Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

moo2moo

Gave in and went to the trade counter in the end detouring home via Hobbycraft (zero spendy) and Mr Ts.(£34.21 and an awful lot of pizza).Purchased a complete toilet repair kit which contains absolutely everything you need to repair a toilet appart from the giant seal that connect cistern to pan and prevents the contents of the cistern gushing onto your feet the instant you turn the water back on. I learnt this the hard way last time round. Need to visit a plumbing merchant to purchase this as Screwfix only stock the cheap and nasty and incredibly leaky variety.

Still at least I have everything I need to do it providing I remember to take a pipe spanner in with me...and a jigsaw to do another job and a pair of mole grips for something else. Also have to work out what to do with the 12 hours that I'm supposed to be spending in school today. Beyond repairing a loo, fitting a piece of worktop and putting up three shelves I'm clueless. Will be making it up as I go along. Its raining so its not like I can escape outdoors to paint fences and railings which is this summers massive job.

The DDs are spending the entire day at the stables and have packed enough spare clothing, food and horse riding stuff to fill the boot of the car and overflow onto the back seat. They are both ridiculously excited at the prospect of 10 hours of shovelling shoite in the rain with an exam thrown in as its also the end of stage 3 of the Pony Club award scheme. Bet they'll be super mega grumpy tonight as a result of being totally kettled. Fortunately OH gets to pick them up and deal with that side of their stroppiness.

moo2moo

Whoo hoo its almost the weekend. Admittedly its only Wednesday but since Thursday is in fact Friday its close enough for me. Planning to do as little as possible at school today to make up for yesterdays v. long day. Was having so much fun that I got carried away and only realised at 3:30 that I'd yet to stop for lunch. Fortunately OH was home early so didn't get home to any unexpected puddles from the hairball. Played with lots of power tools and installed a work top and a copuple of shelves before getting high on silicone sealant. Dismantled and rebuilt a toilet without flooding the place on my very first attempt. Was most impressed. Bet next time round its a total disaster.

OH finally met the puppy and is just as smitten as the rest of us.

Plans for today include tackling the carpet in the bathroom. Not that we actually have carpet in the bathroom. Its currently sporting wall to wall laundry thanks to the DDs tidying their bedrooms and depositing their muddy riding gear in their before using several dozen towels to have a bath. Six or so loads should clear it. OH joy. Of course its peeing down so I forsee much use of the tumble drier. Cheated and used the dishwasher too yesterday. Couldn't be bothered washing up or at least I did wash up but it would have taken even longer had I not hidden most of the dirty stuff in the dish washer. Have 3 days until the wrinklies invade. Could really do with 3 weeks. Allt he E-bay auctions end tonight and at least 2/3rds of it will sell so need to package them up and get them to the post office tomorrow assuming people pay up quickly which will clear three big boxes out of the way.

moo2moo

Did even less work than planned thanks to the builders plunging the place into darkness. Lack of power meant all the audible warning started up and the place was ear-shatteringly noisy. Left them to it. DDs are now dancing round the house to the Glee Soundtrack which is nothing short of fabulous, especially the track from Wicked! the musical. Watching the snow float past the window. Its rather pretty although I'm glad we're indoors as its v. windy too. Going to light the fire as the house is on the chilly side and the DDs are objecting to having to wear coats indoors.

First load of laundry done but the dryer is in the oputhouse and I really really really don't want to leg it across the garden getting soaked in the process, I'm too much of a wuss for that.

moo2moo

Postie has been brining with him two pairs of remarkably pucker looking Crocs. If I didn't know how little I'd paid for them it would never have crossed my mind that these were unlikely to be the real thing. DD1 is rather cheesed off that yesterdays undelivered parcels contain her Crocs whilst DD2 is already wearing hers.

Seem to be having a rather productive day despite spending most of it at the PC. One £3 instant paying survey done, two one week projects paying a total of £12 in gift vouchers mid-way to completion and three DooYoos written. I'm still a million miles from payout but I'm getting there slowly. Not much chance of me writing my 500th DoYoo by the end of the year, not unless I ramp up to one a day which seeing as how I'm struggling to write one a week is rather unlikely.

Since today is the last day of the month and its too cold and wet and snowy to go anywhere I'm going to declare March as officially over and declare my spending as underbudget but only just. Total spends for March £1656.09 and total spend for the first quarter of 2010 £5751.84 This is way over my predicted spend of £5001 which considering that two of the three months were free from Council Tax does not bode well for the remainder of the year.

Eager_Elephant

Hi moo,

It would appear my training of DH is failing severely!!

I noticed again tonight (and thought I would report in!!) that DH has a pair of dirty jeans which have been in the utility room for 3 weeks now. They started off on top of the tumble dryer, then progressed to a box we were sorting out. Last weekend they were on the floor while DH declared he was clearing up the utility room, I waited but they are still in there albeit draped over a container and not on the floor.
I wonder how long it will take for them to be moved - I refuse to move them myself.
I will report in when they are finally removed.

Also DH cleared out the cat litter trays 2 days ago and the bin bag full of dirty cat litter is in the utility room by the back door still. Not sure why he can't carry it out to the dustbin or into the kitchen bin and then out to the dustbin?!?
Tonight I cleaned out the trays and refused to move the bin bag, of course, me being perfect my bin bags are already in the dustbin!!!

I assume Moo that your OH is no better?!!?

EE

moo2moo

Sorry EE you lost me at the concept of emptying the dustbin. Surely at the point you can't physically cram any more in and it begins to overflow onto the surrounding area normal practice is to remove bin liner, place on floor either next to bin or at front door so that whatever putrifying detritus is in there leaks out onto the floor or blows merily off down the road and then continue using bin minus liner. Isn't that on page one of the "How to be the perfect husband" handbook? It contains many other helpful hints for the newly married including the wonderous statement WIFE is an acronym (Wash, Iron, Fornicate, Etc.).

Moving swiftly on.... E-bay sales finally ended last night at a rather pathetic £33, still its £33 more than I had yesterday. Some of the 99p stuff didn't shift and am v. tempted to drop it off at the charity shop just to see the back of it. Most of its been paid for so will be spending the morning packaging stuff up so that I can drop it off at the Post Office this afternoon on my way back to work.

Was planning on taking the DDs to the zoo today but have been battered by gale force winds all night, its lashing down with rain too so any sensible animal will be in hibernation. Seems pointless parting with £50 to get cold and wet and not really see much so will be coming up with an alternative form of entertainment.

Saw Alice in Wonderland last night. Huge disappointment which resulted in DD1 having nightmares. Don't rush to see it.

Plans for today include, rather surprisingly, laundry with a spot of ironing thrown in, the odd bit of vacuuming and an awful lot of tidying up. The mini blitzes I've had over the past few days are barely keeping up with the mess that two small children and an OH can make whilst not really doing a lot. Kept the DDs amused yesterday with Wii Playground which is lots of very varied very short games perfect for those with the attention span of a gnat.

moo2moo

Whooo hooo its officially the start of the holidays!!!!!!!!!! Plans for today include rerouting the chicken mesh fencing across the top third of the garden in order to restrict the puppy to an area thats clearly visible from the house. Doing this also restricts access to the pond just in case its a swimmer and it reduces the number of escape routes into the field of sheep that we have to block up until shes too big to fit through the gaps. Of course it means a trip to a farm store assuming that they're open on a bank holiday. Might be as easy to clear out all the crud (of which theres an awful lot) in readiness for fencing tomorrow. OH made a start by taking the chainsaw to the last of the massive chucnks of tree trunk. Hopefully this will give us another few weeks use from the log burner as the temperature plummetted again last night.

House is still not tidy enough for tomorrows inspection by the wrinklies but I'm hoping cleaning the bathroom, putting away the last of the laundry and chucking all the stuff lurking on the kitchen worktops will be enough. Need to come up with a cunning plan for dinner too as the freeer contains several hundred sausages and not a lot else. Something to do with a very picky DD2 who will only eat sausages and hates all other forms of meat and an OH who refuses to accept that anything not containing meat is a foodgroup.

moo2moo

OH has transformed Land Rover Land into an almost usable room from a 12' square dumping ground with 1' wide path strewn with many grimy oily obstacles. Turned out all he needed was an incentive and pointing out that the puppy would be living in there as it has a washable floor (when you can find it) was all the incentive he needed. Hes thrown out tons of stuff including his giant cardboard box collection kept "just in case". In fact he got so carried away that he even rediscovered the windowsill.

Hes departed to the land of nod so I've started washing the floor. Am hoping that three moppings will be enough as the first was merely smearing wet slime around, the second made a fair improvement but the water looked much like I'd expect a coal miners bath water to look so perhaps third time lucky. Still have tons to do before pup arrives but we're getting their albeit very slowly. Have attacked more of the debris from the garden with the chainsaw and transformed yet more salvaged wooden shelving into kindling. Its raining though so outdoor progress has halted until tomorrow.

Have almost reached the bottom of the laundry basket so hopefully one more load should do it which leaves the remainder of the ironing, a spot of vacuuming and the dreaded bathroom clean to be achieved before 11am tomorrow.

End of month figures from March are going to look far better than anticipated thanks to a forgotten about change in OHs payday which means hes been paid for this month and around a third of next month. Unfortunately it means its six very very long week until his new payday. Still I'd rather have the cash in our account than in theirs and it will knock a wodge off the interest as the bank will see it as a huuge overpayment, one of the many joys of having a flexi-account.

moo2moo

Have been thinking of all the things I'd really really like. Note when x-mas came around I couldn't think of a thing. now the list is seemingly endless. In no particular order when I attain the heady heights of debt freeness I really really fancy:

A Radley wallet... just because I've always had those naff canvas velcro ones and I'm hoping that a v.lurvely posh wallet will be a reminder that we have to work hard for our money, it never stretches as far as you want it to and perhaps I'll think twice before frittering it away.

Wii Just Dance - because Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and because I told myself I was not going to purchase any more Wii games until I was totally and utterly debt free.

Tickets to see Wicked! the musical because I know the DDs will love it and because I really really want to see it and have done since it was launched. I do have £50 of theatre tokens towards it which my dad gave us as a Christmas gift the year we got married fortunately they never expire although they could well be antiques by the time I get around to using them.

Ok so the list is rather short and sweet but I have another 188 days until I turn 35 to clear the last £15K and obtain the above goodies. Clearly I'm barking.

Bluefire

moo2moo wrote: »

Tickets to see Wicked! the musical because I know the DDs will love it and because I really really want to see it and have done since it was launched. I do have £50 of theatre tokens towards it which my dad gave us as a Christmas gift the year we got married fortunately they never expire although they could well be antiques by the time I get around to using them.

If you'd like to see Wicked on the cheap try to plan to go in January/February time - the 'Get into London Theatre' promotion runs every year around then & top price tickets are heavily reduced; early this year I saw Wicked from row C in stalls for £35 a seat with no booking fees