Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

Sassamac

Just here quickly the kids are bored already (weve not even been home an hour), so were off out in a mo to get their feet measured, maybe invest in some doodles, and then the park.

Just wanted to work out a rough new income / expenditure with regard to the temp job. Not going to do a full SOA for the sake of 3 weeks work.
Old job New job
take home pay £230 £210
petrol £ 7 £ 2.50
lunch £ 0 £ 10
total £223 £197.50


Ok so in total we'll be £25.50 worse off per week. Not good but could be a lot worse and its only temporary so fingers crossed the next move will be a better one.

Sassamac

grrr I actually went to the effort of lining that up in columns but it disappeared when I posted and then again when I edited! Its only a god damn space bar!

lauradora

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
i know i hate it when that happens.

Sassamac

Glad its not just me Laura!

Well so much for my NSD. £13 on some new shoes for DS. Very MSE though, I got black ones so he can wear them for nursery school if he starts after easter. The doodles were BOGOF but they had none for DD, and I wasnt convinced about either buying two pairs for DS in his current size, or buying the next size up and hoping they fit. It occured to me after we got home that I didnt ask if they had any boys ones in DD's size, so I might go back this week and ask as Id rather get a pair for each of them to take advantage of the BOGOF.

edit: Oh and a couple of quid in Somerfield as I realised that Utterly Butterly is only on BOGOF til tomorrow and a loaf of bread, a pack of bagels and a bag of satsumas (all reduced to 25% of course) all sort of fell into my basket! Must go put half the bread and bagels in the freezer.

Sassamac

Just looked at the petrol budget as Sat and Sundays petrol spends have just gone through the accuont. This month so far (day 4) we have spent as much (bar 73p) as we spent in the entirety of last month. Still we were almost £20 under budget last month. DH is saving £4.50 per week on petrol with this current job, which accounts for the next 3 weeks, so depending on where he ends up for the last week of the month, and how far he has to travel for interviews, job hunting etc. we may just scrape under budget.

DD is now sleeping but the house is in a mess so my mission of the day isnt going to be met. Maybe tonight! Best go clean!

Sassamac

The recruitment agency just left a message on the answerphone for DH to say the company was impressed with his interview on Friday and would like him to start work on Weds. Im really chuffed.
I have no idea what they pay is as its dependent on experience, but its about 40 hours which is an improvement on the last job for starters.
The only thing is I know DH wanted to stay at his current temp job for the next 3 weeks to work on a project and was hoping if he got this one to be able to defer it til after then.
For my preference it depends on the pay. If its more then its worth moving and TBH if it isnt more then its hardly worth doing because where he is now is already £20 per week less than where he was.
The new job is 27 miles away (I know that because its practically next door to the job he had before he got made redundant in April), so just a tad further than the job he just got made redundant from and a lot further than the temp job where he is this week.

Sassamac

DH had another job offer yesterday. The place where he is temping want to keep him on for 3 months, but then theres a very good chance he will be taken on permanently after that. So he will probably stick with this one as the other one is 9 months and no more, whereas this has better long term prospects.
So I did some number crunching last night to work out what we can afford to live on long term (i.e. we cant afford to live on this little for very much longer) so this morning hes going to do a little bargaining between the two and work out who will pay him what.

The results of the number crunching shocked me actually. I thought we were being very good and could afford to live on a fairly low salary.
Basically atm our monthly expenses are £1275, which includes £225 to repay the debts (minimum), £830 for all the fixed costs, DD's, bills etc (I have included CT and water although were currently on a break) and £220 for the variable stuff which is food, toiletries, clothes and shoes for the kids, and petrol.
£1275 is fine, as our new income (if DH stays where is temping at the same pay) is £1462, which means we have £187 spare to overpay our debts by or just treat ourselves. (Our old income was £1562, pity the new TC payments didnt kick in in time for us to have £287 spare every month). But we cant live on this long term. I factored in all the other costs of things were not paying for atm. Those extra costs add up to £390, which inc a fund for all the annual car and motorbike stuff (not insurance as thats monthly), a fund for DIY and maintenance, an extra allowance for food (we're keeping it artificially low by living off the freezer or a while), clothes and shoes for me and DH (we havent bought anything for ages) and £220 to pay off the capital on the mortgage, rather than just the interest. So the long term total is £1665 which means DH needs to earn £12 ph or 25k pa, which will earn us apx £1250 in TC's and a bring home pay of almost £20k pa. Which is a lot to expect really. Oh and that £20k doesnt include being able to overpay the debts, or reinstate my gym membership, or send the kids to any more activities, nor money for presents, parties, hair cuts, days out, socialising or anything else that you almost take for granted as part of life. All these extra niceties will be another £300, which I will need to bring home after childcare costs, if we want that lifestyle. I suppose things will be easier when we've repaid the debts as that'll free up £225, but atm our DFD is still 5 yrs away. I havent yet worked out what it will be when we get our TC back payment, but it will reduce our debt from roughly 10k to 7.5k and obviously kncok out the highest interest earners, so hopefully knocking a quarter of our debt straight off will reduce our DFD to about half or two thirds of the current 61 months.

Sassamac

Oh and I have managed to definitively work the wage difference between the last job and the current one. Its less by £22.40 per week gross, wont know the net, until we get next Fridays pay slip, but I imagine it to be about the same. From the figures used in the number crunching above, (based on net being 75% of gross) its exactly £100 per month less. Its odd because I was thinking, £20 - 25 less per week doesnt sound much of a drop, but then I thought, what if we inccured another cost of £25 per week, that would seem like a lot, but really it amounts to the same thing. Not sure how much more we would get in TC's for that drop in pay. Not much as its not long til the new tax year now. Will have to sit and work out our new gross income for 2007/08 now and declare that to them.

Sassamac

NSD for me. I went back to town to try some boys doodles for DD but none of them fitted her narrow feet so walked away empty handed again. I resisted the lure of Somerfield whilst in town, despite parking right outside it, and managed to park for free. Went to the park after school so more free entertainment. DH has bought petrol today as I see from the online banking, so thats the limit of our spends today.
DH is due home soon and Im eagerly awaiting some more job news from him.

Keeping_Positive

Sassamac wrote: »

I factored in all the other costs of things were not paying for atm. Those extra costs add up to £390, which inc a fund for all the annual car and motorbike stuff (not insurance as thats monthly), a fund for DIY and maintenance, an extra allowance for food (we're keeping it artificially low by living off the freezer or a while), clothes and shoes for me and DH (we havent bought anything for ages) and £220 to pay off the capital on the mortgage, rather than just the interest. So the long term total is £1665 which means DH needs to earn £12 ph or 25k pa,

Arent these extra bits the scary ones. I always thought I was doing well each month when the bills were paid and spending any extra but then got caught when the car tax, mot, birthdays, growth spurts etc appeared :eek: .

Fingers crossed OH can negotiate a good rate and I look forward to seeig how the tax credit refund affects the DFD.

Congratulations on NSD :j . Nearly got away with it but I owe Guides March subs and for some uniform.