Diary of a 30-something idiot

birdsfoottrefoil

Dear Fox, could Mr Fox perhaps do the budget, food shopping and cooking this month? That should help you and is normally fairly standard for the non-working person? 

Bluegreen143

Some thoughts:

1. Glasses can be had very cheaply online. I don’t pay more than £10 or £20 now for prescription glasses. Here is a link to Martin’s page on glasses deals: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-glasses-discounts/

2. Loungewear for kids. I do not see the point. My kids wear their PJs round the house if they want to be cosy and lazy and don’t fancy wearing their out and about clothes. If she has enough PJs I wouldn’t bother on loading up on comfy clothes specifically for indoor use. 

3. I reckon there are better ways to treat yourself than a subscription. I think we’ve all been conned into thinking that getting a monthly box of well presented stuff is a real treat. In reality, they make money because they are overpriced for what they are. I would stick £40 into a spending pot for you and you could get 5-10 new books a month for that (as an example, not suggesting that’s all you’d spend your treat money on). 

Another issue with subscriptions is it makes our treats into a monthly cost which is (as you’ve found) very hard to give up, regardless of whether we can afford it, whereas buying your treats individually each month means you can gauge if it really is affordable. The hard, cold fact is that treats need to be considered extra after everything else is paid for the month and as Littlegreen says, you’ve chosen to be a one income family which means fewer treats. When I was a SAHM I rarely spent money on myself for the same reason - the money wasn’t there.

This month, we’ve now cancelled Spotify because we’re skint due to car repairs. I’m in a better position than you and we still have treat money but we decided we’d rather spend it elsewhere (taking the kids swimming, me having a pot for book buying) instead of having ad-free music. Is it annoying not having premium Spotify? Yes. Will I live without it forever? Probably not. But it’s a bit of a first world inconvenience in the scheme of things isn’t it? We can handle it. And I think if you’ve not afforded to pay your Spotify bill this month it’s a sign you should remove it from your budget for now. You can review in a few months and see how much you miss it. (Same goes for Netflix).

foxandflowers

Hi @birdsfoottrefoil he definitely does cook most nights, it's just been a struggle in the last ten days because we have not had enough food to make one consistent meal for everyone, so I've been cupboard wrangling to make weird meals which is not something he's good at. 


Meal Plan is:
Tuna Pasta / Chicken Wings & Chips / Toad in the Hole / Fish Finger Sandwiches / Hot Dogs / Chicken Wings & Sweetcorn Fritters / Sausage, Egg, Chips & Beans / Jacket Potatos with Tuna Mayo / Chicken Wraps / Spaghetti Bolognese / Chinese Chicken Thighs with Garlic Bread / Chicken Curry. 

12 dinners. 

Then for lunch at work: Salami sandwiches, Fruit, Sesame Snaps, Soreen, Chocolate or Crisps. 

I will be doing an A$DA shop on lunch and I'm aiming for no more than £120 for 12 days worth of food and snacks. Unlikely? 

@Bluegreen143 I've skipped the book subscription for at least the next month. I will be trying YNAB for another month, and keeping YT and the 2 of them come to less than one sub. I'm also more likely to stay on track watching Caleb Hammer than I am with book boxes. Last month's box was brilliant, so I will keep an eye on their "leftovers" page, and maybe purchase them from there as one offs if I like the stuff enough. But for now its gone. 

RE: Joggers and tshirts: unfortunately she can't wear her pyjamas to school! And they've recently implemented a "wear your PE clothes to school on PE days" thing. She does not own any PE clothes that fit. As she continues to grow at an alarming rate her pyjamas are also somewhere near her mid calf instead of ankles. 

Thank you for the link to glasses. I need to check my prescription because I have weird corrective focal points (or I'm supposed to). 

Bluegreen143

Ah yes, of course if she needs PE kit that’s different.

Good luck on the meal plan. We are not great at keeping this low ourselves and spend about £120 each week (for two adults, an 8yo and a 5yo, both of whom get free school dinners) so for me your budget seems ambitious but if you are very focused, organised and make sure not to waste anything hopefully it can be done 🤞🏼

Purchasing book boxes as an occasional one-off when you really like the contents sounds a more sensible plan to me than a regular subscription. 

foxandflowers

Mechanic can't fix the van, so it's got to go to an Auto Electrician, and the one he recommended has no space until the 14th October.  

Bluegreen143

Oh no! You don’t have another car either, do you? 

stymied

£50 each for personal spends (or a little more) is fine if it includes vaping, work lunches & any pub trips / bottles of wine x

helensbiggestfan

A few suggestions......

You could reduce your entertainment costs by not insisting on going ad free without spoiling the experience too much. 

I use You tube for free, you can usually skip the ads.  I have a basic Netflix package for £4.99 which includes the ads.  You can't skip them but there arent long or very frequent so they aren't too intrusive.  

I piggy back my sons Disney package, there's loads of films on there.  Do you have anyone you can share with, although Netflix have stopped people sharing now.  

Do you have a library nearby, might be worth seeing what they can offer.  Not just books but often magazines, films etc.  

Do you use charity shops, not just for clothes and household goods but often books and dvds/CDs etc.    I have been stocking up on DVDS and CDs. I can mix and match 5 for £1.  Plenty to see me through the winter.  

Would it be worth ditching the van and replacing it with a cheap little car for running about in, even if it's just a temporary measure.  Tbh The van sounds more like a liability than an asset.  You could always buy a better van next year if finances permit, but the one you currently have is just haemorrhaging money.   

I can second buying glasses online.  Saved myself a lot of money.   

Sounds like your daughter is groing through a growth spurt.   I can remember that when my youngest son was 14 he grew six inches in six months. 😱😂.   it cost a small fortune to keep him clothed and fed.  He was constantly hungry. And he needed new shoes and clothes nearly every month.  Do you have a Primark near you.  Ok maybe not the best quality but if she is on a growth spurt she will outgrow the clothes rather than wear them out.  

And I know you might not want to do this but have you looked at trying a food bank or one of those apps such as Too Good. 

I don't want to come over as a kill joy but I'm not sure about £50 each for personal spends, at least not for the moment. It might not sound much but realistically the money just isn't there.  It's only three months until Christmas so that's your next big hurdle.  Get your food budget under control, get through Christmas and then you can review again in the new year.  

foxgloves

@foxandflowers - We are big fans of Personal Spends in our house. We started with £60 per month back when we were debt-busting (both of us were working) then upped it once we'd only got the mortgage left, & again when that too was cleared. Ever since we started budgeting monthly Personal Spends, there have only been 2 rules with it & we still stick to them:
1) This is our money which can be spent on anything we like without judgement.
2) When it's gone, it's gone until I set the new budget on pay-day. 
We have stuck with it because it really works for us. Both of us have been spendy idiots in the past, borrowing to buy stuff we wanted, spending impulsively, never budgeting & although we have massively reformed now & I have actually turned into a cracking budgeter (something that back in my 20s & 30s I would not have thought remotely possible!), it keeps us very focused on 'wants' spending when we have a set monthly amount. It also keeps my coffee shop habit in check because if I choose to buy another cappuccino & lovely cake, that's money I won't have to buy other treats, make-up or maybe a book or nice moisturiser that month. It also makes me look at things like magazines to see if there is actually stuff in there I want to read. I often find they get a bit samey, so if I don't think a particular issue is a priority purchase, that's some of my Spends I can use for something else. As soon as the debts were paid off, we also added any money we earn from online surveys (which previously went to extra debt repayment) to our Personal Spends. Mr F has actually earned over £100 doing those this month, although £40 - £60 would be more usual.
I think vaping, fags & 'extra' booze should be from Personal Spends. Mr F doesn't drink a lot, so it's easy enough to cover his few weekend beers with one of those '3 for £6' type offers from the grocery budget, as we would the occasional bottle of wine, but if he decides he wants more beer, then he buys it himself. Ditto if we want to treat ourselves to a bottle of spirits....can't justify that on the grocery budget so would use our Personal Spends apart from a bottle of something Christmassy to share each year.
I know how badly you need to break out of this cycle & I hope so much that it will happen for you. It's going to involve a lot of teamwork & identifying those behaviours which sabotage rather than help your mission.
F

littlegreen

Hope the food shop went well! As a family of 4 (2 are toddlers so realistically 3) we spend between £80-£120) a week on food but we do have an allotment so that helps 6 months of the year. Is Mr Fox Green fingered at all that it could be a project for him next year in the garden? Squash plants for example are super easy and very versatile and store well.

I'm all for a little treat money in a separate account with a separate debit card that gets a direct debit from the main account of the pocket money once a month. Say you give yourself £40, suddenly spending £4 on a  take away coffee and realising that is 10% of your spends gone, well it better be a good coffee and now and again it can feel justified.

What I do for extra treats money is any money we raise e.g vinted sales, cashback etc I put half away in an account for debt which for us is mainly our mortgage, and the other half roles over to next year for our days out spends aka fun money. Again personally it really motivates me to find ways to make some extra income and those pennies do add up over a year