Second Time Lucky

Hmmm..my nearest store is in an incredibly rough area and requires 2 buses to get there. Will have to wait until I can get a lift!

A bit negative today. Let's list all the rubbish things to get them out of the way:

• I'm feeling very unwell
• The washing machine gets louder every time it's on, which probably means it'll break soon (it was here when we moved in and is ancient)
• Just realised that the dehumidifer had been on for 2 days and not collecting water!!! :mad: Total waste of electricity.
• Meter readings are horrendous

Meter Readings


Electric - 38

Gas - 30
Water - 1


Okay, now for some positives, if I can think of any:

• Decided to see if I could fix the dehumidifer and realised that there's a filter you can clean! I know that's incredibly thick of me after we've had it for 4 years. It was caked in dust. Seems to be working now
• Even without the dehumidifier on, the room has only been in the 40-50% humidity range, which I don't understand but it's positive!
• Seeing as the wall has dried out quite a bit now, I've decided to reduce the thermostat in there to about 15 degrees rather than 18. If the heating is on, the bathroom radiator is on full (I think you have to have one radiator without a thermostat for safety reasons), which is a total waste when we're out. Hopefully at 15 degrees the heating won't need to come on as much.
• Despite feeling like death, I have emptied the bins and done the meter readings, plus have a load of washing on. So not a complete waste of a day. Hoping to get the ironing done or I won't have anything to wear at work tomorrow!

Thinking about the electricity, I suppose we've had all of the Christmas lights and now it's darker earlier lights in general are on more. It still seems a big increase, especially as I've been drying the clothes in the bathroom (may as well use the heat!) and only finishing them off in the dryer. It might be useful to get a new battery for the electric monitor we have and set it back up. It's been in a box for years so don't know if it'll work.


Yesterday I made a new page on the finances spreadsheet to look at average monthly costs now, average costs if I were on adoption leave and then costs if I had to quit work (for a child with complex needs). I had to guess how much more things will cost with a child but it wasn't too bad. Even if I have to leave work altogether we should still have a small surplus each month. Ideally I want to go back to work after the year of leave (assuming we are approved as adopters and matched to a child) as I love my job, but I want to know that we could afford it if it came to that. I'd also hate to have to stop overpaying! Realistically, we have about a year before any likelihood of needing adoption leave and I had pondered just saving everything and reducing the overpayments, but based on my guesstimates, I think it's best to keep on as we are. We have a nice emergency fund built up, plus some money in the house refurb budget.


Hmm, I'm feeling more positive already! :T Debt has always scared me, and although most people don't really see the mortgage as a debt, I do. Ours is probably seen as being quite small, but when I think of owing tens of thousands of pounds, I feel uneasy. Knowing that we could get by for a few years if a financial disaster happened is a comforting feeling and I love the excitement at the thought of being totally debt free well before we retire. My Mum hasn't been as fortunate as I have and although she owns her home (almost a miracle considering our circumstances when I was a kid), she earns just enough to cover her bills and has nothing for holidays or house improvements. I can't wait to reach a point where I can afford to pay for a new kitchen or carpets for her. I'm so grateful for all of the scrimping she did to keep the roof over our heads and it still breaks my heart to recall the Christmas she had to sell all of her jewellery (all heirlooms) to pay for a few presents.


I'm thinking that if I do go back to work after we adopt (fingers crossed), I might start squirrelling some money away for her so she doesn't have to wait until we pay the whole mortgage off to get some treats. It's so tempting to pay every spare penny towards the mortgage, and it is satisfying, but you never know what the future holds and I don't want to have regrets later in life.



That's probably enough pondering for today and the washing machine has stopped making noise (I've stopped using the 1000rpm spin cycle as the kitchen cupboards were all getting squeaky from the vibrations!) so I better go and sort that out.

Hallelujah! My £7 Argos cashback has been paid and the £70 home insurance cashback, which I'd almost given up on, is now confirmed!!

Spent some money on another Kiva loan to celebrate. A lady in Honduras trying to make money by making and selling food. I like this way of giving to charity as I know exactly what the money is going on. Sadly the companies who deal with the money take a cut (I guess they have to make money or they wouldn't provide the service). Also, most of the time the money is repaid and I can loan it back out.

Meter Readings

Electric - 34 units
Gas - 28 units
Water - 1 unit

Not as awful as last week but still quite bad. I've done 2 extra loads of washing this week preparing for guests. At least today is quite mild so shouldn't need much in the way of heating. The humidity has gone through the roof though.

In wet patch news, I started removing wallpaper in there. It probably would have been wise to get some quotes before Christmas but there's too much going on. So the plan is to have it totally ready to plaster and then get quotes. My concern is that even with the wall treated, the beam is still sat on top of the wet mortar and isn't drying out. Sigh.

I got all of my wrapping done and I made gingerbread, which was all eaten within about an hour.

Still need to pick up prescription but the weather is horrible so I might leave it until tomorrow.

We spent a small fortune (compared to usual shop at least ) in aldi yesterday on Christmas food and drink. We rarely ever drink alcohol (I don't at all) but we have guests who do, plus we bought cheese, crackers and biscuits. Just the veg left to buy nearer the time now. I would really like Christmas to arrive now!!

I'm not too bad if I was planning on buying it anyway from that shop, but when you've gone for a particular company mostly for the cashback it's very frustrating!

Speaking of which, I am an idiot. I could have got over £12 cashback for ordering the santander credit card! Fool!!

Had a panic yesterday when I heard water gushing outside. The new guttering had turned into a waterfall. So sick of everything going wrong (I'm being melodramatic I know) I was pretty low about it yesterday. This morning (everything is better in the light) I've had a look from the ground and it certainly doesn't look broken. Perhaps the rain was so heavy that it couldn't cope, or maybe there's some moss blocking it. The plan is to get the ladders out at the weekend and have a look but my OH is terrible with heights and I'm not much better!

OH was paid early this month, so I'm thinking of doing some guesstimates on the rest of the outgoings this month and overpaying accordingly. Might be a bit risky but it's not like we haven't got money saved for any emergencies. The plastering work will be happening in January and will be coming out of the house fund anyway.

I'm clearly getting a bit slow after a week off as for some reason I expected his wage to be higher to make up for it having to last 5.5 weeks! :rotfl:

I heard last week that someone I'm close to thinks we're stupid not to go on loads of holidays abroad whilst we can afford it. They seem to think we're loaded because we're overpaying, whereas actually we only have the money to overpay because we're so sensible. It wouldn't take many trips to the restaurant, new clothes and taxis instead of walking/taking the bus to completely obliterate our overpayments. So far we've managed to overpay about £500 a month so I guess we could have a couple of holidays abroad (we're not into beach holidays so not many bargains to be had), but I'm actually not that keen on holidays. It might sound odd but I find them very stressful! Once every other year is enough for me!

Right off to do some calculations...anything to put off cleaning the bathroom.