The Quest

Lula-Hula

Hello,

Moo2 - sorry I havent replied until now; DD has been hogging the pc all day, damn penguins :mad: . that's a fair amount of spending you've done , very naughty of you but as you know I'm in no position to criticise so will just gently remind you to STOP SPENDING . We havent had a printer for months & DD is getting quite edgy, I look at it that while there's no printer there's no expensive cartridges to refill but it's on my list of things to purchase.

Looks like I've got christmas sorted as best I could. Last year was the first since my mum died & it was pretty grim. I had a secret talk with my lil sis about this year & said I was firmly staying at home but would have my dad & my grandmother here & she could go to her inlaws & owe me BIG time.

Mentioned this to my dad who said his sis also coming :eek: but how about we go out for a meal somewhere close & then back to mine for tea . Bloody brilliant as far as I'm concerned, we get to spend most of the day at home & dont have to cook or wash up either & I can drrrrrrink a little :j .

I'm going to be damn strict with my christmas shopping this year. We have a tree & plenty of decorations & loads of candles etc & DD loves to make decorations with holly so can make the place look cheery (& cover up grubby walls & shabby carpet ) for almost nothing. DD & I always make our own mince pies & shaped biscuits, in fact when I was clearing out the old kitchen cupboards I did find a jar of mincemeat that although 2 years old I am sure will be just fine, do correct me if you think this would life threatening .
where was I... oh yes, I am going to shop smart this year, somewhere is a list I compiled of how much I would spend on each relative & when I find it I'll post it up so you can laugh at how tight I am & see if I actually stick to my budget :eek: . I warn you now, DD is my financial achilles heel .

Stayed home today & felt really de energised, really lazy. DD has taken to Moo2s idea about cooking for one day at the weekend & today made blackberry & apple crumble. I had some blackberries that were foraged in the freezer & just used normal apples. It was very nice & there's some left for tomorrow . On the plus side I didnt spend anything today so now have 9 NSDs.

I have £2.11p in my purse & need to buy a scrubbie for washing up, had to use the last one in vain attempt to separate black liquid shoe polish from the shiny new kitchen floor :mad: , not ready to talk about it yet :mad: .

Should be a NSD tomorrow... can always use the vegetable brush for washing up .

Bye for now
lula x

Bowski_1011

Sounds like a great idea for xmas (will Dad be paying too?) I don't cook the dinner, usually work a couple of hours in the pub coz we're there anyways, but I usually wash up I don't mind most of it, its the pans that I hate!!
I hope you's manage to have a better xmas than the last!

I'm being strict this year with xmas too, although I'd call it more tight that strict. I;m only buying for DD, niece and nephew. even they're not getting as much as they normally do. it's normally just naff stuff anyways so going to get them a gift each (niece a necklace and nephew cars) and then they're getting p.j's and socks which are essential at xmas! I guess if I have anything spare nearer the time I might get them more but really goin to try not. Me and my sister have said we wont buy for xmas this year but... I seen something I'd like to get her its only £3.99 so I think I'll get her it coz I want to and she'll like it rather than getting her some crap just coz I think I need to get her something. I didn't even get her anything for her b'day coz she didnt want anything.

Scrubbie's are really cheap Lula so you'll have plenty left in ya purse but i'd deffo wait till another day if it's going to ruin your NSD.

Blackberry and apple crumble sounds delicious, we're not that adventurous, we tried and failed to make a birds chocolate trifle. It was still edible but I'd obviously done something wrong somewhere!!!

Lula-Hula

Good afternoon,

Well, never have I finished work this early before & it's very scary. I keep going through my options in case work continues to decline...I'm looking on various sites but there's not a lot out there for me. Because I keep my travel & childcare costs so low by working from home & having DD at nearby school, I have frequently come to the conclusion that I'm doing the best thing for now.

The dilemma is whether to keep on paying the cards off at £75.00 a week until I know more , or should I start to pay a bit less off the cards & try to build up some cash reserves it wont actually make much difference if I do lose my job because I'll have to go on an 'official' DMP then, lose what remaining credit status I have & generally be very very cross with myself for being such a complete idiot in running up the debts in the first place :mad: . I just dont see how on earth I'll be able to keep it from 'the family' either, which is actually a big concern .

Anyway, opinions welcome ...

Good news : Today i made another £ 50 payment off cc1, bringing that balance down to £ 2,751. The total balance now is whatever it says in my sig below, just had a complete blank there .

To be honest I would rather try to keep on cutting costs rather than the card payments as I'm really motivated to do it this way. I couldnt wait to get online to make that payment this morning - sad , but hey it's working .

So far it's been a NSD but I never like to declare them until we're shut in for the night :rolleyes: so will update later if I achieve it. I think DD is going to friends for tea on wednesday so that will save me a meal but then DD1 is coming round for dinner on thursday ... off to do some meal planning now :eek:

bye for now,
lula x

Lula-Hula

Ok, that's a definite NSD for me today . I'm going to try for one tomorrow too as i dont think I need to get anything am coping without the scrubbies perfectly well so far.

I've been nosing about on the 'live on £4,000 a year' thread & I am seriously impressed. I've done some calculations & I would get £95 a year to live on & although this doesnt include rent/mortgage, council tax or water rates my other essential outgoings are £69 a week which would leave me with £ 26 to feed, clothe & entertain us both & pay off debts & buy presents :eek: . Then I recalculated my essential outgoings if I dont have a car... £ 40.70 left. So having a car is costing me £ 28.40 a week, that includes insurance, road tax, fuel, spares & servicing & aa membership. I reckon that is pretty cheap considering the value I get out of it so I'm not prepared to do without it.

I've also joined in with pandapaws electricity challenge, although I'm not sure i can halve my consumption, I know I could make far more use of the economy 7 by putting washing on at night & I have to use electrical equipment for work so I've also been consudering whthter I could do my work at night. It would probably take a bit of getting used to but according to my meter the night rate is half the day rate, although as I've just switched suppliers I'm not sure if the rates are the same. Must go check on their website.

G'nite
lula x

moo2moo

Morning All,

Sorry to hear work is slowing up Lula, hope its just a temporary glitch.

Spent a further £20 on Sunday on a joint for the M-I-L but the farmer threw in a pack of burgers and huge bag of mince so I'm quite happy with that. Did have a major guilt trip on Sunday and decided to do something constructive. Something being listing 100 items on e-bay (free listing day) saving myself wait for it a whopping £4.00 in listing fees. OH was at his most encouraging and kept appearing with things he didn't want, he even photographed the carp so I didn't have to move from the PC. E-bay was at its slowest ever and was avearging 15 items an hour. I was bored stupid by bedtime. House now looks a teeny bit tidier.

NSD yesterday and a tip run. Disposed of 2 fuel tanks from the garden in the pouring rain. Council blokes helpfully pointed out that the site isn't open to businesses without permits. Apparently its abnormal for domestic people to have fuel tanks, let alone multiple ones. Obviously they've never been here before, its a bit like Steptoes yard. I have a car load of cardboard to go to the recycling centre this afternoon so thats more stuff out of the way. Mount Ironnmore is no more. I finally located the armchair and I even sewed name tags on the school uniform I bought in the sale.

Good luck with reducing your electric bill Lula. We're here less and less yet ours keeps creeping up. Think its perhaps all the Wii playing we do when its raining, that would be me and the OH not the DDs.

Lula-Hula

Ok, this is getting silly now ; finished work again, I had a chat with the girl who does the collections & deliveries & discovered that by wangling myself a pay rise a few months back I'm now losing work to someone cheaper .

We're not talking huge sums here, just the difference of a pound an hour, but the boss has decided to divert my usual customers to save herself some money :rolleyes: . Have thought very hard & unlike the driver I am not going to take a cut in wages...yet. I collected my private job today & have wondered for the last 3 or 4 weeks about her OH being home, found out today he's been made redundant . Feel so sorry for him & now wondering how much longer I'll have that job. I dont think I'll break even this week & wish I didnt have to pay for swimming lessons. I didnt top up the gas or electric last week & probably wont be able to again this week, see why I top up when I do have spare cash .

The barclaycard payment is due in 2 weeks - minimum £114 & so far I have £50 towards it :eek:. I can always use the emergency savings fund to cover it. I am a bit miffed with myself though as I only let DD do a 2nd after school club because I thought she would be finishing swimming at half term, so I think next term I shall stick to what I say because I've just emptied my whole fund now & caused myself more hassle :mad:.

There was also talk of her having school lunch after half term & part of me doesnt want to spend £9 a week but it will be good for her to have a hot meal .

Having a NSD today & still have that £2.11 in my purse . Will have to do my food shopping either tomorrow or thursday as Dad & I looking at cars on friday. Getting panicky about that as my mot runs out in 3 weeks so desperate to part ex car before then, but not quite sure how I'm going to deal with the insurance aspect of it as my current policy runs until December & should just about have enough in savings to pay outright as long as work picks up a bit...

bye for now
lula x

moo2moo

Hey Lula, Sounds like you're having another carpy day.

I'd think long and hard about DD and school meals. 20 years ago I would have agreed with you. I had some fab school meals but at the DDs school yesterday lunch was chilli with corn chips. Guess how many kids just ate a giant pile of chips (suspiciously like Dorito crisps) and topped it off with a chocolate muffin. Yet thats one of the core meals on this terms council supplied healthy eating menu. The mind boggles.

Managed a NSD yesterday but was so snowed under I didn't eat much at all. A slice of toast whilst making lunches in the morning, 4 slices of toast around 2pm and 1/2 a mug a soup and a Caramac on my way out of work to a meeting elsewhere around 6:30. The downside is I'd spent the day doing physical things so all in around 7 hours of vacuuming, wall scrubbing etc. I'm loosing weight rapidly where I should be trying to gain it. Have gone from a healthy size 12 last April to a very bony sub size 10. Refuse to buy smaller clothes even though the 10s are falling off me. Bit of a builders bum thing going on when I bend over which happens a few million times a day. Going to have to put myself on an anti-diet and aim to gradually put on around 2 stone or risk becoming ill.

Off to Liverpool for a few hours between shifts today to collect a desk for DD1s bedroom. May talk OH into feeding me up at an all you can eat Pizza hut buffet if we have time.

Hope your week improves Lula.

Lula-Hula

Morning Mo02 & everyone

Feeling ok about things today, still dont have much work on but as it's the private schools half term, I think quite a few customers on hol so hoping it will pick up a bit next week. Had a good chat with a friend about it all last night & we went through my budget & I've been told it's time to do a brand drop in the supermaket :eek: . Had a look at the supermarket website & sussed out that I could save a tenner just on a few items I buy most weeks & that's not down to the value brand yet so good news.

I'd been debating - with myself as usual :rolleyes: whether to buy a few bits today when I drive past tesco or to wait until tomorrow when I have to spend on DD swimming lessons anyway, so not losing a NSD today. Went for the economizing on fuel & dropped in to get a few bits, you'll be pleased to hear Bowski that I got value scrubbies for 13p which was 40p cheaper than own brand. I noticed the classic coffee has gone up by 10p for the small jar but the large was on offer for £1.00 so I grabbed that instead. I also bought a tin of coffee mate which I love & should also save money on buying fresh milk. I was very naughty & ended up spending £11.78 which I had taken out of the emergency savings fund . I've decided not to go & do a big shop this week so will just buy absolutely essential items when we run out & we'll try to live on what's in the cupboards & as its half term next week I dont have to buy packed lunch stuff .

Talking of which; I agree with you Moo as to the lunches/meals dilemma, have never done it for that reason. I know full well DD would just eat the puddings if she didnt like the first course :rolleyes: I also know that I dont spend £9 a week on her lunches & as the school kitchens are being revamped ( rumours of being condemned last term apparently true then :eek: ) I'm going to leave it for now.

Amongst my little haul this morning was a bun tin as I cant seem to find the old one & DD & I will need to make some cakes / biscuits soon as I'm going to try weaning ourselves off buying stuff that we can easily make ourselves. Nit that I need to eat more cake or biscuits as I seem to be having the opposite problem to Moo in the weight department. Eat more donuts girl, & pizza, & chips & cake

Time to see what everyone else been up to now so bye for now

lula x

Bowski_1011

Yay Lula !!! Things are sounding much better today!! :j

I agree with you two about the school lunches. My DD does have school lunches but it works out better for me, a trip to get pack up stuff ends up being £25 of a load of crap I don't need. But if you know you can do it for less that £9 then I think you're right to stay with that.

13p for scrubbies??? Where from? I want some lol (i have a wierd kind of scrubbie buying obsession?!:o ) Would you normally buy the own brand ones?
Well done on your NSD's this month, only 4 to go and over a week to do it in!! :T

moo2moo you need a sig can't see how many NSD's you've had. What's your target?


Oh good luck for car hunting on Friday Lula

Lula-Hula

Hey everyone,

just popping in for a quick update & to let Bowski know that the 13p scrubbies were tesco value ones & I got 5 of the little creatures for that . I confess to having been a bit of snob where supermarket shopping was concerned but now that I'm a DFW I've had to change my ways, I would never have bought value brand stuff normally but in the last couple of weeks I've bought value biscuits & have to report not really noticing a difference worth paying the extra for. I cant to be honest ever see myself buying value meat, dairy stuff or toiletries or instant coffee but to continue paying off mydebts in as short time as possible then I need to cutback on everything I can :rolleyes: .

The bad news is that I've just had a letter form the library to say that DD hasnt returned a book it could be anywhere in this place . I now need to put my hard hat on & go 'caving' under her bed :eek: .

The good news is I actually had loads of work today (eventually) & I'm due another busy day tomorrow so I should just have enough to pay all the essentials like council tax, gas & electricity top ups etc. After my little spree this morning I have £25.31p left so we'll have to live on that for the week. I am always broke in the autumn half term & it really annoys me :mad: I havent booked DD in to the sports camp yet, but would like to take her to Hampton Court as she's currently learning all about the tudours. I think i remember a kids go free in half term deal on their website so will have to check that out.

Right, time to go & tidy place up & do washing up before I collect DD from Brownies & I'm hoping whoever took her fleece last week, returns it this week :rolleyes: .

I'm hoping PurpleTea is doing well & comes back soon; I miss you