My lose lbs save £'s diary

anonymoose_3

Hi ML that's great news about your charges getting refunded

missylaney

Thanks AM - it made my day

Can't be bothered to update my figures today but they're all OK and out of the dangerzone, have now recieved all but one of our Feb payments and the March ones are coming in now too. Looking forward to updating my CC debt at the end of the month too because it has gone down a bit - just waiting for another couple of statements in before I do it.

Had NSD number 9 yesterday but got quite a few school/playschool trips etc to pay out today, plus a bit of (strictly necessary of course) shopping.

Stuck to my sins again - had a couple of tablespoons of pesto in my pasta and a fab lolly. Have worked out that its 9 weeks till my birthday, so if I can lose another 1.5lb this week and 1 a week after that I can reach my target by then, so thats spurring me on at the mo.

Have a got a bit of a cunning plan for getting myself some free soap powder today, will update tomorrow :cool::cool:

missylaney

Well the plan for free soap powder didn't work, but I did manage to get a huge amount of soap powder, dishwasher tabs, nappies, wipes, shampoo & more for £14. Also spent £6.30 on groceries and £45 on petrol yesterday
plus sponsored a friend who's running the marathon £10, paid for a school leavers trip for DS £25 and ordered 4 teatowels from DD1's pre-school for £14. Total spend for the day £114.30 :eek:

Was hoping for an NSD today but have to buy bubblewrap urgently for some ebay parcels that must be wrapped this evening so that's not going to happen.

Still sticking to the diet, had a fab lolly AND a fruit pastille lolly yesterday but they're only 4 sins each.

Working today & tomorrow, boring but at least the weather's nice

missylaney

Aaarrgghh just typed in a long update and somehow managed to lose it :mad:

A v.quick summary then instead of the original ramblings:

Spends

Friday - just the bubblewrap and a bottle of water £3

Saturday - groceries - £17

Food - stuck to 10 sins Friday, a bit over yesterday had about 12 Still hoping for good news at Monday's weigh in though.

Will update all my figures in the morning because my "financial month" runs from the 25th.

Found out DD1's primary school allocation yesterday. We'd really dithered over the application as we aren't keen on our default catchment school. Eventually we decided on putting the school that DS goes to (but is leaving in July) as first choice - mainly because DD1 goes to pre-school there and has friends that will be going. Its about 1.5 miles away so not really in walking distance. As 2nd choice we put an RC school that's a 10 minute walk away and has an excellent reputation but she probably won't know anyone (she's quite timid and took ages to settle into pre-school). Anyway, she got the 2nd choice school. I cried (yes i do know how pathetic I am).

Going to submit this and carry on on a new post so I don't lose it again...

missylaney

The other thing I've been thinking about lately is my 40th in June 2011. For years I've been wanting to spend it in Vegas, but the way our finances have been I'm not sure its acheivable. I had a little browse online yesterday to get an idea of prices and I think we could stay in a very nice hotel for 3 Fri/Sat/Sun with decent flights (if I'm going I want to do it as luxuriously as poss) for about £600 each (just me and DH, my mum's going to have the kids for us). I'm going to be realistic about it and there's no way I'll book anything until I've saved the money but its something we'd both really like to do if we can. I hope nobody points out how much quicker we could be debt free if we don't go :)

I've also been thinking about my employment situation lately. I'm a self-employed part-time parcel courier, and earn about £250ish per month (varies quite a bit) for working Fridays and Saturdays. I'm getting a bit fed up with it TBH and have been trying to think of what I can do to replace the income without too much impact on the children. I'm considering maybe some sort of evening job 2 or 3 days a week but to be perfectly honest I would really rather get back into IT (I was a helpdesk manager in a previous life). One option would be for me to go back to London and work full time for the 3 months when DH's business is really quiet (so he could run the house and look after the kids). Its a scary option on all sorts of levels but I could probably clear at least £1000 per month after fares & expenses so it would replace my current income and leave me free not to work at all from March to November when DH is really busy. And I could use that money for Vegas :D

Hmm, lots to think about (hence waking up and not being able to sleep at 5am). Am going to go back to bed now I've got all that off my chest, DH's turn to get up with the kids so I'm having a lie in.

anonymoose_3

Morning ML sorry to hear your DD didn't get into the 1st choice school *hug*

Hope you manage to get back to sleep x

Intergalactic_Floozie

Seconded here about you not getting the school you wanted. Parental choice counts for nothing does it? (GRRRRRR). I had my children Christened Catholics to guarantee them getting into 'decent' schools, by which I mean the best of a bad bunch.

missylaney

Thanks for your comments AM & Floozie DD1 is actually quite happy about it because she likes the uniform - and hasn't yet realised that she'll be leaving her little boyfriend behind I'll get over it - at least I'll be saving a bit on petrol and will get a bit of exercise walking rather than driving to school!

I've done my finances and they look v. shaky at the moment but this is mainly because my personal account month starts on 25th but the business account month runs from the 1st.

Business Account Balance 298
Business Account Outgoings pending 94
Personal Account Balance -101
Personal Account Outgoings pending 2600 (this includes savings, CC payments, shopping budgets & £215 car tax)
Personal Account incoming pending 851 (this doesn't include my wages as they vary a lot, get paid on the 8th)
Invoices Pending 830 (will issue April invoices on 1st May)

Total Incoming 1878
Total Outgoing 2694
Leftover -816 (this will look better once I've done the invoices )

I'm not going to bother updating these figures again until after 1st May because the figures are a bit meaningless until they include all our income.

I seem to have loads on my "to do" list at the moment that aren't getting done so I'm hoping for a quiet-ish week. In fact, at the risk of boring anyone reading this I'm going to keep the list on here to try and incentivise myself a bit:

Sort out post office savings a/c's for the kids
Phone Sky to try and reduce our bill
Sort out and list more stuff on Ebay
Phone garage re: aircon not working in car
Make a poster for Treasure Hunt & wrap more teddies
Load car with "lucky bags" to take to pre-school this evening (I've been roped in to help out at the pre-school Fun day this weekend)
Sort out another bal xfer card - we're still paying interest on nearly £5k of our debt

I've got my weigh in this morning, friends coming round this afternoon and a meeting at the pre-school this evening so I won't get a lot done today but tomorrow afternoon is free so will try and cross a few off then.

Didn't spend anything yesterday so have hit my target of 10 NSD's in April :j. Had a few more sins than strictly necessary again yesterday so hoping the weigh-in doesn''t reflect it:

French Fancy 6
Fab lolly 4
Yorkshire pud 4
Gravy
Apple sauce
a bit of easter egg

Must go, time to wake the kids up

missylaney

Woke up early this morning again and couldn't get back to sleep. This is usually the first sign of pregnancy for me :eek: Its very very very unlikely as we're certainly not planning to have anymore & there are no other signs but at this time of the morning my imagination does tend to run away with me. Must stop thinking about it because I'm getting panicky...

Fantastic news at SW - have lost 2.5lbs in the last week. I'm now the lightest I've been since having DD2! Feel very determined to keep up with it this time Only had 5 sins yesterday (fab lolly & 1 sugar in a coffee) so I've got a few saved up for the weekend, Sunday will be difficult as will be at the Funday all day but if I can save up plenty of sins I'll be fine.

Spending yesterday:
SW 4.95 + magazine £1.95
Paper bill £4.85
Groceries £7

Sort out post office savings a/c's for the kids
Phone Sky to try and reduce our bill
Sort out and list more stuff on Ebay
Phone garage re: aircon not working in car
Make a poster for Treasure Hunt & wrap more teddies
[STRIKE]Load car with "lucky bags" to take to pre-school this evening (I've been roped in to help out at the pre-school Fun day this weekend)
Sort out another bal xfer card - we're still paying interest on nearly £5k of our debt [/STRIKE] I can't get one - got refused in both my name and DH's so going to leave it for a while, think its because we're only just xferd £6k to 2 cards. Need to give this more thought/read more on MSE. I did email Amex though as they've recently hiked our rate and told them I'm trying to pay the card off and asked if they can lower it for a while
Get my CV up-to-date

Found out yesterday that DD1 won't be starting school until January as she's one of the younger children - the school I wanted would have started her in September. This has put paid to the idea of my working in London during the winter as it only works logistically is she's at school. It also means that we'll want to increase her hours at playschool to ease her into being out all day - this'll cost us £13 per week. I also found out from one of the mums who lives just outside catchment that her child got in, depite us having the sibling advantage which should have put us ahead of them - will phone council today to find out why!

missylaney

Yesterdays post has gone missing :mad::mad::mad: This has happened about 3 times now and I'm getting really frustrated with it, I post to keep me on track and have only ever missed one day but I seem to have lost about 4!! Has anyone else had this problem? Am I losing my marbles??