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

fionaandphil

Have you tried M & S for uniforms? I've had to order from there over the last few years as DS is so tall its the only place I could find trousers long enough.  They have a 20 - 25% discount about this time of year usually but I think with the cyber attack its in store only.  The quality is excellent and they wash really well, not sure how they compare to the prices in Asda though.

Bluegreen143

I have bought from M&S before but when I started to do the order this time they didn’t have a few key items eg shirts in my little girl’s size etc and I preferred to get it all in one go. But it was definitely starting to be more expensive than the Asda order, I don’t have a full comparison because 2-3 things were out of stock. Everyone else must be more organised than me and got there first!

QueenJess

debtfreewannabe321 said:

That's a big difference and kids either grow too quickly or trash their clothes meaning cheap is better in most cases I think as you need to buy more often. My son was forever losing his uniform too so I never bought expensive for him. It's only as they've gotten older that I now buy more expensive things because DD has stopped growing and DS had finally stopped losing items of clothes 🤣.

Well I'm glad to hear the constant losing of their property ends at some point.  I make DS replace things with his own money and now magically these things are properly looked for and found at school!

DS also destroys clothes, although he's getting better.  I couldn't get on with ASDA white polo shirts as they got destroyed within weeks (no idea what he does with them).  M&S are the only ones I can get to last a whole year!  I also struggle to find trousers for DS that fit as he's so skinny and am stuck with the M&S adjustable ones that I can pull as tight as possible.  Anything with a logo on we get second hand from the school.

At least DD isn't of the same ilk dirt wise and she wants to wear dresses, so hopefully her uniform will be a lot easier.

Bluegreen143

I do agree with the M&S trousers. We didn’t need trousers this time as Monkey’s still fit. Bambi wears pinafores or the school tartan skirt (or the gingham summer uniform) and all of these thankfully still fit too. She’s growing like a weed though so odds are that I’ll need pinafores again soon, but hoping it’s after the first few weeks so we are done with the summer gingham dresses for the year! 

In her case she is just as grubby as her brother 😂

LittleGem

Hope alls well @Bluegreen143 and you are enjoying the summer 

Bluegreen143

Well, that’s the kids back to school (on Thursday). It’s flown in!

Review of the summer:

We went on holiday twice: once in Greece, once in Scotland. Both fabulous. We will be reining holidays in next year (likely choosing to do one if we go abroad again, and not going all-inclusive, or to do a couple of smaller Scotland holidays), so I’m glad we really enjoyed this year. 

We got to the beach and to the river to paddle each once; we haven’t got to our favourite local loch to kayak, but we are going there today as the kids have been invited to a wild swimming birthday party there today (so cool!). 

We (the kids and I) had a weekend away with my mum in her motorhome to a really fab campsite where the kids ran wild all weekend. 

The kids both asked to do a specific outing each (Monkey wanted to go to a risky play playground and Bambi a cat cafe) - we finally got these both done in the days immediately before school went back 🤣. 

We went swimming loads, the kids swimming is now miles better! And we once went to a water slide type pool with friends which was fun. 

The kids went to two birthday parties over the holidays and we got in at least one playdate with all the important friends. 

We read about 6 famous five books together, I succeeded in my goal of getting the kids to read independently most days, they did lots of drawing and spent a week building a Lego town at one point. 

I had a bunch of cuddles with my brand new nephew.

We had to replace our car and spent a fortune 🤦‍♀️ 

Moving on

I’ve rejigged my routine for the new school year and so far it’s going well. 

Money has been incredibly tight because we really borrowed about £1k less than we should have on the car loan, and it came back to bite us. We have £812 on the credit card now. We should be able to pay it back within 2 months however. 

We also only have £75 left in the emergency fund which needs addressing. 

Current state of the accounts:

Joint (for groceries, petrol, family fun spending and stuff we want for the house/garden): £614

Bills (for monthly & annual bills, family subscriptions, with extra for car/home maintenance: £917

Personal (for my own clothes, subscriptions, socialising, books, hobbies etc): £282 current account / £48 savings 

Emergency fund: £75

Holidays: £447

December (for both Christmas & the kids birthdays/parties): £1,120

Budget:

Bills: 38% of each pay (around £1,957 p/m - the amount not spent being allowed to build up for annual bills and maintenance costs)

Joint spending: 21% of each pay (around £1,081 p/m - aiming to spend no more than £150p/w on groceries and £150p/m on petrol)

Personal spending: 16% of each pay (around £400 each p/m)

Long-term savings: 15% of each pay (around £772p/m; £200 goes into retirement savings and the rest will be the emergency fund once the credit card is paid off)

Short term savings: 10% of each pay (around £515 each month; £150 goes into the December pot and the rest the Holiday pot) 

Newstartforme

Sounds like a lovely summer for , as you say it has flown past . So glad about the car , it really will be a relief for you not having it in the garage every other month , you will soon make up your savings x

Bluegreen143

Thanks newstartforme.

We’ve had a lovely weekend and overall, not too costly:

Fri:
- Spent 2.5hr(!) in the school park with friends after school (free)

- At home, kids played out the front with neighbour kids most of the rest of the evening (free)

- Kids & Red had dinner at home, I went for a joint birthday dinner with my mum and sister (not free, but my mum paid so it only cost me £8 for the taxi there and I chipped in a £10 note for the tip). 

Sat:
- Had a lovely family brunch bagel board (not free, as bought ingredients in weekly shop, but very cheap compared to going out for brunch)

- Took the kids to a birthday party (cost £15 for the gift from both kids to the birthday child, otherwise free). It was probably the best birthday party I’ve been too and doubled as family time, as we all went. It was an outdoor wild swimming party at a local loch - we took our kayak too - the kids all had a blast and adults went in and swam too if we wanted (which both Red & I did). Beautiful outdoors setting, great company, wild feral kids - can’t beat it! 

- Had our friend’s kids over for a sleepover to babysit for her (free). All had fun but it was a struggle to make them all sleep. I’m tired today!

- Another friend popped over and hung out in my garden with me in the evening with a glass of wine (pretty much free, as Monkey won the wine for me in a raffle!). 

Sun:
- Made pancakes for another family brunch, didn’t actually buy any ingredients specifically for it (free)

- Did a huge house cleaning session as a family (free)

- Hung out in the garden reading a book and doing Gaelic language work (both free… except for buying the book originally actually, I’ve had it a little while though). Kids played out again (free).

- Do have a grocery delivery coming later so will round up spending on that once it’s here. It’s probably a bit more as Red has added extra bits for making my birthday cake and doing an antipasti picnic for a birthday dinner. 

NeverendingDMP

The weekend sounds brilliant 

FootyFanDan

Sounds like a fun weekend was had by all.