I'm going to do a diary too :)

[Deleted User]

All sounds good
re: scaling back expectations at work and limiting what is your responsibilty and what isnt it is certainly something Ive had to do over the last year and (when I remember to do it!) has helped with my stress levels about it all enormously. Im sure focusing on the fact that you dont have to be there forever can help (though when youre in the middle of it its still tough!)

Looking forward to a pic of the picture! and the dress sounds cute!

Good news on the neighbour issue- not nice to feel like there is bad feeling. what are you planning on extending (sure I could read back and find out) I do wonder sometimes whether it might be worth looking for big 2 beds with the scope for extending to 3 rather than some of the tiny 3 beds for the same or higher prices for example..... I will wait to hear your progress!

re: food shopping I do think food has gone up in the last year- but I think for us some of the creeping up budget is from buying more treats/ "nicer things" rather than sticking to a very strict budget (so a bar of chocolate/crisps/fizzy drinks was a treat or came from other people rather than an every day/week occurunce it may have crept up to!...we were probably much healthier last yr!)

gerbiljo

oooooops!!!!!!!!!

gerbiljo

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vl2588

ooh building pyramids sounds cool, you could rig up a winch of some sort, or move it along on lots of small logs, or find wheels from somewhere...or just get some slaves

Good luck!

P.S I think you deserve more money regardless of pressue or responsibility as you are already under lots of pressure/stress so still worth asking IMO!

vl2588

That dress is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cha97michelle

Lovely dress.

I think we are guilty too of a few more treats creeping in. I can be good for a while, and then I get the urge to splurge.

gerbiljo

Thank you

The problem is I think sometimes my splurges build up too much and I go a bit mad, i try to restrict it to voucher treats but of course the vouchers don't come quick enough!!

The husband is contemplating a trip to the disney store today hehe

Just to say, all beams moved!!! we dragged them on bricks and blocks, the first one took ages at the end we had really good system, of course we both ache now. The heaviest was 170kg and there were 9 beams in total. It means we have done a big chunk now though, excited about the next step Will leave it at that for now....bound to do some spending today!!

gerbiljo

Deleted_User wrote: »

All sounds good
re: scaling back expectations at work and limiting what is your responsibilty and what isnt it is certainly something Ive had to do over the last year and (when I remember to do it!) has helped with my stress levels about it all enormously. Im sure focusing on the fact that you dont have to be there forever can help (though when youre in the middle of it its still tough!)

Looking forward to a pic of the picture! and the dress sounds cute!

Good news on the neighbour issue- not nice to feel like there is bad feeling. what are you planning on extending (sure I could read back and find out) I do wonder sometimes whether it might be worth looking for big 2 beds with the scope for extending to 3 rather than some of the tiny 3 beds for the same or higher prices for example..... I will wait to hear your progress!

re: food shopping I do think food has gone up in the last year- but I think for us some of the creeping up budget is from buying more treats/ "nicer things" rather than sticking to a very strict budget (so a bar of chocolate/crisps/fizzy drinks was a treat or came from other people rather than an every day/week occurunce it may have crept up to!...we were probably much healthier last yr!)

Sorry I nearly missed your message there! We must have been on at the same time:rotfl:

I think I need to concentrate on that with work I hope if its helped you it will help me too!!

We are extending our 3 bed house to a 4 bed house. We have a 6 foot side way and we gained planning permission to go up double storey. Currently we have 2 decent sized bedrooms and a box room which is my daughters room, because I have 7 cats and prior to her they got the second bedroom:cool:, I need them to have a room because they are inside cats and litter trays etc. Also I have 3 dogs and I feel its important for the cats to have somewhere 'dog free' and the dogs are not allowed upstairs. The extension will allow us 1-to extend our kitchen diner, 2-give my husband an office downstairs so we get the computer out of the lounge, 3-a jutting out bit on the end will create a downstairs cat room. Upstairs it will give us 1- an ensuite and wardrobe room to our room and 2- a fourth bedroom which will be created by pinching a bit off the second room and a bit will come off our room to create a corridor. So we get 4 rooms, they are all smaller but I think the house will be more functional for us. My daughter will have the new room and the old cat room will be a playroom/ my office/ art room type thing. My daughter current room would be for the new baby(in the future), with an option of switching to the old cat room if we are still here when the child is older. My only concern is that the cats new room is quite a lot smaller, so to compensate we are attempting to enclose our courtyard type garden so they can have free access outside. For us though it means we can have a clean hair free upstairs and have new flooring etc, I hope it all works out.
I think buying somewhere you can extend is a good idea but there are definitely a few considerations, if my husband wasn't so good at this kind of thing we probably wouldn't have financially gained anything from the extension because it had to be piled due to our neighbours trees, so the cost for a builder would be huge, but as my husband is in the industry and his dad is too we have been able to buy materials using his trade accounts etc and my husband has done it nearly all himself so we will likely gain a little financially from it though we need it to get some order to our lives more than to make money if that makes sense!!

I completely agree with the shopping a couple of years ago I was going out with £30 in my wallet cash, now we are definitely indulging more....

gerbiljo

HI!!
Mortgage day!!
Today we have gone under £2 a day interest, £1.95 to be precise how cool is that, a total of £397.19 came off the balance from our £457.51 a month charge so from next month presuming interest rates stay the same we shall be taking £400 off the balance just with our monthly payment, that's exciting I wanted to update the form so I have been a bit sneaky naughty and paid the extra off now out of my petrol money for the CB I usually get so thats me for overpayments this month. I noticed my british gas direct debit has gone down so I must be in credit and so I made it a nice round figure by sneaking a little extra off the balance, though it might mean driving snail speed and no air con (not that I usually use it but I have submitted a couple of times in the really hot weather) if my petrol allowance is getting a bit low hehe. Oh and I hope my new gas/elect supply comes off next month rather than this....

Oh so balance stands at £46700 (I mustn't forget to add the balance as I forget of course the signature changes every time I update- it's a shame in a way that it doesn't 'mark' it at that point, but oh well, one day when I read this back I'll be annoyed I didn't keep writing the balance in!!!)

Got my picture really pleased with it will post a pic at some point. We were out when it came so had to go up to the post office and whilst we were there we missed the dress so I need to go back up there for that now.

We have had a lovely time off so far. My daughter went horse riding on tuesday, I was so proud she's looking really good, she moves well with the horse its so cute, we showed her photos of the horse after and she said 'what a beautiful horse' . The house we go to is so amazing all the children were running around playing hide and seek and messing in the hay barn not a computer game in sight, it really made me think about the future and what we want though I'm not sure I'm up to more or that even if we tried for more I'd be able to achieve it within our daughters childhood...anyway. We have been out for lunch we got our daughter a couple of disney books for xmas/ birthday and I got a couple of dresses for £8 each. We also bought some more bricks (naughty) I stuck them on the 'investment credit card' we got a good price for them and my husband has bought the drainage stuff. Yesterday we went to an inflatable day which was only £3 for unlimited access though our daughter got a bit scared and was telling everyone not to bounce!! We were going to take her to a princess party today today at the local sure start centre which is where her preschool is but I haven't booked it so I doubt it will happen today!! I think I'd like to buy a vtech camera for our daughter for xmas and after that I think we're done, we've got odd things here and there now so I think thats enough as she will be overwhelmed anyway

Anyway enjoying time off, feeling human again, going to see our friends tomorrow (she has little children so hopefully our daughter will get a chance to mix) and think we're be doing some more building today. All good, will update the MFIT now

gerbiljo

Quick post, been a bit rubbish on keeping this up to date with spending...we did £48 on the food shop, despite not needing much we bought lots of yummy things... i think I might have to amend our food budget at some point!

Have had a lovely week off and we did spend a lot but we also worked on the house a lot and i am pleased with the balance of the week. We took our daughter to an inflatables event, swimming, horse riding, it was all good , coming back to work was tough though I have been instantly stressed again but I guess thats an unavoidable situation!! Just a quick update as I have been avoiding the computer for a break so I seem to have a lot to do today