Currently clueless...aiming for awareness

savingholmes

Good you are about to be paid. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

canvascamper

Well, not sure how it's Thursday already! It's been a bit of a manic few days (what's new?!)

The good news is, I got paid on Friday. Money came in, bills went out, pots got filled, I bought some food, pots got smaller....

The bad news is the an acquaintance of mine died on Monday, only 38 and with a little girl. I wasn't close to her socially but we worked together a lot over the last few months, and she was genuinely one of the nicest people I had ever met. She was only diagnosed with cancer 8 weeks ago. It's been a real eye opener for me about priorities and making good choices.

I've decided I want to pay off all my credit card debt, and then once that's done I will be able to stop my employed job and just do my freelance work. Currently I do freelance one day per week, and employed job 3 days a week. I can earn significantly more in the freelance job per day, BUT no holiday pay. I've worked out I can do 3 days a week freelance and earn more than I currently earn working 4 days a week, which will give me 4 days a week to be present for my kids, and live a better lifestyle instead of rushing about being stressed all the time and eating crap food and making bad decisions. The freelance job is the kind where you work hard but at the end of the day you leave and there's no follow up work, so it's great on that front. It's also got a brilliant pension. There are some risks, the work is not guaranteed for 3 exact days, although its very steadily available, but I would have the flexibility to do, say, 4 days one week and 2 days the other if needed. 

And if it doesn't work, I am sufficiently qualified to go back to the employed job without too much difficulty, so I genuinely think I should go for it.

Need to talk it all over with Mr CC again, I've just floated it as an option so far but we've not had time to sit and look at the figures yet.

Anyway, speaking of figures - 

21/09/23

Spending pots - £432
Savings pots - £45
Bills account - £868

No spend day today. I've been looking at bits for child 3's birthday in 4 weeks. He wants a class party so I'm not going to buy him much (he'll get loads from the party!), but there's a lego set he's been pining over for ages, a kite, and a couple of books he would like. 

Also need to buy a paper shredder. It's been in my amazon basket for about a month but not getting any cheaper. I might look at The Range, see if they have any.

Over and out, MSEers

laura_lau

canvascamper said:

Well, not sure how it's Thursday already! It's been a bit of a manic few days (what's new?!)

The good news is, I got paid on Friday. Money came in, bills went out, pots got filled, I bought some food, pots got smaller....

The bad news is the an acquaintance of mine died on Monday, only 38 and with a little girl. I wasn't close to her socially but we worked together a lot over the last few months, and she was genuinely one of the nicest people I had ever met. She was only diagnosed with cancer 8 weeks ago. It's been a real eye opener for me about priorities and making good choices.

I've decided I want to pay off all my credit card debt, and then once that's done I will be able to stop my employed job and just do my freelance work. Currently I do freelance one day per week, and employed job 3 days a week. I can earn significantly more in the freelance job per day, BUT no holiday pay. I've worked out I can do 3 days a week freelance and earn more than I currently earn working 4 days a week, which will give me 4 days a week to be present for my kids, and live a better lifestyle instead of rushing about being stressed all the time and eating crap food and making bad decisions. The freelance job is the kind where you work hard but at the end of the day you leave and there's no follow up work, so it's great on that front. It's also got a brilliant pension. There are some risks, the work is not guaranteed for 3 exact days, although its very steadily available, but I would have the flexibility to do, say, 4 days one week and 2 days the other if needed. 

And if it doesn't work, I am sufficiently qualified to go back to the employed job without too much difficulty, so I genuinely think I should go for it.

Need to talk it all over with Mr CC again, I've just floated it as an option so far but we've not had time to sit and look at the figures yet.

Anyway, speaking of figures - 

21/09/23

Spending pots - £432
Savings pots - £45
Bills account - £868

No spend day today. I've been looking at bits for child 3's birthday in 4 weeks. He wants a class party so I'm not going to buy him much (he'll get loads from the party!), but there's a lego set he's been pining over for ages, a kite, and a couple of books he would like. 

Also need to buy a paper shredder. It's been in my amazon basket for about a month but not getting any cheaper. I might look at The Range, see if they have any.

Over and out, MSEers

Hi, just started reading through your diary and I am so sorry to hear about your acquaintance. 38 is way too young, and as you said, it is making me think about my own priorities (I'm almost 2 years older, so this really got to me).
I'll be following your journey, as I'm in a similar situation as you, just trying for the first time to get on top of my spending and pay back my debts, try to put money aside to be able to fund a better lifestyle for myself and my family. 

About the shredder: unless you need it super urgently, why not wait until Black Friday? It might come up with some cheaper offers? 

dawnybabes

Sorry to hear about your acquaintance- far too young. 

We don't shred Paperwork here, we burn it - in the winter in my log burner, in the summer in a fire pit outside.  

savingholmes

Sorry to hear about your acquaintance. So sad. As you say it makes you reconsider everything.

I can understand the pull of the freelance work. If it has a great pension it sounds a great draw. It's worth calculating what you are losing in holiday pay, sick pay and job security too though and any other benefits.

canvascamper

Well. Time has whizzed by this week! Money in, money out....
I'm supposed to be working right now so I'll come back later and do a roundup for myself. Just putting a marker down here to make sure I actually do it! 

Sarahwithlove

I agree you need to work out how much you'd need to earn to cover holiday and sick pay and then maybe out it away in a separate account for those days so you can basically "pay" yourself from it. Hope that makes sense 

Bluegreen143

Just read through your diary. 

Your life sounds incredibly busy!! I have two small kids (mine are 7 and 4) and am a working mum so I totally get how it’s possible to not always have the brain power left to focus on being frugal etc. And we don’t have autism or other neurodiversity to contend with either. So try not to be hard on yourself when everything is difficult. 

What I would say is that your management of both home and finances sounds a bit ad hoc rather than systemised and that may be making your life harder? 

Feel free of course to take or leave from this list but here’s some ideas for you:

Groceries
Instead of two grocery deliveries a month and then top up shops, I’d set up a weekly delivery.

In fact, with the amounts you’re spending, you could do two deliveries a week as I do - I get one on a Monday and one on a Friday. Everything is fresh, you don’t ever need to spend your valuable time running to the shops and you won’t run out of stuff. It also eliminates going in and being tempted by a whole bunch of different stuff! 

Joint expenses

To me it seems a very confusing system you have. I’d personally change it so you both put more into the joint account and then kid expenses and groceries come out of that as well as all bills, childcare etc. If you don’t have a joint account you can set one up easily. You can choose whether things like holiday savings, Christmas and big expenses are saved for as part of the joint account or if you save separately. Then you know whatever is left in your personal account is your own spending allowance. 

Pocket money

I’d give your kids their pocket money monthly, in cash or into their own account (age dependent - mine both get cash still and if I order something online for them they give me the cash back) and allow them to manage their own savings. 

Really ice creams, sticker books, toys, treats etc should come from their pocket money as otherwise they won’t learn how to budget it. Getting the idea that there is a bottomless pit of money available to them isn’t really helping them or your bottom line. You’re such a lovely, thoughtful mum but your kids do seem to get a lot of treats (perhaps I’m just overly mean 🙈) and that is nice, but shouldn’t come at the expense of you getting ahead financially. 

Vision

I think, as with dieting, it’s not much good constantly trying to deprive yourself. I find it’s much easier to save if you’ve clarified what you’re saying for… what your vision is for your life. If you know that by saying no to ice lollies and sausage rolls you are saying yes to moving towards that flexible freelance career - that’s a lot more motivating than just constantly beating yourself up for not being frugal enough. Create a chart of your progress, celebrate every milestone and really flesh out your why, your vision of what life will look like once you’re there. Think about what a good life is to you and how your money can help you achieve that.  

Anyway, those are some initial thoughts I had, sorry for writing a total essay 🙈

joedenise

You have some great ideas there @Bluegreen143 and you've set it out so well it's easy to understand.  I definitely agree about the kids pocket money.  If they have pocket money then that should be what they get to spend not all the extras when they haven't got money left.

canvascamper

@Bluegreen143 wow you made it this far and still had energy to write a reply 🤣

Thank you so much for your ideas, I really appreciate it and will definitely think about some changes. 

I'd like a weekly shop delivery I think, I just forget to actually put the order in 🙈 I sit down in the evening (ok I say evening it's usually around 10pm) and all my thoughts fly out of my head.

Anyway I put that marker down to come back last week, then I got sick, then I went on a training course, then child1 went into burnout and wouldn't go to school...and now it's Saturday again!

So plans for this weekend;
Today
I have 9 Vinted parcels to post out (the Christmas and birthday present fund (Vinted sales) is growing 💗)
Child2 has drama club this morning
Child1 wants to go to Smyths with his pocket money and I need to take Child3 to the Range to get his party invitations
Child1 has parkour this afternoon 
Movie tea (curry and naan please)
Strictly with Child2
Sherlock with Child1
Wine 🍷

Tomorrow my sister and her boyfriend are coming out for Sunday dinner as a pre-birthday thing (my birthday is on Wednesday 🎈) so I need to get the house presentable-ish. Kids all have homework to do and I want to list a load more on Vinted. 

I'm sure I've missed something but that's my brain dump of things to do.

I've booked Child3s birthday party and the bouncy castle, it's a whole class party (he's in reception), was going to book an entertainer but prices are so much higher than when the other 2 were little. Even the church hall rent has doubled. So it will have to be old fashioned party games and a craft table I think. They'll just want to bash each other with balloons anyway! 

Have a lovely weekend, friends in my phone 💖