The final countdown... and a newbie in the DFSD house!

debtfreesomeday

Chocforever wrote: »

Thank you for the Christmas wishes. I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year too!

Ah yes, I forgot you were going part time after the maternity leave. And there was me wondering if you were planning to have a lots of children and need several years' back to back maternity leave . Well maybe you are .

There is no need to apologise for going part time. I'm a part timer and don't have any kids. I would certainly prefer to be at home with young children rather than pay for day care all the time and I think working part time is a nice balance. What is the saying - you will never look back on your life and wish you had spent more time at work?

I've had a good day today, there was a good atmosphere at work, and travelling in the snow was fine. It's due to snow again tonight and tomorrow morning so I'm hoping it will still be OK to travel to work tomorrow and then to my family on Thursday.

Yes, I think next year is going to be a good one . Certainly very exciting for you and I am hoping to make some significant lifestyle changes which should make more time and space for the things I care about .

Certainly not planning any more for a good 4 or 5 years Chocs! Definitely can't afford it! Plus, don't know how I'd cope with more than one under 4 or 5!

Glad you had a good day; there's been a better atmosphere in our office of late due to one or two 'difficult' people being off work for a while. I've actually not minded being in work most days!

Be safe in the snow and hope Thursday's travelling is straight forward. My folks are coming up on Boxing Day IF the weather's ok and the roads are clear. I'm just praying and hoping they will be at the moment as my Mum has her heart set on coming and I so want to see them, it feels like ages since they were here last.

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

Odd pennies duly transferred over to the M.L. account from the main account this morning, so now £2407.49 in there.

£10 spent on more birthday gifts for next year in a 75% off sale that I had an advance warning email about. I think I've actually bought something for all the female birthdays next year now. Will need to buy something else for my Mum and sister, but they're not until November so I think I have time! :rotfl:
I have purchased a couple of things for some of the male birthdays too, but always find these harder to buy for.

There was a crisp £5 note in change from the bits hubby picked up in town for me yesterday, so, like a good girl, I put the fiver in my sealed pot.

I intended to bake some cakes last night but got home to find we didn't have enough eggs in, so need to buy some tonight, as well as some other groceries we've listed. We wrote the Christmas/New Year food shopping list last night, making sure we catered for our visitors. We have meal planned for new year and a little buffet on boxing day so know exactly what we need to buy. Our £100 Sainsbury's credit will pay for this, hopefully with a lot left over to help us out in January. Tonight's shopping will be for less exciting things though and will come out of the main grocery budget.

Have a good day all

DFSD
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debtfreesomeday

I hope everybody had a lovely Christmas. Ours was very different this year, not being with my family, but my folks made it up on Boxing Day and I was so glad to see them. :j

So, now for a financial round-up I guess... the Christmas shopping unfortunately came in at £126, so cost us £26 in cash which came out of the shopping budget. This left the tin very short on cash for January's groceries, so I will top it up with some of the money I have spare in my account this month.

The guests who had cancelled for New Year are now coming again, so we have catering to do tomorrow and the day after. Thankfully, we have the main bulk of food in for this and have only needed to buy in a few extra bits costing around £20 or so. We also have guests coming to stay in a couple of weekends time, to be honest, I could do without it as am starting to feel very tired and knackered all the time, but they are a lovely couple and the arrnagements are already made.

We were also, very kindly, given £40 in supermarket gift cards for Christmas which will help with January's groceries.

My parents also gave us a cheque for £100 towards a new TV (in addition to spoiling us rotten with gifts) as our ancient TV was on the way out and had almost given up the ghost. Hubby's mother gave him £100 for Christmas too, so we have taken £100 out of the maternity savings and bought a new TV (in the sales of course!) for £300. Not a neccessity in my book, but if it had broken once maternity leave started I'm not sure we would've been able to afford to replace it. We shall do our best to make that £100 back up in the ML account, but it is not a make or break situation if we don't.

We were also given lots of bits for baby for Christmas, as well as a couple of bumper boxes of nappies which will certainly help with the finances later on.

My parents also very kindly bought us up lots of veg, fruit and meat they had picked up at a good price and couldn't use themselves. A big bit of the meat is marinading for New Year tomorrow and will easily feed 5 of us. The second piece is in the freezer for cooking when our second lot of guests are staying in the new year. Tomorrow we shall prepare the veg, and any left over will be prepped for the freezer. We had so much, that we couldn't use it all, so gave lots of veg to a good friend of ours who was on his way to shop for veggies this morning but popped in for a cuppa. He kindly came back to us with some other goodies they couldn't use themselves!

The petrol budget is looking healthy already - we have only spent £45 out of £200. The car will need filling up in the next day or two, but it is still good going for us. Those few snow days of not being able to get the car out certainly helped!

The deliveries of sale gifts for next year I ordered, arrived just before Christmas. A couple of days ago, I set to and wrapped all of the birthday, mother's day and even some Christmas gifts for next year and labelled them all! (Yes, I am crazy!). We intend to put the wrapped Christmas gifts up in the loft in a plastic box so they will be out of the way until next year. I've listed everything I have and for whom, so there's no chance of forgetting or over-buying. The great news is I have loads of birthdays sorted or partially bought for for the year ahead. Oh, and they were all wrapped with birthday and Christmas paper bought for pennies in the sale after Christmas! I bought 6 rolls of lovely Christmas paper for 35p a roll which will go in the attic for next year.

Happy New Year to you all

DFSD
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debtfreesomeday

£20.59 on the way to the bank account from Quidco. £30 spent on petrol yesterday.

Had to buy some more groceries to cater for our visitors, costing £15 or so. Also got another £30 out of the bank account to throw in the groceries pot this month as it was pretty empty. We have more visitors next weekend so it's going to be an expensive (and tiring) couple of weeks.

I had to email play.com today as the blu ray player I bought hubby for Christmas already seems to be developing some faults. :mad::mad::mad: I bought it in September though so I really hope they do the decent thing and replace it without too much fuss.

Feeling tired today and a little bit grumpy so am not in the best of moods!

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

Just ordered a new cheap mobile phone contract as my other is about to expire and I will cancel it. £50 cashback through quidco plus £220 automatic cashback via the mobile phone company. Hopefully it will go through without any hitches! The £270 will be paid off the credit card, or £220 off the card and £50 in the ML accont - I'll decided which when it all goes through and the money is in the bank.

debtfreesomeday

No surprises to say that the 'oh so helpful' play.com has sent me a rather rude email back to say they won't do anything about the faulty blu-ray player, but they do thank me for my 'understanding'. :mad::mad::mad: We're trying a different HD lead at the moment, but if that doesn't work, I'll contact Sony who should repair it, but it's more hasle that way. Last time I buy anything electronic from Play!

Last day of the hols today before work tomorrow, and it will mainly consist of washing, drying and sorting the house out a bit.

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

4 or 5 loads of washing and drying later (I've lost count)...

Most of the big bills have come out of the account in advance of tomorrow, not leaving a lot in there, but at least most of the bills are paid now. Another loan payment made, so now there's 34 payments left until we are debt free. I've rounded the main account down by the odd 73p and transferred that into the maternity leave account.

Today we have also fitted the base of the baby car seat into the car so it will be ready for when baby arrives. We have also unpacked and (sort of) figured out how to use the baby monitor/sensor pad thing and made room in our bedroom for the moses basket & stand. We're slowly getting organised!

Off to read some diaries for now and stay motivated.

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

First day back at work today... brought breakfast & lunch in with me so no pennies spent on that - same goes for hubby. Will try and be a bit more organised tonight and sort lunches out this evening instead of running round like a madwoman in the morning again.

Hubby bunged a chicken in the slow cooker this morning for dinner tonight so that's sorted. There should even be leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I think the problem with the bluray player has been sorted, in that it could've been a faulty lead. We tried a different one that my Dad kindly gave us and it seems to have worked all of yesterday. If so, I'll try and find the receipt for the faulty one and return it as it cost £10.

Nothing else new out of the account today, but nothing going in either unfortunately! I really need to start looking at money-making methods for 2011.

DFSD

wantabetterlife

Hi DFSD, the maternity savings are going well :j. I am trying really hard this month to stick within budgets as the money just seems to dissappear from the bank accounts!
I also bought OH a bluray for his birthday yesterday and then realised you needed a special lead for it :mad:. Bought this on ebay last night for £15....wasnt sure how much to spend as some of the leads cost over £100 which is pretty ridiculous. I just hope that when it comes it works well.
Goodluck with trying to up your income....i am also trying to gather up things to ebay .

debtfreesomeday

Hi WABL - I bought the ethernet lead from ebay too, think it was under a tenner though at the time, but this was in Sept/Oct of last year. The HDMI lead that is actually working now (fingers crossed) was a cheap one bought from home bargains for £2.99 - so far it's been working better than the Curry's £9.99 one!

I know what you mean about the money disappearing, it's always the same. I'm trying really hard this month too as there's still 3 weeks left until payday, but we've had/will have 2 weekends of catering for visitors within two weeks which has seriously not helped!