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What does Mr Fox do about pension contributions? If he signs on he will get a contribution credit for every week he is unemployed. He will need 35 years of full contributions for his pension and unless he is claiming child benefit at the moment he isn’t accruing any.
Could Mr Fox start looking for a community pantry / community fridge / food bank that can be accessed without a reference? It would help you get to child benefit day x
Could Mr Fox start looking for a community pantry / community fridge / food bank that can be accessed without a reference? It would help you get to child benefit day x
Or as Linz suggests Olio which is free and anyone can request.
It might feel as if you are receiving way more brickbats than bouquets but I think the comments are coming out of concern for you and your precarious financial situation and with a positive intent even though some of them must be a hard read. You are working really hard to improve things and it must be demoralising to then read what you could view as criticism but is intended as supportive suggestions. Just a couple of observations:
In some of your previous posts you’ve focused on various calculations that would enable you to pay Stepchange off sooner than the estimated 26 (I think?) years. You’ve also done a lot of calculations based on what your income might look like in one, two or more years. You have said looking at the way ahead future is easier than the present. However at this stage it doesn’t really matter whether it takes 26 years to pay off Stepchange or 17 or 10 years or predict what you might be earning in two years time. The here and now really needs to be a priority. What matters is to get in place a realisticandachievable budget that you can keep to for the next 12 months. I think a lot of your issues of running out of money are that your budgets are unrealistic and are not achievable as in you’re not allocating enough to each of your pots. Feeding six people, even over one weekend costs a lot of money so your food budget needs to be realistic so that you can do this.
The other thing about doing a budget just for one month then a new budget for the next month is that the limited amount of cash you have will just be siphoned to whichever pot is the priority for that month. The other pots won’t get what they should receive as a proportion of annual spend and then you end up back in a cycle of borrowing when a neglected pot has nothing in it to cover an upcoming required spend. For example, imagine you have a couple of birthdays coming up with nothing saved in the gifts pot. You therefore put all your spare money for the month into the gifts pot and leave the car / van maintenance pot and mini fox pot empty. The following month all your spare cash goes to the mini fox pot as she desperately needs new clothes and shoes with no contributions to the other pots. The third month something goes wrong with the van and you end up siphoning your spare money to the car / van pot except that isn’t enough to cover the bill as the pot was empty to start with so you only have the one month’s spare money and end up having to borrow money. The fourth month the dental work you have previously said you need becomes an emergency problem but a pot has never been set up for dental work. There is no money to pay for it so that money is then borrowed. You then just end up in a vicious and stressful cycle of just fire fighting with your budget every single month. If you could set a realistic budget for the next 12 months then you will be able to see what the gap is between what amount of money is actually coming in every single month and what amount of money needs to be coming in every single month. You can then explore with your OH how the gap is going to be plugged to make it achievable.
Also re the course fees, in my experience they are deducted after tax and not before so you just need to factor that in. I think you have said you work for the public sector? Many large employers provide financial / budgeting workshops so it might be worth looking into at work. Also is there a trusted relative or friend who could maybe help you with drawing up a realistic budget?
Dug out my old Hogwarts hoody and gave it to Mini Fox who wore it to school today, thus fulfilling the brief that clothes not be pyjamas, but are still comfy, and not spending anything. The mum of her best friend from last school messaged last night and we have booked to go to the outdoor cinema of Harry Potter on the 1st September. £15 for the two of us, and the girls will have a brilliant time. She paid, and I will pay her back when I next see her.
The man turned up from Marketplace, and was very friendly. He was quite late, and it took me ages to sort out dinner last night, so reading club was skipped. Mr Fox has damaged his ankle falling over on a walk, and is limping around the house. If he's still bad by Sunday I will be shipping him off to have it actually looked at.
£15 left in the pot for this "week" and £90 in the pot for next week. Child benefit due in 14 days, so I think as long as I'm careful, I ought to be able to get to the end of the month and not borrow. £17.36 rounded up and into the Emergency Fund. So far the biggest emergency is that I cannot budget.
I want my knees tattooed and I want to splurge in Dunelm on homeware and I want to eat junk food. It seems the amount of money I have in the bank is inversely proportional to how badly I want to spend. Which is entirely rational. *sigh*
I think there is a good point made above, by @Purplelady65 , but me looking forward all the time is not helpful. The budget works, as long as there is nothing that happens outside of the budget. I have overpaid on debt so much this month that I've left us really short which is rather counterintuitive, as I now run the risk of getting into more debt if I am not very careful. Fire fighting is exactly how it feels. I want to get out of debt ASAP but I also need to remember that there are other things that are equally important, such as, not getting into any more debt and having food. Mr Fox said that we need a "just in case" pot of £100 a month, and I am inclined to agree. It is rare that we have all the children here at once (including the grown up ones anyway), or that XYZ occurs, but if it does there needs to be a sort of sink fund to cope with it.
I've cancelled Youtube Premium this moming. I have 3 days left on it, but now that I'm out of the house for so long I don't have as much time to watch it so its hard to justify currently. I really liked it when I was working from home, but it's not sustainable to pay £17 a month for it, and I won't be back WFH until at least May.
Our non-negotiable outgoings including subscriptions and debt repayments are currently £943 a month. Variable expenditure such as food, fuel and public transport costs come to £650. So realistically I should be absolutely able to manage as my income after tax is closer to £1950. I ought to have £350 a month that is 'free' money to put into savings pots, overpay debt, etc. But the reality is, I'm not doing that. My wage shouldbe covering everything, and it isn't. And next month there is a birthday, and the annual parking permits need renewing. Which ought to be coverable out of that £392, but I don't ever seem to end up WITH £350.
❀ total
debt at LBM 01/2023: £47,178.76 ❀ debt at highest point: £51,062.14❀
£1600+ made on vinted since 2023 ⚜ we could get better, because we're not dead yet - frank turner. ❧ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
That’s both your chosen subscriptions gone now 😢 Does that mean it’s also time to cancel Mr Fox’s chosen subscriptions? (Netflix & XBox if I remember correctly). I’m feeling it’s very unfair on you right now x
Edit: I thought the £100 general pot was the “just in case” pot already!
The £100 'in case' contingency pot is a very good idea, and encouraging that it came from Mr Fox. If it got to say £500, you could skim the extra off and add it to your Emergency Fund. I think a certain amount of looking forward is needed to help keep you motivated as you overpay the debts and naturally think about what that money could have bought in Dunelm or anywhere else if you had a free choice.
As regards to the overpayments, I would make the night before payday the time for overpaying debts (perhaps having made a plan as to which ones on the bus that morning.) You need an Emergency Fund, so absolutely nothing wrong with adding one square to that on payday.
What are your costs when you have the family over? If its food and drink and it only happens occasionally then I don't see why you need £100. You can't afford to 'host' too much. A quick cheap meal such as hot dogs or baked potatoes can feed a lot for not very much or tell them to pick something up on the way as you're not prepared. Its all very well creating another pot but you have to take the money from another as all your money is already accounted for.
Don't forget to deduct the £15 for Harry Potter from your available funds and put the money to one side. This is a good habit for 'getting real'. Because you don't need to hand it over straight away it can get lost in the mix and lo and behold another budget breaker next week. Also your lunch out - I' m not saying you shouldn't be able to do it but not sure which pot those spends would come from. Make sure its clear you've had a lunch out this month so maybe not another one for a while.
Very boring but this is how you get control and spend only what you have and not what you think you should be able to. The very common thing people do is spend the 'same' money several times over by not ruthlessly tracking it when it goes out or paying straight away.
Keep going Foxy, you have got resilience in spades. Lets get it going in the right directions. Next thing is to find a no or low cost interest or hobby to occupy you and distract you from the urge to spend. Also identify some no or very low cost but frequent treats you can have to help quell the splurge urge which seems to build up in you at least weekly and is the source of much sabotage. Remember remember.
Lastly (for now) practice saying no sometimes to Mr F. If he says I need x, you say no we can't afford it. Start small and build up your will power.
