Stopping the backsliding… a family of four no longer living beyond their means

Moneywhizz

Looks like your budgeting is simpler and easier on your peace of mind. Good idea just to make a list of wants until you have the money to pay for them and then decide if you still want them. Remember this more frugal living is only for a short time, to get you on a better footing and make sure all your short and long term expenses are covered. Then you will be able to spend your personal money without worrying about regular outgoings. 

KeepOnKnitting

I always have a check in the car, my washbag, handbag, workbag, gym kit etc when I run out of hair elastics. Are you sure you only have 2 bobby pins? 🤔 

I found my smart winter coat for £8 in a charity shop, so maybe look in those before you buy new.

Spendless

What about looking somewhere like Vinted for a coat? If you haven't got  a coat at all I would look sooner rather than later. My birthday is late September and during my adult life I've known it be nice weather on that date  twice and I live a lot further south than you are. If you do already have a coat just that it is on it's 'last legs' so to speak you prob do have a few weeks to find something.

Echo the suggestion to search the house. handbags etc looking for extra hair grips. My adult DD is the only one is the household with long enough hair to use any hair accessories, most of the year she doesn't even live here and I still find hair bobbles and the like all over the place. 

debtfreewannabe321

I've seen plenty of hair pins before now in the likes of £shops? Is that an option where you live?
All my coats bar one thing waterproof jacket are from the CS. Ranging from the clearance rack of £1 to more expensive £11 😂 .The more expensive is a beautiful navy heavy one from Wall1s (that had been worn once or twice) and was in perfect condition I've had many compliments on it and it would have been out of my budget brand new. That and v1nted are definitely worth a look! 

Bluegreen143

I DEFINITELY don’t have any Kirby grips 😅 I’ve already been doing the checking round the house thing for ages! They get loose/bent and stop gripping your hair after a while and need chucked. But it can wait a few days so I can have a no shopping weekend. My hair is very long, down past my natural waist (and I’m trying to grow it longer) and to be fair I mostly wear it down, I just like the option to do a bun or to pin some back at the front etc if it’s not been washed or is sitting funny. 

I have a decent walking jacket, you know the kind, that’s waterproof with a fleece inside it and is a three in one. So I’ve been using that if it rains and so I am not in imminent danger of hypothermia. The coat I need to buy is an everyday/smarter warm winter coat as my walking jacket is that “outdoors” style and lurid colours and I wouldn’t generally choose to wear it to work or if I want to look nice etc.

I find charity shops frustrating and time consuming, and am rarely anywhere near one, but will keep an eye on eBay and checked out Vinted. If not I have a £60 voucher to my favourite shop, £75 in my clothing pot** and I get paid in a week. So I will be getting it this month regardless. If I’m buying new, I want it to be good quality so it lasts more than one year, unlike last year’s Matalan coat which fell apart! (I don’t mind it only lasting one year if it’s off eBay and cheap). 

Yesterday was really nice. I’m conscious that Monday until midway through Friday is sort of survival mode now we’re all back at work and school. Of course I try to weave some family joy or fun personal time in as much as I can, but I think the reality of this phase of life is simply that Monday-Friday afternoon is a haze of getting the kids ready, school runs, work, helping with homework, housework, cooking, going to activities, putting the kids to bed. 

This reality makes me more determined that we really enjoy our weekends together. It’s why I REALLY appreciated Red doing lots of housework on Thursday evening to reset us for the weekend. 

Yesterday was such a great start to the weekend after a busy week. I finish work at 2.30pm on Fridays and headed over to the school in unexpected hot blazing sunshine. Sat on the grass at the school park for 45 minutes chatting to a friend while our kids played. 

When home, I chilled out in the garden and read to the kids in the sun while we had ice cream sundaes for afternoon snack (instead of having it for Friday evening dessert - they didn’t get both!) . 

Then I made air fryer chicken and big salads for dinner which were really good. 

I’d arranged to meet friends at our favourite swimming loch so headed over there and got a sunset outdoor swim. It was no longer as hot by then because we had to leave it til after dinner but the water was fine and actually it was lovely to swim and watch the sun start to set. Really beautiful and relaxing beginning to the weekend! 

And when I got home Red was watching a film I wasn’t interested in so I managed to read lots of my library book instead of getting sucked in. We’ve been watching Rings of Power (rewatching the first series first) during the week before I’ve been heading to bed early so I’ve hardly read managed to read more than a few pages all week which is unusual for me.

Of course you’ll have noticed that all of these weekend pleasures - the playpark, having ice creams with the kids in the garden, going for an outdoor swim with friends, reading my library book - are almost free, once you’ve bought ice cream with your groceries and put petrol in the car anyway. The only obvious cost was the £4.20 it cost me to park at the school for an hour. Monkey’s friend was headed to an expensive dessert cafe for ice cream after the park and while I can see the appeal, for us, that’s just not money I want to spend. It would have easily been £20 for three of us, if not more, and the kids found the HM sundaes just as much of a treat. In fact, more - Bambi is very fussy about desserts and probably wouldn’t have liked all the fancy extras at the dessert cafe 😅 (she complained about me putting strawberries on hers, but was told she could either accept it with strawberries or have no ice cream at all, so obviously she chose the strawberries).

** I realised I forgot to list my personal pots in my financial round up, only the joint ones. I have £75 in clothing, £160 for my weekend away next weekend, £80 saved for Red’s Christmas & birthday, and £104.13 left in the much-raided wedding ring pot 😅 as well as a bit left for general personal spends before I get paid. So my personal budget is fairly healthy.

Bluegreen143

Really pleased how “operation weekend brunch” went today 😍.

Backstory: we are very strict about having family dinner together every night, and about the kids (who had picky tendencies when younger) trying and eating healthy food at dinner. It’s been a huge success and the kids eat very well now at dinner. But we rarely eat other meals together and I’ve noticed that Bambi is very picky with breakfast/lunch/snack/treat food because she isn’t being exposed to variety and required to eat it, like she is at dinner. So we’ve decided to try do more family brunches, lunches and home cooked desserts at weekends to expand her palate. Today was the first one. 

I did a big wooden board with: 

- crispy bacon (we all only like bacon very well done)
- scrambled egg
- orange slices, blueberries & strawberries 
- croissants (I got the cook from frozen ones)
- American style pancakes (HM)
- slices of cheese
- multi-coloured cherry tomatoes 
- maple syrup and jam (not in the picture)



The new thing for Bambi was the croissant, so I just asked her to have one big bite with jam. She didn’t previously like pancakes, jam or scrambled egg but ate tons (finishing off several portions of egg while happily saying “I like egg now!”) and she had some of everything.

Everyone was raving about how nice it was and Monkey said he’d been looking forward to brunch all week (he had THREE large pancakes as well as a croissant and bits of everything else, including finishing off the bacon). 

Proper “mum win” and something I’ll be repeating. We’ve agreed we’ll do breakfast burritos for brunch next time we do family brunch, which will be in a couple of weeks because I’m away next weekend. 

The only downsides were that I burnt my fingers on the frying pan and managed to knock the first bowl of beaten egg off the counter - covering myself (I’d just gotten dressed too) and the floor in egg and breaking the bowl 🙈. Luckily we had more eggs in the chicken coop!

zcrat41

That looks like an amazing brunch! 

redofromstart

The brunch looks excellent, a real event for the family.

the rain jacket , a real 'Vimes Theory of Boots' event for me. Buy a good one that will last ten years if you can afford it. Or buy five cheap ones, alternate years, spend more and still be wet. Worth watching for codes on the good ones obviously. 

Bluegreen143

Yes, interesting point Redo. I was thinking about something similar coincidentally today.

Last autumn I bought my kids’ winter clothes in Next (having habitually bought either second hand or from Tesco/Matalan before). 

Monkey has hardly grown since last winter and still wears the same size. He has maybe 4 or 5 long-sleeved tops and a jumper or two from Next from last winter which still fit perfectly and I’m SO impressed by how they’ve washed and worn. I actually think his winter wardrobe is sorted, except for a couple of pairs of trousers. It did seem an extravagance to buy from Next at the time but I’m certain that if I’d got cheaper stuff I’d be buying more this year.

Bambi has shot up and does need a couple of dresses so she is decent (her summer dresses from H&M all shrank in the wash and are especially indecent!), but today she was wearing one of her long-sleeved Next dresses from last winter and despite much wear, it still looked great. I may actually get any new winter dresses from Next again (but limit it to 2-3 max so it won’t cost a lot, after all she now wears uniform most of the time). I may have mentioned before but (like me) Bambi currently wears dresses with tights or leggings every day so I don’t need a variety of clothing types for her.

I also bought them £70 Fatface winter coats last year, in a “just-slightly-too-big” size for each of them. The coats are warm, fluffy on the inside but fully waterproof, with faux fur hoods. Despite them wearing them every day for 6-7 months last year they are still both in excellent condition, fit well and it’s the first time in 9 years of parenting that I’ve made winter coats for them last more than one year! 

angela110660

Last winter I had a new coat from Seasalt -expensive but so worth the money and it will soon be coming out of the cupbord again looking as good as new. So glad I found it.