Dreaming of financial freedom!

DH is back from Norwich It was so good to see him last night and catch up with how things have been going for him while he was away. He was only away a couple of nights though, so not that much to report! He did bring back freebies from the hotel though, which I was very pleased with. I'm going to try and include the photos in this link... Let's see if I understand this technology

My free nail varnish arrived today. It looks lovely and I can't wait to put it on. All I have to do is review it, and I'm quite happy to tell people my opinions, so it shouldn't be too difficult! I'll report back on here too with how it goes.

I got a £5 from ASDA today for when I complained at the bad service my Grandma received when we went in February. We went to pay at about 8pm and there was no-one on the wide aisle (the only one I can fit her wheelchair down) so I asked one of the checkout ladies, who wasn't serving anyone and didn't have any queue, if she could open the wide aisle checkout for us. It was really quiet and there were more than enough staff on the other tills but she wouldn't open the checkout as she said there wasn't a manager she could ask if it was OK for her open the checkout. I rang up ASDA to let them know about it as it upset my Grandma. She likes to be in control of her shopping, and packs things in a certain way, and she really doesn't like the semi-automatic tills where the staff scan the items and they shoot off down a conveyor belt quite far away for them all to get squashed up. Anyway, they sent her a £5 voucher so she will pleased with that and we will hopefully have a more successful shopping trip next time. Last time we went I really had to push to get someone to open the checkout, which isn't very dignified for my Grandma, but in the end someone did open the checkout so we could unload and pack together in a way she was happy with. It made it so much quicker and easier for me to unpack when we got back too as everything was grouped in bags for where they needed to go at home Maybe I'm overreacting but I don't like her being upset at not being able to do things the way she likes to. I know it makes her feel like she's completely lost her independence so I try and let her 'supervise' me as much as possible!

Speaking of Grandma, the foot rest on her wheelchair keeps coming out now every shopping trip so I've spoken to the company we bought it from and asked if we can buy a replacement foot rest. I need to take some photos and send it to them and I'm hoping we can just get a spare rather than having to buy a whole new wheelchair!

It's Friday, the sun is shining and DH and I are going to London to see BIL on his way through from India to California. It should be fairly MSE as the BIL used his hotel points to book us a room in the same hotel as him.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend

Hi KK, thanks for stopping by, nice to hear from you I love a good freebie... maybe it's the Yorkshire in me, or maybe it's the MSE One of my clients is a hotel chain and I was told that hotels expect you to take the toiletries so they either brand them with their logo, thinking it'll make you think of them first when booking next time, or they do deals with other companies so their products get advertised... we have noticed more and more though that hotels we used to get toiletries at have installed those pumps on the wall though so I think cost saving beats the potential advertising for them now. It's definitely worth checking out the Bzz. It's my first campaign and I'm really pleased. Now I know the photos work, here's a picture of the nail varnish.

Well, we had a lovely weekend. It was so nice for us to have some time with the BIL, and it didn't cost us the earth.

We drove down leisurely on Saturday and stopped off at the Denby factory/shop. Love it there! We picked up a few spare place mats and coasters as I've noticed a few scratches appearing on ours and they were going for a song, and we got a spare set for the in-laws in case theirs start to get scuffed up. It made a nice little extra bonus for Mother's Day too. BIL arrived to the hotel a little after 3pm, and after we had a catch up and he had a shower we went down to the hotel bar for some cocktails. I had 2 pina coladas, DH had a G&T and BIL had 2 G&Ts. We discussed the dreaded car repair. It turns out that although they were quoted $1,700 for the repair, it ended up costing $2,200 as apparently they needed to replace a couple of brackets. We cringed but prepared to pay our dues (we were thinking that was the holiday budget out the window). BIL said he'd have to check with his DW what she wanted us to pay... £500! We were very lucky as it would have eaten up most of our savings and meant we couldn't go over to the US to see BIL and his wife. Their reasoning was that they chose not to claim on the insurance to keep their future premiums down so we should only be liable for about the cost of the excess. I think this was really nice of them and we are very grateful. DH immediately transferred the money across as it's been such a weight on our minds so it was lovely to finally get rid of that. After we finished the drinks, BIL picked up the tab as he can expense it with his meal allowance (still lovely of him as it meant he'd have to pay for his meal in full). We went for tea and had a wonderful time. The food was great and the conversation was fab... lots of stories about when the boys were young and (very) reckless - I fear for any future children and nieces/nephews if they end up like their dads! Afterwards, BIL picked up the whole bill! I couldn't believe it after he'd been so generous already. On Sunday we had breakfast together in the hotel. £20 plus £3 for drinks... how can they justify charging so much?! We didn't care at all as BIL had been so generous and it was worth the money to be able to spend more time with him rather than wasting it looking for somewhere else to have breakfast. We took BIL to the local supermarket so he could pick up a Mother's Day card (it's in May in America so he couldn't get a card in advance) and a present. We drove him to the airport and had hugs, wished him well etc. then headed back up north. It was lovely to see him, just a shame it was for a short time. On the way back up we stopped off to see my brother in Northampton and then stopped off in Nottingham to have a walk around an old abbey, it's gardens and a lake. It was such a great weekend.

We had the other BIL round for tea and Walking Dead on Monday. DH cooked so I got to relax After we had brownies and ice-cream. The brownies were from the hamper he got from work with his reward points. Tasty, and free - what could be better?! I've been working my way through the freezer and cupboard as well as we seemed to be stock piling food but not getting through it. That seems to be going well. So, it was shaping up to be a fairly MSE week until...

DH is working down in Norwich this week. Yesterday he set off about 6:30pm after all his meetings were finished and I got a call at 10:30pm to say the road had been closed and the diversion signs had stopped so he'd switched onto his sat nav which took him down a load of unlit roads... ending up in a farmer's field with no lights in the field or on the adjacent road. He did a U-turn and smacked head on into a huge solid rock that was hidden in the tall grass :eek:. It looks to have done some serious damage so he's going to have to get that repaired and use the remaining holiday budget