The Quest - 2

Lula-Hula

Having just unistalled google chrome :mad::mad::mad: I return.

I wrote a very witty post ( you'll now just have to take my word for it ) & I got blocked out again :rolleyes:

I like my old style internet explorer & firefox which have happily held all my passwords & email addresses for years without any nonsense at all. Shiny chrome comes along & wreaks havoc & now I have security concerns but hey ho, it's not like I have loads of money to steal now is it :rotfl:

Phone didnt stop ringing yesterday & one call from A & E where DD1 works to say she'd been brought in with chest pains - suspected angina :eek:

Turns out its not, but is the same condition she had last year which was treated with an intravenous potassium top up, as it's got worse she now has to be on beta blockers for the rest of her life I know, it could be much worse & she was released last night so obviously not life threatening.

My spends for yesterday what with sponsoring DD, car parking, & hospital tuck shop in case of overnight stay came to £15. My food consumption was minimal as I was just too stressed & tired so will make up for it today .

My plan is to pay £600 off the debt by July 1st - which will leave me owing a tidy £5,000 - hunt around for a balance transfer deal & then blag it :cool:

Not quite sure how I'm going to pay the £600 off but it seems that setting a short term target/challenge like that might encourage me to really focus & not be naughty at all. That's 9 weeks away & I should also be able to lose the entire 18 pounds in weight by then too but my main focus is the debt. I think that's how I'm going to approach this now; short bursts of frenzied debt busting intersperesed with the odd week of usual debt busting.

Best get on with some investigative work now ...

Lula-Hula

Have been busy & fed up so dont like to post when in a negative frame of mind.

I've spent £ 134.68 on groceries this month which is quite rubbish although I could have waited until tomorrow to do my tatco shop which today came to £31.28 of which £24 was on groceries & absolutely nothing on anything other than groceeries, toiletries & household items so I suppose that is an improvement of sorts.

I've paid the nasty council tax bill today too :rolleyes:. I had to top up my phone but forgot my pin code for current account so had to use savings account :mad:. Will now have to repay that along with the £30 I 'borrowed' from one of my funds & havent yet replaced.

I meant to start putting money into the savings account towards future fuel bills but DD has bessfriend staying over tonight - inset day tomorrow & yes they did only go back to school last week :rolleyes:- so I'm going to take them out tomorrow & will start the fuel fund next week.

I did get £3 LV's from a survey & have decided to save them for now in case I get any more, I have until the end of the year to use them & they can be used in loads of places.

Big thanks to Horace :A for passing on the relevant info.

I also acquired another £2 coin from Tatco this morning so now up to £90 :j what a shame I didnt start to save up for new tax disc when I got the previous one then I could have paid the £2 coins off the debt :rolleyes::mad::o

I did spend a happy couple of hours at the allotment yesterday & I may be about to acquire some freebie big rocks for my garden

I've also had some feedback about some part time work that I've applied for & hurrah, there are no prawns or leaflets or neck & shoulder jarring walks included.

Should be feeling pleased but feeling very apathetic so can only assume its hormonal & the knowledge that rather than being out & about enjoying myself, I have to keep paying off these very unfabulous debts :mad:

Horace

Lula

You're doing a grand job - I wish I had a garden to tend (I suppose I could go and look after my mum's third of an acre patch but I know that she would be screaming at me - watch this, don't dig up that, what are you doing? I told you not to do that...bla bla bla)

I seem to have spent most of the afternoon on the phone to nincompoops - and silly nincompoops who say " all our lines are busy and we cannot take your call, call back later and then when you do get through you are shoved in a queue and have to endure listening to The Entrance of The Queen of Sheba over and over again:rolleyes: before you get to speak to another nincompoop:rolleyes: Why can't jobcentre people be like Revenue & Customs people? No queues to answer phones there and they're polite (maybe its because they want to get their grubby little paws on your money and with the jobcentre its a case of oh well, they haven't got a job so they can wait around all day until we can be bothered to speak to them:mad:).

I did hear that the weather will be improving slightly for the weekend which is good for all gardeners out there and I may even have time to have another go and planting some seeds - the last lot didnt bother growing:rolleyes:

LVs are useful but I do know that if you have paypal then instead of LVs money can be paid to paypal - personally I prefer LVs because I can treat myself at Starbucks to a Caramel Coffee Macchiatto.:cool:

Lula-Hula

Hello,

I return in far better humour than the last few days.

Sympathy Horace re dealing with JC people :rolleyes: my local housing & council tax benefit dept are like that. They refuse to ring the Tax Credit peeps to find out how much I am entitled to, saying they're not allowed to & it just means they undercharge me on the rent & council tax for a couple of months, then send me nasty letters saying that they've undercharged me & I have to pay it all back - it makes budgeting very difficult :mad:

On the same note The TC peeps are lovely & always tell me that the benefits peeps are lazy jobsworths who know dam well they can ring up to find out my entitlements & therefore avoid interfering with my budget.

So lovely are they that this week they appear to have paid me an extra week's cash 3 separate & slightly different amounts went into my account this week although I know one extra one was for next week because of the bank holiday.

Uunfortunately they didnt tell me they were going to do this so I skinted myself by paying an extra £30 in to keep up with CC payments :rolleyes: but we have plenty of food in so I shant worry & will just make an extra £100 card payment :A

DD, Bessfriend & I had a great day out in Windsor yesterday, met up with my friend there who insisted on paying for mini golf & half the lunch bill & gave me a £2 coin so I only ended up spending about £15 & got 2 x £2 coins :j I'm now up to £94 & feeling very optimistic.

DD1 came round in the evening & seems very well & not at all concerned about her 'concition' to the extent that she couldnt remember where she'd left her pills :eek: sure she's just trying to elicit more sympathy & freebies from me, like the deposit for renting her own place :rolleyes:.

This morning I've done one load of washing which is now drying on the line, been to do some recycling & collected some big rocks from Bessfriends garden which they no longer want. I left with a bottle of wine (freebie as a gift to me ) & the pleasure of DDs company for a few hours :rotfl:

I now have to think of smething creative to do with these rocks which will take my mind off the fact that I'm about to do anouterh trip to the charity shop to get rid of more stuff that should be ebayed . I'm still debating the merits of buying a digital camera vs the cost

I also cleared out my wardrobe last night & released all my summer clothes form their winter habit at... am seething as I can only fit into 3 tops. So I have a new plan; I have put all the clothes I dont fit into in my wardrobe which consists of 8 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of combats, 2 skirts, 4 dresses & over 20 tops, and shut the doors. I love everything in the wardrobe & hate the tiny amount of clothes that I do fit into so have hung them on a rail where I have to look at them all the time & hopefully that will annoy me enough into losing the weight. I've put the 4lbs I lost back on again :mad::mad::mad:

It's wrong but it bothers me that I am now so beyond being a smoker that I wouldnt even contemplate starting again to lose the weight, the thought of it makes me cringe.

I've now spent enough time on here so need to burn off my ham sandwich, packet of crisps & banana by shifitng some rocks about,

bye for now
lula
xx

Horace

Lula - I have also had to deal with the housing benefits people at the council, it has taken them several days to send me a form about self employment and most of the wretched thing refers to directors of limited companies and paying VAT:rolleyes: I am going to put down my start date as being 28 April as this is the day that I was told to put on the form by HMRC for my working tax credit so despite having to do a self assessment for the period 08/09 whilst test trading I figure that they wont need this information as my official on my own unsupported start date is 28 April:j

Went to a local shop today, she dries wedding bouquets, sells fresh ones, sells other stuff and runs a frock exchange - she is struggling but after chatting with her (am still trying to get rid of this wedding gear), I may not actually sell stuff with her but may acquire a filing cabinet for free:j

I am planning a lazy weekend..although I may do a bit of work. I also need to check and see when my chum's wedding dinner is due to finish because I won't be staying in an hotel at her suggestion and despite the dark intend to drive home (I hate driving in the dark but will do it if I have to). Mind, I am getting to the point that if she rings me one more time to moan then I will tell her to stick her wedding dinner where the sun don't shine:rotfl:

Anyway Lula - I hear that Numpty will be heading down your way again soon, perhaps you can persuade him to do some digging and shifting of heavy things?

Lula-Hula

Good evening,

Cant believe it's been 2 days since my last post. By now dear Shoe Gal will be feeling all tanned & chilled & hopefully having a great hol

I've actually ended up having a lovely week end Friend came over yesterday to help with shifting of large rocks & they have now been arranged into a rockery type thing at the end of the garden where the large vicious bush was ousted. I managed to dig up a few plants that had spawned & have dotted those about & also had a tiny trip to the garden centre where I spent £8.00 on plants & seeds & £2.80 on a bag of pic n mix for DD :rolleyes:.

I now have more seeds in trays on the windowsill & the hollyhocks have now been planted amongst the rocks & so far DD has only managed to trample on one - she's convinced that I've arranged said rocks for her to play stepping stones on. I also ended up having to buy fish & chips for supper as I was far to tired to possibly cook anything remotely edible :rolleyes:

Last night we lit loads of tea lights & sat out til it got dark which was really lovely although the neighbours 2 doors down playing James Brown's sex machine tune very loudly did kind of detract from the peace & quiet :rotfl:It was however very chilly & being an eco type I couldnt possibly entertain a ghastly patio heater type thing so instead I hatched a cunning plan ....

Today the plan was put into practice; to have fire pit in the middle of the pea shingle filled paving slab circle. I am ( if you'll excuse my trumpet blowing) a fabulously resourceful peep; having cleared a space in the centre of the pea shingle I put in the concrete ring which has been lurking around the garden waiting for a purpose for ages. Hey presto a self contained fire pit. Ok, so the concrete ring did crack when the fire got hot but it doesnt matter as we dont need to move it & have covered it with a paving slab & replaced the wooden picnic bench over the lot as it was before my brainwave . Building fires & keeping them alight is fun & kept us amused all afternoon scavenging for wood to burn. Friend also managed to jump over the fence & into the nursery field & return with another log & large tree stump that I'd been eyeing up for some time :shhh:

We now have a firepit & seating in the form of all the logs I've scavenged & can sit around like fairies on toadstools in the lovely twilight, watching the mooon & stars & listening to our new NEIGHHHbours - yes we now have horses in the field, which is great as we were missing the ponies I shall be keeping my carrot peelings for the compost bin now though as I do not want hooves trampling all over my new rockery :eek:

Having washed all traces of fire scent from both myself & D I have been a very good girl & made payment of £60 to CC1 & £ 25 to CC2 so the total now outstanding is £ 5,543.34. I have challenged myself to clear £600 by July 1st so had best get to bed now & come up with another cunning plan to achieve this

There isnt one bit of me that doesnt ache :rolleyes: so I should sleep well tonight

bye for now
lula
xx

[Deleted User]

Hi Lula,

Your garden sounds great and what a brilliant idea with the firepit, next door have a firepit but they don't tend to use it; I'm wondering if it's because it's too close to the fence that they built.

Well done on the overpayment to the cc, your totals are going down brilliantly.

Hope you had a good sleep.

Tea
x

Lula-Hula

Bon soir mes amis

thanks Tea, I slept like a log / rock :rotfl:

I woke up at 6.30 & leapt out of bed to perform some yoga before dashing off for a cold shower & some wheatgrass juice ..... :eek:

Ok, that's a lie, the alarm went off at 6.30 & I dragged myself out of bed & attempted some yoga type stretches while still half asleep then had a warm shower & coffee

I took DD to school & walked to the next village along the canal & saw a houseboat for sale which got me all wistful again. I spent £10.86 in waitrose of which £6.72 was on groceries & that includes 2 reduced bags of salad. Another 20 minute walk home & I discover that my tax credits have gone up ( only by £6.50 a week but it's still up )

Forgot to mention yesterday that we discovered that we have robins nesting in our shed :jThe door is so ill fittng due to tree roots that there's a huge gap under the door which robin sized birds can get under, but fortunately not magpies. I found the nest by accident when looking for tennis balls & it has 5 little tiny fluffy chicks in. We now have to open the door & rummage really quietly as if we wake them their beaks automatically open :rotfl: I put some bread crumbs & a dish of water by the door so the mrs robin doesnt have to travel too far - after quintuplets she must be shattered :rolleyes:

I am all confused with work this week as due to the bank holiday I'm a day behind but that's ok as tomorrow is my midweek allotment day & there'll be plenty to do there if not so much work on.

DD has been pushing her boundaries again & getting very stroppy when she doesnt get her own way, so after tea we went for a bike ride along the canal & all she could moan about then was how much she ached I know how she feels but am determined to make it a regular thing for about half an hour 3 times a week.

I've also been ponderng how all this debt busting impacts on her & as she's growing up so quickly & will soon not want to be seen in public with me :rolleyes: I have to make the most of the time & have decided to take the debt repayments easy during the summer hols & focus on really scrimping during term times. It'll make it easier for me to stay focused too I think, doing it in bursts rather than a neverending life of misery & denial. Ok that's an exageration but you get what I mean I'm still struggling with the thought of doing this for the next 2 years, so tackling it in 6 or 7 week chunks with a week or two's respite in between should be easier worth a try anyway.

Right now got to check emails for any surveys & then off to bed with a book, had to get it renewed at the library today as never seem to have time to read at the moment

bye for now
lula
xx

moo2moo

Hi Lula,

Taking debt busting easy over the hols sounds like a great idea. Just trying to break even over school holidays makes me feel like an ogre. The DDs seem to want to go to the zoo £50 followed by the aquarium £35 and then theres pony club £40 and childcare £80 and thats an entire weeks wage swallowed up and then some before we've reached the weekend. I spend that little time with them normally that its nice to be able to take them somewhere special but everything seems to cost a small fortune.

Hollyberry

Hiya Lula

I now have houseboat envy by proxy. I've always wanted to live on the water, although the genes seem to indicate this would be a bad idea. My father used to live on the canal, one day went shopping, came back, lots of bubbles, no boat... :eek:

Pacing yourself on the debts sounds like a great idea, particularly as it means you can have some more fun over the summer hols with DD. Although I have to say that horses next door, excavations in the garden, making fire, and robin husbandry sound exactly my idea of a good time - both aged 6-7ish and now.

Have a lovely sunny Wednesday.