We have started to entertain the prospect of downsizing our home- we have a large house and with the two eldest away we don't need all this space. The space is costing us money we don't need to pay in terms of energy bills etc- we could probably downsize and use the difference to clear the debt or lots of it! I am very attached emotionally to the house as it is i where the kids have grown up- but coming around to the thinking- one of our relatives may move in the next 6 months and we thought we could even rent their house, sell our house, save some and look to buy without a chain. However we are both cautious that this cant be a convenient quick fix- otherwise the behaviours that keep getting us here will continue. We have both set ourselves the task of getting the head down for the next 6 months and seeing what we can achieve.

still alcohol free and going to the gym regular- helps with finance and wellbeing- heading there later.

ThisLife · 8 January 2022 at 2:51PM

It's fantastic that you and your wife are working together on this. it really sounds like you are pulling together and supporting each other. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it.

I love the quote attributed to C.S.Lewis 'You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending'

Tiredbutdetermined · 8 January 2022 at 3:21PM

Happy new year.
There is something so positive about being able to embrace the positive and negative elements of your life and situation.
Huge well done on the gym and staying alcohol free. My relationship with alcohol has changed so much this year and it is nice to drink as and when I want rather than being sucked into drinking too much every night without thinking

flyingscotsman67 · 10 January 2022 at 2:31PM

Thanks to everyone for the positive encouragement- it means a lot

Kids went back to Uni yesterday- son left the house yesterday at 7am and got into Uni at 7am this morning! Wont hear from him for a few days

He got up at 4am to win his younger brother some FIFA cards before he left- he is soft under the tough interior.

My wife and I are feeling the gap of them both being away- but determined to use the time to tackle things. They both come back in June and I want to make some good progress on some numbers - debt and health.

I have tallied up the numbers- shamed to say - i had to do some double checking to verify how many credit cards we have- says it all!

Debts:
Credit Cards x 12 £86,360
Loans x 2: £19,600
Total: £105,960

Assets:
Emergency fund: 1,926
Pension 190k
Capital on house £300k -£108 mortgage (£192)

Looking forward to the numbers going in the right direction.

Heading to gym tonight- keeping my mind healthy and try to lose some weight- day 13 alcohol free which is a win