Can we? Should we? Courgette gets plotting (again)

Courgette

Hello!

I’ve been intending to start a new diary on here for a little while now but haven’t been able to get past writing the first post which is usually a bit of a longer affair.

I’ve decide to allow myself the luxury of not doing that and just cracking on.

Specifically two things have happened recently that have focused the mind somewhat:

1. The mortgage dipped below £60k. This is still a lot of money to be sure but it feels psychologically quite significant and got me thinking about old times …

2. However, saying that although there is no great drama happening I have taken my eyes of the ball when it comes to our finances. Bills have crept up, children have grown and their needs have been allowed to grow perhaps a bit much, inflation is happening, what were considered luxuries have become close to normal life (hello gym membership, Netflix and posh gin).

My children have just broken up for the summer. I’m still working but fewer hours while they’re off. I need to sort a load of financial issues out (I’ll post more details on a bit). The summer and early autumn are really expensive times for us (3/4 of us have birthdays within a fortnight of each other plus usual back to school, not at school expenses) and DS2 goes up to secondary school (I know!) so extra uniform costs there.

So here I am, working out what the next steps are, continuing to battle with the frugality that makes me miserable and focus on earning more although not losing sight of the fact that frugality is important too.

savingholmes

Welcome to MFW diary land. Start from where you are. It gets easier despite ups and downs along the way.

£60k mortgage doesn't sound too huge but I appreciate that depends on income.

Do you have any strategies in mind? Are you also taking care of your pension?

Courgette

Well my grand return was a bit of a flop wasn’t it! 😃

I spent about £120 in Liiiidl and framfoods today and although I got plenty is was by no means an extravagant shop. No booze either. Need to revisit frugal, healthy cooking habits. We do okay here but definitely room for improvement.

DS2 didn’t have a great start to year 7. His school wasn’t the best, although it was the local one where lots of our friends’ kids go so we were hopeful he could make it work. However, it was clear he was going downhill there and increasingly unhappy. There’d already been an incident with another yr7 bringing a knife in and threatening a classmate by Christmas and this wasn’t a massively outlying incident for the school.

Excellent news is that we managed to get him in to a really good school and he starts on Tuesday. £135 on new school uniform and I’ll be driving him in until at least Easter - 20 mile round trip a day.

Off to catch up with some diaries!

Swayingseaweed

Glad you managed to move your son to a new school 
Seaweed x 

Courgette

Swayingseaweed said:

Glad you managed to move your son to a new school 
Seaweed x 

Thank you. It’s been a long week really. He doesn’t do so well with change and new environments so he’s needed to dig deep. It’s the weekend now though ☺️

redofromstart

Good luck with it courgette, completely understandable decision on your part.