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

TallGirl

Your meals always sound lovely. Checking the fridge and prepping snacks is definitely money saving. We have our main meal at lunchtime as we both work from home but snack plate in the evening. We make sure all the stuff is there incl HM hummus so its quick you chuck something together when you come in from gym etc. 

We have found turkey bacon to be really cheap, filling and quick to cook in the airfryer and also quite like chunks of smoked cheese and pepperami lasts ages in the fridge. 

smudge56

Have you tried registering with show film first. They send you offers of free or reduced tickets. You sometimes just have to pay the booking fee.  They seem to have a lot of offers for the comedy club.  I used to use it for free cinema tickets(previews of up and coming films) and have also got tickets for concerts  at the Hydro 

Bluegreen143

I’ve never even heard of that Smudge, I’ll have a look! 

Well we’ve had a very lazy first morning of 2025 so far. I’m showered and have tidied the living room and made my bed, and that’s about it 🤣. 

I conveniently finished my current book (last in a fantasy series I’ve been reading) last night so today I plan to crack open Money for Couples, which I’m looking forward to reading as I hope it’ll guide us in having productive regular financial meetings. 

I’ve been trying to ponder over some goals for 2025, both personal and family-related. 

FAMILY

1. Meet our financial goals. 

The plan is to strictly monitor the following variable categories each month and work together to stay on budget - groceries, family pot, miscellaneous. 

By sticking to our budgets we hope to save these amounts into the following funds: 

£200 into LISAs/Red’s pension
£375 emergency fund 
£277 new kitchen 
£50 wedding rings 
£100 December celebrations (Christmas & kids’ birthdays)
£450 holidays 

As part of this goal, I want Red and I to have a money meeting at least monthly. I’ll also report our figures on here. 

2. Prioritise time together:

Two holidays in 2025 (one abroad and one domestic) as well as a weekend away with MIL. I’d also like a couple of nights camping. 

Making sure we have adequate budget and time to celebrate together at Easter, Hallowe’en, Bonfire Night, the kids’ birthdays, Christmas and Hogmanay. Also Eurovision, which we all love 🤣. 

Almost every weekend, have a family walk/outing and an at-home date night; each month put aside budget for one more expensive outing and an out-of-the-house date. I’d also like to set aside more time to play games as a family with the kids (board/card games and chess) as they are big enough now to enjoy these. 

3. Help the kids set a goal or two to work on over the year. 

I would personally really like to work on their table manners so I think I will suggest that! 

Last year we were working on swimming and reading with each of them and both made some progress in these areas. I’d like Bambi to keep working on these for the next year.

Monkey can now swim a length and read chapter books to himself (he reads before bed now, in addition to me reading a separate book to him, and if I don’t keep an eye on him he can read for hours!). 

I’d like to keep working on swimming with him as he’s not a strong swimmer, but reading (beyond making time for it and me listening to him reading school reading books) doesn’t need to be a major goal for him this year so I will find out if he’d like to choose something else instead. 

PERSONAL

1. Get back into a healthy BMI in 2025. 

This should be possible before the summer, and then I obviously want to maintain. This will be done through Slimming World and probably just walking for exercise. 

2. Being more calm and patient 

Life is busy at this stage with two school age kids, and I feel like I can get very stressy and impatient. I’d like to work on responding more calmly and warmly to challenges. I don’t want the kids to just remember me constantly nagging them! This is a trickier goal to measure - I want to take up journalling again so I can reflect on my progress each evening via this. 

Bluegreen143

Had a nice first of Jan so far. 

I managed to get out for a brisk 40 minute walk round our local park during a break in the rain. I definitely am (even more than normal) out of shape as I was puffing away up the hill, but was rewarded by beautiful views of the snow-capped hills beyond the city. 

I’ve done a bit of reading, we’ve all played a card game as a family, and the kids have bathed and now have clean hair. They are wonderful children in many ways but cleanliness is not one of their strengths so this is a win! 

Red and I had a money meeting while they were in the bath. We’ve concluded the agenda for our yearly financial review so this meeting was for looking at January plans. I called it a money meeting, but it was half budgets and half looking at the calendar/tasks to do. 

We came away with some decisions and a few actions each.

Decisions 

We allocated January’s family budget (£250) as below:

£35 kids’ pocket money
£150 extended family birthday gifts (£100 MIL, £25 Red’s sister, £25 my BIL)
Remainder (£65) for family outings - will cover the cinema tickets for next weekend and a couple of family swimming trips (we agreed the kids are to cover cinema snacks from their extensive stash of pocket money! Monkey now has £513 in his bank account and Bambi has £195…)

Red’s birthday (Feb) - he wants to go for dinner on the day as a family and invite MIL, to our local Italian (good, close by and quite reasonable prices).

We agreed to have regular mini meetings to track our grocery & family budgets together, and to check in monthly to make sure our savings pots are in the right place. 

We agreed on not having an out-of-the-house date in Jan, but we will have a nice dinner at home on Sat together separate to the kids and spend some time together when they are down for the night. 

Actions

Text Red annual leave dates to take (me, complete) and book them off from work (Red, plus I have one set to book myself)

Update shared calendar with some agreed upon items (me, mainly complete)

Shop for MIL, SIL and BIL gifts (Red - I am transferring him the budget into his bank account and he’s agreed he will cover any amount he goes over budget)

Transfer Red some money the joint account owes him and a separate amount I owe him (me)

Ask MIL what she wants to do on her birthday (Red) 

Book hotel for weekend away with MIL (Red)

Think about what he wants to do on our day off for his birthday and if he wants to organise drinks with friends (Red - to come back with ideas next meeting)

Order kids’ a bedding set each (using Misc budget pot, no more than £15 per set) (Red)

On the agenda for meetings this month 

Look at grocery & family pots together 
Discuss Red’s and MIL’s birthday plans
Start looking at summer holiday annual leave/childcare cover 
Begin looking for our abroad holiday (flights/accommodation)

debtfreewannabe321

Happy new year 🎊 
You're so organised I love reading your goals and updates. Well done on getting red involved with the budget. I've only just got my DP fully on board with budgeting but even now he knows there is say £100 In a certain pot but if he wants to spend £200 he doesn't see a problem with it and doesn't care where we steal it from 🤣 I battle on anyway lol.
I have a DS (he's 15) like red who opens the fridge and says there is nothing to eat even when I can see six meals, snacks and plenty of leftovers. So the top shelf I have dedicated to snacks now. I make protein balls (he's into working out) and put them in a tupperware tub, yoghurts he likes, flapjack I make and usually other little bits like hummus and guacamole etc as he will grab them and a (whole) pack of bread sticks to munch on. Could you set aside a small bit of the fridge and fill it with 'snacks' for red to grab and go? 
Look forward to seeing your updates on cheap dates as I'm in need of some ideas too ☺️

Bluegreen143

That’s a great plan about having a “snack” area of the fridge. My DC are still young enough that I don’t have an issue with them raiding the fridge yet (they have to ask permission to take food and our rule is they are mainly only allowed fruit between meals during the week). I can imagine it gets challenging with teenage boys though! 

Need to get properly back into slimming world now as it’s been a couple of weeks off and I’ve put on 4.5lb 😆. However at least I’d lost weight before Christmas so I’m still in a much better position than I would have been without slimming world. 

I got by with a banana for breakfast as I was up late again, and for lunch made a really nice Greek red lentil soup (a blended soup with onion/carrot/celery, oregano/chilli/rosemary/garlic, a tin of tomatoes, red lentils and chicken stock, finished off with lemon juice). 2 syns for butter and I used my HEB for one slice of wholemeal bread. The soup was very popular with the kids, who’ve both had a second bowl, so I’ll definitely be making it again!

Today is the first nice (freezing but sunny) day in ages so we are about to take the kids for a little forest/river walk. We’ve spent the morning packing away the Christmas decorations so it’ll be nice to get some fresh air. The house looks enormous now without the Christmas tree up! 

No planned spending today unless DH goes to the supermarket for bacon/rolls (he mentioned this yesterday but he might not bother). The grocery delivery is coming tomorrow anyway - I need to edit it tonight and check we’ve got everything we need but are still under budget. Aiming for under £70 each delivery. 

Meals for today 

B - banana (kids had cereal or peanut butter toast).

L - Greek red lentil soup with buttered wholemeal bread.

D - planning a tomato pasta with peppers/courgette in and leftover roast chicken stirred through, maybe green beans on the side.  

Bluegreen143

Well we had a lovely walk - the children frolicked about like puppies let off the lead and were generally quite enthusiastic and charmingly excited to be out. 

Red then took them to Tesco so they could spend a little bit of pocket money on toys. He spent £9.31 on groceries, which is fine as I’d told him to keep it under £10 (I’m allocating £10 p/w to top up shops). I think he got bacon, eggs, rolls, milk, garlic… can’t remember if there was anything else. 

Dinner was lovely though tbh I don’t think it really needed the leftover roast chicken stirred through, but it kept Red happy! He made garlic bread but I didn’t have any as I was determined to be quite strict today to break the holiday bad habits. 

Pics of today’s food - Greek red lentil soup:

Penne pepperonata with green beans & leftover roast chicken: 

I have leftover pasta & sauce in one tub and leftover soup in another (for lunches), and I’ve marinaded the chicken for tomorrow’s curry, so I’m feeling nicely ahead of the game! Think I will go and cook the chicken in the air fryer tonight and that’s then a job done and I’ll only need to make the sauce tomorrow.

Bluegreen143

Morning all!

Back at work today. DH is still off, so is corralling the children. So far he’s taken them to the tip 🤣 and I believe they are also going to visit MIL. Not what I would personally choose to do on a lovely sunny day off with the children, but it’s his day off 🤷‍♀️. 

I was potentially meant to be seeing friends tonight (either at mine or one of the others’ houses) but the usual flakiness is ensuing and people not replying to texts, so I’m not sure it’ll happen. It would be nice to catch up but I’m not holding out hope. 

We have shuffled the budget to put a bit more into the holiday pot, as Red was looking up holidays last night and is now horrified at the price of flights. We’ve not taken the kids abroad, and I suppose he hadn’t factored in the impact of paying for four, rather than two people and I think he is right that we need to save a bit extra. 

Red is inclined to book an all inclusive week away, I’m inclined to book flights and an Air Bnb separately, so we’ve agreed we will both go off and research our preferred option and reconvene at the end of the week with some examples to consider.

zcrat41

Enjoying your updates - you are so organised!!! 

My kids are slightly older than yours and we are really noticing the whole paying for 4 thing versus when one under 2 would go free. We’ve just got back from having a few nights away (I wonder if it’s near you based on a previous post - ‘twas Hydro related!). Brilliant fun but when a diet Coke is £3.95 in the hotel multiply that by 4 and crikey we can spend a lot. No answers or suggestions I’m afraid, just solidarity!  

fionaandphil

For holidays you may find that a half board package might be cheapest? It would give you some flexibility in the middle of the day but would help keep costs down for meals. We usually go HB for one break each year especially if we are out of town. When in a resort town we usually go out to local restaurants. We have a big breakfast, skip lunch and then out for early dinner. It will depend on your country and resort, some places are cheaper than others. Will you get some free child places with the kids being younger?

There are ways to cut costs like not buying insurance when booking, get it separately as soon as you book. DM me if you want any info. We go to Portugal and have done since DS was small. If you're going in summer though it is very hot.

We did AI in the Canaries but didn't like it. We aren't big drinkers and it was very much centred around booze at the resort and hotel we'd chosen.