Debt free in ten years-my new, more realistic challenge.

PinotGrigio41

Sounds like you have been busy Pooh ! I hope Mr Pooh is pleased with his new pick up, you did make me laugh though with the stories of your sons thinking he needed help with the train !

I have had the heating on this morning and am sitting here with two jumpers and a hot water bottle and I still cant get warm ! This time last year my DD2 was on a school trip for 3 days and came home with a suntan ! Whats going on with this weather ?!! Someone needs to do something and quickly !!! :rotfl:

poohbear59

Pinot, I am having to wear gloves to use the laptop my hands are so cold. We still haven't come up with a definite method of picking up the pickup as we don't know which day it will be ready.

I have asked the garage to change the cam belt and timing belt for us now then we know it is done. DS3 is still desperate to take his dad as he hasn't been on a long journey in his car. Oh, hubby is home for lunch, I can hear him a mile off in his present vehicle. I have been offered £200 by the local scrap yard. He tried to offer £150 then realised who he was talking to and upped the offer. Not sure why?

HappyNow

Hi Pooh, just having a catch up. Well done on the pick-up. Did you get a Toyota in the end?

I'm sure you've already thought of this, but maybe you could sell Mr Pooh's old car to the garage you're buying the pick-up from - still for scrap money. Then he could drive to Scotland in the old one, leave that one there and drive the pick-up back, so you'd only have to pay one-way petrol.

Hope you're keeping warm, it's freezing here. I am permanently wearing my fluffy dressing gown on top of my normal clothes around the house. Not the most attractive look!

poohbear59

The last few days have been expensive.

As we are being eaten out of house and home each weekend I put together a Mr S order online. It came to over £100 without a lot of the necessities. :eek:

DD mentioned that her car needed some new brakes and was going into the nearest town (25 miles away). I blagged a lift with her and while the men at Slo Fit were working on the car, we went to Al#i where I spent £66!:D Didn't get the frozen things but got everything else and more.

The nice staff there said they would look after our trolley for us.

Then we limped (me) and waddled (DD) to Mr T where we had breakfast, £5.45 for two of us! Then wandered around looking at the sale rails. I found a pair of jeans (£5), pair of thickish Winter weight trousers (£5) and a pair of smart black trousers for £6(I have a funeral to go to next week). I was very happy with my purchases.

Then we waddled and limped back to Slow Fit to be told it was another two hours yet!! We had already tried to kill 3 1/2 hrs.:mad:

So we blagged a lift to town centre to try to find more to amuse us. I spent £10 on a £20 dress in Dor. Perk. as I had an old voucher from pigsback and then £5 on some Christma# pressies in Poundstretche#

We then went in search of bargains in lots of other shops and managed to control ourselves. After a while we met up with friends and had lunch £5.45 each while waiting for our phone call from Slowfit. At 4pm the car was ready. Just 6 hours to put new brakes and pads on front of the car.

Mr Pooh has gone off to Perth to buy the pick up. It is a Mitsubishi, very similar to the Shogun/Pajero which we have already had. It is all very familiar except the pick up bit of it. I wanted one with a double cab so can be used to ferry people in the Winter if it is bad again. £4788 spent in one go plus petrol there in DS3's car and diesel to get home.

Happy the old vehicle was not really roadworthy. The exhaust had blown very badly as well as lots of other faults, lack of power being the worst. So Mr Pooh should have gone on the train. It worked out cheaper to go in DS3's car. And good for a bit of male bonding too.

Dinner today is sausage casserole as we need something warming. It is trying to snow, lots of light flurries and it is bitterly cold especially as I turned off the storage rads in the hot weather we had during the week. S#ds law

DD cleaned the cottage this morning but I fear it may be her last weekend at work for a long time. Baby is due June

Next week's plan is to find a cleaner who will iron as my back won't allow me to do any. The boys all said they will clean but not iron. Paying someone to iron is expensive. I bought a steam press but can't manage that either. DD won't be able to reach the handle soon.

I have ended up propping up our personal account with most of the remainder of the PPI payment as we went over by £5 and the electricity bill wasn't paid. We will now have a £15 fee too.

The council tax still needs paying too.

On a positive note, our neighbour has given us two sacks of potatoes which she grew last year and a string of onions.

poohbear59

I have just lost a long message

The gist of it was that we have saved £34 by not going to a museum with the rest of the family, waiting to hear when they are out so we can go and join them for a pub lunch. We are having another attempt at Mother's day lunch out in the same pub but this time I will be eating

Mr Pooh will want to pay for everyone but I have already primed them and they are all going to say no thank you and pay for themselves. He is starting to get the hang of living within our means but is still too generous.:D

Talking of generous he has taken the top box rear cover off his new toy, I mean pick up. And he has put it in the back yard for the hens to go in when it rains!! Not sure what the holiday cottage guests will make of it .

poohbear59

Today I am going to trawl through the car warranties online and try to find the best one for us. DS1 is at work today and DH is going to collect more firewood.

Sharon123 come and join us on here. I would love to hear how you have paid off so much.

poohbear59

I am really pleased to have got the Co-op loan to under £4000. Little successes help me keep positive as it is a long haul.

Just found that this month's interest on the Barclay's loan is £109. That is a huge amount. No wonder it is taking so long to pay off. I am going to do a new snowball next week and see what I can do about paying some thing off early:)

HappyNow

When you say you need an ironing lady, you DO mean for cottage bedding etc, I hope? If you mean for your own clothes you should do what I have done and just STOP IRONING! Creases drop out of most clothes with body heat, I probably only iron about two garments a week. But if you mean for the cottage, that's different and I hope you find someone soon.

Hope the pick-up is behaving and that it is earning its keep for Mr Pooh. They are so useful, we would have one now if we could for ferrying animal feed/bedding around.

I love milestones, like yours of getting the Co-op loan under 4K. It makes you realise you are actually getting somewhere. And yes, £109 is a lot of interest each month. I think that if there's no way of reducing the interest we are better off not knowing what we pay!

poohbear59

Hi Happy, Yes the pick-up is behaving and is being well used thank you. Mr Pooh has used it to collect lots of our wood which is stored at a friend's farm.
I need an ironing lady to do the cottage ironing. DD is getting bigger by the day but is still ironing.. I can't iron because of my back.
We have almost no ironing done in our house either: though I like my trousers ironed and Mr Pooh's fatf#ce tops look better ironed. Sometimes he has them ironed as a treat . DD and SIL have everything they need now for theSIL was concerned at how much it was going to cost but I suggested he shouldn't panic. They have now had lots of things given to them or lent to them.

I sold another 60 patterns on ebay today, that makes it a total of £90!
next week I am going to list some bras, only tried on but never worn. Why did I waste so much money? Also going to list some more sewing things, books, cds and some clothes.

brizzledfw

Well done Pooh bear you're doing brilliantly. Ebay sounds good...if you want to list a sewing machine let me know..think I would like one!

Brizzle