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

Bluegreen143

Another working day down. Nothing much to report for spending. 

Bambi has a trial of Rainbows tomorrow but you don’t pay until she’s been to a couple and decided to join. I don’t know how she’ll be - she comes across as loud and boisterous but is actually very shy and nervous in new situations (eg when she started school) so I’ve got my fingers crossed as I really want her to go through either Guides or Scouts. If she doesn’t enjoy it I’ll wait a few months and try her at Beavers instead. 

I’ve texted Red to ask if we can have a money meeting this weekend again - the last one was positive, so hoping he’s fine with that. Need to have a look at all the remortgage stuff as our deal is up in Feb. 

Bluegreen143

Dinner was nice, pulled chicken, black bean & sweet potato burritos served with HM chips and HM guacamole. I have nearly half of the pulled chicken in salsa left, which I’ve frozen - should be enough for a meal for our family another time. 

Bluegreen143

I had an extremely busy and hectic day yesterday. Dropped the kids at school, drove to our Edinburgh office, nerve-wrackingly ran and hosted a large-scale virtual briefing for high heidyins, drove back, picked up kids, went to park, made dinner, took Bambi to Rainbow’s trial session while Red took Monkey to karate (he had to drop us off, as we have but one car, then it turned out karate was cancelled!). Red picked up Bambi but left me as I walked down the road to meet friends for a drink. Got home at 11pm having not had a single moment to stop and think all day 🤣. 

Today I have loads of work to complete which has been neglected due to preparing for the briefing I was running. And I need to somehow tidy in my breaks because we’ve got some kids coming for a play date and the place is a riot. Bambi’s new room is a building site, Monkey’s new room is rammed with two beds and their toys just now, BIL is sleeping in our conservatory… roll on the weekend! 

Spent a modest £7 in the pub last night, and got a Tesco delivery which was an eye-watering £95. You win some, you lose some. We are feeding an extra large fully grown man right now and so need extra food. 

Red bought the first lot of wood for the built in custom furniture he’s making, but whereas I thought it’d be £3-400 he reckons at least £500. I’ve moved the small amount of £ in the holiday pot to this project pot and will take any left in any of our categories at the end of the month. 

Car is booked into Autoglass tomorrow which is £115 for the excess and for once we have this in the Car pot. Yay for the system working for once.

Our tumble dryer has broken again, but it’s still in its one year warranty. It’s the second time it’s broken since we bought it so we do not have much faith in it. The engineer is coming tomorrow too. 

We have not started buying Christmas presents yet or even thought about it. 🤦‍♀️ 

peb

Tumble dryer, if it's a second attempt at a repair you can reject it.  Maybe look on the consumer board. Hope you get some time for you today.

debtfreewannabe321

I hope today isn't as busy for you. I think your food shop was cheap compared to my last one. And I'm in the same boat with xmas. I kept robbing the pot to pay for things and now I have two paydays left to fund it for four kids (2 are grown but still...they probably need it more than the younger two ) 

Baileys_Babe

The only preparation we have done for Christmas is to put money aside 😕 We are not even sure if we will end up hosting, it is some else's turn but the work on their house has run into problems.

Bluegreen143

We’ve got just under £500 in the gifts & celebrations pot but both kids’ birthdays are before Christmas. I’ve got Monkey’s gifts already (we’re not going overboard as the work on their rooms is in lieu of big presents, but I spent about £60 on him all in. I’ve got Bambi second hand books but need to get her a “thing to open” - probably just one gift but want it to look comparable to Monkey’s so likely £30-50. 

Then there’s the parties - £72 to take six kids climbing for Monkey’s birthday (including my own two) and I reckon it’ll be about £100 for dinner for 8 (inc Red & I) at the local pizza place. I suppose I should do some kind of party bag too. 

Bambi’s party is at home, with 10 friends invited (so 15 kids inc my two and 2-3 older siblings who are friends with Monkey), and we have some reusable decorations but will need to get food, pinata, treasure hunt stuff, balloons and party bag supplies. Unlikely to cost much under £200 I reckon. Maybe £150 if we are very savvy. Better budget £200 for each party to allow some contingency. Cheaper than having the whole class at softplay or the trampoline park though! 

So tbh very little saved for Christmas after all that 😨. But we do have two pays each before Christmas and the Help to Save accounts maturing. So we definitely won’t be using a credit card (never again!), but I do want to maximise the amount of £ we have in savings going into the new year. Luckily our gifts to each other come from our personal pots and I have £180 in there currently - more than needed for Christmas, but Red’s birthday is in Feb so need to save some for that too. 

Rough Christmas budget:

Kids’ gifts & stockings £250
Tree, decorations etc £100

Extended family gifts £400 (breakdown below)

My parents £75
My sister & BIL £75
My papa £25

Red’s mum £75
Red’s siblings (3 of them) £75
Red’s young adult nephews (3 of them) £75

Extra to added to grocery budget £150
Misc/contingency £100 (I try to add at least 10% contingency for event/project budgets now)

Aaaand that’s £1,000. Needs thought. Tbh this would be quite good for us if we did stick to it 🙈. Christmas and birthdays, like food, is obviously not our strong budget point. I know lots of people on here seem to do Christmas on about £5, but I have no idea how. Apart from anything else, inflation means everything I might buy for a gift is much more expensive in the past. I was going to buy my parents opera tickets, but it’s £100 at least for two tickets now unless you are behind a pillar, £150 for good seats 🙈. You used to be able to spend £30 and get a decent seat!

Oh and @debtfreewannabe321… that’s only half a week’s shop given we shop twice a week!! 

debtfreewannabe321

On the party bags, I once went to a party where the mum had bought a book bundle for kids, put them in a bag and told each kid on the way out to put their hand in and choose a surprise as their party favour. They left with a book and a piece of cake and no tat that usually comes in a party bag...I started doing that myself and it worked out cheaper to gift a little book, a balloon and bit of cake (and much easier to do).

Like this set for example: Elmer 12 Book Collection Set - Children Picture Flats Illustrated Elephant Pack : Amazon.co.uk: Books

Xmas is always an expensive time for parents, but to have two birthdays as well 🙈 

fionaandphil

We've gone the book thing too, went down very well

We have an account that matures at the end of this month that will pay for Christmas with enough leftover to pay for next holiday. It doesn't feel as bad putting a bit away every month and you can put variable amounts in from £25 to £250. Can't take any out during the year without losing 6 months interest, if we are having a tight month we just put less in. 

Bluegreen143

Who is that account with @fionaandphil? I like the idea of that.