Riding the wave

BadBookkeeper

hi there, haircut is necessary and should be accounted for in your budget. Do you have a personal spends budget? Can the £35 a month come from that maybe? We all need a little fun money, build it into your monthly budget and spend wisely but guilt free.

I have a home bargains pot, it’s £20 a month I’m ‘allowed’ to spend on tat but once it’s spent I have to wait until the next month and if I still want it I can but usually the urge goes by then! Any not spent from this pot gets added to Christmas pot so I can buy all the silly bits I always want (but not need)!

Keep_Buggering_On

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82034055#Comment_82034055

She did apply for PIP a couple of times a few years back but got rejected at the time which she took very hard as we have a friend who got the maximum payout and a lot of her problems are because she was an alcoholic- my wife got quite upset that someone who was making their condition worse through their own actions received it, whilst she wasn't entitled because she could still walk the kids to school and make a sandwich for herself (I'm paraphrasing but you get the gist). We have talked about her re-applying as her condition has become a lot worse since then and my SiL is going to help her this time as she used to work for DWP so can help her jump through the right hoops.

Keep_Buggering_On

A productive day as the sun has been out- got a batch of baking done first thing, then chopped some more firewood and mowed the garden, plus removed some annoying brambles that were making a sprint across the lawn from the hedge! After lunch me and DD walked across to the next village for their annual scarecrow festival. There were some brilliant and very creative scarecrows and we managed to find the one our village's Beavers, Cubs and Squirrels had made (DD had helped make the Cubs one so she was very keen to see the fruits of her labours).

I am doing a roast chicken dinner for tea, albeit with chicken thighs rather than a full chicken. DS will moan as he always does, apparently the chicken tastes 'yuck' even though its the exact same chicken thighs he will eat in a stir fry and say are wonderful! He complains about every roast dinner, but he will eat it under sufferance and he needs the veg in him so he can just get on an eat it and be thankful I don't make him eat liver and onions like my parents did for me- haven't touched them in 25 years and the thought of it still turns my stomach!

Keep_Buggering_On

I think I might be able make back £70 of what I spent on the locomotive…I popped into one of the shops n the village at lunchtime and they had a compass there for £1.50. It was old and made of bakelite and although I didn't recognise the design, I thought it was probably military so I took a punt and bought it. Looking it up online, turns out its a WW2 German Army marching compass worth about £100-£120. I have always stuck to collecting British and Empire military kit, so I messaged a friend of mine who does German re-enactment and he is going to ask round his group and see if anyone wants it at £70- this way it goes to someone who will appreciate and use it, they get a good deal and the money will pay off over half what I spent on the loco!

vampirotoothus

Great spot, well done. I hope you get a quick sale. V x

DancingInTheRain

Great find 😊

Keep_Buggering_On

Off to the Dentist tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to. I have the morning off work so I am planning to treat myself to a wander round the charity shops in town. I have decided I need to be sensible, so my plan is to withdraw £40 in cash- £27.90 for the dentist, £5 for a return bus ticket which will leave me £7 to treat myself to a few books or DVDs if I find something that takes my fancy. This way I get the fun of searching and finding something I like, without overspending. The only annoying thing is that because everything is card now, you really need to have exact change for the bus or the driver moans like crazy that he hasn't any change for a £10 note. I am very much trying to reduce my electronic footprint, so I don't have a smart phone and given the choice I prefer cash over card as I know where I am and I don't overspend.

ellenvan

Good plan. I agree it's much easier budget with cash.

Catscoffeecake

Thats good news that your wife has someone to support her with applying this time, it is hard to get, but there are some very good free guides out there and groups on facebook because sometimes its about using the right key words to describe the condition and abilities.

have you considered opening a chase account if you dont already have one, you cant spend more than whats in the account on the card, so you could transfer the cash across to that card and then use the card to pay. might be a way around the cash issue and keeps you from spending more than you have.

ArtyJ931

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037865#Comment_82037865

when I started strict budgeting I did cash only and withdrew a fixed amount weekly but so many places wouldn’t take cash that I then had to dabble with only taking some cash out and leaving a buffer in and it became too complicated so now I’m just doing weekly amounts into my Monzo. Not as good as a cash only budget though.