greent's mfw journey

Karmacat

greent, you sound really happy, and apart from DD's boyfriend's cold, and DS1 being absent for his birthday, it's sunshine all round

Lovely!

Firegirl

:jSounds like you have lots of great people around you! Enjoy

CathT

Achieving so much as ever. Hope you're feeling better soon.

greent

Aww - lots of lovely comments - thanks!

Good morning with DD earlier - nipped into town, did banking for the charity & collected some more deposit envelopes and collected DS1's bday cake https://www.patisserie-valerie.co.uk/groupon - the gateau noir one - except we received a bigger one than we ordered, for some reason? - not that I'm complaining! Bargain at £15 (and also got cashback on the group0n deal)

Then we went to the charity place, picked up some bits I'm dealing with (forgot to drop some no longer needed ikea bags off after our clear out - grr), dropped a parcel off for Ziff1t, came closer to home, went to PO and posted survey items and fleebay items (using survey stamps ), dropped a bag of stuff at CS, a bag of food stuff at foodbank collection point in Tesc0 and bought milk & cereal there - then came home DS1 is very pleased with his cake (The platoon got him a cake at the weekend and sang Happy Birthday to him, which was nice - they spent 3 nights in a field and not even under canvas)

My mum took the smalls and DD out with her dogs for an hour, so I got some ironing done whilst they were out, but not much else. Now debating what to make for dinner tonight - am favouring pasta and jacket potatoes (not together - but not everyone likes each option) - relatively easy and uses up some salad and veg items at the same time

Have had to water some pots the past few days (winter pansies) - it's so dry here - an occasional small burst of rain, but dry again within 10 mins, so the pots are all parched. OH ordered an insane amount (over 400!! :eek:) plants from group0n at the weekend - that's not going to be fun when they arrive! I did say that he has to help with that - that's way too many for me to get done! Should bring a burst of colour into the garden though

Hmmm... money news - nothing to report, really. Small fleebay sales - all going towards a lump payment on OH's car finance. Should hopefully make another £1k OP on BTL in June. Need to sort student finance for DD out - but need to do it on 2016/17's income, not 2015/16's, as we had a more than 15% drop where OH didn't have a contract, so want to make sure DD can get as much as possible. She has her accom for next year sorted now - a little flat which was totally renovated only a year ago, so the current student tenants in there are the first ones - hopefully everything in there should then still be in reasonable order! We will need to buy a couple of items for it and she and flatmate need to sort out the bills etc - they are responsible for it from 1st July, which is a bit of a pain, as their course doesn't start again until almost Oct, so rent and bills are needed for 3 empty months - but that seems to be fairly standard, unfortunately. Thankfully she's actually quite sensible with her money!

Right - need to go for a walk - my fitbit's told me I've not been active enough this hour!

xx

greent

We're on that slow crawl of the last few days before pay day.... current accounts are skint and I refuse to transfer money over so am not spending until the end of the week, hopefully (I have £20 in my purse if we need top up shopping, such as milk) - am really looking at ploughing money into OH's car loan and then the BTL (OH is looking at having a 'nice' holiday - not as expensive as America last year, but still a few £000 - we need to meet somewhere in the middle! :rotfl:)

Boys all went back to school yesterday. DD is still here until Sunday - at which point she will no doubt be taking back half the contents of the freezer and pantry to uni!:D

OH is now officially half way through the contract - yeay! And May yields 2 long bank holiday weekends and a day off on May 4th, as the smalls' school is closed for the local elections, so we are off to Legoland, courtesy of our Tesc0 CC vouchers :T We aren't telling the smalls until that morning

Decluttering has continued over the hols - lots has left via the bin/ recycling/ CS/ fleabay and more has been priced up for the next NNS (July) - some real space has been emerging in areas, which is great to see. I have a huge pile of toys to sort out this week and next for fleabay. Any unsold will then go to NNS, but I suspect *most* should sell - which the children will like, as they can then replenish their money boxes with funds for more toys, or whatever (usually Leg0 for the smalls, PS4 games for DS1 - and going out clubbing for DD :rotfl:)

x

Karmacat

Sounds good! Your juggling to make sure things go the way you want them to go, and making sure that you and all your offspring live a lovely full life leave me in awe. Go greent!

greent

Aw, thanks Kc :kisses3:

Bank Holiday weekend number one is here - yeay!! Was a very long day yesterday after a horrendous night's sleep and then invigilating at both schools (art, drama & DT - not the most riveting - Art is nice later in the exam but I had the first couple of hours where they were gridding up and starting to put light pencil lines on, so not much to see.

Anyway, OH is home for a long weekend and DD is going back to uni tomorrow - revision and exam time, so am sending her back with lots of easy food and treats

So far today has been laundry and shopping and 2 loaves of bread are now on their final prove. OH has taken DS3 to his swimming lesson and is now on the way back after having collected DD from a sleepover in the next town. Thinking a games afternoon may be in order after lunch! :D

OH's boss has informally asked him about extending his time there. He has said to discuss again closer to the end, as things may change. No-one else is being asked to extend (at this moment in time) - which is a compliment and they are willing for him to work from home a lot more..... and be very flexible when it comes to DS2 starting his new school in Sept and DD going back to uni etc - oh, and for him to have a good break during the SUmmer hols. He actually might do it - if he only has to stay down there 2 nights a week he would stay in a hotel (he currently has a Mon-Fri let @ £695/ mth) - so then his meals are claimable (not the case in s/c accom) and he is at home way more than away. A 3 month extension would mean being able to take the rest of the financial year off and still take decent drawings out from the co and leave a safety net in there.

We'll see closer to the time. I'm not totally convinced - but it's nice to know that there are options

x

EatingTheElephant

That's very impressive that mrgreent has been the only one asked to extend. Very wise to keep options open though!

brizzledfw

Pleased to hear it. Just get the flexibility promise in writing..at least an email

I am just starting a new long term contract. Pleased about it but always good to know there are options out there when you are freelance. Worse thing is to feel trapped.

Have a great day

Brizzle x

greent

The murmurings about a possible extension are still continuing - but have put them to one side for now - the original end date is still almost 2.5months away

So... what's been happening here... Smalls' school was closed for use as a polling station last Thurs, so we took them to Leg0land (courtesy of Tesc0 CC vouchers) - didn't tell them until the morning, so they were super excited. They declared the day to have been 'epic' and 'awesome' at the end of it - so it was well worth the time and the day off for OH Small spend on some leg0 by us and they also bought some with their own money.

Silly-ly busy week at work (Well, 3 days after BH and elections taken into account) last week for me - lots of extra hours (not prearranged) at the one school. Proper silly season for exams starts next week. My boss at the one school (my preferred school if I had to choose, even though it pays £2/ hour less for more responsibilities!) phoned me yesterday to see if I'd be interested in applying for some exam admin time - she has agreement to 8 x 37 hours admin time spread over the year (concentrated around GCSE/ GCE time, coursework and admissions) - I said yes (of course) but know there's another invigilator also interested - and only one of us can be successful (they might even open it up externally yet, too) - so we shall have to wait and see

On the subject of exams, DS1's AS levels start next week - he is doing AS in psych and also maths/ Stats (his others, Bio and Chem, being on the new system now) DD has an exam at uni this week and then her last is May 26th. DS2 is in the middle of his Y6 SATS this week - seemingly unfazed, thankfully

Hmm... not much money stuff to report. Occasional small fleabay sales still ongoing. Energy supplier changed to cheaper one (sadly no cashback ) and got car insurance down from almost £2300 for the 2 cars to under £1500 - and with improved cover (so expensive because DD is on my insurance and only passed last July) - although I did agree to a black box in my car for 3 months - should get a further discount of the results are good, I'm led to believe - must watch my driving - we have a couple of long, wide, almost-always empty roads close by which are actually only 30mph - but it's so easy to do more than that along them without realising

Should hopefully be able to make another small lump payment to BTL next month after rent is in (want to keep a reasonable balance in the account). IF OH does get an extension then we should be able to take more money out from the business - will look to either clear his car debt or put some more to BTL (car debt actually makes more sense - higher interest rate and some mortgage interest relief is still available to us) - but if we cleared car early then that obviously means we have more money available monthly and could look to increase monthly payments to BTL from our money then, not just rental income.

I also want to look at S&S ISAs - have always had just cash ones in the past. And get an independent review of our pensions - we each have a few from different employers. That one's for later in the year, though!