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

Bluegreen143

I’ve just logged into Experian and it says my credit score is 999 out of a possible 999, versus the MSE credit club only saying I have a “fair” score. So confused!

Bluegreen143

Payday today. £2,272 in.

Paid £659 off the credit card and I’m now down to a credit card balance of £726.69 which feels much more manageable! Close to being debt free again, when the priority becomes building savings to avoid this ever happening again.

The rest of my pay budgeted as follows - the first figure is how much I’ve added to the pot and the second is the new pot balance.

Help to Save - £100 added (this is the last month of this)

Home - £250 added - £250
Insurance - £66 added - £90
Car - £260 added - £286
Groceries - £351 added - £286 (got a shop today)
Kids’ clothes - £14 added - £14
Subscriptions - £71 added - £51 (paid Rainbows £20 today)
Misc - £93 added - £93

Kids’ room refurb - £140 added - £40 (Red bought more wood) 
Gifts & celebrations- £90 added - £466
Family - £104 added - £94 (bought donation for Christmas fayre and doormats)

Personal savings - £40 added - £244
My clothing - £40 added - £75
My subscriptions - £40 added - £37 (iCloud storage paid)
My spending - £140 added - £140

Hopefully this all makes sense! 

Went to Lidl today - had to, to get free parking there 😅 - but I also need a sweet treat donation for each kid to take in for the Christmas fayre, which is their price for having a non uniform day tomorrow. When I was there I picked up two doormats with Gaelic slogans on them they had in 😍. I got a normal one for everyday and a Christmassy one. Only £4 each and it’s great for the kids to see Gaelic in use outside of school so well worth it. 

We also got the Tesco shop in - a restrained £64 this time 😇. Though, bearing in mind it’s only for half a week…

Tomorrow we both have the day off to attend my sister in law’s funeral. Glad we can be there for BIL. 

Today was the first day of our new Thursday routine where Red takes both kids out to Rainbows and karate. We now need to eat at 5pm on Thursdays but it seemed to work well - I used up pasta sauce from the freezer for a quick easy meal and we’ve agreed that we will have pasta every Thursday for ease. When Red and the kids were out - for 2.5 hours! - I tidied and cleaned almost the whole house ready for the weekend. I think I will make this my regular slot to do this as otherwise I find we end up spending time cleaning on Saturdays, which I don’t want. 

KajiKita

That new routine where you clean ahead of the weekend I think will work well and allow you much more pleasure time at the weekends 😊

Good luck (iykwim) with the funeral today. Hugs to all x

KK

LadyWithAPlan

Hi I hadnt realised you had started a new diary over on DFW, so caught up. Your food and focus is fabulous.
So sorry to hear re your BIL and your SIL. 

Bluegreen143 said:

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.

I gather that the way to maximise your credit score is to utilise 20-25% of the available credit only, more or less freaks the score out even when you pay in full and are never late. I have noticed it with mine.

Great to see how your savings, true expense pots have gone up and you got that pesky first cc out the way via YNAB. I am just nearing my full 12 months using it and it has skyrocketed my savings rates and I have spent less.
Have you heard of doing a 'wish farm' on Ynab - for the wants that can be small, medium and large - there are a couple good YT  videos on it. 

redofromstart

I was going to suggest that you request an increase on your credit card limit, not to use it but to make your balance below 50% of the available credit but I can see you have reduced your balance. 

Bluegreen143

I actually did do that too, didn’t realise I hadn’t mentioned on here. I increased the limit to £3,500 as well as m the balance now being down to £727. So between these two things, credit utilisation is now under 25% which I gather is the key milestone to achieve. I should be debt free in a month anyway but I think it was still worth doing in the interim.

Bluegreen143

Happy Monday all! Time to update you on the weekend. It was a bit spendy but not as awful as it might have been.

Friday 

Funeral. Emotionally draining. Very tempted to get a takeaway after as neither of us fancied the planned chicken pie, or wanted to cook, but I'm pleased to report that I gave myself a kick up the bum and used the chicken to make KFC-style fried chicken and chips, served with broccoli and peas. Once I started to cook it actually made me feel better as distracted me from my emotionally-drained state. And we both agreed that neither of us wanted that bloated post-takeaway feeling nor to pay the £40-60 it costs to get a takeaway for a family of four nowadays.

£26 - Lidl (Groceries) - we had to buy something to park there but ended up getting some treats and two bottles of wine plus a couple of bits we needed for pizza on Saturday (basil, tomato puree). Wine doesn't normally come from the grocery budget but on this occasion I'll leave it there.

£60 - M&S (My clothing) - new bras and underwear, absolutely necessary due to having no bras which fit properly, and I used the work benefits portal that saves 6%

Saturday

Red's sister and her partner popped by, along with Red's brother, to see the kids before she drove back down the road to England - the kids didn't come to the funeral. Then took the kids for a walk/play in a local greenspace and along the river (by myself as Red was working hard on the bedroom refurb). 

Red's brother stayed to help Red with his work and decided to stay over, and I had a friend and her two kids over for a playdate/dinner, so it was HM pizza for eight. Annoyingly we couldn't get the pizza oven temperature quite right and a couple were a bit burnt, but still tasty!

£6 - Ringgo (Car) - parking by the river for 90 minutes(!)

Sunday

Walked to Tesco to get my steps in and buy a kids' birthday present for a party Bambi was invited to that day. Also picked up some makeup and hair dye for myself, which have been on my list for ages. Then took the kids to the softplay party which cost a fortune because Monkey wanted to come too (and it made Red's life easier if I did take Monkey), so had to buy softplay entry plus lunch for him and then caved and bought myself lunch too... I was out the house over 11.30-2.30 and was really hungry! It wasn't even very nice but it did fill me up!

Afterwards we did usual Sunday tasks of tidying up, bathing kids, homework, but Monkey also cooked up dinner! He had to come up with a personal challenge for a Cubs badge and he chose cooking a three course meal. Obviously we supervised, and I drained the pasta water for him, but he did all the chopping, prep work and cooking. The menu was:

Starter - grilled tomato & cheese bruschetta (Red did this with him, I did the main and dessert)
Main - goats cheese, breadcrumb and asparagus pasta
Dessert - apple crumble and ice cream

Took loads of pics and need to send over to his Cubs leader as evidence today.

£52 - Tesco (£37 My clothing, £10 Gifts, £5 Family) - 3 for 2 make up offer, 2 for £15 hair dye plus kirby grips / Craft set for kid birthday gift / hair accessories for Bambi because she's lost all her hair ties
£15 - Softplay (Family) - Softplay entry & lunch for one child!! What a rip-off softplay is nowadays!
£10 - Softplay (My spending) - My lunch
£67 - Tesco (Groceries) - Sunday evening Tesco delivery
£3 - eBay (Gifts) - a second hand book for Monkey's Christmas

Bluegreen143

And a mid-month spending round-up (11 days to go til payday...):

FIXED COSTS £2,067

Home £902
Mortgage, council tax, a new kitchen tap (the old one broke), the extra for replacing the refunded tumble dryer as the new one cost a bit more.

Utilities £270
Energy and internet.

Insurance £73
Life insurance.

Car £103
Petrol & parking.

Groceries £507

Kids' clothing £36
Tights and Rainbow's uniform for Bambi.

Subscriptions £159
TV & music, kids' activities inc £70 for term fees for Rainbows and Cubs, and £10 one-off fee for karate grading.

Miscellaneous £17
Fabric glue, plus unidentified expense.

WANTS £839

Kids' room refurb £364
Supplies for building Bambi's built-in bed and desk.

Gifts & celebrations £190
Fireworks, kids' party gifts, Christmas shopping.

Family £81
Softplay entry and lunch, Christmas cinema tickets, pocket money.

Me £204
£97 clothing/makeup/hair dye - £19 phone/subscriptions - £88 socialising, date night and lunches on the go.

birdsfoottrefoil

Just getting caught up on your diary. Really well done on getting the CC nearly paid off!! Sorry you’ve had such a rubbish time of things recently, hopefully you’ll have a good run up to Christmas! You’re more organised than me, I’ve not done any present buying yet.

Bluegreen143

Thanks @birdsfoottrefoil!

Had the boiler serviced today, think that will be £80. 

Also got round to dying my hair. I’ve not dyed it for years, since I stopped dying it red/blue/purple (these never turned out that bright for me - my natural hair colour is too dark). I had been toying with whether I should go grey naturally and never start dying over the greys, but have decided for the moment I’m just not ready 😅. Unfortunately I have the kind of hair which is starting to go grey around the ears first and it’s not a very elegant look. 

It’s a little shallow perhaps, but I’m already feeling much better about my hair and I only dyed it today! £15 well spent. And I still have a second pack of dye left for next time. 

Chicken soup and homemade sourdough for dinner. I’m delighted at how my sourdough turned out, it’s the first loaf I’ve made from my new starter and it rose perfectly with great air bubbles and a lovely taste.