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

yukkibear

wantabetterlife wrote: »

Hi DFSD, well done on the CC payment...hows the little one settling into the nursery?

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bet DFSD isn't still in her pj's at 11.30am :rotfl:

wantabetterlife

Ha Ha Yukki...you following me...lol. You will be pleased to know i have actually managed to get dressed....all be it a pair of trackies and a hoodie but dressed none the less

debtfreesomeday

Ha, no, as much as I would love a pj day, I'm afraid they never happen for me!

Hi WABL and yukki, Ds seems to be settling in well, and getting lots of attention at nursery which he obviously loves! He's not napping very well there at the moment, but it's early days I guess.

He's not been very well this week, with a bad throat and cough which has been keeping him (and us!) up most nights and making him a bit miserable, poor thing. I took him to the doctors again today as he's not drinking or eating at all well lately. It's got to the point where he's literally drank an ounce or two of water all day and has refused all bottles. I'm really worried and stressed about it all, there seems to be a new symptom with his problems every week and we're still no nearer to finding any answers.

Onto money saving, and I am still yet to list the latest eBay stuff. Hopefully I'll get it done this coming weekend. I have, however, sold two of the baby items I advertised at work, making £20, but also clearing a bit of space! Someone has contacted me today about a third item which is quite a big piece of nursery furniture, so I'm hoping they take it as it'll clear a big space and will make us £20 in the process! It was given to us third hand and my Dad painted it up for us before Ds arrived. Trouble is, it doesn't fold down or dismantle, so now we're gone with it, it's too big to keep. Only one more item to sell after this one, but I think I may have to reduce that a little as there's no interest at thd moment. Failing that, I could eBay it, but need to look into a way of sending large items through the post/by courier.

The bank account isn't looking too bad. I notified tax credit people about our change in circumstances and I see they've put £7.98 in our bank account today. I'll try not to spend it all at once!

Hope everyone's having a good week,
Dfsd

debtfreesomeday

Forgot to mention, I received £19.50 in clubcard vouchers today. I was going to double them up and buy in loads of nappies, but the baby category is not included this time. We're going to save them instead as there's nothing else we need/want at the moment.

wantabetterlife

I was saving mine too for nappies and am so annoyed its not included this time. The first time i doubled up you could buy any brand of nappies, the second time they restricted it to pampers and the third time they havent included them at all. Im just gonna hold on to mine as the thought of spending them on something like finest wine would kill me :rotfl:. Fingers crossed they will be included next time. Hope ds feels better soon. xo

debtfreesomeday

I agree WABL, the exchange categories were pretty limited this time. Although, I'm now considering savings our throughout next year and cashing them in for next Christmas, which is quite an exciting thought!

We've made a bit of extra cash lately by selling a few baby items we no longer need; £30 so far and hopefully another £50 tomorrow. The £30 has gone already - on a haircut for DH, some essentials for Ds and a bit of shopping, but the £50 will be paid off the credit card.

I received a cheque yesterday for the refund of the holiday we've cancelled, so once the cheque is in the bank, another £286 will be paid off of it.

Today I've sorted out and wrapped lots of Christmas gifts. The spare room has been full of these things for weeks now! We have nearly finished the Christmas shopping now, just 3 or 4 gifts left to buy.

I re-adjusted our childcare voucher scheme payments this week so that the highest value is deducted from DH's salary rather than mine. I didn't realise, but this means we will be £400 better off throughout the year! Unfortunately it won't come into effect until January's payment though.

Oh, and tax credits are now giving us an extra £7 a month now that my earnings are almost halved... I've no useable they do their calculations!

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

Only you would be so organised as to be thinking about Christmas 2012 already! Some of us haven't sorted anything out for this Christmas yet. You sound like you are doing well on the money front at the moment.

I was supposed to exchange contracts on my flat this week, but the buyer pulled out the day before . Apparently a piece of furniture she has won't fit in my flat and it seems that piece of furniture is better than my flat. I wish I was joking. Argh. Not a good time of year to be starting looking for a new buyer, but there it is.

If we gloss over the pointless professional fees I have to pay for, my money situation was also looking good. I was trying to eat up food in the cupboards and freezer so hardly spending anything in the food shops. Also, I have been busy with house things so not spent much money at the weekend.

I have a couple of things I would like to put on Ebay tomorrow if I can summon up the enthusiasm. I seem to have had a lot of P!necone surveys recently which has been good and I have kept up with a few MSs. But I think the most significant thing is that I haven't been clothes shopping so my credit cards are intact!

Hope you are settling into the new routine and you are all OK.

debtfreesomeday

You can't be serious chocs?! A piece of furniture??? That's just awful. I'm so sorry to hear of your disappointment, I really am.
I can't believe her reason! I do hope you find another buyer soon.
Well done on all the saving/ non spending this month though.

A short post from me tonight as bed is calling, but just wanted to add that £300 has been paid off the cc tonight, so now down to £1079.01. I should've paid the annoying 1p off!

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

Hope you have had a good week.

I have had one of those weeks where there is lots of money coming in and just as much money going out! There is something I really want to treat myself with which is on sale at Boots for £350. The good news is that I have £150 cashback coming into my account from my mobile phone contract (my best ever cash back claim) and I haven't spent much recently so I can cover the cost. Can you tell I am trying to convince myself - still can't bring myself to place the order!

I relisted a few items on Ebay last weekend which have been on there several times. I am not sure why they aren't selling; Ebay is a funny thing at times. Anyway, I notice that one has a bid so that will be one less taking up space here. I saw a very reasonably priced work shirt on Ebay (about a tenth of the price of a new one) and won the auction so that can replace one of mine which is looking well worn to say the least.

I hope you are all well x

debtfreesomeday

Hope you pressed the order button Chocs and treated yourself, you deserve it and are so pro-active in saving/making money that you will cover the cost in no time! The cashback will certainly help.

It's been a roller coaster couple of weeks. My parents came up to stay which was lovely, but unfortunately my Mum is now poorly again and is back in hospital. I am so worried about her, I really am. I'm just keeping everything crossed that it all works out ok. My parents loved spending time with Ds and he absolutely adores them, it's just so upsetting that they don't see him much.

Today, spurred on by my constant feeling of being homesick and being so far from my family, I have been looking at jobs and house prices in my home town, which is a long way from where we presently live. The house prices are sky high and jobs in my field are extremly rare to stumble across, but DH has a good chance of getting a good job there. However, he has the opportunity in his present position to be paid to train and diversify into a different role. This will take between 3-5 years, but pretty much guarantees him a highly paid role in our desired area. 3-5 years has never felt so far away though...

In the meantime, I'm trying to summon a fresh enthusiasm for debt repayment, money saving and budgeting. We now have no savings left, but we have an extra £200 a month coming in thanks to(reluctantly accepted on our part) family help, which will help greatly. It's payday on Thursday and I think we will be a little overdrawn which we will need to address in next month's budget.

I have also sold all of the baby items through the notice board at work, making £80. £50 of this went towards paying off the credit card. I relisted, and sold, one more item on ebay this week, only making a couple of pounds, but it's better than nothing. I have a pile full of other bits to ebay, which I haven't got round to doing yet, but will really make the effort to do so this weekend.

Our freezer is full and so is the store cupboard, so we have no reason not to stick within our grocery budget. This is one area where we have done well in the past, but we find it so easy to completely blow the budget as well and usually end up doing so every month. Last week I batch cooked lots of portions of basic curry sauce from scratch from 'the takeaway secret' recipe book. It tasted just as good as a takeaway but is obviously a lot better for our waistlines, being full of veg, and for our wallets too! It also means we can quickly cook something healthy of an evening which has actually been cooked from scratch. We have been looking through the book again tonight and plan to do the same with another recipe next weekend.

I have tried to do a couple of surveys today but one wouldn't load properly and I got screened out of the other. I shall keep checking for more in the next few days.

I feel that I need to be more positive in my approach to things from now on as I'm aware I can be quite a negative person. My plan tonight was to start a new diary as this one feels full of negativity and now feels a good time to start anew, but I'm now too tired and not in the right frame of mind, so will do so very soon.

For now, it's soon time for bed!
DFSD