Currently clueless...aiming for awareness

stymied

Wasn’t the decision to pay it off when you went back to work based on working full time with children with no additional needs?

I do suspect that when you worked it out the blind spots like childrens clothes, haircuts, Easter eggs, school donations, water bottles, teacher gifts, presents for friends birthday parties etc etc may not have been included….

Those sound like good categories. We added takeaways as a category for the odd fish n chips or pizza because it didn’t really fit anywhere else.

canvascamper

In more positive news, today was a NSD again 🌟, and I sold a toddler swimsuit on eBay.

Best of all, OH finally had his long lockdown hair cut off, hooray! I think he's cute anyway but I don't love his Badly Drawn Boy look, so he went out today at lunch to the barber and surprised me with a short back and sides. Cute OH is now Fit OH again 😂. So that's a highlight! 

foxgloves

@canvascamper - Back in the Spendy Decades, both Mr F & I just frittered money indiscriminately on pretty much whatever we wanted. Since accepting we needed to change (both of us) & learning to budget effectively (me), one of the things that has helped us both become & stay debt-free is to include a monthly Personal Spends amount for each of us. There are only two rules to it: 1) This money is to be spent on whatever we want 2) When it's gone, it's gone . If we have any leftover at the end of the month, it rolls forward & new monthly amount is added on, which can help with saving for stuff. This system works really well for us. If I want to spend all mine on coffee shop visits, make-up & magazines, I can.....ditto Mr F & his penchant for obscure muso downloads & cult blu-rays - our own Personal Spends, no judgements, but no mid-month top-ups either. We definitely find it make us better at prioritising what we really want.
F

canvascamper

@stymied to be honest I'm not really sure why we agreed it was 'my' debt. It was money I'd spent, in my name, and OH had been paying all the bills for 6 months so it felt right. I don't think we really forward planned much at all or factored in the snowball effect of 2 additional maternity leaves. Bit naïve!! 

You're definitely right about not including all the extra expenses in our shared budget. I think this is largely due to conflicting philosophy - OH sees things like that as unnecessary, nice to have but personal preference, whereas I see them as necessary for a socially 'normal' lifestyle, but then I go right over the top and buy 10 presents when 2 will do. 

canvascamper

@foxgloves I like that idea, but again OH doesn't spend anything for frittering. He plays his guitar (free), watches football (free), we can't go out at night because of the kids' needs so he doesn't need beer money, he wears the same clothes for decades... So I feel like if I give myself a pot of our money for luxuries it's another example of his financial sensibleness and my flakiness.

This is all self criticism by the way, he doesn't say anything to me, I'm berating myself! 

WinterWarrior

Today he had a haircut, that could be personal spends. If he didn’t spend his on anything else then he could save up (for a big treat or a present for you, or whatever). Having the same spends wouldn’t mean you were flakey, just that you value a magazine, or coffee out, or an eyeshadow more as something that makes you happy…and ultimately keeps you on the straight and narrow. Personally a decent amount of pocket money stops me frittering all the money 😬

canvascamper

Thanks @WinterWarrior, I see what you mean. I'll discuss it with him when we get a minute and see if we can come up with a plan.

Just on way home from work on the tram which is my only spend today. I got stuck in back to back meetings from 11 until 5, my friend bought me a sandwich that was waiting on my desk when I finished (I love my colleagues ❤️) so I didn't need to buy lunch.

OH has ordered a Dominos that will be waiting for me when I get home, Friyay! We get takeaway once a month and it's usually McDonald's (kids choice) but we've branched out 😂. OH and I are vegan so v excited about vegan pizza. It's been a hard week to be honest so Friday night and a 3 day weekend feels well needed.

Weekend plans, kids have parkour Saturday morning, OH is going to a friend's on Saturday for the night, I'm driving over to my parents on Sunday for the day and OH will meet us there (same place as his friend lives where we grew up, a famous Northern seaside town). It should be fairly low spend 🤞🤞🤞

canvascamper

10yo has just asked to spend some of his pocket money on a new switch game. Pocket money is on an app (Rooster) where it gives them a virtual amount each week, plus we add birthday/Christmas money to it so they can see how much they have.

We always had a rule that from age 4 they get half their age per week in £ (so, £2 age 4, £2.50 age 5 etc). We did this because it's what my parents did when I was a kid and I thought it worked well, and it was enough that everything treat wise came out of pocket money (like in gift shops, or sweets etc) so it taught us to budget (ha! So, maybe it really didn't work that well 🤔)

Anyway it turns out my kids aren't big spenders and/or I just buy stuff for them anyway so their pocket money balances are massive! £200+ each. So when they want to buy stuff we then fork out the cash as promised but then I'm more in the red.

I've started Monzo pots for each but they've got £10 in - I'm never going to catch up! Luckily we used that random love2shop voucher this time for the game but I'm not sure how to square the circle. 

I always have these plans with great ideas and intentions...the execution never quite pans out. 

WinterWarrior

That’s hard. Could you start an actual account for them (like go Henry or similar) and then make sure you aren’t subsidising treats going forward.  Budgeting is such a good skill to learn…although I didn’t learn it either 🤦🏻‍♀️. We’d save for our weeks U.K. seaside break and divide what we had over the days there so we didn’t overspend on rock, penny arcades or holiday tat, yet here I am learning it all again 🤣 

stymied

Do they know how much they’ve got? If not you could halve it to partly account for all the treats you’ve bought them instead?