Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

Sassamac

Thanks Wendy, you're right, it's what this is all about! Will have to check out your diary in a mo for your news then!

Not much to report really. I was wondering whether payday might be a day early this week because of easter w/e, so looking forward to that. I do feel like Im wishing the days away at the mo. Just til we have a bit more breathing space in the OD.

Just realised from my bank statement there was a Tesco spend I forgot to add. Its only £1.14, but its made me look again at my grocery budget and I have £6.20 left. 16 pints of milk (1 weeks worth) costs £5.36 which leaves me with 84p for bread and in fact anything else we need. Hmmm.

Sassamac

Just had a bank statement through for the secondary OD so updated the snowball with the interest charge this month. It is going down which is encouraging, especially when it tells you next months anticipated interest charge and thats even less. Pity its only a couple of quid.

The TC adviser was at toddler group this morning. I told him that TC's had written to us explaining that we couldnt have the backpayment til May and hes suggested phoning them to plead poverty and at least get them to dish out the 2k, then worry about the remaining odd few hundred at the end of the tax year. I cant even give them an accurate end of year figure now as DH is working different hours every week, and theres this holiday pay to account for. But at least to get the 2k would solve a hell of a problem. Robbing barstewards. Its our money give it back! Was chatting to some of the other mums at toddler groups and everyone had either had a bad experience with them, or else heard so many horror stories they have not bothered to claim.

Sassamac

Had a bit of a spend today, lets add it up.
bread = 17p
8 x school socks and 2 x vest = £4.50
boots but like doodles for DD and her awkward shaped feet = £7

OK less than £12 thats good.

Oh and a £1.24 spend yesterday on 8 pints of milk reduced to half price. The miracle is I found some space in the freezer to house half of it, so thats next weeks milk partly sorted.

DS just had his nursery school induction and weve been given the list of stuff to buy, uniform, p.e. kit, book bag, apron etc. so more spends to come in the next couple of weeks.

Keeping_Positive

Its lovely when they go to school but the costs can soon add up. Ask if the school has second hand clothes you could look at?

lauradora

i'm singing asda'a praises again I know but uniform from there is a reasonable price

Sassamac

Well having read through all the info we were given yesterday, it seems there is no second hand shop, and when I asked a mum from toddler group a while ago she said the same thing.
Our local Asda is food only but were probably spending the w/e with my parents, which is near an enormous Asda where I have bought the kids clothes before, so will definitely check that out.
The logo sweatshirt and polo shirt are £7.50 and £7 respectively, but they dont have to have logo stuff, and it can be red or navy, which opens up the options quite a bit. I will probably buy one logo jumper, and one unlogoed (is that a word), which should cost under £3 (Woolworths value range is really cheap). That will do for the summer term, then buy more for Sept. Then 6 white polo shirts (one for each day plus one spare for the change bag as requested) and ditto trousers. Im going to go and buy the logo stuff today as the school is nexxt door to the toddler group where I go anyway.

Sassamac

Oh and school trips are vountary donations, not compulsory, so Im wondering whether to pay half for stuff like that. I guess it depends how flush we are when the situation arises.

Sassamac

Right well Im £12.50 lighter and come home with one jumper, one book bag and one p.e. kit bag. The bonus is that they only stock every other size, there was no 4 - 5y, so I had to buy 5 - 6y. Which means I wont need to buy any next year! Yet to see if it swamps him! Even so I will buy the rest of the uniform in the right size.

Debating whether to do my weekly shop today, given that tomorrow is a BHol. I dont need much but theres a couple of things that just wont wait til Tuesday (god forbid the kids could go a day without raisins or bananas). However we might be spending most of the w/e at M&D's so no need to buy food thats just going to go off while were not here. Might even help the food budget having Mum feed us for a couple of days lol! The kids can eat her out of house and home instead (insert evil laugh).

Sassamac

More spends to declare;
95p in Somerfield which was a replacement mini weekly shop,
£6 on own brand doodles for DS. Just need some sunshine now! Ive heard rumours of snow this w/e?!

If the bank acc were to be believed we would be rich. Unfortunatley its just because payday moved forward a day, but the payday transfers wont go through til tomorrow (intra bank) / Tuesday (inter bank). So by the time all that happens we will be skint again, but there is good news. This week I only borrowed £100 from the savings, last week it was £150, so we are making progress.

Also, there was me whinging about needing a 5 Friday month, but just looking at my pending transfers I remembered that this month is a 5 Friday mortgage month, and given that the mortgage is the same amount as all the other bill added together, that will make quite a difference.

Had my CC bill through this morning and having BT'd off most of the balance, the estimated interest next month is less than £4 (compared to £26). That made me feel good. Of course the ultimate solution is that I will have cleared the entire balance at the end of this month.

Slowly but surely I think we're getting there.

Sassamac

I have just added up everything I have spent on the kids (clothes, shoes, toys, books) so far this year to update my sig total. It comes to over £180 which averages out at £60 per month, but actaully almost £120 of it is March. And theres more to come!

I have budgeted £40 per month but in fact, my initial budget (i.e. before I started writing it all down, just working out what I thought I spent) was £17. That seems shockingly high, but apart from the fact that they have had more shoes than normal (£20, £10, £13, £7, £6), I dont know why. Very little of it is brand new (pj's, underwear, shoes thats it!) and I only buy stuff that I think is good value. And the thing is, they still need more clothes. DS has hardly anything that fits. DD is really slimming down so Im hoping her 12 - 18m trousers will fit her for a year like that size did for DS.