Diary to stop despondency

monetxchange · 11 October 2019 at 1:21PM

Hey,

I remember your posts from a few months ago and just looked back on them. Great to see you've reduced spending on a few things. What's happening in regards to reducing the cable as it was coming to the end of the contract? And I believe there was mention of you or your partner doing some part time extra work? Did you get your childcare reduced down?

So what I'd suggest now is absolutely including those extras you've taken out of your SOA, because the reality is they do pop up constantly, every year on the dot, and only lead to more stress when they do if you haven't budgeted for it. You can't ignore them forever!

What I'd do is redo the SOA every month when you have a confirmed figure of what your partner's commission is. Then you can budget every penny away, including at least putting a few quid aside for things such as presents, medical, emergency funds etc.

I know how rough it is to take the plunge and get your head round it all at first, but you're absolutely on your way. Wishing you the best of luck

stinabean · 11 October 2019 at 4:17PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

How old is your son? The killer is the childcare costs. Are you doing the tax free childcare scheme?

Satellite TV, mobiles should all be reduced when the contracts expire. I am a little surprised you spend only £120 on food and can you get the pet costs lower? I think you have overstretched yourself with the car but good that the boiler loan is almost finished. You need to start putting some savings away whether it is from your DPs commission or some sort of side income or overtime if you cannot increase your incomes. You need to find the interest rates. Do you not have any credit cards or overdraft? Good if you don't but unusual.

The maths on the soa is incorrect. I think you have £580 left after essential expenditure and your loan repayments are £492 so you should have £88 surplus even without the commission. You should start up some savings pots for presents, clothing even just for your son, pets which are normally a massive drain on budgets and the car and house. Put your food, fuel and entertainment money aside each month and try and find something to go towards an emergency fund. It will get easier when your son gets his 30 free hours so long as you don't have another child before you have sorted your finances out.

He is 15 months so I think another 2 years until we're entitled to some free hours - I think some people are entitled from 2 years of age but think it's if you're on various types of benefits. We are doing the 20% off childcare scheme thankfully which massively helps.
There will be no second child.

My food is incorrect, it's £170 and will amend my SOA, I mistyped. I now understand why everyone was incredulous :rotfl: I do a lot of batch cooking so our evenings are trouble free and we both have a lot of pasta meals for lunches.

My aim is to put away the surplus we do have into an emergency fund and draw from it when we need to, it just takes a bit of organisation as I get paid at the end of the month, OH gets paid halfway through the month, and obviously payments come out all over the place so it's hard (honestly, baby brain hasn't gone away) to pinpoint where/when I can take the surplus out.

stinabean · 11 October 2019 at 4:21PM

monetxchange wrote: »

Hey,

I remember your posts from a few months ago and just looked back on them. Great to see you've reduced spending on a few things. What's happening in regards to reducing the cable as it was coming to the end of the contract? And I believe there was mention of you or your partner doing some part time extra work? Did you get your childcare reduced down?

So what I'd suggest now is absolutely including those extras you've taken out of your SOA, because the reality is they do pop up constantly, every year on the dot, and only lead to more stress when they do if you haven't budgeted for it. You can't ignore them forever!

What I'd do is redo the SOA every month when you have a confirmed figure of what your partner's commission is. Then you can budget every penny away, including at least putting a few quid aside for things such as presents, medical, emergency funds etc.

I know how rough it is to take the plunge and get your head round it all at first, but you're absolutely on your way. Wishing you the best of luck

Thank you. I'm trying so hard but between work and child I get very little free time until 8pm onwards and then I just can't concentrate on numbers, am usually in bed by 8.30!

Thank you for the monthly SOA advice, I will do this. I do it constantly on my word doc and makes more sense to me there.
Currently OHs commission is for him. He works hard for it and I like that he can have that to do what he wants with it. I know that can't last forever.

Part time work - I have applied for so, so many jobs, and gotten almost nowhere. I've had a few interviews but I'm just not flexible enough with my current job.

If I can just get this next 2 years without going further into debt and use my extra £180 from Jan 2020 to clear some debt down/put some away for emergencies, I'll be happy. It's just keeping on track with it instead of going "screw it" and buying mcdonalds and clothes (which i've not have the luxury of for so, so long).

enthusiasticsaver · 11 October 2019 at 5:09PM

I am not sure that you have the luxury of your OHs commission being just for you when you have such a tight budget and no savings and nothing being budgeted for clothes, emergencies, entertainment, haircuts, presents or car maintenance. The soa is calculated on £800 childcare costs but you have said sometimes it is £900 so on the months it is higher there is actually a deficit of £12 until the boiler loan is gone. How much is his commission normally and can he put some of it away to help with the missing categories?

warby68 · 12 October 2019 at 6:28AM

I sympathise with the rut you feel a bit stuck in. Working full time with small children is very tiring (and hamster wheel repetitive sometimes) and when you're exhausted at the same time as your baby really getting stuck into a whole new and even more retrictive budget for the long term is hard.

I remember your previous thread from a few months back. You sort of hinted that OH is not 100% on board with how tight things are. Now you've said he has his commission for himself. He was also the instigator for the car which is expensive for your income. It isn't easy when you're on slightly different pages.

Bit puzzled why your childcare has gone up quite a bit from the last thread even though you've moved to the 20% scheme. Are you needing more childcare?

Well done on tackling the food budget - IIRC you've gone from £300 to £170 which is brilliant.

However it looks as if you went for some new phone contracts and re-signed up for the expensive broadband tv package after your last thread went quiet and these were the things you were planning to save money on then. Plus a consolidation?

You have roughly 2 years (now less than 2 years) to get through before the childcare burden eases and makes a big change. It would probably feel much better if you could get your budget sorted now to cover the missing categories and make it tight but 'do-able' (and it looks like you have £180 more pm coming shortly which might make that easier) so that when the childcare change occurs you really feel the benefit and not become more fed up because you still have to use it to play catch up with debts.

The reality here is that you both work hard but have close to minimum wage earnings and you are quite certain that that will not change. If that's true, then it will be about getting your heads around what lifestyle you can actually afford in the longer term. Currently your car, the phone and tv packages are probably relatively too much as a proportion of income. I know everyone wants some luxury but sometimes just cutting your cloth a bit more is not actually as painful as you expect.

You WILL get there if you stay realistic about what you can afford. You work hard, you own your home and your housing cost is not too high so things should get easier as gradually that fixed cost will reduce as a proportion of income.

Good luck, here's hoping this diary is the one that 'sticks' for you

stinabean · 14 October 2019 at 9:41AM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I am not sure that you have the luxury of your OHs commission being just for you when you have such a tight budget and no savings and nothing being budgeted for clothes, emergencies, entertainment, haircuts, presents or car maintenance. The soa is calculated on £800 childcare costs but you have said sometimes it is £900 so on the months it is higher there is actually a deficit of £12 until the boiler loan is gone. How much is his commission normally and can he put some of it away to help with the missing categories?

I agree, and he's starting to get it. It's been a long slog as he likes to bury his head in the sand and pretend it's all fine! He is getting there, I just can't push it.
His commission really varies between £100-£300 and should hopefully even be a bit more in the winter months (it's seasonally busy). He absolutely helps out with "his" commission where needed it just unfortunately is something I have to be careful with in how I approach it.

stinabean · 14 October 2019 at 9:43AM

warby68 wrote: »

I sympathise with the rut you feel a bit stuck in. Working full time with small children is very tiring (and hamster wheel repetitive sometimes) and when you're exhausted at the same time as your baby really getting stuck into a whole new and even more retrictive budget for the long term is hard.

I remember your previous thread from a few months back. You sort of hinted that OH is not 100% on board with how tight things are. Now you've said he has his commission for himself. He was also the instigator for the car which is expensive for your income. It isn't easy when you're on slightly different pages.

Bit puzzled why your childcare has gone up quite a bit from the last thread even though you've moved to the 20% scheme. Are you needing more childcare?

Well done on tackling the food budget - IIRC you've gone from £300 to £170 which is brilliant.

However it looks as if you went for some new phone contracts and re-signed up for the expensive broadband tv package after your last thread went quiet and these were the things you were planning to save money on then. Plus a consolidation?

You have roughly 2 years (now less than 2 years) to get through before the childcare burden eases and makes a big change. It would probably feel much better if you could get your budget sorted now to cover the missing categories and make it tight but 'do-able' (and it looks like you have £180 more pm coming shortly which might make that easier) so that when the childcare change occurs you really feel the benefit and not become more fed up because you still have to use it to play catch up with debts.

The reality here is that you both work hard but have close to minimum wage earnings and you are quite certain that that will not change. If that's true, then it will be about getting your heads around what lifestyle you can actually afford in the longer term. Currently your car, the phone and tv packages are probably relatively too much as a proportion of income. I know everyone wants some luxury but sometimes just cutting your cloth a bit more is not actually as painful as you expect.

You WILL get there if you stay realistic about what you can afford. You work hard, you own your home and your housing cost is not too high so things should get easier as gradually that fixed cost will reduce as a proportion of income.

Good luck, here's hoping this diary is the one that 'sticks' for you

Childcare has gone up - we had a friend looking after LO one day a week, but now her LG is at school and she's starting a job so he's now in there 4 days a week.

Yes, new contracts all round. The Virgin (I think) is slightly cheaper (yes I know it's still pricey) than before, and we both have new phone contracts. Massive moment of weakness, I'm full of silly mistakes and giving in because I work hard and want things.

stinabean · 14 October 2019 at 9:47AM

Today I have a dog trainer coming in the afternoon as the new rescue has had zero training and some health issues, so we need to get some basics going as she's teaching our "original" dog lots of bad habits! Paying for this with some nappy sales I've made recently via paypal so at least that's covered.

Off to the shops as well before he gets here (in the rain!) to grab some essentials IE bread and milk with the last of our grocery money.

Will be doing some finance math to see the best way to utilise the extra £180 we'll have from January so that it just doesn't get swallowed up and we're no better off, also will be trying to sell some of LO's old clothes - they don't go for much but a good clear out and at least a tenner isn't the worst thing in the world.

stinabean · 14 October 2019 at 10:39AM

Have done some sums to see how we will be in January and it looks good in terms of actually being able to put some money away and make extra payments on our loan (need to check terms that we can do this with no penalty).

My hope is that I can put a little away first just to start. Then I can start filtering it out to what it's actually for, IE MOT, yearly parking permit, gifts etc.

To know that I can actually do this has made me really determined to just get through these next few months as best as possible. We don't actually do Christmas as OH has no siblings and mine are all age 42+ and buy everything they need anyway. Grandparents get gifts for LO as they can't help themselves but adult wise we've all agreed to not bother at least for a few years.
The one bit that always messes us up is the Christmas break and having longer between paydays. Will need to take a closer look at that next to make sure all our payments are covered when necessary.

stinabean · 14 October 2019 at 12:16PM

Called the loan people and we can make overpayments with no fee!

However they did mention an interest rebate - does anyone know what this is?

Diary to stop despondency

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