Friday, May 16, 2008
Money, it's a gas.
Tim and I spent a considerable amount of time last night "discussing finances". These are, of course, the most scarey of marital conversations ending, as they usually do, in a full-blown screaming match. This one wasn't so bad and although we teetered on the edge of a row we never quite fell over and it all managed to stay reasonably dignified.
Basically, we've decided that we're going to have to move at some point in the not too distant future. The place we're in is too small, too tedious to look after (we inherited a jungle garden with it) and too falling-down. Anyway, we've been living here for over 5 years now so a change of scenery would be nice ;) We are on the housing association list but the changes of us actually getting offered anywhere are virtually nil so it will almost certainly be private rented again.
Moving itself throws up 2 problems.
- Although Tim works we still have to claim a certain amount of housing benefit. Many landlords these days won't take it because they believe that someone on housing benefit must (obviously!) be a scummy thug who won't look after their house.
- We need deposit/rent in advance and since we don't have this kind of money "knocking around", it will have to be saved for.
So, we've decided to tackle the finance side of things first because once we've actually got the money in our hands so to speak we can start the (seemingly endless) task of actually finding a suitable property with a landlord that will take housing benefit.
Hence the little chat about finances. We've figured out that the best way of us saving is to go back to a fairly old fashioned system of having envelopes labelled with things like rent, housekeeping and (importantly!) saving. Each week when Tim gets paid (in cash which is handy!), he can put the amount we have allocated for each of these things in the envelopes. The most important thing is that we stick to our budget (particularly for housekeeping which I'm pretty sure we spend too much on). It's going to be hard - both of us HATE saving but it has to be done. Oh, lucky are those that can just say "oh let's move", go to the bank, take the money out and choose somewhere to live!
Well, on a different note, today April went for her first full session off nursery. Since Tim was working it was up to me to walk her there and this in itself was a nightmare. We are not used to having to get up and be somewhere that early in the morning! I managed to get the kids up, dressed and breakfasted in what I thought was good time but we still managed to be a few minutes late getting there! Also, it turned out to be further than we thought in terms of walking and poor April's little legs were giving out by the time we got there :( The plan was that, after getting home, Rosie and I were going to spend a couple of hours "doing things" workwise that were easier without April around BUT it never happened. By the time we got back we just wanted to collapse with a cup of tea and she played Nintendo and I read and did some emailing and that was it. Then it was time to go back! Going back, I took the buggy with me and I'm glad I did because April really was tired and seemed extremely subdued so she was very glad to be able to flop into the buggy and be pushed home. Won't be able to do that for much longer though - she's getting too big.
Finally, our computer (the busted one). We've found out that the processor has overheated and fried the motherboard. Great. Requires much cash to put right however, we should be able to still retain all the data that was on it which is a huge relief! Can't say I'm happy about having to spend MORE money though especially when we want to save :(
Money, it's a gas ... yeah, of the bottom burp variety! :(
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