Over the Rainbow and Happy Ever After

castlelough · 17 October 2013 at 12:07AM

Well I had a good MSE day today!

I had budgeted to have my hair done this fortnight, as it hasn't been cut or highlighted since March. I get away with the colour because my hair is very naturally fair. I could have waited a bit longer, but I really feel like I need a bit of a lift.

Well I rang and booked into my usual salon. For a T-Bar of highlights and a cut I was going to be paying €105.

Then I thought about a local girl who runs a small salon in her house. Some other girls I know go to her. So I got her number and made an appointment. I wasn't sure how much she was going to charge...or how good she was!

Well she did a full head of highlights (and I have a LOT of long hair) and she gave it a super cut and blow dry. I was there just over 3 hrs!
She charged me €65, I gave her €75 as I thought €65 was just too little for how hard she had worked on my hair.

I still had a saving of €30 from my budget, and got better value/service for money! And nest of all, my hair is FAB!

Feeling very happy! :-)

Will hold off for a few more days just in case of uneventualities! But I think I will transfer my saving to my credit card for the eBay purchases.

My petrol budget is looking like I might come in under budget too this fortnight! Yay! :-)

Lamb from the freezer for dinner tomorrow night. We bought a whole lamb (butchered) from a local farmer during the Spring, and I must remember to include it in my meal planning. It's in a freezer in DMiL's shed, so I need to plan ahead to retrieve, defrost etc. But definitely worth it, delicious!

That's my news for today. Hope everyone is going well xx

HOK3Y · 17 October 2013 at 8:35AM

My wedding dress is currently with a friend who runs a bridal boutique and is selling it for me. I've kept the tiara and veil.......well, a girls needs a few sparkles in her life!

Good to see you back CL! x

castlelough · 18 October 2013 at 12:40AM

Hi EchoDelta and MissKitty! I don't know how I didn't see your posts yesterday! Apologies! Thanks for stopping by!

It's nice to know I amn't the only one still hanging on to my wedding dress! I don't think I could bear to see children running around in it though ED! I'd I'd love somebody else to wear it on their special day. It really is so beautiful. I bought it in a sample sale, reduced from €1600 to €400. Had it altered and repaired and voilà - fabulous! I've been working on choosing the photos for our wedding album this week (only 2+ yrs later!!) and have been enjoying it so much, although it is much harder work than I expected and is taking me way longer too!!!
Still, hoping to finish tomorrow evening.
Then I can make rehoming my dress my next project!
I was thinking... wouldn't it be nice if I could pay for my beautiful new ring from the dress proceeds. The dress had a mass of pearls on the bustline and down the bodice, and I had pearls in my veil (which, like you HOK, I'm keeping!), pearls of icing on the cake, pearl earring and necklace etc, so the pearl ring would be a nice replacement.... I have fab photos to remember the dress! Have I talked myself into it yet?!!

EchoDelta the procedures went well. Nothing unusual was uncovered, although I haven't the biopsy results yet. Hope to begin to ttc again next cycle - eek! :-)

A no-spend day today :-)

EchoDelta · 18 October 2013 at 3:21AM

It sounds lovely Castlelough

Pearl ring would be perfect!

Great news re procedures, good luck with ttc.

Raggydoll85 · 15 December 2013 at 10:28PM

Hey hun!!

hows it going? x

castlelough · 9 February 2014 at 8:34PM

Well it has been a while since I checked in here! It's time to get back on the debt busting wagon again! I haven't been very motivated in recent months. Nevertheless, I've cleared off one of the credit union loans (L2) and taken a chunk of credit union L1. But..... I have run up my credit card almost to its limit. :-( So I have a bit of work to do to knock that back down. We also have quite a substantial bill to settle with our racehorse trainer. My little horse has been running on the racetrack since January 4th! We are still hoping that he will produce a run good enough to warrant keeping him in training, but time is ticking along....we've agreed to run him once more, and if he doesn't show more promise then we are going to bring him home (and spend the next 6 months clearing our bill with the trainer! Argh!)

Wonderful news on the mortgage front! We have finally drawn down our cheque for the first stage of the mortgage!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo! I thought the day would never come!
So we lodged €30k to our account on Thursday! We've paid almost €4k to our solicitor out of that. And it's full steam ahead now! We're hoping to get a machine on site next week to begin clearing the piles of rubble and to dig out the area for the septic tank. I've to email the house plans to the geothermal underfloor heating company tomorrow! Woo! At last! It's actually going to happen!!! So happy! :-) :-) :-)
I'll be able to join the mfw board soon!!!
Hope everyone else is doing well xxx

castlelough · 2 March 2014 at 2:11PM

It has been a busy few weeks! We have had so much going on, and often it has seemed like one step forwards and two steps back, but slowly we are making a little progress!

We have begun work on our house. The digger has been busy widening the lane that leads down to our house, moving walls and bushes and trees and generally creating havoc. I hate seeing nature disturbed, but the place does look much better now. All that type of work has to completed by March 1st (for conservation/breeding etc) and DH will be hiring a little tipper truck and working with the diggerman next week to move the debris (we are using it to build a farm road on the farm) and then the next job will be to start the plumbing and dig out the septic tank.

Our little racehorse got injured in a race last week, and has come home! Delighted to have him back! I did have a big spend on feed, and on galvanised bins to keep the feed in and bought new buckets and things that I shouldn't have had to buy, but DH had gone off with the last lot and God knows when they will turn up. We have an enormous bill to settle with the trainer now, I would estimate it in the region of €4k, but we will know for sure when he does it up for us... and then there will probably be vet and physio bills to come too, before horse is recovered....anyway, we will have to manage those when we come to them.

We have zero in the emergency fund, zero in the savings pot, and a family wedding/Hen party/Stag party all coming up in the next couple of months.....

I will need to borrow money from my sister to get through the Hen weekend, and I really hate being in this position. Grrrrr. Time to tighten the belt a little....

Hope everyone is well!
Castle x

cazmanian_minx · 2 March 2014 at 9:26PM

Sounds like you've been busy! What's up with the horse? Does this mean a permanent retirement from racing or will he be going back into training when he recovers?

clearmydebts · 2 March 2014 at 10:43PM

Hi Castlelough,

You sound very busy. It must be so exciting that you have started work on your house. How long will it take?

I hate having to borrow from people too

We really lost focus in the 2nd half of last year, but I think we are starting to tighten the belts again since Christmas.

castlelough · 12 July 2014 at 9:29PM

Well that was a long break.........

:o

While I haven't run up any more debt than before, I haven't made any overpayments on the debt either. So time to focus on it again...

Especially as I am about to apply for two substantial loans... :eek:

One to cover a splurge for the new house that wasn't accounted for in the original mortgage. I have done the research and I still can't get past it - I really want an Aga. So.... I've ordered a reconditioned one from a reputable company. It's a 13-amp electric one, and we'll turn it on for 5-6 months of the year, and off for the warmer months. I've budgeted out the cost of running it, and eventually I pointed out to DH that running it for 6 months will cost less than running our racehorse did for one month! Not that either is a sensible or MSE thing to do....but he could understand it better in those terms! But I'm borrowing €6700 for it. I've applied for €10k because I've had to transfer some money from the mortgage across to my credit union account as collateral for the new loans. When the loans come through I'll transfer the money back to the mortgage.

The other loan is for a car... €10k. Maybe I'll get a car for less and not need that much money. But the reality is that my car is at the end of it's tether with almost 200k miles on the meter! And we are expecting a baby in January and I really want a safe and reliable car to drive and bring baby about in!

That's my great news! After all the heartbreak of the miscarriages I'm almost 15 weeks along with this little one. Everything is looking good. We've had 4 scans so far and seen the little heartbeat and the baby growing as it should! :j:smileyhea:smileyhea
We are paying for a private gynae so that is coming at a pricetag of €3000 but we have a payment plan sorted and we are happy that we can manage it. I'm not going to go overboard on baby things, and am happy to buy second-hand or take hand-me-downs from friends for the bigger items.

On the equine front, we only have a small bill left to clear with our trainer and horse has made a great recovery and is now out in the field with a little rescue pony that we got for company for him! :T
I had hoped to be riding him out this summer, but now that's a plan to be set aside until next spring, although I might try to find somebody else to exercise him from September onwards.

The house is moving along slowly. DH is doing the plumbing/heating and this has definitely slowed us down. I've been so frustrated at how long he has been taking and how little work he has managed to get done in the last few weeks (although in fairness to him, he is doing two other jobs of his own and fitting the house in when he can). The Aga has also upset my kitchen plans and I'm still trying to rearrange things so that I can fit in a hob and oven for the 6-7 months that the Aga won't be switched on. I know, I'm my own worst enemy!

:( At present I can't see how it can be done without having the electrician come out and move at least one socket and one light switch :eek::eek: In the meanwhile Aga is being installed on July 23rd!!! Then there'll be no excuse to crack on with the rest of the kitchen!:)

Well that's it from here...
I amn't particularly looking forward to taking on the extra debt, but I know I can do it. I've done it before. I had just gotten to like having the extra bit of disposable income for the last few months with horse out of training!

Hope everyone is doing well? Sorry for the lack of personals! If anyone is still following my diary I hope you are doing well with your own goals!

xxx Castle

Over the Rainbow and Happy Ever After

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free