gratefulforhelp's austerity measures

*Jellie*

Sorry to hear SIL was a pain! Glad you've had a flu jab.
Happy new year!

cha97michelle

Hapy New Year. Health and happiness to you and yours, and patience to deal with all the rest.

twinklie

How have I only just found your thread? Clearly one of my new years resolutions needs to be to keep up with MSE more. Happy new year.

gratefulforhelp_2

Happy New Year everyone, and Hellooo! twinklie.

Day off the computer yesterday for our mental health...and I have some resolutions. last night we did some (more) maternity leave sums and we decided that we have the year covered, unless things go wrong to the tune of more than £500 a month...though coping with this would mean no personal spends and no overpayment...small price to pay, so if things don't go wrong by more than that amount we will probably be ok.

We will have to be much more careful, especially since the cost of heating oil has gone up by about 75%

Resolutions

1. Look after myself better (DH needs more stepford and less steptoe)
2. Zero tolerance for SIL's machiavellian machinations (on reflection she has been doing this for years, basically since we met)
3. Take £50 off both food and diesel budgets
4. Stop washing clothes that have been worn for a day and are not dirty
5. Save up my personal spends so I can have some new clothes for when I have lost the baby weight (last child for me and so no further excuses not to bother losing the weight).

Phew! Going to choose a puppy next Sat. Going riding today (well DD1 is) and to M and D for lunch. Have to wrap Dad's present as it was really late -caught in the post- and it has been sleeting here.

Also, and this is not the afterthought it seems, my Grandma died on Tuesday. So if you have elderly relatives, get those thankyous out, I was late doing it, and too late it seems.

cha97michelle

Sorry to hear about your grandma. Will get round to doing some thanks pronto as one is for a friend of the MIL who is very ill with cancer and i think it would be appreciated. MIL asked me to write to her and send a photo of the boys.

yukkibear

Sorry to hear about your grandma. xx

*Jellie*

Sorry to hear about your grandma x

LilacPixie

sorry to hear about your grandma xx RIP

gratefulforhelp_2

Thanks everyone. It's all joy round here at the moment!! Winter is a bad time for losing people I think, even with central heating and so on, there seem to be more deaths.

Still, onwards.

gratefulforhelp_2

In the interests of honesty, I have to confess to £28 spent on two riding lessons for DD1, so not a NSD. DH got two lovely shirts for Christmas from M and D which will reduce the chances of him going to work looking like a bag of spanners.

And yesterday I made lovely soup from swede, parsnip and butternut squash with coriander, cumin and ginger, turned out really well.

We are eking out the oil until we get our delivery, so its cooollld, and there is snow predicted tonight and tomorrow.

Room booked for next visit to outlaws. We are not going unless DH has all activities planned in advance, to dodge the SIL bullets.