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  • Seasidegal58
    Seasidegal58 Posts: 5,677 Forumite
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    You’ve got your food sorted out very economically Lilith - and I agree that you’ve got to have those fish and chips!

    As you say, it might only be a n MSE break, but its still a lovely time with lots of ozone!:)
    Finally Debt Free! - July 2016 🌟
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  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
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    Definitely! I love being by the sea. There's something about it that relaxes me and gets rid of any stresses I'm hanging onto :)
    My debt-free diary :)
  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
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    Evening everyone :wave:

    Well I had a nice surprise later yesterday evening. My mum emailed me and my brothers to say she'd transferred a bit of money into our accounts. It means I can pay off the rest of our break to Cornwall in June (which wasn't overly expensive as it's outside the school holidays), plus I'm going to use £80 of it towards my 'Charlie' ring as I got the rest of the money from selling some old rings to Hatton Garden Metals. That leaves a few hundred which I've paid off MBNA, which feels like a nice chunk. So generous of my mum to do that :)

    In other news I had my viva date today which is 15th March. I can finally see then end and it feels great. Over the next few weeks I'll be prepping and making sure I know my thesis, although I've lived it for the last few years so I could probably recite it in my sleep :rotfl:

    NSD today. I've been reading the Frugalwoods website a lot and it's really motivating me to keep my spending down. I'm particularly interested in the cooking bit. I'm sure we could be reducing our food bill. At the moment we do our main shop at Mr T's online as I get stressed going in store, but I'm thinking of going into Aldi and writing down the prices of our regular items to see how these compare to Mr T's. I may have to get over my aversion of busy supermarkets!

    I've earned £20 so far with WhatUsersDo, which is great. I really enjoy doing their surveys so it's some extra money which will come in handy for presents.

    We've had snow here today but nothing heavy thank goodness. I don't like driving when we've had heavy snow as we just can't seem to handle it in this country. We need some of those mahoosive snow ploughs from Canada! :rotfl:
    My debt-free diary :)
  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
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    Phew, I'm shattered today. It was -5 this morning so it took a while to defrost the car and as I pulled away the service light came on and the car was sluggish all the way to work. It's done this once before in cold weather where I have to put my foot to the floor to struggle through the gears. I'm not sure what's going on. When I get it serviced I'll mention it :eek:

    Got home and walked the pooch, then had 3 tests to do for Prolific Academic, so I've only just sat down and had something to eat.

    I've been jotting down things we can do during our week off in March. Weather-permitting we'll be out tidying the garden and we also want to take stuff to the tip.

    We've got a pile of clothes we sorted out so I want to put these on ebay, even if we get a few £s for them. I'm going to talk to hubby about selling our DVDs to somewhere like music magpie because they've sat in a box and we've only watched one or two in the past few years. I'm determined to do a de-clutter as we have lots of stuff that just sits around and we don't use it.

    Every penny helps - we can put any money towards a holiday spends fund for Cornwall in June :)
    My debt-free diary :)
  • Uniscots97
    Uniscots97 Posts: 6,685 Forumite
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    Lilith is your car a Citroen by any chance? I had one (a Citroen, 8 years old at the time and it did the same as yours, eventually it locked and wouldn!!!8217;t unlock. It was the engine management system had failed. I had to get it towed. At the time my Grandpa has just passed away (it had been his car before he gave up driving) and I couldn!!!8217;t afford to buy a new car so opted to get it fixed. It cost me £1700. A lot yes but for lots of reasons I didn!!!8217;t want to replace it. The car lasted me another 4 years before doing similar with the lights on the dash coming on and the engine cutting out (which happened on a motorway!). This happened just 2 weeks after my gran passed away and I reckon it was her way of saying !!!8220;for goodness sake girl get a new car!!!!8221;. The very same day I got a call saying she had left me a small amount of money, enough to go buy a nearly new small car.
    CC2 = £8687.86 ([STRIKE]£10000[/STRIKE] )CC1 = £0 ([STRIKE]£9983[/STRIKE] ); Reusing shopping bags savings =£5.80 vs spent £1.05.Wine is like opera. You can enjoy it even if you don't understand it and too much can give you a headache the next day J
  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
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    Uniscots97 wrote: »
    Lilith is your car a Citroen by any chance? I had one (a Citroen, 8 years old at the time and it did the same as yours, eventually it locked and wouldn!!!8217;t unlock. It was the engine management system had failed. I had to get it towed. At the time my Grandpa has just passed away (it had been his car before he gave up driving) and I couldn!!!8217;t afford to buy a new car so opted to get it fixed. It cost me £1700. A lot yes but for lots of reasons I didn!!!8217;t want to replace it. The car lasted me another 4 years before doing similar with the lights on the dash coming on and the engine cutting out (which happened on a motorway!). This happened just 2 weeks after my gran passed away and I reckon it was her way of saying !!!8220;for goodness sake girl get a new car!!!!8221;. The very same day I got a call saying she had left me a small amount of money, enough to go buy a nearly new small car.

    Wow, I definitely agree that that was a sign from your gran!

    No, I've got a vauxhall, but now from what you've said I'm a bit worried in case the thing packs up! I only bought it in October last year but it's 3 years' old. It's only ever done it twice though and both times it has been much colder here than usual so I assume it's something to do with that, unless the cold weather is a coincidence!

    The engine, thankfully, didn't cut out as I was going along. It's only when I stopped at a junction and tried pulling away. But, I think that was because I didn't put my foot on the accelerator enough.

    I'm going to hope for no more cold spells and see how it goes. It was fine when I drove it back from work on the same day when it had "warmed up" a bit outside, and today it was fine too. Hopefully there won't be any more problems before the next service and I'll ask them about it :o
    My debt-free diary :)
  • Uniscots97
    Uniscots97 Posts: 6,685 Forumite
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    I do believe in signs. We have a baby cam for LO and on the night my Gran passed away I woke up on the sofa (fallen asleep watching tv) at 00:15. LO was only a few months old so immediately checked the camera and saw a ball of light no bigger than a tennis ball next to the cot, I saw it move lower then up quite slowly and turn. I jumped out of bed and went LOs room and saw nothing. I only found out the following day that Gran had passed away and the time. This happened again when LO was 1 and my only other remaining grandparent passed away, I woke at 1:33 and saw the same ball of light moving around LO cot on the camera. Next day I got the news my Papa had passed away in the early hours.
    CC2 = £8687.86 ([STRIKE]£10000[/STRIKE] )CC1 = £0 ([STRIKE]£9983[/STRIKE] ); Reusing shopping bags savings =£5.80 vs spent £1.05.Wine is like opera. You can enjoy it even if you don't understand it and too much can give you a headache the next day J
  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    Uniscots97 wrote: »
    I do believe in signs. We have a baby cam for LO and on the night my Gran passed away I woke up on the sofa (fallen asleep watching tv) at 00:15. LO was only a few months old so immediately checked the camera and saw a ball of light no bigger than a tennis ball next to the cot, I saw it move lower then up quite slowly and turn. I jumped out of bed and went LOs room and saw nothing. I only found out the following day that Gran had passed away and the time. This happened again when LO was 1 and my only other remaining grandparent passed away, I woke at 1:33 and saw the same ball of light moving around LO cot on the camera. Next day I got the news my Papa had passed away in the early hours.

    That's amazing and brought some comfort I assume? :)

    My nan passed away in 2016 and I believe I had a few signs from her afterwards. A week or so after she passed away my husband and I went walking around a local reservoir. I took some photos with my camera phone and when I got home and looked on them, one photo had a beam of pink light that was in motion and moved from the left side of the photo and into the centre where it kind of diffused into a larger light. My nan's favourite colour was pink :)

    There were other signs too after that so I believe she was around :)
    My debt-free diary :)
  • Uniscots97
    Uniscots97 Posts: 6,685 Forumite
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    Aww thats lovely Lilith, it did bring me comfort. I thought it lovely theyd gone to see LO. I remember my Gran telling me her best friend came to see her the night she passed away, walking through the kitchen as she always did and shouting 'cheerie', that was just before I was pregnant with LO.

    Have you decided what to do with your days off in March?
    CC2 = £8687.86 ([STRIKE]£10000[/STRIKE] )CC1 = £0 ([STRIKE]£9983[/STRIKE] ); Reusing shopping bags savings =£5.80 vs spent £1.05.Wine is like opera. You can enjoy it even if you don't understand it and too much can give you a headache the next day J
  • Lilith1980
    Lilith1980 Posts: 2,100 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    I have big plans for March ha ha! I want to be really productive, otherwise it would be easy to just sit around on the internet.
    • We're planning on taking some things to the local tip (e.g., a microwave which stopped working) so that will clear some space.
    • We've also got a pile of clothes that we sorted through so I'm going to put all these on ebay and see if we can get a little bit of money for them.
    • We're going to go through our DVDs and see which we can sell on music magpie or somewhere similar
    • I have some clubcard vouchers which I'm going to quadruple so we can go for a free meal - got to treat ourselves during our time off ;)

    I may think of other things to add to this list, but I really want to declutter our house and at least attempt to make a little money off it. We can put it towards when we go to Cornwall in June :)
    My debt-free diary :)
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