Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

Okay. Here I go. Starting my new diary as the old one has reached it's end time. I realise it's not quite 2011, but I think 7-10 days isn't a huge difference, is it?

So... in the spirit of New Years and resolutions and all that, I need to get things organised and decide what changes I'm going to make. Here are a few things I've been looking at:

MSE:
- checking bank account regularly, daily if possible, and keeping closer track of finances. I'm hoping this will help point out where we've spent money we don't need to, although I have a pretty good idea where we're "leaking money" already.

- getting monthly grocery bill down lower. I know we can do this - but we need to be more disciplined in shopping and more creative in cooking!

- build up savings as much as possible in an attempt to put together a full and final on at least one, possibly two, debts this year.

- don't buy any greeting cards this year. I have all the supplies to make lovely cards myself, but don't take the time to do so. I am going to take the time to plan a couple months ahead and make cards for occasions coming up, so that they are all ready to sign and post. This includes Christmas cards for 2011.

- get more ambitious in the kitchen - plan better and bake more. It can be a bit difficult working around the boys, but with a bit of planning, it can be done. I just need motivate myself more. This could save us a fair bit of money on groceries.

In general:

- get more things done around the house. This year has been quite difficult, and I don't anticipate much improvement initially in 2011. DH has surgery coming up in January, which will affect things at home as well as our finances (DH's work won't pay for the time missed from the surgery until the following pay period, even though he's fully entitled to their sick pay - it's because of the way they do their paperwork. It once recently took them 2 pay periods for them to pay him for 3 days he was off sick with stomach flu! It's going to be a HUGE difficulty going on half a month's pay - or more if he can't go back right away after the 2 weeks off - for an extra month!)

- follow the budget more closely. Pretty self-explanatory - I should and I don't! :rotfl:

- update will. This is a huge priority. Ideally, I'd like us to get this done by New Year. But not sure if we will be able to or not, as it will cost money that we cannot afford to miss right now. I'm going to do my best to juggle the budget to see if I can't fit that in though.

Immediate concerns:

- do tax forms for last tax year that is due (from previous self-employment). I don't owe anything, just need to get the paperwork done online before 31 December (although I think it's due actually in January).

- fill out DS2's DLA paperwork and put together the documentation needed. This is a very time consuming task that I can't do with the boys bounding about - so will need to do a little at a time after they are in bed for the evening.

Okay... that's about it for the moment. I'm sure I'll think of other things I've forgotten later.

Triggles

Adding a link for a free family monthly budget. I like this one, and think I may try it for awhile and see how it goes. I'm using it with Open Office, which is also free.

http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/family-budget-planner.html

twinmum07

Ooh - the budget spreadsheet looks great. Off to have a play. Thanks for sharing

Triggles

Let's see. Our turkey is still in the fridge defrosting for tomorrow. Today we will be making mince pies with DS2, which will most likely be rather messy, but fun. A bit of a cleanup in the house, and then tonight after the boys are in bed, DH & I will finish wrapping presents and relax with a nice glass of wine. Yay! :j

It's supposed to be cold this weekend which means our heating will be running more. I don't even want to think about what the bill is going to be! We're trying to keep it under control by dressing warmly, but with little ones you can only do so much. We put a sleeper under DS3's clothing, so even if he pulls his socks off (one of his favourite pastimes!) then his feet are at least still warm. :cool: We're also making sure we turn the heater down on warmer days (those few that we have) and when we go out. I've noticed that if we turn the heater down a bit when we're leaving for a few hours, when we come back (from out in the cold weather), the house seems warm still, so we sometimes don't turn the heater back up for quite some time. So we're hoping that saves some ££ as well.

We've got plenty of milk, bread, and fruit, so we're set for at least the next few days. So no venturing to the supermarket until after Boxing Day! The car is parked on the drive, and that's where it's going to stay. We have nowhere that we have to be, and DD & MIL are both coming over here on Christmas Day, so we can enjoy being at home all day. Absolutely no plans for Boxing Day, other than "relax and enjoy being home as a family" and that's it. No meal plans for that day either, as it's most likely going to be a left-overs day. Between sandwiches, curry, and pie, I think we can use all the turkey within a couple days. :rotfl:

I'm still debating going to check sales after Christmas. We don't have a bunch of money to spare, but we would like to take a look at B&Q if they have their Christmas lights for cheap - we have a string that needs to be replaced, and we'd rather buy it after Christmas when it's cheap than next year full price. I want to make homemade Christmas presents for next year - and if I buy a bunch of stuff in the sales, I won't do that. So other than that string of lights, I think I will avoid the sales. That will mean handmade Christmas cards and homemade Christmas presents. And all year to work on them. Best plan I think is to start organising NOW what I want to give to people, and then do a little each month, so that it's all done well in advance. Other than food items, of course!

The cards can be made in advance when I'm making my supply of birthday cards for the next couple months, and then closed in a box to wait until closer to Christmas 2011 to take out, sign, and send. I think I will make sure I purchase some stamps next time I'm at the post office, so I'm all set for upcoming birthdays and such.

I've got some store bought sausage rolls which we'll use for Christmas, then make some homemade ones next week for New Years. It'll be a nice treat to have hot fresh ones. And moneysaving as well, since we have some sausage meat in the freezer to use up.

DS2 has learned to use the computer in school, so now he's asking to use our laptops as well. DH has kindly offered the use of his laptop today while he and DS3 are napping, so DS2 is happily browsing the CBeebies website, playing games and singing along with the songs. Using the touchpad and buttons are actually good for his hand coordination, so I don't mind letting him play on it for a short while.

An interesting letter today from a DCA. They are stating that they have attempted to contact us numerous times and we have ignored them. We haven't. We actually requested a CCA from them, and they have as yet refused to send it. So I guess I'll be sending them a letter directly after Christmas pointing that out, and reminding them that we have yet to receive the CCA. It can be a bit of a pain going back and forth like this, but they mess you about too much when you talk to them on the phone, and then you have no proof of what they say. So another letter to send, recorded delivery, including a copy of previous letter and proof of posting, I think. To make sure they're clear on this. :mad:

Anyway, hope it's a lovely holiday weekend for everyone on MSE.

Happy Christmas!!! :xmassign:

Triggles

We had a nice Christmas here. MIL stopped by for a visit for awhile on the day, and DD & DGS1 came here for the day. DS1, DIL & DGS2 were staying home to start their own Christmases at home this year, but felt bad for them as they've all been ill over the last few days. DS2 & DS3 had a lovely time opening their presents and playing with their new toys.

Today was planned to be relaxing. We did go visit MIL this morning, as she slipped on the ice going out to get her paper and bumped her head. So we went over to make sure she was okay. Shaken up with a lump on the back of her head, but otherwise alert and okay. We did offer to bring her back to ours for the day so she wasn't on her own, but she didn't want to leave her house and insisted she was fine. So with a promise to check in with us later today so we know she's alright, we came back home. Thankfully, she lives about a 15 minute drive from us, so if she starts having any problems, she can call us. So now we're home again, DS3 napping, DH napping, DS2 playing cbeebies website on laptop next to me, and me online as well. DS2 is normally all over the place and on the move, so it's nice to have him sitting down for a few minutes!

Using leftover turkey for tea tonight. Turkey curry with mushrooms, using the Sainsburys basics curry sauce (12p a jar, I think?), leftover fresh mushrooms, basics tinned pineapple (12p or 13p a tin), basics rice, and instead of poppadoms (sp?) we use tortilla crisps. DH adds some spices and voila - yummy curry! As we tend to make curry later in the evening (too spicy for the boys and DS2 won't eat it even if not so spicy!), the boys will have a simple hot meal - most likely one of their favourites of beans and toast, followed by a piece of fruit for dessert. I believe we even have 2 tins of cider to share with our curry, so we're looking forward to a nice meal and watching a few programmes together.

Our wedding anniversary is coming up in the beginning of January. We both have some small practical items that we'd like to have, so we're going to buy them for each other, and then have a takeaway meal from a local Indian restaurant for our tea that night. Curry again, but this time lamb curry. Can't tell we love curry, right? But this restaurant is one of those very good ones that is a little more expensive than our usual fare, so we only generally order it once a year - usually for our anniversary as our special treat.

So as I was thinking about different homemade/handmade Christmas gifts the other day, I'm going to have to mull over the possibilities:
- I can knit, so I could make hat/mitten sets and/or jumper for the grandchildren (2 of them) and our youngest two boys
- I can do some limited sewing, so I did consider making some small items or actually using my quilting book/cd that DH gave me last year and making them each a quilted blanket for their beds (grandchildren and boys)

Triggles

It's been a rough day today. Head cold, earache. DS1, DIL, & DGS2 came up to visit (without warning!), so while it was nice to see them, it would have been nice for some advance warning, as we had plans and had to change them last minute, which can be problematic with DS2. DS1 & family live a couple hours away, so we don't see them often - they were going to visit prior to Christmas but weather stopped that. So at least we got to send their Christmas presents home with them, even if it was a few days late! Spent a fair bit of time trying to avoid passing cold germs to everyone, especially DGS2, who has just gotten over a nasty chest cold.

I went to the supermarket the other day - all by myself! DH stayed home with DS2 & DS3, so I could browse a bit and check out any sales. I spent about £20 more than I planned, but got a few nonperishables that were on sale, as well as a few roasts that were very cheap - even got one of those turkey leg roasts for 85p (originally marked £4) in the freezer section. :cool: Very happy with that! I splurged and purchased gammon, as it was 50% off. We can cook it next week and use leftovers in potato cheesy soup. Yummmmmm!

DS3 managed to tip the Christmas tree over yesterday as well! :rotfl: Obviously he's fine, but has reserved a few dark looks at the tree, which I'm sure he feels attacked him. DH kind of tossed all the ornaments back on it, so it looks a bit wonky now. LOL But that's okay. We take the tree down every year on 2 January, so Sunday it's coming down anyway.

We've turned the heat right down again. It's much warmer so we wanted to save while we can. Weather report is saying it'll be colder again during the weekend, so I want to keep it low until the temp starts to dip. I'm not taking any chances though - I've heard of so many having frozen water pipes, I want to make sure that doesn't happen!

DH is working extra hours this week, so that he can be home New Year's Eve and throughout the weekend. So a miserably busy couple days where we won't see much of each other, but then a nice weekend. Makes it worth it.

Browsing through knitting patterns today. I don't have a huge amount - wish I had access to my mum's patterns but she is abroad. She has TONS of them!!! But I will do some digging online and see what I can find.

Triggles

Here we go. New Year's Eve. Well, okay middle of the night and not close to NYE, but still 31 December! Almost to 2011!! Incredibly stressy right now, dreadful cold, went into town today and unfortunately spent some money on retail therapy - and not even well spent retail therapy, so I am more than a little annoyed with myself. :mad: But back on the horse, I guess. I know I shouldn't have done it. And I have a horrible time sleeping when I'm stressed.. add to that the frustration over the spending, and I'm really frustrated. That and living on cough sweets. Stupid sore throat!! :mad:

Okay. Pulling myself together. I can do this.....

DH has his surgery in less than 2 weeks. I have tons to do between now and then, including taxes, update wills, and complete the DLA paperwork for DS2. In between doing everything I normally need to do. And appointments coming up for DS2 (3 of them I think and waiting on one for OT).

Barbeque pork ribs in the slow cooker tonight for tea. I will brown the ribs off and pop them in the slow cooker (with some barbeque sauce) around lunch time so they're ready by tea time, and then make some rice and veg to serve with them. Yummmmmm. And easy to make, which is always a plus.

I did pick up a few inexpensive plastic baskets for DS2 for some of the parts for his toys. He got a Mr Potato Head (Spud Lightyear :rotfl:, bought for a total of £5 in sale at Sainsburys) for Christmas, which means some smaller parts. This way he can keep the potato and the parts in a basket in his room and not lose them. He was quite keen on the baskets, so here's hoping it will mean his room stays relatively neat. I can hope, right? I also need to reorganise his puzzles - they are 45 piece puzzles and are in small takeaway containers at the moment. But he got a few new puzzles at Christmas, so I'll need to ask MIL if she has any more spare takeaway containers that we can have. They work pretty well, and it's nice and inexpensive that way.

I made some banana bread the other day - haven't made any in awhile and DS2 was thrilled. He loves it, so has been nibbling on some here and there. It's a nice use of overripe bananas anyway and freezes well. I must say I've been happy with the silicone baking items I've purchased from poundland recently - a couple of shaped small cake pans as well as a couple loaf pans. They work really well! And for £1 you can't really go wrong! Plus the food doesn't stick to them, so no need for extra prep work on the pans. The only down side was when DH accidentally slashed the botton of a cake type one when he tried to cut something IN the pan. :eek: Of course, he got the "how to treat our silicone pans" discussion after that! I don't think he'll be bringing a knife anywhere near them anymore! :rotfl: (if he does, I'll just threaten to use a metal utensil in the teflon coated pans - he gets a bit jumpy about that! )

No exciting plans for New Year's Eve for us. Just a normal night. Putting children to bed at usual time and relaxing for the evening. Although we have an inexpensive bottle of wine to share as well.

Interestingly enough, I got a Christmas card and letter from my parents today. As they've not really communicated much recently, I'd pretty much given it up for a lost cause (long story and history there), but wow - shocked and pleased to have a very chatty letter from my mother. And money for gifts for the boys, which is the first time in 4 years that they've done that. The money isn't the issue as much as it is nice to have them actually make the effort for the children.

Well, the coughing is driving me crazy. I'm going to try to get some sleep, but not looking good at the moment.

Triggles

Hmmm... had a post all ready to go on Saturday and DS2 managed to switch my internet page when I got up for a second and I lost it! Was too tired to retype it all then. LOL

We had a nice NYE - relaxed with a glass of wine and watched some of our DVDs we got for Christmas. DS2 was woken up by fireworks and took ages to settle down again, so didn't see much sleep unfortunately.

This morning I've:

- written, printed and prepared for posting 2 letters to DCAs (posting on Tuesday when I go to post office)
- gone through SAR and sorted out information to get PPI request done for another account which will literally reduce the debt to half it's current level
- double checked all deadlines for upcoming paperwork so I can prioritise according to deadlines
- checked bank account
- updated budget spreadsheet
- updated calendar
- taken down the Christmas decorations and tree and boxed them back up to go back in the attic

I'm now sitting at my desk, sipping tea and eating a chicken sandwich (left over from yesterday chicken cooked in the slow cooker!). Tonight's tea will most likely be chicken dumpling soup, with tomorrow's being chicken and mushroom pie. We're cooking a large gammon on Tuesday, and will be using some of it for cheesy potato soup, potato and ham cassole, and probably cheese mushroom and ham omelettes.

Laundry should be done shortly, so will have to hang that up. I had one day last week I think where I was actually caught up with laundry for about 8 hours! :rotfl: Always this way in the winter - in the spring and summer it's so much easier to keep on top of it as I can hang a couple loads of laundry outside and one inside and get it all done quickly!

Still dealing with sore throat, although the earache is a bit better. Just drinking a lot (water and tea blast it - although the glass of chilled wine on NYE felt good on it too! :cool:) and living on cough lozenges.

Other than milk and bread and occasional fresh fruit/veg, we're pretty stocked up on groceries and freezer is full, so hopefully that will keep the grocery bill down a bit this month.

I topped up the petrol in the car the other day, so we're on a full tank again. I'm dreading the return of the school runs on Wednesday. It's been nice not having to worry about it, but school resumes and we have to go. DS2 has an appointment at the hospital on Thursday - right in the middle of the day. I hate disrupting his school day like that, which is why I always aim for early morning or late afternoon, but they scheduled it for right before noon. :mad: So I'll have to make sure he has lunch before he goes back to school as well.

DH's surgery is coming up in less than 2 weeks. Just waiting for everything to go chaotic! LOL It'll be a bit more insane around here than normal for about 2 weeks, but hey, that's life, right? I'll do a grocery shop for the essentials (milk, bread, fruit, toilet roll, veg) right before his surgery so I don't need to worry about it afterwards. MIL has offered to come over and help, which I've gratefully accepted. And DD is helping out as well. I don't know what we'd do without MIL & DD!! They've been so much help to us recently!

Triggles

I am about a third of the way through completing the DLA forms for DS2's DLA claim. My god, but it is stressful. Along with it being incredibly frustrating and sad putting down in writing all his limitations, I am trying to be thorough and not miss anything, but here and there little things crop up that I've forgotten and I have to go back and add things. It's a good thing I'm putting this in a word processing programme instead of hand-writing it!
I will be so glad when it's completed and sent off.

DS2's hospital appointment today. Appointment with education psychologist next Tuesday. Appointment for OT Wednesday. And DH's surgery Thursday. Busy? Us? nooooooooo...... Thank goodness I have it all written in my diary.

The plan was to make gammon yesterday, but DH & I were too tired to mess with it. We ended up popping a frozen steak pie in the oven and having that for tea with some tinned vegetables. Not exciting, I suppose, but at least easy and better than ordering takeaway.

I had made spectacular inroads in cleaning our bedroom and my desk - only to see this morning that in the rush to get the rest of the house caught up, our room has again been reduced to a tip. There's always one room in the house, isn't there? I'm not going to have any time to do anything about it until Saturday at the earliest, so am going to try and ignore it for now (easier said than done as it will niggle at me, but there it is!).

I'm still living on cough lozenges as that horrible cough is still hanging on, which means my voice comes and goes as well. DD was going to babysit DS3 today whilst I took DS2 to his hospital appointment, however she has been called in to work, so DH is going to have to interrupt his sleep instead. DS2's school is not "pushchair friendly" so picking DS2 up and dropping him off would be extremely difficult with DS3 along. And interrupting DS3's nap to wake him up and take him along would make for a very unhappy and cranky baby! Not to mention the appointment is over lunchtime and I'll have to bring DS2's lunch along as it is! It's a pain for DH, but he'd rather interrupt his sleep than have DS3 dragged all over the place and disrupt his schedule as well. Thank goodness, as I was dreading the whole thing! :eek:

I think our heater has been turned up and down more times lately that I can remember. As soon as the weather gets a bit warmer, I turn it down a bit and leave it down until it gets too cold for the boys, then bump it back up a bit. I don't know how much it saves, but hopefully enough to make a difference. I can't decide if we should simply pay ahead this summer and have credit on our account for next winter or just put the extra money in our savings account to be used next winter when it's needed. It's not like it's earning anything significant at all in interest for us in the meantime.

I'm a bit aggravated at one of our debts - they sent the account to a DCA, who sent us a letter on 19/12/10, stating they wanted us to pay the amount within 14 days. Then we received a letter from a completely different DCA for the same account dated 24/12/10. We hadn't even had time to respond to the first DCA and it was already at another DCA and they were hassling us!! :mad: To add insult to injury, the original business that the debt is from has still not even sent us the CCA that we requested back in July of 2010!! They are still being obstructive about it and refuse to send it without our signature! When we pointed out in writing that our signature is not required, they said they couldn't send information about the account to us as they couldn't verify who we were. But apparently they could still bill us, send account statements, and send all our information to DCAs without verifying who we were. Utter nonsense. I strongly suspect they do not have the original CCA as when I spoke to them two years ago regarding the PPI, they could not find the original paperwork. I imagine this is going to be an ongoing battle for some time to come.

Well, DS2 has been up for ages, and DS3 just woke up, so off to get some more things done and get DS2 ready for school. I could use a nap, as DS2 was up 3 times during the night, but no time for that today. As soon as the school run is done, I need to come home, shower, get the washing up done, put laundry in to wash, and do a little tidying up while I can. I was hoping to get up and shower before DS2 woke up, but he woke up about 30 minutes earlier than expected (4:30 instead of 5), and that scuppered that plan!

He's happily singing "we wish you a merry christmas" this morning... :rotfl: We've tried to explain that Christmas is done now, but he likes the Christmas songs, so I anticipate hearing them from him for some time to come.

Triggles

Ok. Slowly working my way through the paperwork - which is good as I received another packet of paperwork in the post today!! sigh...

Anyway, the letters to the two DCAs are done and ready to be posted tomorrow. One to remind them that they still haven't complied with the CCA request, so kindly quit hassling me until you can produce it. And another to the other company telling them what they sent was not a CCA and doesn't comply with the law. Okay. So that's done.

I waded through some of the paperwork sent by the OT to fill out before DS2's appointment. Holy gods - it's like a very slightly less version of the DLA form! So, in order to expedite things, I went through and filled out all the easy boxes in all the forms - you know, like names, addresses, date of birth, and stuff like that. Any yes/no check boxes. And now tomorrow I will go back and start tackling the more complicated stuff.

Christmas decorations are all packed in boxes, however, the ladder broke. Not quite sure how DH is planning on getting them back into the attic. We use the ladder so rarely, I don't want to buy another one right now.

DH is off work starting tomorrow until February, due to his surgery next week. I'm hoping we can divide and conquer some of the tasks. At this point, if he'd just take over with the boys for a few hours each days so I can get things done, I'd be happy. :cool:

Still fighting my cold. Went in to buy cold meds and couldn't believe how much they cost. Bought store brand, can't say it's any worse than the others out there. I'll just feel better when this cold/flu thing is gone.

Triggles

Wow. I am now approaching human again after 2 weeks of miserable cold/flu. I ended up with ear infections in both ears, sinus infection, swollen glands, and a nasty cough that won't go away. Needed a course of antibiotics to start it moving though. Still rather tired, but after sleeping for almost two weeks sitting up as I couldn't breathe well laying down, I was pleased to see I could actually lie down and sleep somewhat last night (although still coughing - but hey, it's still an improvement!). :j

Let's see... what has happened in this chaotic two weeks?

DH has had his surgery on his leg. He is putting some weight on it (limited and supported) slowly and it seems to be healing on schedule. He seems in a relatively good mood - I think mostly relief that it's done and that once it heals he won't be dealing with daily nagging pain in his leg from the metal plate anymore!

Still finishing DLA paperwork for DS2. Had to stop working on it at one point as was too ill to string a sentence together. School has pretty much completed DS2's information for request for statement, so that's going in today. I think it takes a few months to go through, so now we basically just wait for that.

DS2 has seen the educational psychologist, the OT, and the opthalmologist at the hospital in the last couple weeks. Some things sorted, some things still ongoing. More appointments and paperwork on the way for most of it, as usual. Thank goodness for computers, though, as I certainly wouldn't want to have to handwrite all this!

Well, off to update calendars and diaries so everyone in the house has all the same information! LOL