Pavlovs_dog starting as she means to go on...

pavlovs_dog

just thought I'd drop in to say I'm still alive, reached the Easter Hols with my sanity as intact as it ever was.

Feel the need to be having a productive two weeks to catch up on all those things I'm forever meaning to do yet never quite manage. However, despite sleeping A LOT since Friday night I'm still majorly lacking to motivation and staying power. Shouldn't beat myself up I guess, it's been a tough few weeks. In my defence I have re-started Flylady stuff... the week before I broke up it got so bad that J started cleaning, and he NEVER sees the dirt, only the mess :eek:

one job that must be done is getting a budget and spending under control. I think we're going to have to ban ourselves from supermarkets because there are two or three shops a week, and it's not like we dont have food in the house. They're not small shops either. What does blur the issue is the amount of non food purchases we make. But still, it's a lot of £ss going out on a weekly basis. I currently have no idea how much we are actually spending on food and petrol in relation to our budget. Whilst it's a relief that we can comfortably afford this situation, it's money frittering away that could and should be working harder for us. Being April a lot of our bills have changed too so I think a SOA is in order.

On the MF front, paid another £148 in this morning, meaning we've paid of £590 of 2011's £1500 target or 39%. I'm hoping to OP another £160 by the end of the month so we can break the halfway mark.

Just keep swimming...

pavlovs_dog

Thought I'd share some pics of one of our many current projects, the garden. Here is the garden looking out from the house.



Here it is looking back towards the house

The observant people amongst you will notice we're still waiting for blinds for the dining room window. They're on order but the manufacturer has run out of that particular wood!



OH is in the background mixing up cement - we're putting the skills he learnt to fix the attic walls to good use on trying to repair the garden walls.

then there's the "rockery" which we have inherited




much work to be done out here, including eating into the lawn so we actually have space for a patio, fixing the two walls, painting them, restaining the fence, putting down something in place of the concrete paths, getting plants in and established, digging out the many, many weeds, trying to fix the bald patches in the lawn... the list goes on

cha97michelle

Nice to see the photos. Looks like quite a lot to do. Saying that, there is always something with houses isn't there.

Flylady is probably a great idea for you. I found when i was doing it the small changes in habit are what got me to half term. It wasn't persfect but better. Don't be too hard on yourself as you are working hard aren't you just to keep on top of school stuff. It does fall into place better the longer you do it.

Frugaldom

Thanks for sharing the photos, Pavlov's. I hope you get your patio done in time for summer hols. That was the very fist thing I got cleared when we got our keys last week. House may be a crumbling wreck but we now have a patio. :T It's all about priorities, who needs a kitchen for the first few weeks, anyway? :rotfl:

Edited in - Flylady scares me, only ever ventured on there a couple of times and then legged it back to dustville.

cha97michelle

I meant to say to you when you referred me to mutual points, i haven't had anything through yet. I wondered if you had been too busy to do it or it hadn't worked, but didn't want to say while you were busy.

Frugaldom - guess it will be BBQs all the way at yours then this summer.

pavlovs_dog

i did do it, but having never referred anyone else before I don't know whether it's worked or not. There's no way of telling by the account whether there is a referral pending or not. only thing I can think of is that it asks you to refer "up to 5 friends" and I only referred one - you (do you feel special? ) so it may not have done it because i dont have enough friends.

I shall email them and chase it up :j

pavlovs_dog

:eek: :eek: :eek:

I've been looking through credit and bank statements and have reached the conclusion that I cannot afford to be too busy to take charge of the food shopping in future - our food bills for the past two months have been almost DOUBLE what I have budgeted. I need to have a chat with OH and get him on board with the importance of better budgeting here, as we haven't been eating better for all the money that is going out. waste has to stop, eating out has to become an infrequent treat again and we need to get back on the meal planning bandwagon. We also need to do something to make non-food spends in the supermarket clearer, as I know for a fact that not all of the money that has gone to asda, tesco, morrisons etc has been on food. still the amount of £ss going out :eek:

Thankfully petrol spends are on average £20 under budget, even with rising fuel costs. Shame any saves have been eaten up by the amount of money we've spent on food and getting the car through some recent problems :cool:

I know in the grand scheme of things this is just a temporary wobble but I feel like such a numpty for letting it happen. In the spirit of putting things back on the straight and narrow, aims for the next week are:

*SORT OUT UTILITIES COMPARISSON _ this has been on the to do list for waaay to long
*look to see exactly how much £ss we have over our various savings accounts and whether those accounts are still competitive
*sort out our ISAs

Frugaldom

Pavlov's, at least you noticed the sudden spike in the grocery/takeaway spends, it could have been much worse and you could have ended up featuring on 'Superscrimpers'. :rotfl:

It's our fuel/car costs that are going through the roof, as we're doing about an extra 200 miles a week travelling between the two houses. I can't claw it back from elsewhere in the budget, as the budget is stretched to the limit already.

pavlovs_dog

Morning all.

Hope everyone's had a lovely Easter. In keeping with the British way, we've spent the weekend doing DIY! Our loft is now boarded, apart from some pipework which needs to be boxed in. It looks loads bigger. We can now sort through some of the junk in the 2 spare rooms, and start decluttering/putting things away.

I've also done some work on the garden, in particular the rockery. Dug out all the old weeds, cut back the ivy, cut back the tree of unknown variety to let more light in, put in some new soil and started arranging the rocks.

On the money front, i've FINALLY switched utilities to some duel fuel online saver offer with British gas. We'll get a free energy monitor which i'm looking forward to using. we can also enter meter readings online monthly we we can see a more accurate overview of our usage and avoid hugely overestimated bills. It came out as the best deal online as well, so should save us a few £s.

We've steered clear of the supermarkets and have been using up bits in the cupboards and freezers. Need to meal plan for this week and do a weekly shop at some point.

Car has to go in for MOT, service and a new alloy this week, although money has been put by for this purpose.

had people out to quote for capping off our chimneys and fixing our guttering. As you can see from the picture of the back of our house, access is not exactly straightforward. There has been about £300 variation between the quotes, depending on whether the roofer is prepared to do it off of a ladder or not. There's been a real division - of the five who have quoted, 2 would do it from ladders, 2 would only do it with scaffolding and one was 50/50 depending on the weather at the time of the job. If we take the ladder route, we're talking £500-600. With scaffolding, it's £800-900. They've all been much the same in terms of how professional they've been, so i'm leaning towards the ladder option as the difference saved will pay for getting a proper aerial installed.

have several tutoring sessions set up for next week so hoping to OP another chunk before the end of the month.

baby steps, but they're in the right direction at least

pavlovs_dog

Frugaldom wrote: »

Pavlov's, at least you noticed the sudden spike in the grocery/takeaway spends, it could have been much worse and you could have ended up featuring on 'Superscrimpers'. :rotfl:

reading through threads on the MFW boards, it seems to be catching as others have mentioned it too. Least i'm in good comapny!

Hope all is going well with you DIY projects