Diary of a 30-something idiot

MFWannabe

slm6002 said:

Well done on saving money on the garden, OH has done a good job clearing things.

I think until your budget is under control you need to make do with the things you have.  Is your tv working ? (even if not fantastically) - If no then look for another. Even though it will only be one from FB marketplace, that is still money that could be used to make sure you make it through the month with out having to borrow more money or a start to an emergency fund / savings. DD will soon be on her summer holidays so a few extra pennies could mean a few days out.  Have a month of just buying the essentials - food and bills.   I cant imagine you have much time to watch tv plus the evenings are finally lovely for walks along the beach or sitting in the garden.

Food wise you need to all sit down (the whole family) and discuss how the food ordered each week is more than enough for the family and there is no money to buy more.  Tell them there is no money in the bank for more food.  If it all goes in 2 days, there will be no treats for the remainder of the week.  If it takes a week or 2 of them feeling hungry until dinner comes around.  They are having decent meals so you are not neglecting them and starving them.  They are probably bored so just turning to food. Does DD take food for school?  If so maybe keep hers in a separate area (your desk draw at work - take one snack item home each day).  If they insist on spending more send Step son and OH down to the community shop so they can join the scheme and get cheaper food.  I have 3 growing children, but they know once it is gone that is it.  

Do you buy bottled water?  My XH used to insist on the very expensive dandruff shampoo as he believed all other types made his head itch.  He had the same bottle for over 5 years without ever realising I was topping it up with 89p shampoo.  Maybe refill the bottles with tap water and put in the fridge while they are not around (send them on a dog walk), maybe they will cotton on, or maybe you will save some money.  Even if it saves half the amount.  Would they drink tap water with squash in it?

What is a typical day for OH & SS while you are out working and DD is at school?  I really do think you will burn out before too long if you are the sole income and only one looking after the house, your family and finances.  There are 2 other adults in the house and they need to be stepping up.  You need to be able to concentrate on your work without your head buzzing trying to work out the next way to make the figures balance.  You do not want to loose your job because you are unable to concentrate properly.

Excellent post 👍

SuzeQStan

Fox it honestly breaks my heart a little to read you are paying for Mr Fox’s ciggies when there are so many other areas in your financial life going without 

foxandflowers

Last 48 hours successes: 

• Rang Sky and downgraded the internet. Now paying £40 a month for 24 months instead of £63. This brings my absolute necessity bills to keep the house running on bare minimums down to £645, or approximately 1/3 of my pay. 
• Paid a whack of bills, including arrears payments for the van insurance, internet, my phone bill, Mr Fox phone bill. Council tax, and water bills still to come out.
• Spoke to Stepchange as my plan has been closed. Have been advised to take the weekend to catch up on all priority bills and get a working budget in place that is realistic, then ring back and go through budget again. It's currently set at £75 a month, but I need to add the Sky Glass on. I don't really want to lower the payment, but everything is so bloody expensive that I think it would be better to be slightly lower if only to give me a higher chance of paying it. 
• Have put £140 into various savings pots. If I counted this as an overall EF I would have £840 by Christmas.
• Paid £176 off my debts. 
• Stuck to my eating out budget last night (almost (only £1.53 over) and treated everyone to KFC after a long month. That's it for eating out for the month now though, and they are aware.
• Done an ASDA shop, and came in at £99.10 for the week, although I did buy a couple of extras to see us through leaner weeks (giant bags of frozen sausages and nuggets and pasta for cheapy meals).
• Made a note in my filofax that my gas & electric fix ends in August, so I need to research switching options.
• Sold the secondary fridge that we've had in the shed for £40.
• Booked the electrician to come on Saturday morning.
• Avoided my FIL staying for a couple of nights, thereby not needing to buy alcohol.
• Made £4.30 in cashback on Chase, and £4.18 in my roundups pot on Chase.

Cherryfudge

Fox, you're a power house! Well done.

MFWannabe

foxandflowers said:

Last 48 hours successes: 

• Rang Sky and downgraded the internet. Now paying £40 a month for 24 months instead of £63. This brings my absolute necessity bills to keep the house running on bare minimums down to £645, or approximately 1/3 of my pay. 
• Paid a whack of bills, including arrears payments for the van insurance, internet, my phone bill, Mr Fox phone bill. Council tax, and water bills still to come out.
• Spoke to Stepchange as my plan has been closed. Have been advised to take the weekend to catch up on all priority bills and get a working budget in place that is realistic, then ring back and go through budget again. It's currently set at £75 a month, but I need to add the Sky Glass on. I don't really want to lower the payment, but everything is so bloody expensive that I think it would be better to be slightly lower if only to give me a higher chance of paying it. 
• Have put £140 into various savings pots. If I counted this as an overall EF I would have £840 by Christmas.
• Paid £176 off my debts. 
• Stuck to my eating out budget last night (almost (only £1.53 over) and treated everyone to KFC after a long month. That's it for eating out for the month now though, and they are aware.
• Done an ASDA shop, and came in at £99.10 for the week, although I did buy a couple of extras to see us through leaner weeks (giant bags of frozen sausages and nuggets and pasta for cheapy meals).
• Made a note in my filofax that my gas & electric fix ends in August, so I need to research switching options.
• Sold the secondary fridge that we've had in the shed for £40.
• Booked the electrician to come on Saturday morning.
• Avoided my FIL staying for a couple of nights, thereby not needing to buy alcohol.
• Made £4.30 in cashback on Chase, and £4.18 in my roundups pot on Chase.

Well done for a very successful 48 hours 👏
Ref gas and electric fix, prices are pretty much standard whoever you go with now except for some companies like Octopus offer other tariffs such as tracker and Agile 
I still feel you need to find your inner No voice, if your FIL chooses to visit you then he brings his own alcohol! You should not be buying it and shouldn’t feel like you have to x 

stymied

What have you settled on as your food budget for the month?

We have separate snack boxes for kids (one each), adults & lunches. Kids mainly gets topped up at birthdays, Easter, Halloween & Christmas. Seems to work ok.

foxandflowers

Electrician has staffing problems and is now coming the following Saturday, so I have another week of looking at the rat infested shed on my lovely shiny patio. Grrr. 

I have £171.38 worth of bills left to pay this month, and that money is sat in my Monzo, and I am studiously ignoring it. Actually, I am taking advantage of Monzo's edit layout policy, and hiding it from view. Therefore, it basically doesn't exist and I can't raid it. I feel very smug about this. I have £360 in my Monzo, between savings pots, dog pot and the bills. And then my Chase has £358 in the 5.1% saver, and this is what is currently left for food and fuel. The food budget is set at £100 a week, including toiletries and snacks, and fuel at £40 a week. Luckily the green van is much more fuel efficient than the Sprinter, so if it costs us £50-60 in a week where we are doing the Cardiff run for the kids, then the following week, we should only use about £20 worth of fuel. I still have child benefit and maintenance due, which will be an additional £220 in this month. Plus if stepson gets a job, an extra £160. 

Had a bit of a wobble last night as the menfolk have moved a whole load of furniture around and uncovered my hoarding tendencies in the process. Mr Fox put everything he found on our bed. I ended up throwing out two full bags of rubbish, including my favourite dress that had been eaten by the puppy and was beyond repair. It was a lovely pale green floral dress with a square neckline and I am sad sad sad that it is gone. It is unbelievable how much stuff we have though, honestly. And secondly how much money we have wasted acquiring the stuff, that we then just throw out later, or stash in cupboards and corners and ignore. I've got some more bits to list on Vinted. But never have the motivation to actually list them. I might try and tackle one of the bags worth of clothes this weekend. 

On another note...

Does anyone know if Mr Fox could apply separately for a DRO for his debts? He has no income currently, and all the assets are in my name. Our Stepchange debts are pretty evenly split between what is in whose name (about 16k each). I don't think I could get an IVA, because I own my property. And owning the property automatically disqualifies me from a DRO. If it has to be a DMP for the next 30 years, so be it. But I am curious if we have any other avenues to explore, at least for some of it. 

mumtoomany

Hi fox. Try asking on the main debt-free wanabee bit. Not sure about the assets, as you are married, I think. Lots of experts over there, hugs, mumtoomany.xx

foxandflowers

Morning campers. Hope everyone is feeling chirpy on this wet July morning. I have not had a good start to the day, my bus was late, it then got stuck waiting for the 7am freight train which was also late, and it is drizzling. 

I have however had a very productive, busy weekend and am feeling quite quietly pleased about it all. 

FIL ended up coming to visit. I spent £50.88 that was unaccounted for in my budget and have taken it from the groceries pot, but a lovely time was had by everyone including the dog, who got to visit a pub for the first time. Everyone made a huge fuss of him. My FIL kindly paid for us to have takeaways on the two nights he was staying, so that means my food budget will stretch slightly further this week, as I am yet to really use any of it. 

Meal plan for this week is spaghetti bolognese, katsu curry, toad in the hole, chicken wings, shepherds pie, tuna mayo pasta, sausage pasta bake. So that would take us to next Monday, four days before I get my Child Benefit payment, and I am pretty sure I can stretch what we have for those few days. Maybe macaroni cheese, chicken wraps, cowboy pie, and something else. I will be bringing leftovers to work all week. 

Aside from the spends, on Saturday I managed to gloss paint the lounge door, and the radiator at the bottom of the stairs. I deep cleaned Mini Fox's bedroom, and cleaned the hamster out (finally remembered) and did three loads of laundry. When I was finally fed up of being inside on a lovely sunny day, I went to meet the boys at the pub. Came home, watched Switzerland win (🇨🇭) and fell asleep on the sofa. 

On Sunday, I sold the fridge from my shed for £40, of which I put £20 into a pot in the house. This is my SHTF pot. Cash only, rounded to the nearest £x0. 50% of the proceeds of any sale I make. I then decided to tackle my bedroom, which wasn't really resembling a bedroom and was more resembling an episode of Hoarders. There were clothes everywhere. To be put away, to be washed, to be sold, to be tried on. Disaster zone. It took me the better part of four hours to get it done, not helped by the dog thinking the iron was attacking me, and trying to eat it every time the steam hissed. I then decided to get myself in gear for one more round of productive adult behaviour, and tackled the Vinted pile from the bedroom. I listed 22 things, and I have sold 7 of them and am currently standing at £41.50 £48.50 £50.50 [since I wrote this] profit. That puts a further £20 in the SHTF pot. Actually, I'm secretly hoping to have enough to pay the electrician from selling things before Saturday. That seems like a fun challenge. 

I was naughty then, and bought myself a dress and a cardigan.... I paid £23.92 for the both including shipping. So now when I get home tonight I need to ship my parcels, sort out the coat cupboard, and then do another bag of listings, so that I can make up for the fact I spent money!

24ta

Very productive weekend