Not Tiny, Not Courageous, but definitely in debt

tiny_courageous

Well haven't spent too much apart from ordering a new car seat for tiddler as he's rapidly outgrowing his infant carrier. The new one is rear facing until approx age 4 which is great, and was £83. Should be delivered Tuesday.

Meeting tiddler's new childminder this week to get things set up, just need to find out which company mine and OH's employers use for the childcare vouchers so we can get those set up asap.

One item sold on ebay, a couple more finishing over the next few days.

tiny_courageous

Car seat is here, and have just ordered a lightweight buggy that can be used for to/from the childminders. Our regular buggy, while lovely, can take up a lot of space, and the intention is to leave the buggy at the childminders during the day while I'm at work, so it makes sense to have a lightweight one for this purpose. Got £25 off and £15 of boots points, so that's good. Free delivery by Thursday. It looks fab, weighs only 3kg so uberlightweight!

Apart from that, good news is that some of the home improvements have been done by DIY, saving some money. Bad news is the boiler is on the blink. I forsee a new boiler being needed, which will blow a massive hole in my savings.

Back to work in less than 2 months now.

Tiddler loved the childminder, going again next week to stay on his own for a session, then start him off gradually building up to full time when I'm back at work.

tiny_courageous

Well, the hole in the savings has been well and truly blown. New boiler required, and due to some very old and awkward pipework in this house, it will cost around £2k.

Now, I have £2k in savings, but my savings have been supplementing my SMP and also paying for home repairs that have desperately been needed for some time. We had waited to do all these repairs until now as I've been off on mat leave so have been in the house for people to come and do work - saves having to take a day off wokr.
So, what I have done is to get a new loan with lloyds, for an extra £3k. This is at an interest rate of 4% less than the previous loan, and is over 2 years in total. With this, I have paid off the credit card completely so I now have just the one debt, and I am able to make overpayments etc where I can.

So, anticipating the boiler costs 2k, that will leave approx £1.7k left in savings with around 2 months left of mat leave. More than enough. Whatever is left when I do go back to work will be divided as an emergency fund and to snowball on the loan.

Yes it's more debt, but unavoidable. Although I had savings, it wasn't enough to cushion a near £2k spend. My aim is to dually have an emergency fund and reduce the term of the loan as much as possible. I do feel better mentally just having the one debt, and it's been so long since I used the credit card I've forgotten the pin number so I can't spend on it anyway!

In more general budgeting news, I don't need to top up my phone this month as have only spent £5 in the last two months (if I top up a tenner a month I get 1gig internet and 400 texts, I don't need 1gig of internet this month as I'm not really going anywhere so can use wifi if I need it. Just done an aldi shop for £24. Sky bill much cheaper this month, and at least the gas bill will be cheaper - no heating used!

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New boiler being fitted as we speak. At last. Well, on the positive side, have had 2 weeks of not using much gas apart from cooking so the bills should be lower!

Payday thursday, for some reason it's a bit more than I expected on SMP, but I'm not sure how they work out month to month. Back to work end of next month, booooo.

tiny_courageous

Payday has been and gone, all direct debits and standing orders (there aren't that many now) paid, and new boiler is in and up and running (although heating is off, obviously). Fitter reckons we'll save around 25% on gas bills as it's more economic than the (very) old boiler. If I keep the heating off that'll save us even more!

Plan for tomorrow is to make an inventory of all the food in the house. Because of having the boiler fitted I had to do a lot of moving round cupboards etc, and there really is a ridiculous amount of food. So, lists will be made and from that a stock list of say 15 meals that I can cook and everyone in the house enjoys.

I should, at this very moment, be ironing, but I don't want to. Plus, there is still another load of washing to do (but that won't be until tomorrow) so I may as well wait until it's all ready to do.

In terms of money, I intend to not touch the savings above what I've already used this month (£1840 for boiler and fitting etc and £400 for bills to supplement SMP). June should be a different pay packet as I'll be just starting back at work, but also childcare vouchers and childcare payments will start.

tiny_courageous

So, I inventoried the kitchen cupboards.

Have thrown away some tins that looked beyond their best (and were BBE 2010) and it doesn't include the fridge or freezer (because I know what's in there)

Soooo, the inventory is as follows
Herbs and spices
2 turmeric
2 cumin
2 star anise
1 mixed spice
1 lemon juice
1 bag chilli powder
Spaghetti Bol stock cubes
2 fajita seasoning mix
3 onion bhaji mix
1 ground ginger
1 steak seasoning
1 curry powder
1 1/2 vanilla extract
1 mixed herbs
1 ground cinnamon
1 bay leaves
1 ground nutmeg
1 juniper berries
1 whole nutmeg


Storecupboard essentials
3 1/2organic cous cous
10 1/2 bulgar wheat
2 1/2aduki beans
3 green lentils
1 rice
2 broth mix
2 corn and rice linguine
2 cranberry sauce
2 El Paso soured cream
1 cheese sauce
1 red hot chilli sauce
1 olive oil
1 veg oil
1/2 bag pasta + 2 1/2 bags pasta
45 bread sauce
5kg suet mix
8 tins coconut milk
1 balsamic dressing
1/2 cheese sauce
1/2 veggie gravy
1/2 red lentils
2 bottles fish sauce
Vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Worcester sauce
2 bicarbonate of soda
1 lasagne sheets
1 ketchup
6 onion sauce mix
1 beef gravy mix
1 Wholemeal flour
500g batter mix


Ready lunches
9x4 lentil cuppa soup
1 chicken simmer soup
1 minestrone simmer soup
5 tomato and olive bulgar wheat
1 ravioli
1 French onion soup
7 mushroom cous cous
3 lemon couscous
4 savoury rice

Meat and meat substitutes
1 corned beef
2 tuna
1 sardines
1 corned beef
7 granose meat free chicken roast
1 soya chunks

Sauces and mixes
1 kofta mix
1 pizza mix
1 focaccia mix
2 honey stir fry
3 cottage pie sauce
3 Cumberland sauce
2 yellow bean and chilli sauce
5 black pepper and tomato marinade
2 red onion and Gorgonzola stir in sauce

Veg and accompaniments
3 kidney beans
1 mixed bean salad
1 jar red peppers
1 chickpeas
2 olives
5 instant mash
8 tinned potatoes
2 sweetcorn
1 sliced mushrooms
1 sliced carrots
7 garden peas
2 tortillas
1 black olive paste

Sweet stuff
1/2 porridge oats
4 angel delight
2 strawberry milkshake
6 Christmas pudding
1 nuts
1 trail mix
1 chocolate sauce
2 instant custard
1 golden syrup
1 brown muscovado sugar
2 icing sugar
4 packets brandy sauce
2 honey

From this, I deduce I need some recipes for bulgar wheat!

tiny_courageous

So, I have found recipes for bulghur wheat and will be attempting those soon.
Today I have used up
1 focaccia mix
2 black pepper and tomato marinade

So that's a good start. I think I'll try to use at least one thing per day.
Spent £20 in Aldi today but that included baby milk and a treat of a bottle of wine for me (a delicious £3.29 merlot).
Not planning on spending anything tomorrow. Will take tiddler for a walk if the weather holds. I think, if I stretch it a bit with veg, I can make the lamb mince I got today last for 2 meals - use up the kofta kit and make some lamb and bulghar burgers from a nice recipe I found on yummly.

tiny_courageous

1 kofta mix
1 pizza mix
1 tomato and olive bulgar wheat
all used today/yesterday.
Weather is rubbish. Am having a tidy up no spend day today.

tiny_courageous

Well never mind a no spend, now the oven's knackered too. The kitchen's in desperate need of being done so I've ordered a mini oven and hob to tide us over and put feelers out for help in getting it done.
Also ordered some more storage to replace a knackered chest of drawers. Half price from argos so not bad.
Had a tidy up today. Also used up French Onion soup, 1/2 bag bulgar wheat and 1/2 bag aduki beans.
Argos storage is being delivered tomorrow, once that arrives will nip to Aldi for washing up liquid. That's my exciting plan for tomorrow. I'm trying to fill the freezer with meals to make life easier when I go back to work.

tiny_courageous

It never rains...
Washing machine on this morning, heard the boiler kicking in and thought "that's weird, there's nothing using hot water and the timer's set for later", go into the kitchen to see water pouring out of a concealed pipe. Managed to get it all switched off and got the water switched off at the stopco,ck, but no water all day, great. Plumber's coming round later. Tiddler's cousin has taken him out for a walk.
I've had enough of this house.