Goal - 3 debts paid by Christmas

Triggles

Thank goodness we have the car back. I've been ill lately (unpleasantly painful bout of diverticular disease), and the thought of not having a vehicle has made me a bit edgy. It's difficult to walk too much (due to the discomfort) and taking the kids anywhere means the vehicle, not walking, except for short walks. The supermarket is definitely a "need the vehicle" trip at the moment (although if needed, I suppose there is always online/delivery). Anyway, healthy dose of another antibiotic, painkillers, and anti-inflammatories, and I can at least get things done around the house. I hate low fibre diets, which is what I currently have to be on during a flare-up. :mad:

Well, let's see.. DS3 is up in his cot, trying to stay awake during his naptime :rotfl:, DH took DS2 to DD's garden (she lives nearby and has a HUGE garden, so often even if she is not home, she's happy for us to pop over with DSs and let DS2 run around and kick the football with DH) to give him some running space, and I'm taking a short break. Washing up done, laundry washing, tidied up the kitchen, swept the kitchen floor, and just took some cherry scones out of the Remoska to cool (for DH's lunches for work this week). I can't eat cherries right now (no foods with skins for illness flareup times), so I may make another batch of scones later, but cheese scones this time as I can eat them, and DS2 likes them as well. I've got some apples I need to slice up and bag to put in freezer, as I'm not going to use them quick enough, I don't think.

oops.... gotta go... DH home early with DS2.. sigh

Triggles

Well, DS2 threw the ball into the neighbour's garden, which DH retrieved. Then DH managed to kick the ball into the big swatch of pine trees at the back of the property... and lost it. LOL

Anyway... decided to do my "new recipe" today, and did a batch of spiced apple muffins. We all like them, and love the cinnamon-y smell. :j I found the recipe on the internet, and it actually made quite a few - so I may freeze a few.

Easy dinner tonight - DS3 is having heated up gnocchi and leeks (fancy organic meal I bought with a coupon lol), DS2 & DH are having beans and toast. I'm not sure what I'm having yet. Wednesday is always easy or fend-for-yourself night here (well, for the adults, anyway!). Sometimes we're lazy and have cereal and toast, or frozen quiche or something easy like that.

Have to do the boys' baths tonight - not every night as they have eczema and it makes their skin too dry if every night. Every other seems okay though. (unless their grimy, then obviously they get the bath anyway lol)

MS things today - checked the bank balance, made the muffins and scones (so I didn't buy them), opened up windows to let air through instead of running fans during day, NSD, used the Remoska to bake instead of oven.

Oh, and I read that "are you secretly poor" thread on Mumsnet. Wow. It is interesting to see that things are rough for even some of those that give the appearance of wealth. I guess I didn't think much about it. It was a bit sad to see some come on the thread and gloat about how they were well off financially because they didn't make "stupid mistakes" and upsetting to see them berating those who are struggling for making bad choices - but I think some of them failed to see that sometimes you simply can't plan for everything. Sometimes things just catch you off guard and you struggle. Nobody's perfect, nobody's immune to bad luck.

Triggles

Tomorrow is DS3's birthday. Another cake to make in the morning, but thankfully I have all the ingredients already. Some family is coming over in the afternoon, so DH & I plan on doing a little tidying up before they get here - just basic tidying and hoovering mostly.

We managed to get the car licence renewal done finally. I've been back to GP and put on more meds, plus co-codamol for the pain, so a short trip to the High Street was about all I could handle today. Although I will admit that I did browse through the Disney Store today, as they had a 50% off sale on some items - however I was very good and didn't purchase anything. :A I am waiting to see if they get marked further down (there was quite a lot of stuff!), and then might pick up a few items for Christmas presents!

Long long day afterwards with the boys. DS2 was like a 4yo energiser bunny today - chatting and hopping about nonstop! Oh, don't I wish I had that level of energy!! Usually I can keep up, but not when I'm ill and uncomfortable. Hopefully these meds will work well and work quickly - last time it got this bad I landed in hospital for 2 weeks - I don't want that!!! GP thinks I need to go back to the consultant, and the consultant previously told me that I need to consider that I might need surgery. I'm not particularly keen on the idea, but obviously it makes sense to have the surgery when I'm well to avoid the possibility of an emergency surgery with risk of complications and such. It's a bit scary though. I'll have to meet with the consultant again and probably have some further testing, but chances are good he'll say the same again. It is really going to throw a wrench in our finances, as DH will have to take some unpaid time off work if I have surgery. Oh well, I'm going to have to make a conscious effort not to stress over it until after I've spoken to the consultant again.

MS things done - used up some of the food in the freezer before shop coming up next week, checked bank balance to confirm payments going through, used DH's mobile to call DD (free minutes - instead of running up landline bill), didn't make any impulse spends in Disney Store (believe me, that store is sooooo tempting sometimes!!! but I love to look there, so can't just stop looking :rotfl:), opened windows to let air in instead of running fans.

The kitchen roll experiment I started a few months ago is working well. I don't use kitchen roll nearly as much now. I have a huge stack of cloths that I use to wipe up spills and clean with, and keep a small nappy bucket that I just toss them into when they get dirty. Then they get washed and used again. It has definitely cut down drastically on how much kitchen roll is used here - very little now - and I'm debating whether or not to move on to the next part - which is not buying it at all.I'm going to watch over the next couple weeks to pinpoint exactly when I use it, and see if I can't cut out the use entirely. Another money saver! Yay! (not to mention less room taken up by stored kitchen roll!)

maman

Hope you all have a lovely time at the birthday 'do'.

:grouphug: to you and hope the painkillers give you some relief.

As I said earlier in the week, we buy Nicky kitchen roll from Farmfoods. Like you I only use it sparingly. For most things we have dishcloths that I re-use. I'm lucky enoughto have a dishwasher and cloths go in there to be washed/sterilised. Otherwise they go in the white wash or in to soak (with bio powder and bleach) when I'm cleaning the sink. And to think I used to use J-cloths!!

Triggles

maman - I used to use kitchen roll pretty much exclusively, until I added up how much it actually cost!! :eek: I'll look at the kitchen roll in Farmfoods - it's bound to be cheaper - and it IS handy to have just in case. Thanks!

I was reading through the "get stocked up" thread on the OS board, and I just realised ---- It's AUGUST tomorrow!!! Another :eek: I think! I need to start slowly stocking up for winter. One of the things that really bailed us out last winter during bad weather was having some nonperishables stocked up. Let's see now... I need to check the sales and stock up when particular items are on sale. But I suppose an overall list is helpful...I'll work on that today and post it later. It's good to have it written down so I don't forget.

So far today I've done:
- laundry (washing)
- washing up
- baked mini teddy bear cake for DS3 and regular cake for birthday this afternoon
- some tidying, but DS2 has pretty much undone it by spreading toys all over the living room :rotfl:

Pain meds and antibiotics seem to be helping a little. I will admit to considering going off the pain meds tomorrow, as co-codamol can be habit-forming, and they recommend not being on it for more than 3 days. Maybe go to regular paracetamol for a day or two and see how I do, as the antibiotic kicking in now may reduce the pain as things get better. (fingers crossed anyway LOL)

I suppose I'd better go get some more tidying done and feed the boys lunch....

Triggles

Laundry in, washing up done, relaxing with a cup of tea at the moment. Won £6 in bonus money on bingo early this morning, so am hoping to turn it into real money to withdraw. LOL

Looking forward to steaming off the lining paper from the hallway and stairway this evening. With any luck at all, we can get the wallpaper steamed, the wall prepped and painted by Wednesday! Here's hoping anyway!!

New month for grocery budget and all! Will need to check to make sure a couple end of month payments went out of bank account, then last month's budget spreadsheet will be done and everything starting today starts out the new month of August! The goal is under £200 for grocery this month. We'll see how we do. DH wanted a bottle of wine tonight, so we decided if we could round up enough loose change to pay for the wine, it needn't come out of the budget. We managed enough for a luxurious cheap bottle of wine and a bottle of soda! :rotfl: So we're feeling pretty pleased with ourselves this morning.

Let's see now.. stocking up for winter. Well, we'll stock up on loo roll, possibly kitchen roll (not much though as trying to cut that from the budget), and sugar from Farm Foods. Easiest way to do it is to buy extra each time we go in for a bit. That's the least disruptive way to the budget anyway. The rest will be from Sainsburys (or if a good sale, from elsewhere lol).

Will update in a bit with the list.

Triggles

Well, we've done a bit of sanding on the staircase, but there is soooo much paint (I'm pretty sure the previous owners put a few layers of paint over the years - there's 2, possibly 3 different colours on there!!) that we've decided to use a rough sander attachment for the drill and do it that way or we'll still be sanding it next year! We thought about using a chemical paint remover but the stairs are right by the boys' rooms, and we'd rather not have to worry about them having problems with the fumes. It doesn't appear old enough to be lead-based, so hopefully that won't be an issue either.

So today's task is finishing up the wall to prepare it for painting, and (if there is time) starting to remove the paint layers from the staircase with the drill attachment. At the moment, when we paint it, it will be standard magnolia paint, as that's what we've used in most rooms already. We also plan on putting the second coat on our living room wall and ceiling next weekend, so that should finish off the walls/ceiling in our living room. Then all we have left is the fireplace - and we're not really sure what to do with it yet anyway.

I found some nice self adhesive borders at B&Q in their clearance section - two rolls of blue/yellow lighthouse border. I have always loved lighthouses and it's perfect for our downstairs bathroom as it's not very large at all. :j

We stopped at Aldi's today and picked up a couple things. First of all a few Christmas items:
- character washcloths and socks for DGSs and DS2 (99p & 2.99 for 3pk)
- telling the time book for DS2 (£1.99)
- buckets of big chunky coloured chalk for DGSs (£1 each)

We like to get them some smaller things that they will enjoy and have fun with for Christmas. We've decided to keep the Christmas present expenditure down this year. And we've noticed that DD, DS2, and DGSs tend to like a gift package with some nice fun things in them, rather than some huge gift. I don't mean a bunch of cheap tat, but just small nice thoughtful gifts that they will appreciate and use.

I also bought a couple bags of marshmallows today, so I can make Rice Krispie treats this afternoon. (well, okay, Sainsburys rice pops treats, if we're going to be specific LOL) They're tasty, sweet, and low fibre so I can enjoy them as well!
And a whole chicken for £2.99, which is now cooking in the slow cooker with a bit of water. So chicken curry tonight for tea (late in the evening after the DIY), and chicken veg soup with dumplings tomorrow night. yummmmmmmm

Triggles

Today is not going to be a NSD. lol We are going to visit MIL, stop at Asda, stop at ToysRUs. At Asda, I want to look for a few of their £2 fleeces to line window curtains for the winter. We bought a few last year and they worked really well, so going to pick up a few more so that all the curtains are "lined" and keep the rooms warm this winter!! And we need to pick up another child safety gate at ToysRUs. They always have in stock the one we like, and it's under £20. DS3 needs one on his bedroom now, and we don't have a spare one, so that's that.

DH got most of the ceiling scraped (old thick layer of paint that was yellowed from smoke damage from previous owners yuk!!) and will be finishing it tonight, while I finish the work on the wall. Then next weekend we will be able to paint the ceiling and the wall. :j And we'll keep working on the staircase a little at a time as well throughout the week. Still not decided whether to paint it or not - the wood looks nice so far.

Dining room looks like a bomb site hit it though as we've been putting the DIY stuff in there (as it has a child gate on it) to keep it away from the boys. So that will be our task tomorrow, spending an hour or so on cleaning up the dining room again. It's that whole "one room looks nice another falls apart" thing, I think! :rotfl:

Triggles

I am so pleased!! We just got back from town - and we managed to find some brilliant carseats at ToysRUs for 50% off!! We had budgeted and put aside money for new carseats for the boys - DS2 is outgrowing his as it only goes to age 4, and DS3 is outgrowing his infant carseat. We were initially going to buy a new carseat for DS2 and put DS3 in DS2's carseat. That would leave us with having to buy another carseat for DS3 in a few years, as he would outgrow it at age 4. But we found 2 of the same carseats at ToysRUs that were the last 2 in stock marked down to £44 from £99 - and these are the kind that go from 9 mos to 11 yrs!! We had budgeted £125 for DS2's new carseat (as he needs the 5 point harness still for safety reasons - he is not good with the seats using the regular seat belt). So we bought 2 of them, and now that's it - these carseats will cover the boys until they're 11 - barring any accidents, that means no more carseat purchases and under the budget we had put aside for one seat. :j So we saved £37 (with obviously the savings of not having to buy another one in a couple years!!) and will put that back into savings.

We purchased a couple items today towards Christmas as well, out of our Christmas savings. Two mini fleeces (Winnie the Pooh for DS3 and Toy Story for DS2), a bed set for DS2 (Toy Story, including junior sized quilt, child's pillow and covers for each), and a couple puzzles, all on sale.

Going through my list, that means DS2 has the following for Christmas:
- toy story mini fleece
- toy story bed set
- 3pk of Thomas socks
- telling time book
- lightning mcqueen baseball cap
- toy story puzzle
- Thomas wash cloth
- couple books that I purchased on clearance last year and put aside

DS3 so far has:
- handy manny slippers
- car roadmap rug for his room
- winnie the pooh mini fleece

So a couple things to think about to add to DS3's gifts. But I'm quite pleased that we've gotten DS2's gifts all done. Didn't mean to purchase quite that much, but I'd forgotten about the books I'd purchased previously. :rotfl:

maman

That's excellent Triggles, well done on your bargain seats and :T on buying such sensible presents for your DSs. They'll have such fun opening so many things and putting them on/reading/playing and you won't end up with a lot of broken tat in the new year.