Learning to live my dreams not trample on them

savingholmes

Thanks for the encouragment Tirl.... Yes the kids are helping whether they like it or not LOL plus a few bribes. We're rewarding DD with £5 for doing such a stunning job on her room... DS stayed up later than allowed for an hour yesterday so I've made him sort clothes today... Trying to get DD to do her share but she's strangely reluctant....

Today - I've cooked a beef stew - DS has made dumplings... I have peeled some potatoes and hope to roast them.... I've also put some jacket spuds in the oven to bake so we can have loaded jackets another day... Also cut up carrots, leak and broccoli to steam in the microwave... Dinner should be yummy!

Was able to get some whoopsied veg too - which is good as I wanted it to make a cottage pie for another day... Save me £2 just on two things

DD went back to school today. Let her have a school dinner £2.10 and bought her a new book back £2.75. She had a lovely day - I plaited her hair in 4 plaits yesterday after her bath and her hair was beautifully curly today... Always nice to make a good impression first day back! DS is back tomorrow and my cleaner is coming for 2 hours which should be good

savingholmes

Well beef stew was yummy. DS made gorgeous dumplings... Yummy!

DD and I went out for an hour or so to a local pub which was nice - we are hoping to have a weekly date night. Only spent last than £6 not bad for a date hey LOL... Want to work on our marriage this year - and hope that we all end up happier as result...

Just realised I forgot about the jacket potatoes.... will need to put them in the fridge now and hopefully scoop them out tomorrow to make loaded skins..... I bought a M&S cheese with bits of chilli in a few weeks ago... I am hoping to put some of that in loaded skins as after I'd bought it OH said he didn't like it and I'd bought it as a treat for him...

Hope you're all having a good day.

savingholmes

Pain in my arm has come back... which is rather depressing and makes me glad that I have a referral in place to see the orthopeadic specialist... Makes me wonder whether the painkillers following my H operation have been masking my pain or whether it has only coming back because I am doing more... I think if the pain keeps up then I may ring a solicitor and see if I have any chance of making money if I sue... As it is so wrong that 8 months on I still have pain from a canula!!

Just got OH to unpack and pack the dishwasher... Need to set my alarm for tomorrow as I need to be up a couple of hours to straighten up before the cleaner comes... I'm going to get her to do the kids bathroom first, then our ensuite, then downstairs loo and kitchen floor. I will be really really disappointed if she doesn't complete that... The kids will need to hoover tomorrow when they get home as our neighbours are coming round tomorrow... OH will also need to nip out for some drinks and nibbles

I really want more friends... and you know what they say - if you want friends, be friendly... Let's hope it works LOL

savingholmes

Hi - well today I have a cleaner here for a couple of hours which is a relief. She has just done the kids bathroom and our ensuitte. She's now sorting out my kitchen and hopefully will clean the kitchen floor and hall and downstairs loo. Just had to go and find our long handled brush - it was still in DS's room from last week when the last cleaner came... Still need the kids to hoover downstairs as it is terrible in the lounge - you know how it is when you sort clothes it seems to get bits all over the carpet...

I have juiced an apple and 2 oranges, blended 2 bananas, ice and probiotic yoghurt for breakfast/lunch... Hoping that this helps me get back on the diet wagon.... It creates an awful lot of washing up tho...

I'm down to 2 diclofenic from 3 so things are improving... in the night I considered taking more tablets but the only one near me were co-codomol rather than straightforward paracetamol so gave it a miss. Have also reduced the diazepam from a high of 10mg to 2mg but didn't sleep that well yesterday but think that was partly pain... The kids were very noisy at school time - DS was singing loudly to music at 7am... Then it was time for me to get up - to try and get the house a bit straighter for the cleaner I was fast asleep and struggled to wake up... Tomorrow I can sleep as long as I need but Friday I need to be an hour+ away by 9.30am so that will be a bit of a struggle too.

Hoping the specialist says I am fit to drive Friday... Need to dig out my insurance paperwork and give them a ring and just check what they need...

When OH comes in will have to go out and get some drinks and nibbles for neighbours coming round tonight... Was hoping we would be able to sit out with fire pit but it poured down with rain earlier so not sure that the weather is going to cooperate....

tirlittan

Good news about the cleaner!
The weather here has been just terrible,in 4 days, I've been soaked 3 times and wet twice, that's the beauty of cycling! :-/

savingholmes

Ouch to all that getting soaked Tirl...

Well it turns out I have an infection so am now on antibiotics - the results came back from the tests a week or so ago... I think it is minor but it gave me a shock... Makes me wonder whether the sudden pain timed with me coming off the last lot of antibiotics rather than just with over-doing it.... Let's hope these sort out the infection. Got consultant visit Friday - just hope there are no nasty shocks there

Well nipped out to get some bits coming round for neighbours visit - and spent about £50... Only a small percentage of which has anything to do with the neighbours!! That was with OH with me... still have quite a lot of work to do before I am cured on the spending front... I know hypno went thro a stage of writing down everything she bought in her diary - I probably should but I'd be too ashamed!! It might work tho...

savingholmes

Visit with neighbours went well... they are lovely. They think some of the fence panels need replacing - could definitely do without that but if they do they do...

Well OH actually rang Student loans today - at the end of March owed £6300 - that will be around £5800 now... OH didn't pay anything for about 5 years and then a year ago they started to charge him £100 a month direct from his wages with no warning.... We've adapted to that now. Apparently the interest rate is currently 1.5% (1% on top of base rate) so until the rate hits 3% it is better for us to leave the debt where it is:cool:. We didn't include this in our initial debt figure when we joined MSE as we were out of contact with them and as we were barely managing our debt at that point we didn't raise our head above the parapet by contacting them... It's taken me a year to get OH to ring them to find out a balance!!

We have just paid to move £5500 from our V card (cost approx £160) to another card for 12 months - with me currently being in half pay - and the pay due to run out soon I need to get back to work but in the meantime I need a safey net and this right or wrong is it for us...

We still have savings of around £4K - but we are thinking of using £1K of that to prop up our overdraft to give us a fresh start and possibly another £1K or so on a car (plus insurance). We are currently in credit but within the next couple of days will be back into our agreed overdraft...

I was very challenged reading someone's diary earlier as I have cupboards and fridge freezers semi-full of food but compulsively buy groceries... (which I do mostly guilt free - cos its food :obut still spend way too much of:() I have 2 large cupboards full of tins... and one narrow tin cupboard... I probably should do the store cupboard challenge on the old style board.... or the grocery challenge as that is one of my biggest weak points.

Next door are going to give me some apples - and I am going to give them some plums... I then want to make fruit crumbles and stuff with it - and fruit sponge/eve pudding style... Typically would need to buy some more sugar before I could do that tho and some margerine as missed it off the order the other day...

savingholmes

I'm trying to recover my light bulb moment in a way so that I get sufficient motivation to start tackling stuff. This year with my anaemia, blood transfusion, arm nerve damage and then hysterectomy we've kind of lost the plot a bit financially... I became so scared of dying (hospital phobia) that I in particular spent far more than I should

However, that's behind me now mostly anyway so reality check

Mortgage £151.5K (on interest only so not repaying anything! No endowment in place either!)
CC £5.66K This is a priority or should be (potentially offset by £4K in savings) leaving net of £1.66K to find...
SL £5.8K - will just let this repay itself at £100 pcm over the next five years of so
So scarily our total debt including everything is around £163K

House when we bought it was £195K - not sure what it is now (although a house sold our our estate for £192K recently). Assuming it is the same value as when we bought it we have net assets of £32K plus up to £4K savings... plus car and motorbike etc...

Our goal obviously is to get to at least £195K positive assets...

I think the first step is to tackle my grocery shopping issues... See what I can use from my tin cupboard and freezer. Hoping to make a cottage pie tomorrow. I could also make some chilli... Need to check the dates on the chicken too - perhaps freeze if I need to

Had loaded skins for tea with salad yummy! I also ate a smoothie for breakfast and some left over beef, with roasties and veg for lunch.

savingholmes

savingholmes wrote: »

CC £5.66K This is a priority or should be (potentially offset by £4K in savings) leaving net of £1.66K to find...

I've rechecked our budget - and when I am back in full pay we should have £600 spare to put towards debt repayment / mortgage repayment on top of the £125 budgeted for minimum payment - and that's after allowing £650 pcm on annual costs...eg clothes, gym, holidays, gifts, car and motorbike maintenance, road tax, insurance as well as £190 for meals out, family fun, hobbies etc This ought to be generous but in practice - the £650 isn't being saved a month or used on the right things and we don't have the £600 spare so definitely need to do some work on that.:o

We're not doing the gym at the moment but I still want some kind of exercise plan in place. As an alternative to using our savings to buy a car - I may be able to get a lease car thro work...

Really hoping we get back on track soon!

bigzippy

You can do it SH. You just need to put your mind (s) to it