Trying to take the stress out of the debt - little steps

BEAT_THE_DEBT

You sound very organised well done i "do" christmas all year to help with cost, my wardrobes are full with boxes not clothes! Keep doing what your doing.:T

Triggles

Ha. In and out of B&Q and we just stuck to the list. Yay. THAT doesn't happen often! LOL

Triggles

Okay, I'm feeling pretty good. We've gotten quite a bit done today that we hoped to finish, even after a few upheavals and unexpected delays. Free listing today on ebay, so got all our ebay items listed for sale. And cleaned the living room carpet. Cleaned off the shelf above the television in the living room (our junk catcher shelf!). Couple loads of laundry done. Pictures downloaded off camera onto computer file (so that it's auto backed up).

Tried to make apple crisp, but at some point in the last couple days, I strongly suspect our 3yo managed to attempt his infamous "bounce the fruit across the kitchen floor" routine with a couple apples, so they looked like they'd gone a couple rounds with a pro boxer. Happily, I found a couple tins of peaches and pears in the cupboard and used those. Yum! Just put peaches on one side of the pan and pears on the other, with the "crisp" crumbly topping over the whole thing and popped it in the oven. Came out great! Will have to keep some tinned fruit handy for this type of thing in the winter - is so quick and easy plus inexpensive. And very MSE as I don't have to worry about tinned fruit getting nasty like you do with fresh fruit if you don't use it quickly enough. I hate wasting food that way.

We're going to send a couple items in to one of those gold for cash places and see what they offer. It's mainly just bling we bought when younger that we just don't wear anymore. Would rather have the cash to help with bills than have the bling languishing in a drawer.

We had a nice roast dinner and are now relaxing watching television.

Triggles

Ah, nice new morning. Bit overcast out today, but that's okay.

Have a list of things to do today.
- put gold together to send to cash for gold place (meant to do this last night but was too tired)
- laundry
- pay rent (done)
- do my couple free bingo games and withdraw £10 built up on one free game (done)
- check email (done)
- do steriliser fluid for bottles (done)
- wash bottles (done)
- get receipt from electrician that is coming to fix ceiling fan
- check items for sale on ebay (done)
- get baby's cotbed ready to move baby from moses basket to cotbed
- hardboil some eggs for DS's lunch and to make potato salad later today
- make some banana bread this afternoon and freeze

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of it right now. But some is done and some I am off to do now.

WillpowerFree

Hi triggles. I've been reading your diary and you sound really organised! I just thought I'd reply with a littly tip about bottles/nightfeeds. If you don't want to use the cartons of ready mixed formula cuz they're expensive then what you could do is take a bottle with water in it to bed and a little pot of formula powder and then you can mix them when it's needed. You can get a little formula dispenser with three compartments from Mothercare for a couple of quid and that makes it easier to get the formula into the bottle.

Triggles

WillpowerFree - we used to do that with DS2, however, I got read the riot act from both midwife and health visitor, as they stated (and admittedly it also says on the formula cartons) that the powdered formula is not sterile and can sometimes have spores (or something like that) of stuff in it that can make the baby quite sick, and so it needs to be mixed with water heated over 70 degrees initially. So I heat the water, let it cool slightly, mix the bottles, and put them in fridge, warming them up in a cup of warm water to room temperature when he is ready for a feed. Actually the MW & HV wanted me to do the whole "heat the water, mix the formula" just before each feed, and not prepare them and refridgerate them, but can you imagine?!?! Impossible!!! DH & I went over this a number of times, mulling the whole "heat the water" thing, as we didn't do it with DS2 and he's fine. But there's that whole "god, if he DID get something because we didn't heat the water to kill the stuff, we'd feel awful!" *sigh*

I've actually been using the fridge bottles and warming up the bottles at night, until last week, as my back has seized up and been spasming badly, to avoid extra stress and strain on my back (going up and downstairs, etc).

Triggles

Whew - crisis reared up, but averted! (not without a lot of DIY related swearing though! :rolleyes: ) Electrician came and put in the new motor in the ceiling fan. DH (who had taken all the fan blades off to prepare the fan for the electrician) then had to put all the fan blades back on the new motor casing. And what happened?? One of the screws that needed to be removed to put on one of the fan blades was stripped and couldn't be removed!!! :mad: Cue much bad language and stomping about from DH. He tried a number of different things that just didn't work. Then he had to finally give in and go to B&Q and buy vise grips, which finally worked. Thank goodness! The thought of having to have THIS motor removed and replaced due to a faulty screw was just not pleasant! But all is now well in the household, as DH won the battle with the ceiling fan. :rotfl:The electrician is posting a receipt to us so we can send it to the fan company.

Lemon_Tree

my sister always filled the bottles with hot water and then just added powdered milk before she fed her babies, she didn't even heat it so that they would be used to room temp water in their night bottles, and she's got 4 very healthy children. midwives etc have a lot to answer to and how they mess with the minds of new mothers.
glad you've got the ceiling fan sorted, hope you get your money refunded.

brummiebabe

I agree with using the powder compartment thingy - used to mix it in with cooled boiled water then reheat!! Did this with all 3 of mine...no problems. We didn't keep the bottles in the fridge either...just left them on the side, after they'd been filled with boiled water, and used them as we needed them!!

Just found your diary and wanted to wish you all the best.....have subscribed!

Triggles

Lemon Tree & brummiebabe - I agree, I was skeptical at first regarding the formula as well. Until someone I know emailed me a link from the national health department saying the very same thing. *sigh* It's that guilt, you know. I had 3 older kids that did just fine with their formula that way (mixed with room temp water no problem!), but still... it's that whole "god, wouldn't I feel awful if something happened" thing. So we persist for now... I might look at it differently when he's a little older and his immune system is a bit stronger.

Have a lovely pumpkin pie baking in the oven. I'm trying to get more baking done, and we had a few tins of pumpkin puree in the cupboard that need using, so we had pumpkin bread last week and now pumpkin pie. I'll be making Christmas cakes in a few weeks, probably the beginning of October. I'd love to try making Christmas puddings, but not quite sure I'm up to that yet. I'm still perusing Delia's website and recipe for that. The whole steaming thing is new for me, haven't had much experience with that.

Have a couple items watched and one already bid on for our ebay stuff! So hooray, at least I know one item will sell. LOL I plan on ebaying baby clothing as DS3 outgrows each size, so I will start a box somewhere (under the cotbed?) to pop these items in, so that when I get a group of maybe 6, I can post them as a bundle on ebay and get rid. A little money and less clutter. Win-win!

We always buy a new ornament for the Christmas tree each year - this year it will be a "baby's first christmas" for DS3. Now I just need to decide if we will ask DD to make it (she cross-stitched the BFC one for DS2) or buy one. I want to let DS2 do some decorating - a few ideas come to mind - paper chains, stringing fruit loops (if I can find them - last I saw them in Lidls was a year ago), stringing popcorn and cranberries for the outside trees (and keep him from eating it! LOL). It'd be fun to make some coloured paper ornaments with glitter - although realistically I know that means we'll all be "sparkly" for DAYS afterwards!

We found some nice kitchen items on clearance at Sains today and bought them to put in DD's "gift box" for Christmas. She's moving into her own place in February, and we wanted to get her some little things she'll need to help save her some money. So, an inexpensive gift, but one that's useful and that she'll appreciate. Now to figure something similar for DS1 & DIL.

We did go end up spending £20 in Sains that we didn't plan on - for those Christmas items, then some tinned fruit, some ingredients for the pie, and a few baking necessities, plus a few things I forgot in the shop the other day (like eggs and butter!). I told DH one of our biggest downfalls is when we're wanting some type of junk/pudding/dessert and we don't have anything in the house. I've sorted out my baking stuff and made sure now that we have some items on hand that I can make something (even if it's just scones or simple biscuits or something) to snack on, which prevents us from going to the shop and buying stuff we just don't need to spend money on. It's much cheaper that way in the long run, because rarely do we walk in the store JUST for a pack of biscuits or something like that and walk out with just a pack of biscuits. We always seem to get unnecessary stuff then. Hopefully this will prevent that.