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

Week 23: Day 4

Budget is pushed to the limits as of yesterday - filling up the car and going food shopping on Monday, and DH taking the DC to a chippy for lunch while camping has basically used up the last of the food/fuel/entertainment kitties, so we're more or less running on fumes until the end of the month. If we can limp along with something left in the savings pots it will be a first though, as they have ended up more or less drained every single month since we started, so the fact that there is still £200+ in there means we are doing better than usual. Just keep limping along!

Having a couple of quiet months on the main business front has really made me realise how much I was relying on the big 'bonus' income from that business (ie over and above the usual minimum) to keep the budgets ticking over - it's been infinitely more challenging (obviously) in June and July without that £200-600 extra coming in, but it's been a good learning curve. Hopefully it will pick back up in September and I can use my newfound skills to throw some extra at the debt.

Had an interesting conversation with MIL last night about BIL and SIL. I had always assumed they had significantly more disposable income than us, based entirely on the fact that they do a much nicer food shop than we do - they always have nice yoghurts, fruit, snacks etc, eat lots more meat, and it's all from Sainsburys - and they go holiday a couple of times a year. She said that they are just constantly adding to their credit card debt though, and consider us the rich ones as I spend on clothes and our house is nicely done (theirs is worth much more, and much bigger, but it's tattier, and scruffy inside too.), and their holidays are very much about trying to give their kids comparable experiences to their friends so they don't feel left out (their DC go to private school and are very aware that they have friends with much more than they have). It's interesting how one's perception can be so different to the reality - I would have expected them to be CC-free, as I consider them fairly 'sensible'.

to do today
1. unpack and put away last bits of camping gear.
2. spin and re-hang all the laundry that got thunderstormed on.
3. gel manicure (still loving the lamp!).
4. Bake sourdough.
5. Make pudding for family meeting (once a week, usually a Thursday but neither DH or I will be here and it seems mean to leave MIL to do it!).
6. Update savings pots in YNAB to be more specific.
7. Pack orders for smaller business.
8. Sort the lego into tupperwares (I am unnaturally excited about this).
9. Pick another room to tidy and declutter.

to do this week
1. survive MIL visiting. :A
2. continue with cleaning the house thoroughly one room at a time.
3. charity shop run with decluttered stuff that is currently (ironically) cluttering up the hallway.
4. plan out the first couple of weeks of activities for the summer holidays.

Aims for July
1. Pay some extra off the MBNA card - I'd like this card gone asap. Well, a whopping £15 paid on top of the minimum payment so far, hoping to make another payment before end of month.
2. Pay for camping holiday commitments out of self employed income rather than adding to debt. So far so good, but there is one more camping trip to cover in August.
3. Stick to the budget even more closely than in June!