Watching our money with the #SpendingDiary campaign.

Unfortunately many families across the UK have money problems and sadly live a hand to mouth existence.  A recent report by the Children’s Society and debt charity StepChange, featured on the Wilson Field blog, highlighted the financial pressure families across the UK have to deal with. 

According to the worrying report one in five UK families are struggling with financial issues and over one million families are suffering from ‘problem debt’, where they are at behind with at least one bill or credit payment.  Sadly the report also highlighted the fact that many families are taking out loans and debt for basic living costs such as food and heating.  Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of the Children’s Society, said “Families are increasingly relying on debt as a way to make ends meet – but we’re in danger of ignoring the impact this is having on children now and in the future.”  The report also looked at the impact financial pressure and debt has on children, with many children from families with money problems suffering from anxiety and being bullied at school.

As Wilson Field realise how easy it can be to fall into debt especially for people already struggling financially, Wilson Field want to raise awareness of financial issues and the strategies to manage financial problems.  Wilson Field, who offer personal debt advice to help you get your finances organised, have teamed up with a number of family bloggers, including myself, on their #SpendingDiary campaign.

For the Wilson Field #SpendingDiary campaign I will be keeping a spending diary to record our family finances with a little help from this useful financial pack from Wilson Field, consisting of The Wealth Chef by Ann Wilson, a Budget Book and a Shopping List/Meal Planner notepad.

New home = broadband issues.

When we had the moving date to move house I contacted BT straight away to inform them of the moving date and to arrange that the phone line and broadband would be set up.  Unfortunately I was told that it we would need an engineer appointment to get it both the phone and broadband working as the existing phone line was not adequate and the earliest available appointment for an engineer to come to our new home to get everything set up would be a month after we had moved.

Whilst I do not spend every waking hour online and could easily manage without the internet I was a little disappointed that it would take so long until we had a house phone and broadband especially as we rely on the internet to stay connected with Lee’s family over 200 miles away and my extended family in America.  Also even though we both have mobile phones I also use the house phone to keep in touch with Lee’s family and having moved a good distance from my family keeping in touch with them via telephone is now more important than ever.  Plus the fact that Christmas was fast approaching meant that I wanted to get online to buy Tristan’s gifts and the thought of leaving it till the last minute once the broadband was set up was daunting.

Thankfully I was able to get connected to the internet every once in a while via BT Wi-Fi Hotspots but the connections were very limited and temperamental with only a couple of locations within our new home that I could pick up a Wi-Fi Hotspot and once I had managed to get connected it was a fine balancing act to keep connected as moving the laptop a fraction one way or the other saw me instantly lose the connection.