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

zcrat41

Have you a recipe you could share for the chocolate banana oats please? 

I like the sound of your meal plan. My kids are a few years ahead of yours and I find I get into a great system each term and then the clubs or schedules change and I’m back to scratch again! I’m a big fan of the batch lady for helping here though. 

Bluegreen143

Yes of course, here’s how I make it currently (I used to do bigger quantities but have scaled down due to dieting 🙈😅). 

Oats 1/3 cup
Milk 1/3 cup (I use whole milk but you can use plant etc) 
Greek yoghurt 2 tbsp
1-2 tsp cocoa (I like it quite chocolatey so have 2)
1 small banana, mashed, or 1/2 big banana 
1 tsp crushed seeds (optional, or chia seeds work uncrushed too)
0.5-1 tbsp peanut butter (to taste but I like it quite peanut buttery…)
Good pinch salt 

Basically mix everything together, mashing the banana and peanut butter in, and leave everything overnight in the fridge. 

I like it topped with sliced strawberries. 

zcrat41

Thank you for the recipe. Looks great 

Bluegreen143

Just realised I’ve not been very present on here for a few days. 

Everything’s OK. BIL went back to his house this weekend. I expect we will still have him for dinner once a week for the forseeable. 

We got a refund for our defective tumble dryer and ordered a new one, which came today. It was £30 extra for the new tumble dryer plus £90 for a 5 year insurance thing. We never go for extended warranties or appliance insurance, but we’re so hacked off about the awful customer service experienced during our few months owning the last tumble dryer we wanted the peace of mind that repairs need to be completed within 7 days and that they will replace quickly if they can’t repair. 

Tonight we had Red’s late brother’s fiancée over for dinner - I made a really nice roast chicken with a butter/garlic/white wine sauce, roasted beetroot & carrot, roast baby potatoes and cauliflower/green beans which I sautéed in butter after cooking. 

We have enough leftover chicken to do Red and I for lunch tomorrow. I’ve already made tomorrow’s dinner - lentil/carrot/coriander soup, which I’ll serve with sandwiches - I’ve bought a couple of mini baguettes, to come in the shopping tonight. 

Really can’t wait until I get paid on Thursday 🤣. 

Bluegreen143

Oh meant to say I was pleased I managed to get Bambi the Rainbows uniform (leggings, polo shirt and hoodie) for £24 from eBay second hand rather than nearly £50 for the set new 🙌🏼. 

I will need to pay the fee, I think it’s £30 for the term as she’s started midway through. I need to pay £50 to Scouts too, as they are only just getting around to collecting this term’s subs and send an email about it today. It never ends! I will hopefully be able to wait til payday to pay both of these, as there’s not enough in the subscriptions pot just now. 

I can’t remember if I said, but I’ve finally started Christmas shopping. I spent £70 on gifts for my mum and stepdad. I’m ordered some books for my sister tonight - some are second hand but she won’t mind (I will still spend the amount planned, so can get more this way). We are also giving her and my BIL an unopened game we have on hand, I would say in the presents stash but it’s all that’s in there 🤣 but it looks good and I think they’ll like it. We bought it last year for a friend but ended up not exchanging gifts with them. 

We tend to take responsibility for shopping for our own families so if I got my sister’s gift sorted it would go a long way to alleviating some Christmas stress. I feel very disorganised this year and just want to tick things off my list!

Another source of stress - I’m starting to get a bit 😨😨😨 at the thought of our remortgage in Feb as it looks like our mortgage will go up about £300 a month. We will realistically need to cut the “wants” spending a bit and try to shave some off of groceries. 

Going to come back with a wee round up of spending to date once I’ve updated YNAB. That always keeps me on track!

Bluegreen143

ROUND UP OF SPENDING 1-10th NOV

FIXED £1,597.70

Home £732.05
Mortgage; a new kitchen tap (ours broke) and the extra on our new tumble dryer (mostly funded by the refund on the old one).

Utilities £266.90
Energy & internet.

Insurance £45.07
Life ins.

Car £97.15
Petrol, parking and includes park & ride subway tickets for the kids & I.

Groceries £349.03
Urgh!

Kids’ clothing £36.28
Rainbows uniform plus tights for Bambi. 

Subscriptions £53.98
TV subs, kids’ clubs, karate grading fee.

Misc £17.24
Fabric glue and a random expense I’m not sure of what it is now. 

WANTS £494.83

Kids’ rooms refurbs £264.03
Wood, stain, drawer handles etc.

Gifts & celebrations £127.75
Christmas gifts, fireworks, Halloween sweets. 

Family £25
Kids’ pocket money.

My spending £78.05
Dinner & drinks out with friends, a taxi when out on date night. 

TOTAL: £2,092.53

KajiKita

Wrote a long reply to this and lost it! Gah ….

Thoughts on the groceries and remortgaging:
- You have been feeding others (adults) quite a bit recently - with a bit of luck that will ease back now.
- You can start the mortgage search now - most providers allow you to apply up to six months before your old deal is up. 

- Also swop rates (what banks etc lend to each other at) are slightly lower than the BoE base rate atm, which are what determines mortgage rates. We got 3.85% on a 5 year deal, before the last two interest rate drops, though we have quite a good LTV ratio and paid a £999 fee upfront (they can be incorporated into the mortgage but then you pay interest on the fee). 
- Be careful how many applications you make as they leave a footprint on your credit file (it’s a lot of work too, proving income, identity, address etc). We aimed for no more than three applications within the six months window. You’ve checked your credit score recently?
- Read the MSE remortgaging guide - I found this really helpful. Though it did take me at least three read throughs to take it all in! 😉 I may be a bit slow of course! 😊

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/remortgage-guide/

- Consider approaching a broker - they generally don’t get paid by the mortgage taker but by the provider (like a commission). I found just having a perspective on how the process works, the foibles of each provider etc, really helpful. I could send you details of the one we used or ask around.

HTH a bit? 

KK 

Bluegreen143

Thanks @kajikita - I just checked using MSE credit club and it’s eye opening! I’m only marked as “fair”. Last time I checked it was as high as it could go. The things I’m marked down on is because I’ve got £1,500 on the credit card and the limit is only £2k, so I’m using too high an amount of my credit limit apparently. I used to have another credit card but closed it and that may have been a mistake! I have no defaults or anything like that and always pay on time. 

I think we’ll be best to pay off the card ASAP even if it means using our small amount of savings as I didn’t realise it was having such an impact.

We are using a mortgage broker but Red was dealing with them and we need to sit down and discuss as I’m unconvinced about the deal they sent us and can’t decide how many years to fix for. 

Bluegreen143

And yes, we had extra people for dinnermore often than not this past month. We need to cut back a bit now. It’s tricky doing that without impacting health or taste though, especially being working parents and not having all day to spend in the kitchen. 

I started a new sourdough starter this weekend as if I get back in the habit of baking sourdough we can get good quality bread for a lower price. 

Did I share my new weekly mealplan template? In case not, it’s here:

Mondays - soup (and sandwiches, if it’s a lighter soup)

Tuesdays - big salad with something protein 

Wednesdays - wraps/pittas (eg fajitas, burritos, gyros, falafel wraps etc)

Thursdays - pasta 

Fridays - fakeaway (pizza, burgers and the like)

Saturdays - free choice (new recipe, different cuisines like curries or stir fries)

Sundays - roast, stew or pie

My plan is to prep the pasta and soup each weekend as Mondays and Thursdays are busier days. And to make a huge batch of salad on Tuesdays because the wraps always involve salad too. 

Baileys_Babe

Are you able to pay for Scouts and Rainbows monthly going forward? We pay monthly over 12 months which makes it a lot easier to budget. We also gift aid which helps the groups at no additional cost to ourselves.