Manic Money Monitoring March continues

[lilacclery]

First time doing the thread! Feel very important

Wages were up last week & down this week but I wasn't spendy so accounts look ok.

Yesterday & today are nsd as will tomo & Fri too hopefully. Away at weekend so food out is essential, dinner & acccommodation for sat & breakfast Sun morn is already paid in advance.

Will fill in spends from last Fri to Mon later
peonies I'm reading Marie kondo at the moment

What a week - I hate year end. Everybody is stressed. They say that buying a house is the most stressful thing anyone does in their life. I did 52 yesterday. Money not where it should be, planning notices not signed, bld regs not signed off, contracts not issued....Not a day to repeat I hope.

My budget has gone out the window... I haven't done a monthly shop because I was too tired at pay day. Haven't checked the bank and spent too much on wine. Hopefully we can get through to pay day.

We've come in at £79.60 under budget which we use for our trip to bath next week. We've still gone over on food £336 for the month it really pisses me off!

Spendy day yesterday, £80 on school trips, £60 on gym /swimming pool membership £60 on birthday present for ds , £30 on Easter eggs. I now have a budget of £300 to provide food for the next 3 weeks and Easter hols! I need to do a careful food shop and meal plan today.

Morning. Hope you're feeling better this morning spotty. No one should have to put up with that.
Dh & ds have gone off to football today but the tickets are already paid for and as usual I sent them off with food, flask etc so hopefully not too many extra spends. I spent £62 at aldi and have a few bits to buy today but that should be it until we go to Devon on Wednesday night. When we get back from Devon on E Monday we should only need a top up of fresh stuff to see us through the rest of that week.

Ds is thrilled with the concert ticket and has opted to pay for it himself rather than have it for his birthday. He is 13 and gets an allowance from us. He tops it up with a Saturday paper round and cricket scoring in the summer. But he is responsible for everything except school uniform/kit and sports kit. So if he wants to get the bus to school, he pays (it's 1.5 miles away so walkable) and he buys his own clothes etc. we want him to get to grips with managing his money and budgeting now. What do others with teens do?

Big shop came to just under €100 yesterday, and I've already realised I forgot some things, so will have to go back again today

Good luck with making a descision Creme , I think I'd want the stability of a council house regardless of how nice my private rental was. My DF has been in a council house for years and it really does feel like his own, he's done lots of work on it too.

Went to get the dc feet measured. Got free parking on the road so saved £1.80. Dd needs new school shoes and can only wear kickers. Ds is ok for now.

That's one of the things that really annoys me about France North , kids aren't allowed to do any paid work until they're 16, so no paper rounds or anything DS will be 13 this summer, a weekend job would do him a world of good. We buy him a full wardrobe once a year, if he destroys stuff (trousers and shoes usually) over the year, he has to use his savings (he has an allowance) to replace them. If he outgrows things, we replace them obviously. I think maybe I need to get him a separate account as I don't want him using his savings until he really needs them.

North I think a lot of it comes down to personality and how you react to how your parents handle money. My parents did a very similar thing to what you're doing to encourage me to be good with money. By the time I was 21 I owed nearly a year's salary on credit/store credit cards and loans. I'm debt free and very good with money now. I had to learn the hard way. Dh and his dsis are total opposites even though they are close in age and grew up together. He is pleased when he saves a penny on something, she spends like there's no tomorrow.

Very wet here today. Think we're going to be baking/crafting so hopefully a nsd.

Meal plan for the week:

Chicken skewers micro rice
Sausages, wedges and beans
Quorn tikka with rice and popadoms
Roast Chicken rice and peas
Chicken chorizo casserole x2 (freeze one)
Lasagne x3 (2 into freezer)

Only need six meals as off to Bath Friday.

spotty I don't it's wrong to be excited! I check my spreadsheet & reconcile once or twice a week!

We're now three months into having a joint account & its been working pretty well up to now paying 50% each however dh has had a few more weeks moneywise & has fallen a small bit behind in contributions so I think it may be fairer to work it as a % from now on. I counteracted by spending a bit less on groceries.

We're up €104 this week as dd will be on holiday from playschool, we can either use this towards payment after holidays or towards cinema trip with kids & a family day out or we can both take €52 each to put towards debt or our own spends. I'm leaning towards the second option. Must discuss with dh.

I'm away on a hen night tonight I spent €36 in primark (coins that I had!) Very impressed with my haul pjs slippers 2pk tights control cami top going out top & one of those overhead slip type towels which will be great at the swimming pool

Spotty I don't think the other agents would mind,on the contrary, if your DD doesn't go then their DCs would be missing out on having an extra friend there. Maybe you could offer to give a small part of the fee (if you can afford it) to the parents of the girl who can't go, I would hope they'd refuse, but it might ease your conscience (which really shouldn't need easing!)

Parents, not agents

It was me with the brownie trip not Spotty, LaChatte :)

I actually have no idea who has dropped out though sadly, it's someone who is leaving altogether and I don't really know anyone else (DD has only been there a couple of months) I think they (the leaders) were worried about repercussions for them TBH - apparently a different parent who lost their deposit accused them of lying and pocketing the money :( so I can understand they don't want me to mention it at all. In any case we would've said no if we had to pay (this year I mean as such short notice - next year we are saving up for it)

I'm kind of used to being shy about the fact we sometimes are lucky enough to get free things though. We live in a wealthyish area but for a while we were on FSM so DCs got pupil premium. The infant school used it for clubs so they were lucky enough to do a sport club held at the school. One time the teacher asked, in front of other parents (tactless, not spiteful obviously) if the DCs wanted to carry on next term as she needed to invoice the school etc... you should've seen the looks I got from other parents who pay :( :(

Captain I get so embarrassed about being poor it's ridiculous. I go to people's houses (which cost £800k) and am way too embarrassed to reciprocate

Oops sorry Captain

Spotty don't be embarrassed, honestly if people are going to judge you about your home not being worth silly money, then they're probably really worth knowing.

I have decided to try to reduce the amount of money we spend each month on food. I have decided on a budget. Can I ask what others do each month. Do you actually say keep an envelope of cash for food or just check spends with cards? thanks.

We spend with cards because we shop online.

We use cards too and check our accounts online at least twice a week.
Needed some bits from Boots today and while I was there remembered I needed a present for a friend and then realised we didn't have time to make lunch so bought some (horrible) soup in M&S. Ended up spending £48 which I'm a bit annoyed about. I never buy shop soup as it's so easy and cheap to make and I couldn't believe how salty it was, DH couldn't finish his. Maybe being frugal is good for our health!

DH and DD came to do the top up shop, never a good idea. I've just ordered a new landline phone with a cord as our other one keeps killing batteries. I'm taking it out of my personal money though as DH never uses the landline.

Money remaining
€292 (460)= groceries
€100 = petrol
€15 (30) = gifts
€30 (50) = me
€50 = DH
€10 = DS
€0 (10) = DD
€100 = family activities
€30 = Easter chocolate

30 days to payday

Spendy day, spent £80 on Aldi on shop however our cupboards rivalled Old Mother Hubbard's so at least we can eat now. £20 of that was on a new baby monitor for DD. She's 1 and we have an all singing all dancing video monitor but shes a wriggler and it's so distracting and I just want to sleep a whole night, we just wanted a noise one. Hoping it's ok. Looks pretty.

Took DD and DSD swimming, and DP and I took out a membership. £22.50 a month and the girls get free swimming. Had to sign up online using a crappy computer in reception. I got quite mad at it but managed to do it. DP tried, got more mad and wanted to throw it in the pool so ended up paying for himself to swim and has just signed up online at home. So that's £3.80 we could have avoided spending but the computer would have cost more to replace Why can't we just speak to a real life human about these things.

Anyway we have settled in now for the weekend, I managed to sell some things online and have pocketed £40. Hopefully will get anothe £20 for another item after a no show this afternoon

Oh good grief DD has a friend round for a sleepover she is quite hard work, I'm stressed already she's only been here 20 mins!

YY to not reciprocating Spotty! I am starting out with more forced confidence this time, with the home ed parents, and just getting the first visit out the way ASAP! But virtually none of DD's old school friends have been here to our tiny hovel!

DD's BFF is really wealthy too. This is the one who, on her first visit to ours, looked round the top floor and said "is this it? where's the rest of your house?!"

I am so looking forward to a council house but we are still sometimes 50th on the list when we bid. We can't afford to move to another private rent - we are lucky as it is that our LL hasn't put our rent up since 2009 (since they're so happy to have long term tenants). So we are stuck here for another couple of years I reckon.

We only have two rooms downstairs not even a hallway! I'd give anything to have a nice new build house with more loos than people

What you have is not important, who you are is the only thing that matters. Our least judgemental friends have absolutely the most affluence, but, for as long as I have known, have cared not whether their DC go to play at a mansion or a maisonette. Long as their kids get on, that matters not. DD had a friend once who came to our house loads, but we never got invited there. I KNOW it's because they had a tiny house in a difficult area, and we have a large house in an affluent area, it actually annoyed me that they would think I was that shallow!! I don't give a flying flip

spotty I love doing my bank reconciliation. I love getting to the end of the month and seeing what worked and what didn't.

Had a lovely evening at the race night last night. Spent about £50 in total, including drinks, ticket, raffle and betting. More than I expected but I know that's it in terms of social stuff for a while.

Best day ever today. Cooking this morning, gardening this afternoon. No pony stuff this weekend and it feels like a holiday!!

New chicken laid an egg, which DH had for lunch, boiled. We are going to fence off a section at the bottom of our garden so they can free range there and I can get more. We are lucky, our garden is huge, so we have plenty of space.

Otherwise, bought some poo bags and that's it!

Roast gammon for tea, we are awash with veggies so having roast carrots, spuds, parsnips and leeks. Lamb tagine for tea tomorrow, yum. Made a veg soup too with the slightly beyond best stuff.

I will make pea and ham soup with the remaining gammon.

Oh nsd.

Thanks need. I live in such an expensive area I just don't fit in