Debt support thread #2

[Nerfmother]

Here we are! Can't be bothered to think of an exciting title, sorry

Ooh, home made pizza, that thought is making me hungry! Another one of my tricks for being home alone 3 nights a week is to make pizza in the bread maker which is enough for me and the kids + leftovers, I cook it the night before they go to their Dad's and then hide several slices for me the following night. Out of stuff to make that tonight though as made it on Sunday and son 1 are the surplus when he was home alone for teacher day Monday. Would have been nice to eat cold on the coach if I had thought about it.

I bought 30 eggs from Aldi on Tues and have used half of them already! Love a good egg me .

I do keep emergency meals in but I ate them! One of those stupid weeks when I have had something on every evening and then sat marking and planning until 2 or 3am just to keep on top of things. I would normally restock on payday but I am going overseas at 7am tomorrow. I use ready meals about once or twice a month max when I have evening school commitments and often only have a 10-20 minute turnaround time. The alternative would be to not eat, which frequently happens as well. I am very skinny at the moment (not in a good way) due to being so busy. I do cook proper meals at least 26/27 days a month

We have TONS of eggs at the moment thanks to generous chicken and duck keeping friends. Am planning pancakes this weekend, plus banana bread to use up ripe banana too. Plus probably eggs for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. And maybe the next day...

Oh no - pancake day on Tuesday and I'll miss it

Where is a good place to hide 3 boxes of disgusting chocolate wheetabix? It was on offer so I stocked up for the month - my son literally inhales the stuff and is rationed to one small box a week. I'm thinking not in the kitchen. Is it weird to put it in my wardrobe?

I've taken to storing stuff in the loft lol I'm actually considering having a proper Armagheddon store cupboard up there!

Bleugh I hate eggs.
Well. Two dcs have cracked screens on their devices
I have insisted ds pays for a refurb himself after amazon replaced it twice already. Not covered by the warranty.
The little one has cracked his screen and it will have to wait as it still works (kindle doesn't).
I am livid. The dcs appear to be split between dd and ds (8) who never ask for anything and are really aware that we are skint , and the two who do not seem to get it.

Chocolate weetabix is actually revolting. Not sure how they managed that. Hide it in the bin

Is she single - I'm not mentioning the takeaway, I think enough gentle encouragement has been made
What are the lidl meals like? I try to keep one frozen meal in a month for the dd who appears at strange times.

Ooo shiny new thread!

So - I've played around with YNAB and I can't work out how to log budgets for Christmas/Birthdays. Can you only put them in monthly? Or can you put a target amount for the whole of Christmas somewhere and let it sort out the rest?
To be honest at the moment it isn't much better than my spreadsheet at home... not sure I'm doing it right.

Nerf - I only buy the salmon and spinach one and it's really nice. Not massive portion but I don't eat much anyway. Would be nice with some garlic bread.

Bumbolina - you can only budget money you actually have. But, if you have a target for Xmas, put it in the category title - ie "Christmas £500" and then you can see how close you are each month. I actually do that with most categories plus payment dates , so "Mortgage £430.15 1st"; "Car insurance £29.56 21st" and for savings "Road Tax £143 By 1st June". It's a reminder that helps when I budget and also in savings categories stops me moving money to cover overspends elsewhere.

Bumbolina - also, when you put money in a category and don't spend it it rolls over. So put in £50 a month for Xmas this month and then again next month and it will say £100 available to spend, then in May it will say £150, etc. until you spend it in December.

"cracked screens on devices"
hmm
I'm not in debt : my answer would be "tough shit, take more care", we'll have the money in a few weeks/ months

seriously
when DH (who pays the bills) cracked his screen we did it on the cheap in 6 days of him hanging off the ceilings

if you do not make kids wait, how will they learn value?
three weeks fitting around you might make them value what they have
or be happy to eat beans on toast for a month

The kindle has been cracked for about a week. The other one is being left and he will have to entertain himself with books and DVDs downstairs.
Ds is going slowly crazy without his kindle and so the solution is that he pays for a replacement from his savings account.
I know this is not good

How did you do the screen on the cheap? Do you mean a repair type place?

Btw I love but am a bit at the tough love to your client with the cards

Worthwhile shopping about re screens...iPad screen cracked corner to corner around Xmas. Found local co via Facebook who replaced it for £45...good as new

Thank you!
Although I am not going to pay for it yet. If at all - will probably make little ds pay for it.

There may be trouble ahead ...probs with DP car this morning. We genuinely need 2 cars (both work in opposite directions to house and public transport not frequent/reliable). Of course, it waited til Saturday when most garages are closed/closed half day...

We paid our "February" surpluses off the smallest cards, debt is coming down a satisfying amount already. DH is going to cancel the DDs to the credit cards and set up a SO of this month's minimum + £10.

Debt as of 28/2/14

CC1: £4696.66

CC2: £3779.36

Car loan: £3600

Overdraft:£1940

CC3: £1692 £1179

CC4: £1405.49 £752

Total debt: 17,544.89 15,947.02

The overdraft is an interest free student one that DH still has after finishing his PhD - neither of us have an OD on our normal accounts.

That's a great result Miss Anne...well done you

Well the good news is that we can afford to pay the builder 450 this week, and that would only have happened with you lot on this thread encouraging me. The remnants of the emergency fund plus the no council tax covers it.
Tbh, If we can find this with a reordering of attitude and no careless spending and a determination to pay debt off I feel better.

Wow this thread is moving fast! Yay for shiny new thread

Need to make DDs birthday cake today (already have all the ingredients) and I'm going out for dinner with friends tonight (using budgeted money from my personal allowance - I don't usually spend a lot when I go out with these particular friends which is good). Also need to buy MILs birthday present but have a budget for that and will stick to that.