Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

moo2moo

At least there are some perks to this not sleeping malarky. Surveys run muchly faster and I've claimed a tenner from one which has paid out instantaneously in Amazon vouchers so River Cottage - Bread is winging its way to my door. Whether it will make my inedible homemade bread edible remains to be seen.

MrsMoo2U

Remember though Moo some debts are good debts. If you are safe in your new car and it gets you to where you need to be that can only be a good thing. I wish I could listen to myself about this though because I feel exactly the same, hence still having a really old fiesta and not a landrover.

moo2moo

Thanks Cherisong! Soemtimes it takes someone else to see blue sky through the trees.

Spent several hours at the dealership yesterday and came away in a state of shock. Who on earth pays £11.5K for a car thats been eaten by a dog? OK it might be two years old but when one of the seats is half eaten to the point of not being usable and the rear load cover has been savaged and the interior looks like it picked a fight with a tiger and lost how do the sales reps get away with saying that level of damage has been reflected in the price?

Still thats all academic really because the sales rep was a superstar at one with the universe. When I jokingly told him that what I wanted in a car was something that was as cheap or cheaper to run than my current shed with minimalistic road tax but huge he then showed me a v. nice, v. new, v. shiny, v. unaffordable bottom of the current range model with v. low mileage and then proceeded to pull rabbits out of hats. Am collecting this miracle of motoring on Friday and parting with 3K less than it said on the window. Road tax is a fiver more than a decade old tin can and its currently doing 50mpg.

The cheesy grin stretches from ear to ear.

lucielle

Well done Moo.
L

moo2moo

Still wandering round with a cheesy grin on my face. OH is finding it hilarious. Think the thing which gets me most is the air-conditioned glove box. As OH has pointed out since mine is full of girly things with wings and strings this could be an eye watering experience. Apparently its so my Maltesers don't melt on a sunny day but chocolate never lasts long enough to melt in the first place.

Went to Mr Ts for a pair of trainers for DD1 to take with her on her trip. Emerged £90 later slightly fuming. Have to make a return trip to haggle for a £5 discount on a £25 clothing spend as this isn't automatically applied at the till. V. infuriating. Now have a weeks worth of food and OH has new undies and barbie pink Animal pj bottoms. DD1 is supposed to be packing but has opted to watch tv instead.

Swapped a pile of empty jars for Lemon Curd and Apple and Ginger jam at the stables and a dozen eggs. Quite why I'm unsure. Now have gazillions of the things to dropoff at with the friend who bakes for the country markets.

Have been perusing th delights of flea-bay for a dog guard for the new motor. Looks like I can get one for a tenner instead of the main dealers £360 if I pootle over to deepest darkest Derbyshire to collect it. Tis a lovely part of the world though so it will be a grand day out.

Also need to source dogproof waterproof floor mats, fortunately I'll be replacing schools rubber door mats this week which will be the perfect size. Convenient eh? Also need to threaten the small sticky things and keep a stash of bin bags available for those days they're covered in horse shoite. Am sure the novelty will wear off pretty quickly though.

Plans for today involve lots of lemsip. Am full of cold and my head is on the verge of exploding. Hoping an afternoons baking will help or will at least keep the DDs occupied for a while. Hoping I feel human in the morning though as DD1 is shooting and a day spent in the rain in a windswet feild is less than fun when you don't feel great.

Got the handouts for next years Pony Camps. To qualify, in addition to their usual weekly riding lesson, the DDs have to attend a minimum of ten theory classes at £100 each on a Sunday evening after which ends after their usual bedtime. I don't want grumpy children first thing Monday morning and they'd rather ride than learn classroom theory anyway. Tis a wee bit annoying that they're exclude from the camps because of this but equally thats £300 I won't have to fork out for 3 days away.

Luckystepho

Hi Moo, hope you don't mind me posting, just wanted to say that doing the Marathon des Sables was a dream of mine too- and I did the race last year. It was a bit disappointing though to be honest, as we had freak weather- the first rain since so many years- and the campsite was washed away by torrential rain! This meant that we missed the first and (short) last days, although they did attempt to make up for it by making the longest day 57 miles... but although I completed the race and got my medal, it still feels like unfinished business and I want to go back and do the whole distance... it is so expensive though!

I am certainly not a natural runner, but the best advice I can give is to do lots of long walks, and get used to spending hours on your feet- you will probably end up walking more than you think, everyone does, but the cut off times are very generous.

There's a fab forum at https://www.themds.co.uk which really helped me.

You're doing great with the debt too! xx

Tesco_points_addict

Mooooooooooooooooooo, spill the beans, what you getting (and don't say a car/van)

TPAxxxxxxxxxxxxx

moo2moo

I'm getting one of these. Its a van with windows .

Luckystepho your Marathon des Sables sounds disasterous. Missing two days and then doing extra distance on the days you did get to do just wouldn't be the same although I can see the blisters being much smaller. I'd be so disapointed though.

Lula-Hula

Ooooh shiny new motor

Would it be terribly shallow & girly to ask the colour too ?

moo2moo

Of course it would be shallow and girly. In fact even more shallow and girly would be admitting that the difference between a v. expensive motor and an extortionately priced motor was influenced by colour. That really would be shallow and vain and precisely why I preferred the black one over a v. pale metallic silver that looked dirty on the forecourt. Shallow? Moi? Oh yes. The plus side being all the basic models have black door handles and roof rails and bumpers which look cheap and tacky (yep I can say that about a 20 grand motor) whilst on the black one they look most posh and expensive and deluxe and luxurious and swanky and more palatial than they actually are. Throw in the rear parking sensor (sadly too old a model to have automatic parallell parking but then the idea of lining my car up in the middle of a road next to two other posh motors, pushing a button, flooring the accelerator, closing my eyes and keeping my fingers crossed is far too scary a concept for me to actually use) and cruise control....... I thought it was posh when I realised the back windows actually openeded... although the sales guy found it most funny that I still owned a car without powered steering.... admittedly I then demonstrated my slalom driving technique because the difference between throwing a steering wheel round in three complete circles in the direction you want to go in the hopes of the car heading vaguely that way is just a bit OTT when you have powered steering and the same movement has the car doing a 360 degree circle in the middle of the road.

Continuing my theme of spending far far too much money this week I've been forced to prematurely top up my mobile. Shocking I know. Gone are the days when I can make a fivers airtime last a year. This time round I only managed 9 and a half months. Have forked out for another fiver. Boy do I know how to flash the cash.

Packed DD1s things for camp. Failry sure she has everything she needs although I'm struggling to get it all in her bag so theres less than zero chance of it all being crammed in for the return journy. Have added a bag for life to cover this eventuality. Also discovered a demand for £7 coach fare which was sourced from a variety of jam jars and money boxes. Doubt the school office will be overly impressed with an envelope full of coppers but its not like the trip has arisen out of the blue. With a wee bit more notice they'd have got shiny pound coins.

Managed to aquire a recorder for DD2 from someone whose child attended a single lesson and decided she didn't like it. Have since suffered three days of three blind mice with random squeaks at full volume. Have resorted to suggesting that she practices under her duvet cover so as not to upset the puppy who has begun to howl along. Between them they're driving me nuts.

Plans for today involve cold wet windswept fields. Oh joy.

Made the mistake of allowing DD2 to play Crazy Taxi (anythings better than listening to masacre by recorder) but returned to find she's got a Frontier and a Farm and has invited the entire contents of my Facebook addressbook to be neighbours. She went to bed leaving strict instuctions about feeding animals and watering trees and harvesting crops, apparently if I kill anything whilst shes asleep she won't be happy. She still hasn't forgiven me for letting her Tamagotchi starve to death.