It's all fun and games until ...........

Evening diary back from our break away and it was lovely - managed to come in under budget due to the hotel not charging us for the boys breakfasts ( ours were in included in the special rate ):o
This meant that when boys put their trainers on for the first time in weeks ( weather has been so foul here since new year it's been boot and wellies when not in school shoes) and both complained they were too tight I was quite relaxed about stopping at the outlets on the way home and getting them both new trainers - 2 pairs from nike factory outlet £36 :T

Hi Elly & brizzle i know we need to look at what we spend on tv and how we "watch" tv and there are certainly savings to be made there but for me the priority just now is learning to live in a budget - if I was to post an soa just now even with the expensive discretionary spends we have in it would suggest I have close to £1.5k a month to throw at debt - you only need to look at my signature to see that is not whats happening in reality - in reality the amount I budget for grocery shopping is double, in reality the 1 treat takeaway/meal out per month is 3 etc blah blah if I manage to cut my sky/ bt costs without getting better discipline on the over spends they will just end up being another dominos pizza :rotfl:

But this time away with the family has if anything renewed my desire to get rid of this debt - how much more of these times and experiences together could we have if we weren't having to service and pay back this ridiculous amount of debt we are in - I would love to take the boys to New York during December when it is in full Christmas overload - not to shop till we drop - believe it or not despite the debt that's not really my thing- but for the experience - a previous boss of mine once gave me an unexpected bonus and told me " don't use it to buy things use it to create memories" I always found that to be quite inspiring and will keep it in mind every time i say no to the takeaway, sit down to do the weekly meal planner and tell myself that I don't need to do a full shop just because we have run out of raspberries :eek:

Pretty quiet on the MSE front at the moment patiently waiting for pay day on Friday :j in the mean time just sticking to the meal planner only spent £80 at supermarket on last shop and can see it will comfortably last us the week - I know that some folks will think that's too high a spend for a family of four but it's a big reduction from what I normally spend so if I can keep it at that each week I'll actually be under my grocery budget than the 100% overspend that normally happens:A

Need to use this weekend to get on the eBay bandwagon - I will commit to getting 3 things on by Sunday .......promise

When you are going through the steady plod of meal planning, NSDs, mini overpayments and waiting for pay day it can seem as though not much is happening on the debt busting front - then someone else notices a change in your behaviour and you realise perhaps you are taking the right steps in the right direction ...... So at dinner time I realised we had run out of milk - due to my new super shopping list technology (patented) and not buying enough to feed a small city I realised I had to pop to the local shop (literally 90sec walk from the house)

Lovely local shopkeeper: " hello how are you not seen you for ages you been away ?"
Me : "eh no ??"

I work from home So in the past most day were filled with a wee pop across the road for cans of juice, bit of lunch and other random spends - just realised I haven't been in that shop today for 12 days !!!!!! Ok we were away for 4 of those but even still I'm still surprised and shocked ..... It really is the things we do every day that count