Currently clueless...aiming for awareness

joedenise

Have you got a slow cooker?  If you can you could prep some stuff during the evening and keep it in the fridge and then in the morning dump it in the SC to cook away all day ready for an evening meal.  Things like veggie curry are great done this way.

vampirotoothus

Hi just wondering if you could bake snacks with the children, i.e. flapjack or fairy cakes. It would be another skill for them too x

canvascamper

We do have a slow cooker. Not sure what I did wrong but everything came out mushy. Will try again and see if I can do a better job!

The kids do like baking, especially child 2, she wants to be a chef when she's older, but she always wants to make huge fancy cakes with 7 colours of ombre icing like she's seen on Pinterest, and the ingredients tend to be pricey. If I suggest making flapjack they're fairly disinterested. Having said that, me and child 3 made pancakes for tea tonight so that was nice, tasty and also a fun activity.

I was lying awake last night feeling very anxious about money. The remortgage deadline is looming - October next year - and there's no wiggle room at the moment. If I can just get the debt down we will have a chance. Feels miserable to be needing to save just to pay more interest next year but I'm trying to be a realist.

So anyway I decided in my 2am panic that I need to treat myself like an absolute toddler. I'm going to be here every day logging every spend, every balance, until I get to grips with where all this money is leaking from and I can make better decisions.

Anyway I need to get my newly-school-age child 3 into bed after his first day of reception class then I'll be back with some riveting figures.

canvascamper

04/09/23 daily breakdown

Spending pots total £45.79
Savings pots total £61.24
Bills account total £410.57
Emergency fund £86 (was £400 but bought a dishwasher yesterday) 

Payday in 13 days. Can I make £45 stretch 13 days? 

I need to pay my daughter's tutor for September, I can use childcare vouchers now that child 3 has finished nursery, but not this month because I've not built up any vouchers since last payday when I paid the last nursery bill. So I need to find £124 for this month.

The bills account looks healthy, it's black and not red at least..but I've got £370 of bills to come out still before payday, so there's no wiggle room there either.

I've got £36 in my Vinted account I could cash out but I was trying to keep that in there for Christmas presents. 

savingholmes

Are there any surveys you can do to bring in extra money? Anything you can sell besides the clothes? Old bikes? Furniture? Anything on FB? Can you do a bank account switch and get money that way? I've had probably £500 or more doing that in the last couple of years.

canvascamper

I don't really have time to do surveys, with 2 jobs and 3 kids. I'm totally knackered.
There's probably stuff I can sell, I've got a whole cupboard of stuff to put on Vinted and loads of toys I could shift but again it's getting the time to list. Nothing big though that would bring in a wodge overnight. 
Looked into the bank account switch but looks like you have to pay a load of direct debits and wages into it before you get the reward, is that right? 

savingholmes

Just two direct debits on average. I swish money through about 4 accounts every pay day - that way I get the benefits from them. You can set up a dummy account with two direct debits and then switch that if you want. You don't normally have to pay your main salary into it - just swish money through. Some of them pay really quickly.

canvascamper

Ahh that sounds easy on paper but I 100% guarantee I would mess that up and lose track of all my wages 😬

Sometimes I think I have no excess brain capacity for these clever solutions. 

canvascamper

Oh how annoying, I posted a whole long post and it's not there 🥴

Anyway, to summarise -
Spent £11 on medication to treat everyone for threadworms 🤮 thanks to child 3

Spent £8 on top up shop for fruit and tonight's tea.

Spent £4 on coffee with a friend who's having a terrible divorce and needed some moral support

Paid gas and electric £219

05/09/23 daily breakdown

Spending pots total £17.78
Savings pots total £61.24
Bills account total £191.57
Emergency fund £86  

canvascamper

Still not paid tutor. I'm contemplating using child 2's savings just for this month and I will put the money back ASAP but I feel horribly guilt about it.
I already know I'll have to use child 1's savings for his year 7 residential. I feel like I'm stealing from them even though I put all the money in there in the first place.
Poor child 3 doesn't even have a savings account yet and he's nearly 5 😔