Currently clueless...aiming for awareness

savingholmes

It might help you not want to 'rebel' against the budget if you put in realistic amounts of guilt free spending. That might then help you stick to budget more. As an example - in my later debt stages I allowed £75 per person per quarter for clothes (so roughly £25 a month each but saved it up so they could get something more meaningful with it - but it still incentivised teens to earn money if they wanted more). I used to give myself £50 pocket money to spend guilt free and £50 for a family meal out / takeaway - so had to be creative where we went or use pocket money towards it...

On your SOA - clothing looks unrealistically low for 5 people... unless you are buying second hand on FB or have most stuff passed on.

You also don't appear to have anything for holidays - or entertainment outside the home or eating out /takeaways. 

There's no hobbies / free spend for you and your partner.

Do you give your kids pocket money?

It feels like you've written an idealised budget - and perhaps because you've not used the normal one (i think on lemon fool) it's harder to see what's missing. 

HTH

canvascamper

Oh gosh, I knew I'd mess it up 😂 

I didn't know there was a template, I looked at a few others from diaries and cut and paste the most comprehensive one.

Clothes are almost all hand-me-downs or eBay/charity shop, except odd bits of school uniform and kids shoes. Rarely get anything for myself and Mr CC only gets new clothes from his mother at Christmas 😅

Holidays I'd forgotten - it's always camping so site fees only, this year it will be around £900 total I think. 

My hobbies are worrying, overthinking and procrastinating. Mr CC plays guitar but that costs nothing.

Entertainment spends and takeaways come out of the general household food budget or if I've had a good freelance month we will go to the cinema or a big day out. This is very ad hoc though!

Child 1 gets £5 per week pocket money into his account. Child 2 gets £4 and child 3 gets £2 but this is 'imaginary' money that is tallied up on an app so they know how much they have 'saved' when they want to buy something.  

Not sure how to budget for a variable income TBH. Nothing seems 'tidy'. 

canvascamper

Had a good day today generally. Spent £19 in Aldi on fruit and ice lollies - I make my own ice lollies usually but we ran out yesterday and child 1 has huge sensory needs so gets through loads of ice lollies (thankfully he's great at brushing his teeth!)

Child 2 had karate £6.50, budgeted for.

Mr CC spotted that there was 25% off garden furniture so he bought a £60 table we've been dithering over for a year and a garden chair (we only have 4) so we can finally eat in the garden at a table this summer. 

I finally booked a person to come round and measure up for the new stairs carpet. Quote for the whole job (good quality carpet with long guarantee, underlay, fitting, joiny bits etc) looks like £2k ish. It needs doing desperately as it's currently dangerous. Can get it interest free over 2 years so will do that rather than risk an injury. 

Jellytotts

Could you ignore the adhoc money in your monthly budget and just use it to overpay your debts or a combination of debts and emergency fund saving?  To my mind, if you don’t know for sure how much you’ll be getting it’s best to use it to clear stuff and then once the debts are gone it’s going to build up nicely in the savings.

Might also be worth opening accounts for the kids pocket money and actually depositing the “virtual” amounts in so you’re not caught out later down the line (and topping up monthly in budget) but also making sure that the kids are using it and not being subbed by you.   

The teenage years can get very expensive if you let them but implementing a few rules now over pocket money means you’re less likely to be shelling out for the latest “thing” because they’ll be saving towards it in their own accounts.   

canvascamper

@Jellytotts yes that's a good idea, try and keep it aside and then use it as repayments. Some of it will be needed for planned house stuff over the next year but there should still be enough to make a good dint.

Planning a trip to the park with child 3 today, will take a picnic so we don't buy lunch. He needs new sunglasses and sandals so will look in TK Maxx near the park. Child benefit came in today so I have that to use for his things. 

I measured all the children's feet last night and got all the stored summer shoes out. Very annoyingly they've all grown 😂 and neither of the younger 2 are the right size for child 1's old sandals, so I will need to look out for a good deal for new ones for all 3. They need good quality closed toe washable sandals, we camp a lot and go on walks so they have to withstand all sorts - flip flop type things don't cut it. My favourites are pediped saharas but they are never ever reduced. 

I've just bought Mr CC's birthday present, an electric pizza oven that he asked for. We make pizzas every week rather than takeaway/go out but our oven doesn't get hot enough really. He will be so happy. £120 but will get a lot of use. 

canvascamper

Well, my day wasn't entirely successful in the frugality stakes, but there were a couple of small wins!

Went to TK Maxx, no sunglasses or sandals, but did get child 3 some nice Clarks shoes for a wedding we're going to in 2 weeks, for £11. Also spotted a pizza paddle in clearance for £6 which the children can give to Mr CC for his birthday with the pizza oven. Unfortunately also let child 3 get some silicone ice lolly moulds that were unnecessary, although we did then make smoothie lollies this afternoon and had a grand time.

Went to the park for a lovely picnic so no lunch spends.

Came home and remembered I had another pair of sandals in a different bag, which, hoorah!, fit child 3 so he doesn't need any more summer shoes.

Sold and posted some shorts on eBay and listed 5 more things from the Cupboard of Doom. 

Did school run and avoided the ice cream van extortion or the Costa coffee whinge. 

Got my OVO bill and was in loads of credit, but when I looked at it closely there are 2 "pay as you go" payments of £67 going into my account that we didn't make (we pay by DD). Not sure if this is part of the government top up as it's £67, but I thought this ended in March, so I need to check this with them. I hate to think someone has accidentally topped up the wrong account, if that's even possible.

Planned jacket potato and beans for tea, realised no beans, went to Aldi and ONLY CAME OUT WITH BEANS! (This is a huge change for me!).

Tomorrow I'm in the office, will try and get up in time to make a packed lunch, or at least pack some fruit and snacks. Was supposed to have leftovers of tonight's tea but it all got eaten, hmmph. 

savingholmes

I hope the Ovo thing is resolved in your favour. Seems weird.

Great win on the kids' footwear.

canvascamper

Relatively good day today. I was in the office so not much time to get into trouble!

I went out at lunch to get some shoes for the wedding we're attending. £42 in Next but money was there in the clothes pot. This wedding is a bit of a pain in the butt TBH, normally we'd have months of notice and I could have bought everything from eBay/charity shops over time, but it was a "surprise" wedding that we only found out about 2 weeks ago. It was meant to happen just after covid lockdown started so obviously got cancelled and I think we all assumed it wasn't happening anymore. I had some stuff for the kids at the time but obviously none of that fits now! So I've had to buy them all new smart stuff, only from H&M but x3 it adds up. We're a very casual family generally so didn't have anything appropriate. 

No other spends today, had lunch at work of cereal and oat milk (because it's free, there's a big selection in the kitchen).

Tomorrow I'm doing my freelance job, which is full on all day and I will hopefully get 10 mins for lunch but often don't have time so won't be any big spending going on! I'll probably take some more cereal and some fruit. 

MrCC picked up our new garden table and chair today, and we had tea in the garden at a table, it was so lovely! Very happy moment.

Looking forward to half term next week (we get 2 weeks off), I've actually got time off work. It's also MrCC's birthday and our wedding anniversary, we're going camping for 3 nights and the weather is looking good, which always means less spends as the kids are happy mucking about outside. Child 2 wants to see Little Mermaid so that might be a treat day out, but mostly we'll be going to various parks, beaches and lakes with picnics. Lovely stuff. 

canvascamper

Got home from freelance job, and I came upstairs with the intention of putting my gym gear on and doing a rebound class, but I appear to have ended up in my pyjamas instead 🤔 my brain is fried!

Nearly had a no spend day today but nipped into m&s on the way home and got some yellow sticker apples and grapes, so £4 spent.

I realised last night that my m&s credit card interest free period ended last week. My co-op account was offering 24 months interest free on transfers so I duly completed the application, and it says 5 working days and to await a letter in the post. What is this, 1996? 

Job for tonight, list 5 more things on eBay. 

Jellytotts

Pyjamas are tricky beasts, they attack when you least expect it.