Yet more financial faux pas and many other disasterous decisions

moo2moo · 16 July 2011 at 11:12AM

Chapter 3 – The one in which moo breaks the 10K barrier for the third and final time. Actually the 10K barrier is a mythical beast, my personal groundhog day. Seems like the instant I creep below 10k something horrendously expensive occurs and I’m right back where I started. First it was a dodgy extension which resulted in an even bigger replacement extension, then it was a car and now it’s a new roof.

Since my first ever diary instalment way back in 2009 the overall debt has yo-yo’d from 35K to 9K before rocketing up to 20K and crawling slowly downwards to a smidgen under 10K. A small leak in the roof resulted in a quick patch repair and the suggestion that we have considerable remedial work carried out asap at a cost of 6K.

Things have changed dramatically since our initial lightbulb moment, the realisation that each and every month our outgoings exceeded our income. The obvious solution was to stop being a stay at home mum and get a job. Any job. As luck would have it a job found me before I’d actually started looking. Its not the sort of thing I’d have gone looking for but it is a truly awesome job and means I spend the vast majority of my working day with a cheesy grin on my face, the exceptions are those days when I walk through the door to a small green looking child and the aroma of vomit to see the boss on his hands and knees in a suit scrubbing the carpet. On those days timing is everything!

Since then I’ve dabbled in an awful lot of get rich quick schemes. Everything from the obvious E-baying of anything that isn’t nailed down to matched betting, mystery shopping, tedious surveying and jam making which I’m finding surprisingly therapeutic which my OH finds hilarious because I hate cooking.

Left to my own devices I tend to get a bit too carried away with a few too many things with the result that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do and quite a few things that I don’t. I need a kick up the bum otherwise my days will be filled with chicken watching, jam making and book reading whilst the laundry pile grows and grows and grows.

Since the school holidays are imminent I’ve shuffled my hours around so that I’m only working mornings. OH has also shuffled his hours so that he’s underfoot for almost all of the holidays too. This means minimal childcare for the demonic daughters but maximum mess as project Land Rover transformation ramps up to the next level. What started with a small hole that would be fixed in a weekend has resulted in a chassis up rebuild and the acquisition of several knackered Land Rovers from which to scavenge parts. Not having a garage means the majority of these parts are in the house which along with a train set, Scalextric, several model cars and the threat of a model boat means the house is more bachelor pad than family home. That’s about to change!

moo2moo · 16 July 2011 at 11:24AM

It helps to have a set of goals in mind. Things that are almost achievable, after all theres no point having a target you know you can’t achieve, nor one that’s a doddle. Wheres the incentive in that?

So in no particular order of importance my goals are thusly:

To be sub 5K by Christmas
To have the sort of house where the unexpected arrival of someone on the doorstep doesn’t leave me having palpitations (although toilet training the OH is critical to this particular plan)
To have more fun and spend more time doing things with the DDs
To grow more veg although this does involve weeding which I detest
To spend less time and money in supermarkets
To be debt free by 37 which allows for a new roof and the replacement of OHs car
To have a hobby. Any hobby. And find the time to do it.
To learn to run and then complete the Marathon des Sables and the Tough Guy Challenge
To improve my Welsh so I can say something other than Gallau mynd i'r ty bach os gwelwch yn dda?

Wordsmith · 16 July 2011 at 11:31AM

Happy new diary and happy new life ahead! (Um, re money, was just thinking of the prospective field and train carriage purchase?)

chevalier · 16 July 2011 at 11:32AM

Yeah for the first time ever I am FIRST on a new diary to replay. Little things please me LOL. And then I realised that Wordsmith had beat me to it, in the time it took to write that! DOH

Anyway happy new diary. Good luck with tidying and decluttering. I think that you do an amazing job to keep on top of it as much as you do, especially with basically having a car inside your house as well as out, plus two dogs, plus two very active DD and your OH.

Interesting that you say the batchelor pad feel is going to change. I take it you are going to be more assertive with if you haven't used it in 6 months it is gone then are you?

good luck with the next stage of your journey
chev

moo2moo · 16 July 2011 at 11:34AM

chevalier wrote: »

Yeah for the first time ever I am FIRST on a new diary to replay. Little things please me LOL

Well almost

moo2moo · 16 July 2011 at 11:35AM

Wordsmith wrote: »

Happy new diary and happy new life ahead! (Um, re money, was just thinking of the prospective field and train carriage purchase?)

Shhhhh. I'm burying my head in the sand on that one. Its not going to happen, no matter how much I want it to.

Wordsmith · 16 July 2011 at 11:35AM

Umm, yes - sorry, Chev.;)

chevalier · 16 July 2011 at 12:50PM

Tis ok. Was a bit deflating though. I thought i could type pretty quick!
chev

beanielou · 16 July 2011 at 1:36PM

Happy new diary & hopefully a happy you

Lula-Hula · 16 July 2011 at 3:14PM

I wanna be on the first page, I wanna be on the first page ...

Ok, now that I am I can go back & edit to say :

Happy Noo diary Moo

xx

ps DD is at a riding party today - was it really that unreasonable to ask her bring back a bag of pony poo for the veg patch ?

Hovel_lady · 16 July 2011 at 4:19PM

Happy shiny new diary! :j

Yet more financial faux pas and many other disasterous decisions

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