Moving onwards, the family home and making it MF. LP diary pt2

cha97michelle

I wouldn't rush to get sofas, and if you have offers like we have down here there is no point using your own money when they give out 0% credit.

The car is a consideration, and also putting it into a pot to go towards the hols you want to take.

It could also be a good safety net to cover drop in income while you are off. If you need DH at home for a few weeks it covers his wages.

I wish i had some good fortune. In fact, i wish DH would just cash in the £2k ot and sort out his blooming pay rise he has been talking about for months.

Enjoy some of it at least.

CathT

Hope baby comes soon for you, being 2-3 cms is a good sign, those pains are doing something at least.

That's fab news about the PPI claim, with the 1.5k left from the first claim added to the other £2k i would think some sort of OP is feasible. However if we OP'd all out spare cash we would never have anything new would we.

LilacPixie

Michelle i'm in shock... literally.. They say 30 days to put into bank for i have completed the acceptence just now so will pop that in the post box today for a monday pick up. Sculking about the PPI board lots seem to of had similar offers and received a BACS transfer in about 3 weeks so fingers crossed.

LilacPixie

I am having an evening contemplating my naval while DH is building a bookcase I bought with vouchers from my work for turning 30. Its oak and pretty.
I am getting sick fed up with not making my OP goals because of a mix of lazyness and poor disipline. Now i'm not dumb, I know that february will be another 'difficult' month. We have council tax to pay because they have eventually sorted it out, but its only £2 more than our prev montly payment so this year will be 11 payments not 10. Next year with it being a full year it will be 10 payments at 30 more than we were a month

And I posted totally by accident.. grrrr.

Anyway February will be a harsh but short month.. baby will definatly be here before the month is over... I am doubtful it will arrive before January ends though. DH has been paid already and I get paid Monday. Now I have a tendancy to be quite ill after birth so I fully expect most of February to be spent recovering plus no doubt we will discover we need something for baby that we don't actually have.... I suspect clothing may be an issue, we have newborn stuff but only a pram suit, coat and 3 babygrows in next size. I'm sure I can remember days when we would do 3-4 sleepsuits/baby grows within a day but i'm hoping to get a good few weeks from newborn stuff and hoping if people will gift things we get 0-3 month stuff or bigger. I'm also on the hunt for any clothing glitches or sale bits.

Now that sounds great but you should see the clothes my kids have, seriously over the top is not the word!! I think i need to behave myself and try use as little as possible clothing wise and learn from this when replacing the bigger girls stuff as they grow.

Next thing food. Once March comes take aways will be banned. I would like to say from now but TBH I doubt it. I think we will have days with the baby that will mean v little sleep, colicy baby, toddler not adjusting and we will be reaching for a delivered pizza or curry rather than cooking. That being said I have stocked up on chicken dippers, wedges and fish fingers plus tinned veg for the kids and I have some meals frozen for us adults but then again I made them in early jan and we had a pizza this week once and used a frozen chicken curry once too, apart from that its been pasta based meals mostly.

Dh and I love soups, pasta, fajitas, pizza, baked potatoes etc. I should be spending alot less on shopping than I do.. I need to stock take the store cupboard and freezer and use it. I need to use the SC more often and start bulk cooking when well. DH works for a catering suppliers and he gets 40-60% of things, things like 3kg bags of scampi or onion rings but also fresh meats, frozen veg and other stuff like flour, 1kg tinned toms etc etc. I need to actually get hold of a list and see if we would be better making an order from his work, a regular Mr T monthly order then maybe a weekly top up for fruit/veg. I have also wondered about a milk man. Milk certainly would cost more but the cost v's hitting a supermarket every few days and bying the unneeded stuff like sweet for a child, DD2 not yet at nursery so would be with me, the 'special' on biscuits or a magazine etc would probably be less especially considering fuel costs too.

Baking... I can bake, I am good at baking, I make muffins to die for, banana bread that is famous and I can make fudge and other naughty sweeties. Ginger biccies plus twins hob nobs mean I really should have no need to buy stuff like that but instead I sit on my buttocks and do nothing but moan that i'm over spending... Well it has to stop, it will stop and the next 4 weeks and 2 days will be spent making a plan for our fresh start come 1st March 2011

cha97michelle

Ah and now you are beating yourself up. What a pair we are.

Also guilty of the kids having too many clothes. I should know better as i am so fed up of washing and ironing them and still having piles of clothes everywhere.Not all me though, as the MIL and my mum also give me stuff for them.

Perhaps we need a plan of only switching the computer on at certain times, or do half an hour of something (anything?) and then get on. When i am in a nice routine i also do well at the baking, the mending clothes, the ebaying and money earning, but it is a lot of effort to keep it all in the air.

We'll get there.

I think the only thing i am being better at is keeping on cooking and that is only because we haven't got the spare £10 to buy takeaway. If we did it would be spent.

Can you move some money away from your current account when you get paid so you feel more skint and then don't waste it? I used to do that quite well when we had more coming in. Then you can always move it back if it is a deserved treat but if you don't spend it even better?

babyb06

Wow! Great news about the 5k! FWIW I would spread the money - an o/p, a treat (or 2!) and a large chunk towards a car. I agree with Michelle about the sofas - bought mine on an interest free deal spread over 3 years and I do not miss that small amount every month, why pay a lump sum when you don't have to.

Fingers crossed baby makes an appearance soon!

LilacPixie

thanks ladies.

Michelle - I just get in these 'moods'. I havemajor issues about OH debt and he is financially inept but I am stubbornly refusing to do it for him. Bit like your hubby and his payrise you just get to the stage where you hav said enough and done enough that you think 'WHATEVER' and silently seeth. I am at that stage.


Currently we have 2 joint accounts, one that has my income and the major bills come from that, you know mortgage, council tax, utilities blah blah blah. I also pay my credit card from that and I use my credit card for fuel, clothes, top up shops and other assorted 'stuff'. The other account has Dh wages plus child benefit and his debt payments comes out there, minimum by DD then he is supposed to be making top ups as well. that is the account we use for grocery spends and he uses his debit card for fuel. it is this account we managed to be into the OD on.

In addition I have my own account that I get lower care DLA paid into, I have R&R multiple sclerosis and permenant nerve damage due to that. Not life limiting just annoying but I seem to go 5-7 years between attacks so I have lerned to adapt. It does mean i need to be naughty and buy some prepared veg like swede rather than a whole swede because I can't prepare it due to dodgy hands. Other things like i struggle with temperature so i have all sorts of adjustments and gargets in the car and home which cost a bloomin fortune. It's £73 every 4 weeks and it just sits until i need to buy or replace something. Silly things like I have a steering wheel adaption and its £45 to get removed and fitted onto a different car.

I think I just need to get a grip, I get absolutly zero interest on my current account that DLA is paid into yet it can easy have 400-500 just sitting in it, at the moment its over £400 i think but its not an account i check regularly, I needed some thermometers for down stairs bathroom sink in new house and for shower but other than that it hasn't been touched in 6+ months. Now realistically I could blast that off mortgage or if i wasn't so stubborn off OH own account that has the overdraft. Now the overdraft is still active so I could call on that money if I needed it but the stubborn nope thats mine part stops me.. I think i need professional mental help TBH.

yukkibear

Well done on the PPi claim, that must be a great boost for you. I have an OH just like yours, except he's not in debt any more and I almost remove all his money away from him. If he chooses to go OD in his own personal acc then that's his perogative. Sounds harsh but that's what works best for us and then I don't get stressed thinking about him spending from our joint acc which is for bills only technically.

How's the slow labour coming along?

KimmyCustard

Havent been on here for about a week, and youre still pregnant??! I was hoping you would have popped by now, by the sound of it, you're feeling the same??!

Yay to the £5K, I would say get the car replaced, a new sofa can be done on 0% as others have said, plus pay the parents back, you never know when or if you may need to ask them for a loan again!

We had a C/C debt of just over £4K in Nov, have just reduced it to £2200 this month, am pleased about that. OH had debt when we met and he seems to buy me big things and accrue more debt! Bless him, we have had a chat about it and I've persuaded him I dont need anything else. We've decided to skip a holiday this year and spend some money on the house, as follows:

New front door and fitting

Chicken run finished and move chooks in

Repaint kitchen and new blinds

Wooden arch in the garden to replace the metal one that has rusted away

We were thinking of a new corner suite and new carpet but that will have to wait. Also saving for a holiday next year, maybe the Maldives or Canada. The list gets ticked off but it never ends does it??

LilacPixie

I know... still fat... those of you on my FB account will know i was in hospital yesterday but I survived... just. My tummy muscles are knackard and baby keeps popping in and out of the pelvis. I have a week to naturally evict or bump is being forcibely removed Sweep on Friday so we will see.

So ladies I have a week, house is a mess as usual, clean just untidy and I don't want to bring baby home to a messy house so I plan on spending this week reading flylady type threads and doing stuff. OH has fallen in love with a MPV at a family friends garage.. I find it quite amusing TBH but point blank refusing to drive it. It is a totally suitable car for out family outings etc but I personally hate the idea of MPV's so I will drive the other car and he can drive the MPV