22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les · 12 February 2018 at 9:16AM

All better again after 2 days.

It is the first day of half term, none of the kids are downstairs yet.

DH is scheduled to have a tooth pulled today. He is very unhappy. He had 6 hrs of r/c on it, and was supposed to go back for a crown to be put on, but he did not go back 18 months ago, and now it is irrepairable. He hates the idea of a bridge, and wants to spend £2000+ on an implant. He is one of those funny chaps who is confident talking in front of 800+ people in a lecture theatre, but as soon as his hair started to thin a little, he took a complete nose-dive emotionally, and he is going to slump again unless he does the tooth implant thing. His mum is totally body dysmorphic. She has spent the 20 years I have known her dieting as her size 10 is too large ( she told DS1 he, was gross when he got a tiny tummy just before he shot up 4 inches in 8 weeks. He was just accumulating extra skin! the boy is nothing but lean, last summer she told DS2 he did not look like his brothers because his face was so round and chubby (she just stopped herself from saying FAT because the kids started laughing at her - they know grandma has a problem where she thinks everyone is fat, because I have told them about it, one of the smaller ones will say something along the lines of 'oh Grandma, that was very rude, he is not fat, we all know you have a problem inside your head ), so I should not be too surprised he will be a bit odd about certain things - it will not help she is coming to visit at the weekend for 5 days. Her first question to me was how his balding was coming on and can she mention it yet. Nothing could stop her from mentioning it.

So enough whining. I will spend my time fire-fighting while they are here. They come on Friday (DH at work) will be here until Tuesday (DH at work Mon and Tues and the kids are back at school Mon and Tues).

So, list of things to do before they come
Change all bedding x 5 beds
launder / dry / return to airing cupboard
Stick down odd wallpaper seams that are a little loose in bedroom
Finish last bits of wallpaper in upstairs loo - have a new roll
Drive DH to dentist and back (a local makes him shaky)
Buy a pot of paint and paint the lining paper in my bedroom
Look for an extra sofa for them to sit on (c/shop) or move the sofa bed back into the front room while they are here.
Clean and clean and tidy and clean
Take the 2 smallest to the park
Trip to museum
Pancakes for Pancake day on Tuesday
Finish my book.
Bake!!

f0xh0les · 23 February 2018 at 11:50AM

I am so excited about this new mortage.

It is due to start on 1st March, 1.59% fixed for 2 years.
Reduced to 20 year term, taking off 4 years and 6 months off the original term.

If I can manage to o/p £400 a month, I will be under 100k by Christmas.
First goal is sub £105k by school summer holidays,
Second goal is sub £100k before 2019.

I will not tell DH. This is my secret plan of sneakiness and it will be his Xmas present. I think I can do this, as I usually spend the kids' money when it comes in, and then save £100 each and put it back in their accounts monthly. So I have done this over and over again. This time it is going straight into the mortgage, and the kids money is safe (possibly well, at the minute it is safe,).

Everything is on hold until the strike is over and the new mortgage is all sorted and up and running.

The gas and electricity bill came in, it is quarterly so very low April - September and then quite high October - March.

£370 !!! I was £400 in credit though. but it has been cold this winter, and if I get the living room fireplace reinstated, then that will drop, as the living room is the coldest room in the house and DH has a wayward finger that keeps pressing the +1 button on the central heating.

The rest of the house is toasty, and the kids have turned their radiators off in their bedrooms as the heat from the rest of the house keeps them warm on the top floor. DS2 is rotten for turning the rads up to 5 and then leaving the room.

The Turtles challenge is keeping me on track.

£270 left to pay on DS2's school trip, but that is not until June, and if I pay £10 from the child tax credit every friday and £50 from the child benefit for the next few months, it will not take long to pay off. The hard thing is not to pay it off now and then have to have tight budget months. I still see it in my head as a debt, which it is not. I decided quite late on that he could go, so I did not get a payment plan, I am just throwing odd money at it on the school payment page when I remember.

So all in all I am feeling quite positive, and think I know what I am doing and where I am going.

Right now I am going to the top of the hall stairs and stripping a bit more wallpaper. It costs nothing and will make a huge difference when it is done.

Kittenkirst · 26 February 2018 at 10:52PM

That is a fantastic rate- I am not suprised you are excited about it :beer::money:

Sounds like you have a great plan on how to achieve your end of year figures. You have inspired me look at where we will be at the end of the year and see where we could be with planned OPs and any stretch OPs we can snuggle in!

f0xh0les · 27 February 2018 at 11:14AM

I have just been money juggling for March's budgets

It is looking really good.
After all bills, the last £100 of the cc from DS3's birthday present, and if I pay off all of DS2s residential trip, I will still have £850.
I can save a serious amount of money if this is what I have left to play with. I don't tend to spend over £100 a week. There are no more birthdays until the end of September.

DH is going to spend all of the money he has saved for his tooth implant when that becomes viable. Luckily he has that money saved, but it will wipe out practically all his savings.

So, the completion date with Accord is 1st March and I will be transferring to Clydesdale - they will get in touch with a payment calendar in March and I am going to fish out the original Accord payment schedule and use that to cross off the payments as it will show the date they expected us to be at £, and I can see how much time I am saving.

So ridiculously excited now!

Just got in touch with Clydesdale, and I can just transfer money in, I don't have to have a savings account with them ( the Coventry charged a fee if you overpaid from an account that was not their's)

So back to wallpaper stripping on the stairs.

The snow forecast, eventually came, but there is about 2mm on the ground.
Tis blimmin' cold though.
brrrr.

f0xh0les · 3 March 2018 at 12:16PM

The mortgage deal has gone through.

Still have not been contacted by new mortgage company though.

So far this morning I have inventorised the pantry, made a meal plan (11 main meals), I have a 4 item shopping list that should do me the entire week.

Water started dripping out of the front of the boiler this morning, not when I got up, but by the time DH got up he was complaining of a dripping noise that was driving him nuts in the kitchen while he was having his breakfast. He said he looked but couldn't find anything (cos he hadn't really looked) so I found the drip, we have cleared the condensate pipe of ice, it is still dripping but the heating is still working so, hey, we have a drip. Not like we haven't had that before, will wait and see what occurs, when the weather is better it may all work again. Anyway, we have heat. so there.

The savings account this month is already £550.
Child benefit is coming in on Monday and I get £50 a week from tax credits, so another £450 all in, and I think I am going to be able to save nearly half of that.

If I can make £800 of savings this month I will be ECSTATIC !!
But I have to remember that next month's paycheque for DH is going to be smaller due to the strike. But it bodes well for future savings.

Right, time for a cup of tea and a think.

Have a great, if cold and snowy, weekend.

f0xh0les · 6 March 2018 at 3:17PM

OMG, if you want to get a bad impression of a bank I would suggest Clydesdale!!

Confirmation of mortgage payments came yesterday.
The address was wrong
DH's NAME was wrong, and then to add insult to injury, the wrong name was mis-spelled!
I rang to find out the balance and how to get my online account - they want you to have a current or savings account to do that. I asked last week and was told I did not need an account with them. So I rang up and asked again, and was told I could only do it with a current account with them, and then take out a savings account, and that would link the mortgage account for me to see it online. :mad:

On the plus side - Mortgage currently
£108,504.72

and the daily interest has gone down to £4.72

Yay!! At least the phone number to the bank is 0-800. I will need it to update my accounts and see if it tallys to my book-keeping.

There is no payment this month, it starts on - yep - 1st April. Might explain the shoddy information and service so far. Not impressed at the bank, I am impressed by the rate, and I can put up with it for 24 months until I jump ship to a more professional organisation.

Got a cheque for nearly £60 from the legal people as they asked for more from the new mortgage company than it needed. DH has the same. Very odd behaviour, but they wanted more in case it did not go through, and the interest was going to be nearly £15 A DAY:eek: if it did not go through as planned. But it did. So we get it back and will pay extra off the first repayment.

Made marmalade chocolate sponges (Paddington Cake) for after school snack, a chocolate sauce for the kids post supper coconut ice cream, and have a pizza dough rising in the airing cupboard for later.

No after school clubs today :T

Three weeks until a fortnight off at Easter. Already??:T

So, Mission £105K is on.

A girl's gotta have a plan, after all.

f0xh0les · 10 March 2018 at 4:56PM

I am my own worst enemy.

I had £600 sat in my holding account waiting til the end of the month so I can check I don't need it, and then throw it at the mortgage. So I decided to shunt £70 off to DS2s residential so I would only owe £200, but after a week, decided I would pay it all off, then remembered I needed to do the house insurances before the end of this month, so I did that - £250, and have sent it to the credit card to get the M&S points on that too.

And now step-gran wants me to visit over the Easter holidays.
It takes about £500 for the boat for 5 of us plus the car via Liverpool.
I might just go on my own instead. She resents the attention I have to give to the kids, and does not like me taking them out - she refuses to come with us anywhere. She just wants me. What can I say? More importantly, what can I do?

So my holding account is diminished to just over £160, good thing that I had it, I did not need to go into debt for it. It is a one off payment. Job done.

Lego Ninjago was a good film to go to. Who knew Jackie Chan was in it? I have sat through many many god-awful kids films in my time, but this one was quite fun .
DH was supposed to come with us, but he had only just got up and had his breakfast when we were leaving, so we left him behind.

Wonder what tomorrow will bring? I am sure the 2 smallest will have made me something at school. Must prepare my surprised happy face - I have had some total shockers over the years. :rotfl:
The reasons my kids love me should never, ever be written down.... (because you feed us / for cleaning my clothes / for not making us live in a hedge:()

I might just spend the day under the duvet. Yeah, I wish.

f0xh0les · 18 March 2018 at 12:16PM

Now step- gran is scared of me driving in the snow, so as I sat with my finger hovering over the buy button, she rang and said don't buy until she has consulted Countryfile and the badgerstrangler. She thinks Non Iron is going to have a white Easter. Either dodged a bullet, or I am waiting for a ricochet.

The strike is still ongoing. The university has agreed to spread the strike over multiple paycheques at 2 days a month. Which is very decent of them.
The staff are now working to rule until the pensions are sorted.

We have about a cm of snow here. The ice looks more dangerous. Will wait until after lunch and try and hit the YS aisle at Mr Ts. I have two after school 6pm information meetings this week, which should end at YS time. So my fridge is pretty bare at the moment. Keeping my fingers crossed for bargains, and meal plans will be tweaked as necessary.

So I am up in the air, with 5 school days to go until the Easter holidays, no firm plans, and I am on budget.

Got letters from the kids 4.5% regular savers, they mature on 23rd and I will take the capital and leave the interest in the kids accounts. They will spend every penny. I despair sometimes. They cannot possibly be my children, they are very much their father's sons.

Duke of Ed was cancelled, so all the little spends on replacement pot handles, and marshmallows, and emergency blankets although unavoidable, were not necessary from this month's budget. At least he is packed for next time. They cancelled it less than an hour before they were due to go. Very last minute, but probably wise.

Right, off to enjoy the Sunday morning politics with a nice Earl Grey and a banana. Rock and Roll!!! and to think I was only getting home about now in the days before children............... those days may come again.....

f0xh0les · 22 March 2018 at 2:06PM

Ferry booked, for Saturday!! not coming back until 4th April.

Step-Gran is all happy and quite giddy now.

DH is sulking - his own fault, he did not want to visit his parents, claims he has too much work and can't go away, so he can't complain I am picking up his slack. I am leaving him a nice clean quiet house to work in. He hates it. He can talk to the hamsters as far as I am concerned. I have responsibilities beyond his comfort.

Have not asked in-laws yet if we can visit them over Easter.
Will wait until I am in the north, and then keep an eye on the weather forecast - There are enough things to blame me for without adding 'willful and deliberate snow making' to the mix. They may have plans over Easter anyway. Will ask DH to ask them when they ring him. They have not spoken to me since they went back home.

Annoyingly, Step-Gran is talking about me coming over again for 4-5 days in April/May and again in summer so I can get a stock of bird food in so she can feed the birds in winter. Last week she was talking about booking in for 2 weeks respite care, to see if she could stand being in a home as she was worried she is getting unable to cope. Now she is convinced she will be there in Winter.
I can't see it, to be honest.

I am starting to think I am not helping her by going over, as it is giving her something to look forward to - as in 'if I can make it until March, foxy will be over and sort out x, y z. Then when I go back she gets down in the dumps again, and I get phone calls, and all sorts, about how worried about herself she is.
She can no longer even operate a tin opener. I have just bought her a battery powered one for arthritis sufferers, she has no strength in her hands, and Parkinsons, she can't cut up a turnip, her hands shake so much she can no longer write properly etc.

Then she gets a false sense of everything being alright, and gets angry I can't drop everything and fly over there for a week without the kids whenever she decides she needs me. She resents needing carers x3 a day. She is resentful of the kids now. It takes my attention away from her. Poor old duck.

Busy checking airbeds and washing blankets and finding passports- we have to take everything with us. She got rid of the spare room beds about 10 years ago to make room for her ironing board (????)

Kids 4.5% accounts mature tomorrow, so I will steal the capital and leave the kids their interest in their card accounts. All 4 kids have cards to access their money now. Even the 8 year old. So hooray! no more standing in the queue in town. They can take their money out of the hole in the wall. Sadly DS2 keeps forgetting his pin as he is an idiot. 13 but still terribly immature.

So, when they go back to school after Easter, I have one week, then DS1 goes off on a residential , one week later DH is off for the weekend with his mates, a week later DS3 is off on a residential, the weekend after DS1 is off on his DofE, then it is May half term! So June is going to come around quite quickly with all that going on.

Plus on the first of May it is my 20th Wedding Anniversary.
DH most probably has no idea.
I married the most unromantic man in the entire world.
He is lovely though, I shall keep him a while longer.

gallygirl · 22 March 2018 at 2:46PM

f0xh0les wrote: »

There are enough things to blame me for without adding 'willful and deliberate snow making' to the mix.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:. Oh dear. Families - can't live with them, not allowed to kill them :rotfl:.

22 Foxhole East

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