Jo_R's debt-free diary, slow and steady progress!

beanielou

Fabarooni

Pinky15

Well done on being under £1000 - whoo hooo! x

Keeping_Positive

Great news Jo :J

How long before No4 arrives?

Jo_R_2

List carried over...

• [STRIKE]do washing up[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]put load of laundry on[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]pay money into account from OH for shopping from 2 weeks ago[/STRIKE]
• box file to stash bills/paperwork that needs dealing with
• [STRIKE]hang curtains in conservatory[/STRIKE]
• final clean of fridge freezer ready to sell
• [STRIKE]make list of 'clutter' that can be ebayed/sold[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Ad Mag/Ebay/Autotrader in desperate search for car[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]transfer money for car tax[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]transfer savings money in preparation for car buying - eek![/STRIKE]

OH supposed to be attacking fridge freezer with work stuff to get stciker and tape residue off the front, otherwise it's good to go. Might put ad in Ad Mag maybe.

KP - am 35 weeks tomorrow, baby due 2nd October, though do keep saying when people ask that going on experiences with DD2 and DS, expecting this one more around 18th October, which is +3 weeks from my original due date.

Main priority at the mo is car hunting, esp. with it being the Bank Holiday and having OH on hand, hoping to take advantage of the time to find something, though still not having much luck!

SOA to do for September hopefully over weekend.

Pinky15

Hope you managed to get your SOA done - I love it when its done for the month and bills etc are paid - takes the weight off eh?
With regards to number 4 - after what you said you can guarantee this one will come early lol. Do you know what you are having - pink or blue?
Bet you are getting excited - I must admit I am sooo broody at the mo. Luckily lots of friends are having babies so I get to pinch lots of cuddles!:D

Keeping_Positive

Another one that has late babies then! Hope little one doesnt make you too uncomfortable especially as you have the others to run after.

Jo_R_2

Keeping_Positive wrote: »

Another one that has late babies then! Hope little one doesnt make you too uncomfortable especially as you have the others to run after.

KP and Pinky - yep am pretty much 100% sure (as much as you can be!) that this one will be late - DD1 was 8 days over and DD2 and DS both 21 days. It's deffo a boy so will be two girls, two boys, feel v. happy as best of both worlds:) It is hard at times - took themto the park yesterday and DS needs that constant supervision/help that DDs don't, and I had to strap him back in his pushchair a couple of times because I couldn't run round after him - felt bad but let him roam as much as I could.

I've got a few financial thoughts for the month/rest of the year but not enough time now to go through them. I've been jotting stuff down in my notebook (aka my lifesaver/godsend etc:D) so will do a nice neat list here later!

Main pressing thing is to get my SOA done for September remembering DDs at school so to factor in milk money and sort out van insurance - yes you heard me right, we are now the proud owners of a 9-seater minibus:D We still have our car which one of OH's friend's dads is interested in, we're not pressed to sell it immediately but would be very easy if we could sell it to someone we know.

Other thoughts are assessing Christmas fund and projected amounts by the time we get there and starting to plan presents, decluttering particular things which have been hanging around over the summer hols, and quick think through of any other baby things we need to get before the new arrival (baby bouncer/swing would be good and stock up on eco nappies are the main things that spring to mind.)

Anyway dashing into shower whilst DS still asleep and DDs watching CBBC - had a surprise phone call from children's centre to say they have spaces on a session reunning this afternoon and were we interested - after having an afternoon planned of 'nothing in particular' I bit their hand off!

Jo_R_2

Having a quick "study break" whilst wading amongst many pages of budgets, SOAs and quickly-jotted-down-notes-of-things-I-mustn't-really-forget:D

September's (late) SOA is provisionally done; as ever I will leave it a day to check I haven't forgotten anything important (doing these things late of an evening usually guarantees I will forget something:o) then print it out and scribble all over it over the course of the month:)

I do need to tot up receipts and come to final figures for August so I know what I've started September with; whether I get that done tonight or tomorrow remains to be seen. This goes hand-in-hand with sorting out the current account, transferring money into pots and seeing what I have and don't have:D

Anyway, back to the grindstone!

Jo_R_2

SOA is still ticking over as I keep thinking of things to add/change. Will finalise it this evening.

Receipts just about done - looks like I may have overspent slightly for August though will know the damage later on - keep saying this but just shows the need to keep on top of things (which I should do more really.) Shouldn't be anything I can't balance out but hate having to move money around because of that so will be more aware next month.

Off to parents for Sunday dinner if I can ever manage to get OH and DS out of bed:eek: DS has had a mammoth lie-in although I suspect from the wanderings-about upstairs that OH has picked up DS and tried to snuggle him down in our bed:A Can't see DS having any of that though, once he's awake he wants to be up and at 'em:D

Jo_R_2

It's been a week or so since I last posted... Laptop troubles culminated in us buying a new one instead of messing about any more (long story!) So here I am again:D

Right. Last month amazingly balanced out pretty much to the penny. So started September in the black.

I will need to redo my September SOA as the details were stored on the knackered laptop which I never had chance to print out:(

Lazing around in my current account are my funds for September minus all my DDs and a small handful of spends that I need to add up. There is also the remainder of my Sure Start Maternity Grant out of which we bought the double buggy, leaves us £350 to play with out of which we need a few bits.

There is also a small surplus from the monthly saver I had that finished last month. I saved £660 in total; out of this I used £250 to start another monthly saver, then we bought this laptop (the exact price escapes me at the mo but IIRC it was about £270) which leaves around £140. This will be staying put in the current account as we potentially have some van issues to sort out - I won't go into it all now as not enough time but we may need to fork out a small amount to sort it.

We currently have two vehicles - the old car and the minibus:D The car we plan to sell after our holiday (go on Saturday, hurray!) which we hope to get around 1k for which will go straight back into savings.

Main focus for this week besides totting everything up on September's SOA is keeping unplanned spends to a minimum. Need to buy a couple of things from Co-op later (pasta, yogurts and liquid soap) and driving to doctor's surgery to see midwife - necessary evil at the mo as my legs/pelvis don't like me walking very much!