£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Treadingonplaymobil · 4 June 2017 at 3:15PM

Week 17: Day 1

Phew, what a lot of chat there's been on here over the past 36 hours. Lest anyone think I am getting stroppy, I want to point out that I intend to continue posting here daily (or as close to daily as I can), as I know that it's only posting here that keeps me on the sort-of-straight-and-narrow (hey, it might seem terribly winding and wide to you lot, but believe me, it's a big improvement :cool: ). I won't say I exactly welcome the less than jolly comments, but I know they're every bit as important as the 'go girl' ones, so I will continue to read and digest them, and make decisions in the light of them.

June should be a fairly frugal month - we have no weekends away planned, and no big school events or similar. So if I can't stay on budget this month, then it's time to update either the budget or my brain!

Made a little money this morning, so have been able to refill July's business expenses/salary, and all of August's business expenses (but not salary). Not amazing, but the cushion is growing again, despite me now carving off a small percentage of all turnover for work clothes.

to do today:
1. Sit down with DH and plan out finances for the month (mainly entertainment kitty allocation) so we don't end up inadvertently overspending
2. menu plan for the coming week - I went food shopping on Thursday so we should have plenty of food in, but I want to stretch it out as far as possible.

to do this week:
1. finish painting the pickets for the front fence
2. plan June's working time (still haven't 'gone back' to work thanks to half term).
3. roughly plan out summer working time (i.e. where I can squeeze in the odd hour while the DC are on holiday)
4. apply for new 0% balance transfer card
5. research utilities providers - I suspect we can move again and save a little bit.

Weekly budget round up (I'm going to start doing this weekly, but as this is the first one it's a bit blank!)
Last week's debt total £****
This week's debt total £56,216.10
Total paid off last week £****
Grand total paid off £2,392.13

Treadingonplaymobil · 4 June 2017 at 3:16PM

Kittencat wrote: »

Just a quick post as parents have just pulled up

Have you thought of building up instead of out. in our old house we had a builders around to quote putting a Dorma on the attic room. Half the price of an extension.

Catch up later xx

Our house is a dormer bungalow, so already built up! Although only at the front - one of our 'extension' options is to do a full width rear dormer and just make the use of the space we can create, and do a single storey extension at a later date.

Kittencat · 4 June 2017 at 3:23PM

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Our house is a dormer bungalow, so already built up! Although only at the front - one of our 'extension' options is to do a full width rear dormer and just make the use of the space we can create, and do a single storey extension at a later date.

Then I understand. Our first house was a Dorma bungalow. I loved it but it was small and that was before we had children.

Silver_Queen · 4 June 2017 at 3:56PM

TOPM, I completely and utterly understand where you are coming from. I think we are fairly similar people and I absolutely empathise with your wanting to have all the options laid out in front of you.

Your diary is actually my favourite on here to read and I'm sorry if I sounded negative - just wanted to offer constructive criticism so that you could make the best decision for you.

enthusiasticsaver · 4 June 2017 at 4:29PM

I don't think there is anything wrong with setting goals (other than debt reduction) as this is what motivates most people to put up with the short term pain in favour of long term gain. In your case the gain will hopefully be more living space and most of us have been in that position. We stuck at 2 children and moved from an expensive area (SE London) to a cheaper one - the west country so we sorted our problem by selling a 2 bed terrace and buying 4 bed detached. I also say I understand totally about giving your children their own space as they get older.

Budgeting for an extension sounds feasible but adding to your debt to pay for architects fees sounds crazy at the present time so I am glad you have clarified you are not doing that.

Changing your debt signature to your actual debt sounds much more sensible and makes sense. Re the £20k loan from parents is that going on the back burner indefinitely or are you just going to address it once the other debts are gone? Is this something they would be happy for you to put towards the extension when and if it happens or are they going to insist on repayment?

Treadingonplaymobil · 4 June 2017 at 9:46PM

Even more long chats with DH this evening, and we have put some strong parameters around any extension progress. In short we have to keep making payments of an average of £700 a month and build an emergency fund of £250 and have enough to cover architects fees before we pay any money out on the architect doing plans. I'm happy with that as a first aim. We will still get one or two round for an initial chat in a month or two, but not go further than that until we have achieved the above.

We have also, bar any huge increases in salary, re-opened the prospect of just doing the rear dormer window and making 3 bedrooms in 18-24 months, with a view to a larger extension a few years down the line. Obviously we're both hoping my income goes up wildly when DC3 starts preschool and we can move forward with big extension sooner, but we are being pragmatic about the chances of that.

to do today:
1. Sit down with DH and plan out finances for the month (mainly entertainment kitty allocation) so we don't end up inadvertently overspending. Done!
2. menu plan for the coming week - I went food shopping on Thursday so we should have plenty of food in, but I want to stretch it out as far as possible. Done!

to do this week:
1. finish painting the pickets for the front fence
2. plan June's working time (still haven't 'gone back' to work thanks to half term). Done!
3. roughly plan out summer working time (i.e. where I can squeeze in the odd hour while the DC are on holiday)
4. apply for new 0% balance transfer card
5. research utilities providers - I suspect we can move again and save a little bit.

Treadingonplaymobil · 4 June 2017 at 9:49PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Changing your debt signature to your actual debt sounds much more sensible and makes sense. Re the £20k loan from parents is that going on the back burner indefinitely or are you just going to address it once the other debts are gone? Is this something they would be happy for you to put towards the extension when and if it happens or are they going to insist on repayment?

My parents are more than happy for the money to be 'reborrowed' to go towards the extension (and, indeed, would lend us more, but I could not in good conscience take any unless we had genuinely repaid/saved to repay a good chunk of the existing debt to them). It's a low priority debt, but will need repaying at some point

reality_check · 5 June 2017 at 12:04AM

Not sure how keen you are on this idea, but I have friends who sleep in the living room (couch turns into a bed) as they gave up their bedroom for the kids to have, they are in a 2 bed with 4 kids and can't afford to move. I am all for children sharing rooms though, especially when younger than 16, but I think that partitioning a room for your daughter would be the best option x

Chrysalis · 5 June 2017 at 12:23AM

At first glance there is room for cuts.

Clothing expenditure seems crazy (and yes I read your notes). I suppose there is an argument that you earn 2.5x the amount of cost so its not a net cost but still seems crazy.
I would say life insurance but its not that big a number so I wont say it.
Holiday could be scrapped or at least downgraded.
Food seems high but I agree its tough to reduce, as we all get hungry. My sister with two kids claims she only spends about £30 a week which I admit I find hard to believe but thats just a figure to put out there, I personally spend on average about £25-30 a week on myself, at one point I was easily spending £50 a week on myself. I think there is room for reduction on groceries tho and that looks like the most viable way.

What I did to cut my grocery spending?

Well tesco made it hard as they decided to add a £4 surcharge for orders under £40, meaning I feel if I spend less then £40 I am paying a large "tesco tax" for nothing. Which has led me to add stuff to get it to £40, but £40 a week I find unacceptable. So instead I now have tesco once every 3 weeks, and the other 2 weeks I get milk and bread from my local coop. I still struggle with temptation in the coop tho in regards to snacks, but even with unplanned expenditure in the coop I am saving money and that £25 a week figure "includes" me buying treats from the coop, some weeks I dont give in, so the figures I have given you are worst case for me. Most people I know have always found it effective to make "big shops" infrequent, so dont go to the supermarkets every week, do it less regularly. If I could I wouldnt use tesco at all but due to mobility issues I rely on some degree to deliveries, going to the co op is hard but I do it.

Treadingonplaymobil · 5 June 2017 at 5:32AM

reality_check wrote: »

Not sure how keen you are on this idea, but I have friends who sleep in the living room (couch turns into a bed) as they gave up their bedroom for the kids to have, they are in a 2 bed with 4 kids and can't afford to move. I am all for children sharing rooms though, especially when younger than 16, but I think that partitioning a room for your daughter would be the best option x

We've considered it, but our sitting room already does double duty as a studio (I see clients in there) and I don't think I could take the stress of also having it as a bedroom - for starters, a comfy sofa bed is never going to be an aesthetically pleasing sofa bed, which immediately makes it harder to convert into a studio as I need to. It's a good idea in theory though

£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

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