So, you asked me a lovely question, which I will try to answer about finances and in the current climate, what we are doing in the long and short term to combat that.
Well, our mortgage is currently half way through a five year fixed rate term, on a very good rate, so even though my bank, and building society have been trying to convince me to change to them I am going to stick where I am until the term expires. The reason for this is - The rate is so low, currently none of the banks or building societies can offer a rate anywhere near it, so I would basically be a complete dunce if I changed, and the reason why we took out a five year fixed rate is because our budget is so tight anyway, that we needed to know how much we were going to be paying for a length of time, and that it wouldn't be going up any time soon. If we could have squeezed enough out of our budget to take on a ten year fixed rate, we would have done so, but it was a little above our means.
Insurance. We already have every kind of insurance known to man, and even some that aren't. We have had most of these insurance policies since we bought our first house eight years ago, and there were just the two of us. As our family has grown, we have acquired more and bigger policies, to cover our burgeoning family. We do pay out A LOT of money each month in insurance, and I'm not just talking about your common or garden car, house, buildings insurance either. We have insurance in case Alex looses his job, insurance in case Alex gets ill and can't work, insurance in case Alex dies and can't work (?), insurance in case I die etc, etc. Most of it is to cover the mortgage payments, and some of it is to give us an income if there is no-one working. We have all these elaborate forms of insurance for one reason only. We do not have any other back up if there isn't a wage coming in every month. We have no savings to fall back on, in fact there is probably more money in the children's savings accounts than in ours. And there's only a couple of hundred in theirs. Alex's pension account gets a whopping great big £20 a month, so we are going to be living in a one room tenement building huddled round a one bar fire when he retires.
The reason we have the mortgage we have, and all the policies we have is down to our independent financial advisor, who's name is Adrian. We met him while we were buying our first house, as at the time his office was in the estate agents we bought the house from. We have never paid him a penny, he gets paid from the companies we use, so he always looks for the best deals for us. I trust him implicitly. He is a lovely (family) guy, I've met his wife and kids, and he isn't pushy and never gives us the hard sell. Whenever we go to see him, he always finds us various options, and then leaves us to make the final decision.
Shortly before we our current house, the man who owned the estate agents we bought our first house from died in a car crash. He was a prominent business man in the community as he lived and worked in Woodley and was very well liked. His death shocked everyone, not more so than his wife and baby daughter who he left behind. Adrian (who had been a close friend of his) told us that when he died he left no financial security for his family. He had always laughed at the idea of insurance policies, saying it was for 'anoraks'. Although he had a very well paid job, his wife had to sell the large family home they had just bought, and his cars, as she couldn't afford to live there any more and had to move in with her parents.
If this isn't a shining example of what not to do I don't know what is. I often look at our bank statements and think how better off we would be if all that insurance money we pay out every month was freed up. But then I think of Sean, and more appropriately, his wife and daughter, and it all makes sense.
Currently, we have been spending more time on tweeking the pennies, as really that's all we are able to do. We don't have enough money in the bank to do anything else with. We pay some money each month into savings, but that usually gets used for things like car tax, mot, services etc. The big picture is already looked after mostly, apart from the savings, but that will sort itself out later. The children have savings policies which we can't touch, for when they are older and they go to university or whatever. The current situation with the country's finances will not stay like this forever, although I am quite enjoying the current cut in interest rates. It makes for an interesting time at the till! And our finances will get better. My penny tweeking has reached an all time high I think at the minute, and maybe if I had more hours in the day, it would be even better!
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Eating Out and Other Such Dreams
Alex went out last weekend, with a freind and freinds of said freind. He goes out with this crowd a couple of times a year. They go into London (as most of them live in and around the capitol)and have a meal and go out for a drink afterwards. Most of the people are single thirty somethings with a large income and no dependants, so usually, despite living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, they have a fair bit of cash to flash about.
So, what usually happens when they go out for a meal is this - Alex is very frugal with his spending. He may have only one or two alcoholic drinks, and will order from the cheaper end of the menu, and depending on whether he is particularly skint or not he would miss out starters and deserts. Everyone else will be ordering lots of booze, bottles of wine, starters, deserts, and spending loads of cash, then there would be food left over. At the end of the meal the bill would be split equally between everyone, which obviously makes Alex cross, as he is then paying for someone elses food, which we can ill afford to do. Nobody plans ahead and decides before hand that this is what they will all do, it just evolves into this when they have all had a bit too much to drink and can't be bothered to work it all out. Fair enough if you know you've had loads to eat and drink and you know that it would come to a fair bit, but when you have especially been careful because you know you don't have much money, then it is particularly irksome.
This time however, was different. Before hand, Alex didn't seem to want to go, and when I pressed him about it, it turned out that he was reluctant to go because of what usually happened on other occasions. He was supposed to leave home at four p.m. and eventually left around two hours later. I told him that if splitting the bill was what they all normally did then he shouldn't worry about what he had, and instead of choosing what he could afford, he should just choose what he wanted to eat, as it didn't seem to make much of a difference anyway.
As it turned out, everyone seemed to be slightly less frivolous anyway. Possibly to do with the credit crunch, but who can tell? Starters and desserts where ordered but no food was leftover, it seemed that less 'extras' where purchased as part of everyone's meals. Alcohol too seemed to be consumed in less quantity. Even though they where celebrating someones birthday, everyone just shared bottles of wine, instead of buying lots of shorts.
Between seven people the bill with alcohol and tip came to £25 each. A rather reasonable amount of money to spend at a restaurant, but still almost half a weeks worth of food for my family. Not something that we can afford to do on any kind of regular occurance.
So, what usually happens when they go out for a meal is this - Alex is very frugal with his spending. He may have only one or two alcoholic drinks, and will order from the cheaper end of the menu, and depending on whether he is particularly skint or not he would miss out starters and deserts. Everyone else will be ordering lots of booze, bottles of wine, starters, deserts, and spending loads of cash, then there would be food left over. At the end of the meal the bill would be split equally between everyone, which obviously makes Alex cross, as he is then paying for someone elses food, which we can ill afford to do. Nobody plans ahead and decides before hand that this is what they will all do, it just evolves into this when they have all had a bit too much to drink and can't be bothered to work it all out. Fair enough if you know you've had loads to eat and drink and you know that it would come to a fair bit, but when you have especially been careful because you know you don't have much money, then it is particularly irksome.
This time however, was different. Before hand, Alex didn't seem to want to go, and when I pressed him about it, it turned out that he was reluctant to go because of what usually happened on other occasions. He was supposed to leave home at four p.m. and eventually left around two hours later. I told him that if splitting the bill was what they all normally did then he shouldn't worry about what he had, and instead of choosing what he could afford, he should just choose what he wanted to eat, as it didn't seem to make much of a difference anyway.
As it turned out, everyone seemed to be slightly less frivolous anyway. Possibly to do with the credit crunch, but who can tell? Starters and desserts where ordered but no food was leftover, it seemed that less 'extras' where purchased as part of everyone's meals. Alcohol too seemed to be consumed in less quantity. Even though they where celebrating someones birthday, everyone just shared bottles of wine, instead of buying lots of shorts.
Between seven people the bill with alcohol and tip came to £25 each. A rather reasonable amount of money to spend at a restaurant, but still almost half a weeks worth of food for my family. Not something that we can afford to do on any kind of regular occurance.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Shopping with Rachel and Rebecca
So this receipt is from when Rachel and Rebecca came over and quizzed me for hours, and then took me shopping. (They know how to show a girl a good time.) This is kind of my monthly shop(not weekly, I don't have time to shop every week, and besides I would spend far too much money on stuff I don't need), were I would get all my staples like breakfast cereal, tinned goods, tea, coffee, sugar etc. And then washing goods, and household cleaners. Then there are things like deoderant, shaving, shower gels and shampoos etc. Basically everything that doesn't come from the farmers market, or delivered by a man.
I must say, it is rather bizarre going to the supermarket being flanked by two young ladies. It's not the fact that to an outsider we seem so dim, it obviously takes three of us to push a trolley around the supermarket, but the seemingly unsupermarket like questions that we seem to be discussing, that raises an eyebrow or two. But hey, I've never been the shy and retiring type, so it doesn't much bother me.
Anyway, you know what I bought, and why. You were there, but here's the receipt to remind you. Oh by the way, anytime you fancy babysitting, let me know. You where both very good at occupying small ginger children. Although we have yet to test you on the slightly larger variety.
Receipts Four
26th Sept had a bit of a hankering for pastry. Bought myself some courgettes and creme fraiche (see receipt) and took them home. Fried up the courgette with some chicken, a bit of garlic, and added a little lemon zest and fresh parsley. Squidge it all together with some creme fraiche. Roll out puff pastry nice and thin. Slop courgette/chicken mix down the centre of pastry. Cut ribbons in sides of pastry and curl over courgette/chicken mix, meeting in middle. Egg wash over top. Bang in oven. Cook till nice and golden brown. Feed to husband with new potatoes and broccoli. Makes two chicken breasts go further. Two meals for two people, rather than one. Pastry is dirt cheap. Get's you loads of brownie points with husband. Job Done.
Tip:- Use low fat creme fraiche in cooking. I use it in everything I need a creamy addition for. (Soup, curry, etc.) For some reason, the full fat stuff goes really runny when it warms up. The low fat stuff stays thick. And there's less fat, so you can feel self righteous, or just have twice as much.
A Handy Jack.
So, I told you about my car crash, but did I tell you about the gas leak?
No? Ok, here goes. Bear in mind that my husband is virtually on the other side of the planet, being smoozed by loads of Chinese business men and women, life in Haddon Drive continues its roller coaster journey with great vigour.
I woke up early on Monday morning for a change, and decided to have a shower before the children woke up. When I came out of the bathroom I could smell gas upstairs, so I knew it must be pretty bad downstairs. After opening every possible window I could, I then started to panic a bit. What do I do now? Alex isn't here, I can't ring the gas board, we don't have any money to get them involved. Maybe I should just switch it off and Alex will sort it out when he gets back. The kids were eating their breakfast by this time, complaining that they were very cold, and why were the windows open? I couldn't leave the gas off all week, they would freeze, and have no hot food. Then I thought I could ring Frank (Alex's dad) as he would know what to do. The phone rang and rang, then it went to answer phone. Shit. Now what do I do? I put the phone down without leaving a message. I need to speak to someone now, not later.
Then it dawned on me, what if he was still in Spain? Alex had told me the week before that his mum and dad had taken Nonna to their apartment in Spain for a holiday. I had no idea if they where back yet. I didn't know what to do. Ordinarily I would phone the gas board and let them sort it out, and then stump up the cash afterwards. But we have no way of doing that. How can you get someone to do some work for you that you have no way to pay them for. I don't have any credit cards, nothing for emergencies, no stash of cash in my mattress or nest egg for a rainy day in the bank. I suppose if the worst comes to the worst, I could phone my mum but what could she do? She's 200 miles away, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want my dad to know that I can't look after myself at the age of 37.
Luckily, with all this running through my mind, only a couple of short (although that's not what it felt like) minutes later, the phone rang. It was Frank. Thank God. I was so relieved I burst into tears, and started sobbing hysterically down the phone to him. He said he would send Jack round to have a look and told me to switch it off. It all seemed so very simple now. Within a couple of minutes it was all sorted out. As it happened, Jack couldn't come over until the next day so we had a very cold day and night, but he came the next morning and fixed it in no time. A very simple problem. A connection behind the cooker had come loose.
I felt like a bit of a moron. I had got hysterical over such a small thing, but the fact of the matter is, that when something like this happens, it is the amount of readies that you have in your pocket that colours how you deal with things. If I had a credit card, or a wad of cash in the bank, would I have stressed so much? I doubt it. I would have done what everybody else does, and in fact what my neighbour did only a few weeks ago when they had a gas leak, phone the gas board, let them do their thing, then moan about how much it costs afterwards. Luckily, and I really do mean it, I have a fantastic father-in-law that is a builder and has an army of workers of all descriptions at his beck and call to do his bidding. Actually, I only need the one. His name is Jack, he is Polish and he fixes everything. If I wasn't married (and neither was Jack) I would marry him.
No? Ok, here goes. Bear in mind that my husband is virtually on the other side of the planet, being smoozed by loads of Chinese business men and women, life in Haddon Drive continues its roller coaster journey with great vigour.
I woke up early on Monday morning for a change, and decided to have a shower before the children woke up. When I came out of the bathroom I could smell gas upstairs, so I knew it must be pretty bad downstairs. After opening every possible window I could, I then started to panic a bit. What do I do now? Alex isn't here, I can't ring the gas board, we don't have any money to get them involved. Maybe I should just switch it off and Alex will sort it out when he gets back. The kids were eating their breakfast by this time, complaining that they were very cold, and why were the windows open? I couldn't leave the gas off all week, they would freeze, and have no hot food. Then I thought I could ring Frank (Alex's dad) as he would know what to do. The phone rang and rang, then it went to answer phone. Shit. Now what do I do? I put the phone down without leaving a message. I need to speak to someone now, not later.
Then it dawned on me, what if he was still in Spain? Alex had told me the week before that his mum and dad had taken Nonna to their apartment in Spain for a holiday. I had no idea if they where back yet. I didn't know what to do. Ordinarily I would phone the gas board and let them sort it out, and then stump up the cash afterwards. But we have no way of doing that. How can you get someone to do some work for you that you have no way to pay them for. I don't have any credit cards, nothing for emergencies, no stash of cash in my mattress or nest egg for a rainy day in the bank. I suppose if the worst comes to the worst, I could phone my mum but what could she do? She's 200 miles away, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want my dad to know that I can't look after myself at the age of 37.
Luckily, with all this running through my mind, only a couple of short (although that's not what it felt like) minutes later, the phone rang. It was Frank. Thank God. I was so relieved I burst into tears, and started sobbing hysterically down the phone to him. He said he would send Jack round to have a look and told me to switch it off. It all seemed so very simple now. Within a couple of minutes it was all sorted out. As it happened, Jack couldn't come over until the next day so we had a very cold day and night, but he came the next morning and fixed it in no time. A very simple problem. A connection behind the cooker had come loose.
I felt like a bit of a moron. I had got hysterical over such a small thing, but the fact of the matter is, that when something like this happens, it is the amount of readies that you have in your pocket that colours how you deal with things. If I had a credit card, or a wad of cash in the bank, would I have stressed so much? I doubt it. I would have done what everybody else does, and in fact what my neighbour did only a few weeks ago when they had a gas leak, phone the gas board, let them do their thing, then moan about how much it costs afterwards. Luckily, and I really do mean it, I have a fantastic father-in-law that is a builder and has an army of workers of all descriptions at his beck and call to do his bidding. Actually, I only need the one. His name is Jack, he is Polish and he fixes everything. If I wasn't married (and neither was Jack) I would marry him.
Receipts Three
So, more recepts from Waitrose. I think I shopped there so much, because I was waiting to do my big shop with Rachel and it just put me all over the place. I didn't have anything at home, so I kept shopping at the most expensive shop in the world!
Anyway, some more bits and bobs. Looks like the kids had a pizza for tea one night. Usually I make my own pizza bases and then add stuff to them, but I must have been in a rush, as I bought ready made pizza base, and some garlic bread. Ah I remember, the kids and I made fridge cake, so we bought mixed dried friut, butter, digestives and chocolate. Some other lunch stuff for Willow and Oscar and a recipe card holder for me. I bought this because I thought it was really good value. There is one in the Phoenix Cards catalogue that I love. It's a box and you put little cards in it, but it was £15. I bit pricey. This one from Waitrose is a ringbound book that you can stand up, so you don't have to take the cards out and they will keep clean. You get 60 in there, and also it takes an A4 sheet folded in half, so if I print reciped off the internet, which I do quite regularly, I can put them in there too! A bargain!
The other receipt was for a potato peeler which I bought as a present for my daughter. An odd gift for a seven year old you might think, but no, not really. You see she is a very helpful sort of child and likes to help out in the kitchen. She has recently discovered how easy it is to cook a roast dinner, and likes to peel the vegetables. My potato peeler unfortunately she finds very difficult to peel with, so I bought her a little novelty Y shaped peeler she can use when she helps mummy in the kitchen.
Food Snobs
My daughter does ballet. In fact it would be fair to say she loves ballet, and would do it ALL the time if at all possible. Her best friend is also in her class, which helps a lot. So suffice to say that I spend a lot of time waiting around while she is in her lesson, with all the other mums in the same boat.
We were chatting away one day last week when the conversation turned to food and cooking and then to shopping. One of the mums mentioned that she shopped at Sainsburys, which I do, but where as I had gone up in the quality of supermarkets, (from Tesco) she pointed out very loudly that before she had children she used to shop at Waitrose all the time, and now she had to slum it at Sainsburys. Another mum made a joke about Asda, and then the first mum announced quite loudly that she wouldn't ever dream of setting foot in that shop and if you ever found her in there, you would know things were really dire indeed.
Now, don't get me wrong, I shop in Sainsburys too, but not because I'm slumming it. There are many reasons.
1. I used to shop at Tesco Kings Meadow. Huge shop, lots of choice, great value. But got disillusioned with the staff as they were unhelpful and rude.
2. I used to shop online with Tesco until they moved the store they used to get my shopping from Kings Meadow to Wokingham (tiny shop) so my wide choice narrowed considerably as the store was smaller.
3. I wasn't happy with the quality of the meat that I bought from Tesco.
4. I wasn't happy about spending that amount of money in a supermarket that seemed to be swallowing up the country. (An ethical choice.)
So I moved to Sainsburys because:
1. The local store is small but still has a wide variety of choice and I can get everything there that I need. (Apart from the really weird stuff that I buy from the Oriental Wholesalers).
2. The staff there are very polite and very helpful.
3. When I buy online, the shopping comes from Calcot Savacentre, which is ginormous, and never seems to run out of anything.
4. Although the price is a little more, I usually buy supermarket brand anyway, so there isn't that much difference, but the quality is better.
5. Sainsburys seem to have much more of a family feel about them. They appear to be much more nurturing and concerned about the environment and ethics, which sits much more easier in my life.
The biggest reason that I personally don't shop at Asda is because of our local store. Whenever I go to visit a friend of mine who lives in Swindon right near a very new and very big Asda/Walmart store, we always go in and have a look. I actually do like Asda, even though it's been taken over by the biggest company in the world. But my local store is old, and dingy. The aisles are cramped and it is very busy. The toilets aren't even in the store, so if you take the kids, they invariably need a wee half way around the store, irrespective of when they last had one. You have to leave your trolley in an aisle somewhere, not quite sure whether it will still be there when you return. Whenever I go in there they have moved everything around and it takes me forever to find anything. In fact a few times I have been in there with the kids, I have got so frustrated I have just dumped the trolley and left, to save my sanity, and to stop me screaming at the children.
If I had loads of money I would shop at Waitrose. So does that make me a food snob? I guess it does. But, my brother in law, who is the biggest food snob in the world does his regular shop at Asda, so it's obviously not the quality of the food that is the problem. But then he like me gets most of his meat and fresh veg somewhere else.
So what is a food snob? Am I a food snob really? I don't buy all my food branded, (which you can get in any supermarket and I am reliably in formed that a packet of Kellogg's cornflakes tastes the same in Asda as it does from Waitrose) so that can't be it. Maybe I'm just of an age to realise that you can make a difference, however small, to your own life, those around you, and what you put in your body affects your mind too.
Oh how philosophical!
We were chatting away one day last week when the conversation turned to food and cooking and then to shopping. One of the mums mentioned that she shopped at Sainsburys, which I do, but where as I had gone up in the quality of supermarkets, (from Tesco) she pointed out very loudly that before she had children she used to shop at Waitrose all the time, and now she had to slum it at Sainsburys. Another mum made a joke about Asda, and then the first mum announced quite loudly that she wouldn't ever dream of setting foot in that shop and if you ever found her in there, you would know things were really dire indeed.
Now, don't get me wrong, I shop in Sainsburys too, but not because I'm slumming it. There are many reasons.
1. I used to shop at Tesco Kings Meadow. Huge shop, lots of choice, great value. But got disillusioned with the staff as they were unhelpful and rude.
2. I used to shop online with Tesco until they moved the store they used to get my shopping from Kings Meadow to Wokingham (tiny shop) so my wide choice narrowed considerably as the store was smaller.
3. I wasn't happy with the quality of the meat that I bought from Tesco.
4. I wasn't happy about spending that amount of money in a supermarket that seemed to be swallowing up the country. (An ethical choice.)
So I moved to Sainsburys because:
1. The local store is small but still has a wide variety of choice and I can get everything there that I need. (Apart from the really weird stuff that I buy from the Oriental Wholesalers).
2. The staff there are very polite and very helpful.
3. When I buy online, the shopping comes from Calcot Savacentre, which is ginormous, and never seems to run out of anything.
4. Although the price is a little more, I usually buy supermarket brand anyway, so there isn't that much difference, but the quality is better.
5. Sainsburys seem to have much more of a family feel about them. They appear to be much more nurturing and concerned about the environment and ethics, which sits much more easier in my life.
The biggest reason that I personally don't shop at Asda is because of our local store. Whenever I go to visit a friend of mine who lives in Swindon right near a very new and very big Asda/Walmart store, we always go in and have a look. I actually do like Asda, even though it's been taken over by the biggest company in the world. But my local store is old, and dingy. The aisles are cramped and it is very busy. The toilets aren't even in the store, so if you take the kids, they invariably need a wee half way around the store, irrespective of when they last had one. You have to leave your trolley in an aisle somewhere, not quite sure whether it will still be there when you return. Whenever I go in there they have moved everything around and it takes me forever to find anything. In fact a few times I have been in there with the kids, I have got so frustrated I have just dumped the trolley and left, to save my sanity, and to stop me screaming at the children.
If I had loads of money I would shop at Waitrose. So does that make me a food snob? I guess it does. But, my brother in law, who is the biggest food snob in the world does his regular shop at Asda, so it's obviously not the quality of the food that is the problem. But then he like me gets most of his meat and fresh veg somewhere else.
So what is a food snob? Am I a food snob really? I don't buy all my food branded, (which you can get in any supermarket and I am reliably in formed that a packet of Kellogg's cornflakes tastes the same in Asda as it does from Waitrose) so that can't be it. Maybe I'm just of an age to realise that you can make a difference, however small, to your own life, those around you, and what you put in your body affects your mind too.
Oh how philosophical!
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