Changing our lives....

Sessie

Ooh isn't gardening exciting??

The pots of strawberry seeds I planted for the children have come up LOADS! There must be about twenty five plants in one pot and about eleven or twelve in the other. Need to wait until they're a bit bigger and then separate them and put them into bigger pots. Along with the six plants (rather than seeds) I already had, if they all grow well, we should have a strawberry glut this summer!! :j

Have got all the rest of my flowers potted up and some carrot seeds and oregano and basil seeds planted. Also put some seed potatoes in a sack with some good compost so now it's watering and waiting time..

Am still waiting for the 13 packs of veg/salad seeds to come from the Mail offer and will need to get those in too. I'm not expecting everything to work, it's my first go at all of this but I'll be doing my best with everything and seeing what happens!

Got a letter from work confirming my increase in hours and my new salary - it seems to be quite a jump up (which is great!)... can't quite work it out though. Technically I'm doing a further four days a month ... so can't quite work out why it's gone up so much. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but... need to check the letter is right before I can rejig our finances. I want to use some of the increase to put away as savings as we lost most of ours on my back treatment. Need to build that up again for emergencies.

We are seeing the Financial Advisor on the 28th to finalise moving the ISA and our pensions etc... so I should be able to sort out a new SOA....EEEK! :eek: it's 9 am and I'm at work today!! have to get on... back soon!

x

Sessie

Also forgot to say that Zurich WILL cover me for life cover but NOT for critical illness... because I had post-natal depression! How insane is THAT?? I had a traumatic birth culminating in an emergency Caesarean section and then had to cope with twins, I defy most people NOT to have a hard time with that.... but it seems that accepting I was struggling and asking for help has counted against me! Grr...

On the flip side, I found out - by accident! - last week at work that I am covered if I die whilst employed by my company (likely on some days when we are so busy I could explode!) my hubby will get four times my annual salary. Also, if I get a critical illness, after six months I am entitled to 75% of my salary so.... kind of ... out with one hand and back in with the other eh!?

As I said above, we are seeing the Financial Advisor next Thursday first thing and after that I'm going to spend a couple of hours on the compare sites to see if I can get our electric, gas, phone, TV and broadband any cheaper by switching around. Mum and dad are having the children for the day so Mr S and I can have some well-earned time to ourselves. Will also look into Quidco prior to doing that to see if I can get any payments for switching.

Starting Monday Mr Sessie and I are also undertaking two BIG trials:

(1) Removing cot bars from the twins' beds and making them into proper beds ... :eek:. Think we might have a few evenings running up and down the stairs coming ...

(2) Trying (again) to potty train both of them. They didn't seem to get it when I tried a couple of months ago but lately have been picking the potty up and sitting on it, saying, "I have wee wee..." so maybe they're a bit more up for it. The savings on nappies will be good once we get that sorted!

The car boot pile is getting quite ridiculous in the bedroom so I'm going to have to commit to a day, sort out childcare (if Mr Sessie isn't going to be around) and get it done.

Flitting off again, almost time to go home from work.

x

lucielle

Hello Sessie, I've spent a very enjoyable day reading your diary and just finished it this morning. You are making fantastic progress with your money plans. I've subscribed so I'll pop back soon.
L

Sessie

Firstly, thanks Lucielle.

Have had a REALLY MSE day today!! Mum and dad have had the children all day and we have:

(1) Seen the Financial Advisor and signed all the papers to transfer both of our pensions to Aviva. He had done his "number crunching" and Aviva came up best to transfer both of them into. Neither of us is paying into our pension at the moment, because of the children and my working part time but even moving them and keeping them static they will be making more money than where they are.

(2) Talked through the options with him re the "repayment vehicle" for the mortgage ie; we have an interest only one so we need something to repay the capital. The ISA we had isn't really performing any more so we have decided to put the lump sum from there into a bond, which is tax free and guarantees at each five year anniversary to pay out as a bare minimum the amount put in.

So whilst there MAY be a gain dependent upon interest rates (not counting any extra we contribute after the initial lump sum), there WON'T be a loss. We can then set aside extra money to put into it say once a year and again, it guarantees to pay out the amount in the fund, no less, so as the amount we put in increases, the guaranteed payout increases in line with that sum. Happy days, plus it means we can stop paying the £108 per month into a non-productive ISA, although I'll probably set up another account and arrange to transfer £100 a month into there and pay the lump sum of £1,200 into the bond at the end of each year. If we're already paying it for the ISA, we won't miss it will we?

(3) After a long time on the phone with Sky, BT and Virgin, I have changed our broadband and phone package and saved us almost £50 per month!!!! :T We were paying £76.50 per month which is insane, we had a broadband package that allowed a lot of downloading (for hubby) but were paying for daytime calls. The new deal, which starts next Thursday (too late to set it up today due to bank hol tomorrow and Monday and me being at work all day Tues and Weds so can't speak to BT til Thursday) is:

£11.00 per month instead of £21.50 for the exact same broadband package - 40g per month downloads,
£5.00 per month add-on fee for unlimited calls - this is all day and night every day, inc weekends; and
£13.90 per month line rental.
Total £29.90 per month.

This is a 12 month deal so will need to be looked at again in April 2012.

PLUS we are £23.00 in credit so once this new package is set up, they will send me the £23.00 by cheque! :T

(4) Checked on energyhelpline.com re our gas tariff and have changed to Web Saver 11 - which saves us £5.00 per month on our direct debit. Hey, not so much but that's £60 a year, a week's shopping at least!

(5) Dropped our electric bill by £11 per month from £48 to £37, effective immediately AND made us eligible for a £40 DD discount which will apply later in the year. Saved us £121 per year.

(6) Snipped a mighty £3.00 per month off Sky TV by dropping three of the packages on the basic deal that we don't have time to watch. Saving us £36.00 per year. Need to ring them back on or after 15 May to do this as we currently have the cancellation going through for the 2 months free Sky Sports which will take effect on 15 May and apparently they can't have two cancellations going through at the same time!

Oh, and I used saynoto0870.com to find out all the freephone numbers for all the companies I called today so all the phoning around cost me NOTHING! Good job as, with Sky and BT I was on for AGES!! (one of the things that puts me off Sky is the length of time you're on hold!).

Rather pleased with that day's work!! Off I go to change the gas online (the only way you can get the above tariff) then I think a sit down and a munch of some (own brand!) Jaffa Cakes is in order until we have to go and pick up the children at 6 pm!!

x

lucielle

Mmmmm Jaffa cakes, think that counts as one of your five a day.
L

Sessie

:beer: I totally agree Lucielle!! Also, strawberry milkshake is the same!

Finished off the night yesterday with pizza where I found a buy one get one free offer which expires TODAY! So MSE from dawn til dusk!!

Got up today to find ELEVEN of my twelve sunflowers are poking through now, both my pots of carrots have tiny little green tops showing and even some of my tomatoes and oregano are beginning to appear!!

Hoping to split the approx SEVENTY strawberry seedings that have appeared on the kitchen windowsill down in the next couple of days too, but need dad to bring some smaller trays down.

Hoping to get the front of the house (outside) swept today and the garage door and front door and porch washed down (ably and messily assisted by the children I'm sure!) then when they have gone to bed I can put some weedkiller between the slabs and put my trough of flowers outside the front door. Mr Sessie will be busy waxing the car which will take a few hours but I have my sister coming over too to help us keep the children occupied!

Hmm... wonder if a chocolate orange is stretching the five-a-day just a step TOO far... ?

x

lucielle

Certainly not.
L

Sessie

I guess two year olds aren't quite into the MSE way of thinking!

Girlchild decided, in her wisdom, to pull up all but two of my sunflowers and trample on them. I was... shall we say, less than pleased!! :mad:

Went out for the day (Saturday) and when we got home there was a packet of 50 sunflower seeds on my kitchen bench - bless my dad!

So I have bought a propagator and planted 40 of them in there and replaced the 10 that were destroyed in small pots. I have them all on the kitchen windowsill where they will stay until they are a good few inches tall and she can more readily understand that they are plants that aren't to be picked.

I also bought a raspberry bush and a blackberry bush which I'm going to pot up some time today and see how I do with those. Also going to split down the seed strawberries that are still growing like crazy. They are going to get too cramped in the small pots they are in now, so want to get them to about 8 per large pot for now and then when we sort which are going to grow from which are not, I'll thin them out.

I was going to get a blueberry tree too as we all love them but they are £20 - as my birthday is less than a month away, guess what I'll be asking for!?

Am also going to ask for a subscription to Prima magazine as I love it - it has SO many moneysaving tips, great recipes and always has tons of websites to check out. I don't always get chance to look at them all, I have a pile of mags where I haven't managed to look at the sites yet, but they're all marked and I get to them as and when I can. There's a deal at the mo where you can get a year's subscription for £19.90 which is a really good price.

My older sister got another bagful of free gift from magazine toys for the children and a huge bag of crafty/cardmaking stuff from Freecycle for me which she gave me yesterday so hurrah!!

Well, Mr Sessie and I will have had 12 days off together with the children at the end of today but we are both back to work tomorrow... siiigh. I start my new hours too. It's been good to spend some quality time together, it's almost like a regrouping when we have these breaks, as we are rarely all together for days in a row. Its either me and the children, him and the children or my parents and the children whilst we're at work. If I'm honest, I'm ready to go back though, Mr Sessie is getting on my nerves with quite a few things at the moment - nothing major but you know how a few smaller things tend to build up and I'm not far off an explosion. Then I'LL be the one accused of over-reacting as it will most likely be something really minor that tips me over the edge.

Family visiting today - his grandmother has just moved in some assisted living place and we need to see his parents too (I suppose!) - we are MEANT to be going to B&Q to get some wood to mend the back doorframe but what's the betting it'll be, "Oh.. I'll go another day, one night after work or something..." and it never happens?!?!

Men!! :mad:

x

lucielle

Morning, a busy day for you there. Re blueberries I think if my memory serves me correctly you need 2 as they aren't self fertile. Have a good day.
L

lucielle

Also, just remembered they like ericacious (acid loving) soil. So if you're bery limey it could be as well growing in pots.
L