The Quest

Lula-Hula

Morning

I'm being super efficient today; I have made dinner for tonight in the shiny kitchen & the layout is just brilliant & I love it so hopefully that'll encourage me to use it more often .

Have used the last of my potato stock so will have to get myself to the allotment very soon to do some more digging & harvesting, I'm looking forward to the leeks & parsnips too . I just wish I could get DD into thick chunky soups because I love them & with some delicious bread it's a good meal & we have so much free veg off the allotment. I think she just prefers her veg raw, cant keep off her the carrots & peas :rolleyes: .

I could be at the library right now explaing how we seemed to have mislaid Ruby Rogers...but I have a sudden urge to go & collect any laundry that can go in with the soggy swimming stuff tonight will deal with that tomorrow.
I must find out the time the economy7 kicks in ready for Pandapaws electricity reduction challenge next week.

bye for now

lula x

Lula-Hula

A brief well, ish :rolleyes: update.

First I want to say hello & thanks to Tea for reading along & I hope you're coping & recovering, looking forawrd to your return, you're missed .

I've just earned enough to cover all the payments & funds this week :j which I am so relieved about. I dont feel so bad about dipping into emergency savings now as I would have had to anyway so I now have £29.31 p to feed & entertain DD for the half term week. Glad I didnt book her into the sports camp now as she's said she doesnt really want to go & is now going to a friends one day, then another is having a halloween party & the rest of the time I expect she'll just want to chill out.

This chilling out involves wearing pyjamas all day & alternating between hogging the tv & pc or as she puts it 'multi -tasking', which just means that she apparently has the ability to be playing games on the pc while simlutaneously watching tv through the back of her head :rolleyes: It generally
means consumption of large amounts of normally forbidden food too so a good time to get her doing some baking .

DD1 didnt come round for dinner so we still have some cheesy potato thingy left. When DD came home after swimming, I was asked to pick her friend up from school tomorrow & then DD piped up ' can she stay for tea ' :mad: grrrr I hate it when she does that, in fact we have a strict rule about it. .

My beautiful lime tree has been stripped almost bare :eek: . My neighbour has been moaning about it for years & today a crew turned up with chainsaws & shredders & set about giving it a very severe trim. I dont think the squirrels are going to be very happy & tree now looks like a broccoli floret but I can see right across the fields again & there'll be hardly any leaves to rake up this year .

After all the hassle over swimming lessons DD forgot to give the fees in :mad: which just serves me right for letting friends mother take her :rolleyes:.

So, I didnt need to go to the shop & spend £3.94 on snacks as the fees had blown my NSD anyway :mad: .

I'm kind of excited about & kind of anxious about car hunting tomorrow, I want something small, black, sexy & cheap but capable of doing the cornwall run with ease. Dad thinks I should have something that only costs £30 road tax, he keeps telling me about his friend & her car & when I say it's an old ladies car he tells me how she loves it... yes Dad, but she's an old lady :rolleyes:

He's going to be all male & haggle with the dealers, do the walking away thing & generally faff about it. I would just turn up with a low cut top, tight jeans ( although preferably not quite as tight as they are now ) & shamelssly charm & flirt my way into a good deal. The extra stone I have seems to have decided to settle mostly above my waist so I need to make full use of these assets while I have them .

Right, I must check out the economy 7 times...

lula x

moo2moo

Didn't want to read and run... whilst at the car dealers wearing practically nowt be ruthless. Rather than haggle take whatever price they have and knock at least £400 off it (generally their profit margin on a sub £3000 car) or 15% and tell them thats your best offer. Then just constantly say no to their offers, sorry thats more than I'm prepared to pay for that particular vehicle, actually I've seen one with lower mileage for that price etc. etc. rather than the usual haggling techinque. But mostly saying "you're having a laugh aren't you" works wonders.

Have lots of fun and be prepared to drink lots of coffee.

Lula-Hula

Morning,

thanks to Moo2 for the car buying tips, I've been practising the 'you're having a laugh' speech but at the moment am sounding a bit too Eastenders to be taken seriously. It's actually raining today so will be wearing snuggly cardie with jeans & boots rather than brazen tops & shoes, probably for the best actually or could end up looking a bit eastenders too .

Right, list of things to do today :

buy car
top up Gas card
top up Electricity key
confess & pay up at the library :mad:
change lightbulb on outside light - it's been nearly 3 years now so DD says
deal with paper pile on every flat surface
stop eating so much

Will update later

lula x

[Deleted User]

Hi Lula,

Just dropped in to say hi, I am still about but can't get on here as my mum is here helping me with the house and kids etc..

Hope that your car hunting goes well, I had a giggle about your dad and his friends car...parents!

Will try and get on a bit more next week and check that you are okay.

Well done on the debt, it is going down still

Tea
xx

moo2moo

Hallo Tea, nice to see you're back!

Lula - no news on the car? Did you find one?

I'm finally declaring the carpest week to date over and done with. Added to last saturdays mad spending day with the purchase of a computer desk for DDs room which went disasterously badly. Ordered on-line as a collect in store. Couldn't phone the store so went there anyway to discover after a 45 minute trip to Liverpool that the box was damaged with bits missing. Replacement bits ordered guaranteed for next day delivery. They finally arrived 2 days later after OH had nipped out for 5 mins. Phoned the depot to find they were scheduled for a futher 2 deliveries on mon and tue, whilst we're away, prior to being sent back to sender. OH took the kids to Rhyl last night to collect them. Not a happy chappy. Desk built. DD1 over the moon.

My boss was a superstar and allowed me to rehome a surplus 5 year old PC. Perfect for DD1 and 2 to learn the basics on and to keep them off this one. All it was missing was a screen. Managed to get a new HP 19" for £65 reduced from £180 so OH has that and DD1 has his old one. OH fell asleep whilst assisting DD2 to make DD1s b/d cake so DD2 ate the cake mix resulting in tummy ache and a trip to Mr Ts for an emergency cake and alcohol.

Next weeks not going to be a cheap one either, 4 days away in a hotel which the DDs are really looking forward to but as OH keeps helpfully pointing out he spends most of his life in hotels and theres nothing special about them. Obviously I won't be cooking or cleaning or ironing for 4 days. How can that not be special? Best of all one of us will need to be in the room whilst the DDs are sleeping so thats a huge pile of books packed in anticipation. Downside to all this is the debt seems to be increasing rather than decreasing. I will stomp on myself at the end of next week and am taking only cash so that we can't splurge.

moo2moo

So is no news good news Lula?

Yesterday ended up being a fairly productive day. Blitzed the house prior to taking DDs riding. Spent the usual £20 on lessons but have cancelled next week as its going to be a bit mad trying to fit it all in. I've agreed to go into work on friday and do an extra long day. Probably a bit of a stupid thing to do as I doubt we'll get home before midnight thursday but this should allow me to take a weeks holiday over christmas. My holiday is calculated in hours rather than days so a week off is 30 hours but a 14 hour day means the remainder of the week only eats 16 hours holiday.

I still have to pack but at least all the washing and ironing is now done so hopefully that will make life easier. Obviously DD2 will want to take the things she wore yesterday.

Have lots of things ending on E-bay this afternoon so I'm hoping to get them all parcelled up ready for posting before we leave. Will post those that have paid first thing tomorrow. Fingers crossed the personal collections will all want to do that this evening, paying in cash.

Stampeede of feet across the floor upstairs indicates the imminent arrival of DD2 and her demands for breakfast. Have a good day!

Midnight_Sky_2

Hi Lula, just spent part of the morning reading through your diary and laughing out loud - DD (who is trying to catch up on Hollyoaks) keeps giving me strange looks, but I refuse to divulge my source of entertainment

Look forward to keeping up with your quest.

Love Midnight x

Bowski_1011

I wonder if Lula is still trying to get through those piles of papers lol

Lula-Hula

Hello everyone & thanks for posting & sorry for not replying until now

Tea - so nice to hear from you & I'm glad to hear you're getting help from your mum, just lie back & enjoy , thanks for posting that's made my day :j .

Midnight - hello & welcome I'm glad to hear you had some light relief from reading this thread, debt clearance can be sooooo tedious at times

Bowski - thanks for that witty comment, paperwork pile still there

Moo2 - brilliant news on both the free pc & also the holiday, think you need one, you've been sooo busy recently you deserve a break. Make sure you make the most of not having to do any chores .

I still dont have a new car, I did test drive one & then Dad decided he didnt like the car & just had a weird gut instinct about it so we walked away.

I did top up the gas & electric, did got to the library & DD insisted on paying for the lost book - only because she's still flush with birthday money though :rolleyes: anyway, it saved me £ 5 :eek: . I did laugh when she asked if she'd get a refund if she did find the book, think she's picking up moneysaving ways . I still havent fixed the outside light or been to the allotment .

Yesterday I had plans to do stuff but dad rang me at 10 to say he'd just discovered the autotrader website... trying to get both us viewing the same cars was almost impossible, mainly because we were looking for different things; I'm looking at the pretty cars with all the sparkly bits & extras like sunroof & spoilers etc ... dad meanwhile, is looking at the diesel ones & has never felt the need for a sunroof :rolleyes: . An hour and a half :eek: later I didnt have the energy to do anything but I'm coming round to his way of thinking though as you get a lot more miles out of a tank & the road tax is only £35 & I suppose I need to think about that more seriously.

I've just made another £50 payment off cc1 so that brings it down to £2,700.
when I could drag myself away from the auto site I did work out that if I keep paying the same off cc1 each week & over pay a bit on cc2 then I could get the debt down to just under £ 6,000.

We went to the local co op on saturday & I spent £21.08 p in there but my insitnct is that we dont have enough food for the week, however I think if I get a bit inventive & also get to the allotment when it stops raining I think £7 will be plenty.

It's too late for any more sensible :rolleyes: chat now

G'nite
lula x