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

Bluegreen143

Hello all!

It's the usual story - I've been trying to use my phone a lot less and so have been keeping away from online haunts.

I'm more wary too now about what I share online, so one thing I'd also like to do (although it will take a while) is go back through my diary and edit out some of the information which is a little personal - not figures, but things like our location and types of jobs, which make it easier to identify us.

So I am committing to going back to posting (on my laptop, due to not using my phone much) but going forward I will probably be a bit vaguer about certain things, and I'd appreciate if readers who know, e.g., where I live don't mention that information in comments.

ANYWAY. With that said, how are you all?

We're fine. Probably no different a financial situation we were in when I last posted. No debt, the correct amounts in the Holiday and December pots, we currently have £1,183 in the Emergency Fund and £1,195 in the New Kitchen Fund, we're putting an extra £200 a month into our LISAs and Red's pension. So pretty much OK there, we haven't gone off the rails while I've not been posting.

Money isn't perfect and I still think we spend too much on things which don't matter and need to get into better habits of reflecting on why.

Work has been busy, but everything is going OK, nothing too stressful though I worked a lot of extra hours last week as we had an event on. So we are sort of catching back up with cooking and laundry still now!

I'm not dieting just now as ended up feeling very physically depleted at the end of winter and early spring, so I'm focusing more on rest, walking, trying to eat plenty of fruit and veg etc rather than trying to lose weight per se for the moment.

We have lots of nice salad, herbs and spinach in the garden because we cheated and put in plug plants and they've grown amazingly with little effort. Not as frugal as growing from seed, but after the disaster which was last summer, I'm just happy to be growing something successfully!

I'm knitting again - a cute wee cardigan for my new nephew due this summer, and I have a cardigan for myself on the needles too. I'm reading a lot. And I've also started creative writing again, which I haven't done in at least 10 years!

How have I achieved all that, you ask?! Incredibly strict parental controls on my phone, which I don't know the passcode to (Red has it). Embarrassing but life changing. It's basically a dumbphone now with maps, Spotify and banking added and I've cut my daily average phone use by around 75%.

Current goal for the week: plan out some frugaltastic fun for the upcoming May holiday. It's just five days here, Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon, but I'm off the whole time with the kids, which I'm excited about, even though it looks like we've lost the lovely weather. We were meant to be going camping overnight on Saturday but we've agreed we won't if it's pouring.

Financial update to come!

Spendless

Hi, good to see you back. Totally understand about the need to keep some details private and did wonder if anything like that contributed to your absense because the same has happened to me. 

Looking forward to the financial update. 

Baileys_Babe

Good to read your update and happy to see you are back with us.

itsthelittlethings

Love the diary title. It really is about stopping living beyond your means, isn’t it! Changing your whole relationship with and processes around money.

With regards to phone use I have just started using an app called Forest which someone put me on to. You lock your phone for a certain period of time and “grow” trees if you don’t unlock it till that time is up. I find it quite effective. Good luck!

fionaandphil

Lovely to see you back, and yes I agree we have to focus on real life more!

Bluegreen143

Just checking in before I head off to the office.

Updating YNAB, which had been neglected for several weeks, was, as always, extremely eye-opening and I immediately had that 'YNAB poor' feeling when I didn't have enough to stretch round all the annual bills pots etc. So I am also resolving to do a quick YNAB update daily and reconcile everything weekly. It's the only way to use it effectively I think and catch any budgeting issues right away.

Current status of all budget categories below:

SAVINGS
Emergency Fund £1,184.02
New Kitchen £1,195.21
Extra pension payments already paid into those accounts this month.

BILLS
Mortgage/Council Tax/Energy/Internet/Life Insurance all paid this month.
Home Insurance £110 (£110-ish due in June)
Road Tax £220 (£220 due in August)
Car Insurance £103.77 (£500-ish due in January)

SUBSCRIPTIONS
Bike Club/TV Licence/Bambi's Gymnastics/Netflix all paid this month.
Amazon Prime £85 (£85 due in June)
YNAB £10 (£85 due in August)
Spotify £0 (£99 due in December)
Cubs £0 (£50 due in August)
Rainbows £0 (£50 due in August)

SPENDING (will get Child Benefit this week to top these up)
Groceries £100
Petrol & parking £0
Family £25
Home £25
Kids' uniform £100 (want £150 by July)
Kids' clothes £0 (want £200 by September)

POTS 
Christmas £450 (want £1,200 by December)
Kids' birthdays £220 (want £600 by December)
Holidays £1,073 (will add another £500 before going on holiday in June - all inclusive break paid for already, need £800 for self catering break accommodation plus spending money)

ME
Subscriptions £20
Clothes £40
General spending £191.03

Bluegreen143

Been doing a plan for the upcoming long weekend - should be fairly cheap and yet fun!

Thu
Staying local - library & local park or bike ride, might invite friends (no cost)

Fri
Day trip - forestry walk & waterfall trail somewhere new with good playpark nearby - will bring picnic (? may have to pay for car parking, might get ice creams or similar while out if there's a van at the park)

Sat
Swimming & then Monkey's friend is coming to stay over, might do pizza oven pizzas (£10 to swim, we may decide to take Money's friend out somewhere to make up for not going camping as planned, so may have a bit of extra cost here)

Sun
Wild camping by a loch - we were meant to go on Sat and take Monkey's friend, but the weather looks better on Sun. (No cost, as we've paid the permit already, except adding camping food to the grocery shop)

Mon
Quiet chill day once home from camping, we can go to local playpark or just play in the garden, do chores etc. (No cost)

If the weather forecast changes we will do camping on Sat, swim and pizzas on Sunday, so should stay broadly the same.

Bluegreen143

Aaaand another wee quick update because I found out I'm getting a £5k (pro rated as I'm part time) payrise today, which is very welcome!

New full time equivalent salary is £48k. Our annual cost of living increases are still being finalised just now so it will actually be slightly higher but not lots.

I think I will get around £140p/m extra after tax, pension and the extra leave I buy so will have a think about how I split this up in the budget!

Bluegreen143

Nice day today.

Worked in the office, rather a busy day which meant the day passed in a flash. I did get to sit outside during one meeting, which was lovely.

Picked up kids at school, spent the usual Tuesday half hour at the school park catching up with other mums, then took Bambi to gymnastics. (I can't remember what point I stopped posting, but if I haven't said, Bambi recently took up gymnastics and Monkey has even more recently dropped the martial art he was doing, so our weekly flow has changed a bit). Monkey's friend's mum kindly offered to keep him at the park with her, so he was spared from coming to the gymnastics hall with me and got an extra hour or so in the sun with his friends before I swung by to pick him up again.

Got home and Red proposed going out for dinner to celebrate my pay rise, offering to pay £60 out of his own pocket no less! We went to a cheap, family-friendly local Italian and it was £65 including tip, so just £5 spent from the joint account.

Now able to relax with no dishes to do, which is very nice. It does mean we didn't get round to doing any homework though - weirdly Monkey seems to have none this term, except reading, but I've just realised Bambi got a homework grid last week to do over this fortnight, woops! We have done the one physical worksheet and the reading booklet they sent home luckily, but none of the rest which is on the app, as I hadn't checked on there. Something to get on tomorrow.

Working from home tomorrow as we've decided as a team not to bother with the office, and it's my last day before a long weekend off, so feeling pretty happy!

Spending today (joint)
£17.88 - Groceries at Lidl (where I parked while at school, so saved on parking) - 1kg chicken breast, blueberries, nectarines, dishwasher tabs, scourers, sugar. Not exactly a lot for £18 but we did need everything as we didn't do a proper shop this weekend.

£3.20 - Parking while at gymnastics

Personal
£2.50 - A cake for me while at the cafe at the gymastics hall. Erm, a little treat to myself...

£10 - Contribution to a whip round for a colleague's wedding gift.

Sarahwithlove

Great news about the payrise well done