Flush by 30?

baaluo wrote: »

I personally don't have high hopes for 2017 considering brexit, trump and the current situation of the world.

Well, when you put it like that... However, I have known since I was 11 years old and had a mega-schoolgirl-crush on my Year 6 teacher that 2017 was going to be My Year (she was 27, I'll be 27... oh, I know, it's daft) so I'm really hoping that 2016 was a blip!

Thank you ramblehan, they're mainly teenagers - I left home at 16 so I know what it feels like to be poor and worried about where you'll sleep that night, so I don't want other young people to feel the same. And they all have to undergo a Police Check before they're allowed to come to my house, so I feel pretty safe. They're a really good charity to work with. I might consider becoming a foster carer when I'm a bit older, so it's good experience.

I am really lucky to work somewhere that shuts down completely over Christmas. I had a half-day booked for tomorrow as well so my boss told me not to bother coming in at all as we'll all get sent home at about 12 anyway.

I'm on my own in the office today - and it really is an exercise in Just Being Here because none of our customers want our services at this time of year. I've answered a few e-mails, proof-read a few documents and drank about a litre of Lemsip Max... and I have the Kinks blaring out of my PC speakers so that's quite nice :j

Honestly, I could nip off home and no one would notice... but I'm staying until about 2 as approved, then going to have a coffee with a friend. I'll probably end up paying for hers as well because she's having a much rougher time than me financially right now, but we'll both be on black filter coffees so they're hardly bank-breaking.

Also, SO proud of myself that I marched straight past the Cornish Pasty Bakery this morning even though it smelled amazing and I really wanted a sausage roll. I had 2 boiled eggs when I got to work (another bonus of having the office to myself, I don't feel guilty for the smell!) and then I had a nice salad at lunch, and a Double Decker as a treat (from home).

I had a NSD yesterday because I was fasting, so actually I'm feeling pretty good about my spending this week. And I get paid tomorrow woohoo! I'm owed £50 in expenses but it looks like I'll be waiting until end of Jan for that.

I've made some goals for 2017:

- Pay off my Barclaycard at the end of January.
- Pay the balance of my 0% card by the end of April
- April-September pay off £200 a month extra to my loan, which should make a massive difference to what I'm owed there

I'm not panicking about savings at the moment, but I want to pay £5 a month each into two accounts, just to see the figures go up. I'll barely notice £10 a month off my salary, and although it's hardly anything in terms of an emergency fund, it will be nice to have something - it will be £120 by next Christmas, so even if I just used it to pay for presents that would be a huge benefit!

Anyway, off to do a teeny bit more work before packing up now... :cool:

So... after our conversation the other week, 8 got home yesterday to discover my mother had been out and spent £160 on food.

There are TWO of us for Christmas. TWO.

There are 9 kinds of cheese in the fridge. There's a plastic crate full of stuff we wouldn't normally eat, like Pringles and Twiglets and Ritz crackers and Dairy Milk.

Why does she do this?! I'm going away for a week over New Year as well; there is literally no reason to have bought so much food!! And although she hasn't asked me to pay for any of it of course I will need to, because this is the conversation we have nearly every time she goes 'food shopping':

Mum: can you just send me £50 across to cover your half of the shopping?
Me: well I can, but is it ok if we look through what we have now and don't do any more shopping this month since £50 is more than I would have budgeted?
Mum: good idea.

Two weeks later

Mum: can I just have £50 to cover some of the shopping I did today?
Me *with a brick in my stomach thinking about my overdraft*: I thought we weren't doing any more shopping this month, there was still loads in the freezer...
Mum: well I can't afford to pay for it all.

And it's HARD because I work in a different town to the one I live in, so I'm never home by the time she gets it into her head to go shopping, and also this is such a nice problem to have really isn't it? Someone doing my shopping for me... but I really don't know how to handle it!

I'm going to have to try something like that jvr.

The reason she lives with me at the moment is that she is in the throes of a DMP and can't really afford the deposit on a place of her own at the moment (she has recently relocated from elsewhere in the UK to be closer to me and her mum). She knows she's terrible with money to a certain extent: she's been giving me money every month to put in one of my savings accounts so she can't spend it. On 2 occasions she has insisted I give her the money so she can go on holiday but we have finally managed to get her savings to £1000. In another 3 or 4 months she should have enough for a bond and first months' rent.

She doesn't actually agree that she spends too much on food though. We get paid about a week apart usually and I always try to go shopping with her to rein her in a bit, but she gets bored so easily. We did meal plan for a bit but that fell by the wayside because she didn't like it. I've introduced her to Jack Monroe's cookbooks and Allegra McEvedy's Economy Gastronomy, but she doesn't like to feel she's 'economising'.

So, the Christmas thing is that she keeps thinking to herself 'oh it's Christmas.' But actually, we don't need party platters and cheese boards and posh sticky toffee puddings... I would far rather have made a dessert anyway but now there's no need for that.

The whole situation is really emotionally charged. She can be quite passive aggressive if she thinks I'm doing something she doesn't like (for example my choice of wallpaper in my bedroom). And when I've tried to explain to her before how her own grocery blowouts affect my budget she gets very upset (like actually crying upset) and reminds me how hard it is for her to be living with her daughter at her age, and how she just wants to have nice things.

I have two options: put up with it until May when she's due to move out, and try to moan less, or wait for January to really kick her up the bum. She got paid a week early in December, so on top of everything else she has a loooooooong month now until payday again.

I have a budget of £120 for my grocery shopping, maybe I should give that to her when i get paid and tell her that's for all the groceries... I'll really have to have a think.

That's really lovely and helpful, thank you SO much!!