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

teapot2

Bluegreen143 said:

Right. Plan for today. 

- Beyond work, looking after the children and doing some laundry and cooking, I’m not expecting us to achieve anything else. 

The above seems like it will be enough given SIL's death and the support you are offering each other and BIL.  Good idea to have meals prepared in advance, one less thing to think about.  Fingers crossed for that simple car fix.

Bluegreen143

Thanks teapot2.

Just having a quick look over YNAB to check everything is on track and to refresh my memory of which categories have money in!

Current joint category balances below (Red gets paid on the 31st):

Credit card balance: -£1,572

Emergency fund: £66.52

Home: £0
Car: £241.24
Utilities: £0
Insurance: £49.65
Subscriptions: £60.13
Kids' clothes: £0
Groceries: £193.60
Miscellaneous: £45.52 (haven't put Bambi's pocket money in her wallet yet so it's really £30)

Kids' room swap fund: £156.66
Gifts & celebrations: £472.67
Holidays: £69.80
Family wants: £0

Personal categories (won't be replenished until 14 Nov)
My savings: £232.25 (but I need to send my sister £50 for a ballet ticket so it's really £180)
My clothing: £73.30
My subscriptions: £24.01
My spending £90.87

I feel a bit calmer for having done this. I can see there is about £500 available for car repairs between the emergency fund, car pot, miscellaneous and my savings. On top of that there obviously are other pots which could be raided a bit, though I'm keen to avoid doing so unless I need to as otherwise they will be a nightmare to refill before they're needed. So I shouldn't need to borrow any money as long as the car repair is minor though I think we need to hold back £125 or so for the excess for Autoglass next weekend too (there is a crack in the sunroof caused by a stone flying up and hitting it on the motorway, and it's getting bigger so needs replaced, but it's going through the insurance).

On the plus side, I really do think we have more in the groceries pot than we will need before Red gets paid so for the first time ever I may end the month with some leftover cash in there to move to savings! We'll have a Tesco delivery on both Thursday and Sunday but I really can't see us spending £93 each time.

themadvix

Fingers crossed about the car!

And at least you have a functioning fridge/freezer again - definitely a help when you may need to be extra flexible with food this week. (And I'm now tempted to make a big batch of soup myself!)

Bluegreen143

It was a simple fix!!! Red said it’s either £30 or £50 (the mechanic has a thick accent but as he was happy with either amount he didn’t question it 🤣). I’ve to pay when I pick up the car this afternoon 🙌🏼.

debtfreewannabe321

I'm so sorry about your SIL ❤️🙏🏼

I loved those family values what a great idea..I wish I'd been a wiser parent when mine were little.
And yay to the car being a quick and cheap fix. 👏🏼

fionaandphil

So sorry to hear about your BILs loss, certainly makes you think about making the most of your time.

Glad to hear too that the car repair was cheap, bet that was a relief

FootyFanDan

So sorry to hear about your BIL's loss and Red is totally right, as much as we tend to rely on our car's given the year you have had the important part is you have each other to lean on for support. I am glad to hear that the car repair was a nice easy (cheap fix) and hopefully your savings pots can be safe for now

Loving the family values you're trying to instill, it certainly seems like they are going to be lead down the right path

Baileys_Babe

Sorry to hear of your BIL's loss.

I'm glad to hear the car repair wasn't more costly.

Floss

I'm sorry to read about your BiL's loss, that will likely be a long time in dealibg with, as I guess there may be an inquest.

I love your family values, I think that's an excellent and very simple way to reinforce those behaviours, which will set the children up for their own lives.

Bluegreen143

Thanks everyone. 

I had an ok day today, but I felt very tired and strange in the office - at first sad and then I took a while to identify that I was feeling quite anxious. I don’t suffer with anxiety as a rule so it took me a while to realise.

While I wasn’t very close with my late SIL, it’s still a sadness, worry for my BIL and I think sudden deaths in particular also force us to confront our own mortality. A gloomy thought. 

I feel better now and actually had a nice afternoon taking the kids to the park after school. Felt really proud actually - I had a brief chat with Bambi’s teacher, who told me Bambi is very good at her maths and is going into a group she’s putting together for the top performers in the class 🥰. I knew her reading and writing was good (I’ve been teaching her to read myself since spring and she really enjoys reading and writing, often choosing to sit and write out words for fun!) but I hadn’t realised she was also doing so well in maths. 

Then I was showing her a wee story Monkey had written out the other day, and she remarked that his handwriting has gotten really good (she has taught him in the past). It was great to hear that, because he’s always had feedback about very poor handwriting (to the point that another parent once suggested to me he has dysgraphia!). So since just before the summer I have set him writing tasks most days and worked hard on challenging him to improve. And I realise now she’s pointed it out, that his writing has massively turned around in the last few months since we started working on it at home.

So I’m a very proud mama of both of them tonight! 

My BIL is now at ours and is probably going to stay a few days or longer. A relief tbh as means Red doesn’t need to keep driving over to his. He seems ok, sad but functional. 

I did spend £19 on an apple charging cable today as I’m down to one, which is wired into the charging station Red made for our electronics, so I can’t charge in other rooms or the car. Red bought me three cheap ones as a little thing to open at my birthday (two months ago) and all three have stopped working 🙈🤣. So I got a genuine apple one. In my experience they do last forever and it’s worth the money - it’s not very green to continually buy cheap cables and throw them away! 

Today’s meals 

B - chocolate overnight oats

L - ham & cheese sandwich, carrot sticks 

D - butternut squash, carrot & lentil soup with a mix of tuna sweetcorn baguettes and pastrami baguettes so we could all choose our own

I’ve been good at getting ahead with cooking and today after dinner I made a big pan of shredded salsa chicken for burritos and roasted some sweet potato to go into the same. I’ve got a family size tub of chicken pasta sauce in the freezer too. It’s been ages since I did much batch cooking so I’m pleased with having two meals in the bank.