SeriouslySeekingtoSave strongly strides straight into slaying her mortgage!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

MallyGirl wrote: »

Good luck with the pooch - we are adding a new puppy to the family in mid September. Exciting times

Dog are lovely aren’t they? I’m a bit nervous about the responsibility as I’m such a hedonistically selfish young lady who has only had to bother about herself for 20 years but it’stime. I’ve got the house, I’ve got the yard, I’ve got the financial stability and I’ve even got the doggy sitters! I thought I would have to fork out for dogsitting (I’m not putting my baby in a kennel) when I went away but I’ve had a flurry of ‘Pick Me, Pick Me!’ from my friends who want to look after him if I go away. I did stress that I go away for 3 weeks and my friend was like ‘no problem, I’ll take him to work with me’. Wow – he won’t want to come home…

MallyGirl

we use kennels as all our friends are either not dog people, or have cats, or have loads of dogs themselves and ours is big. She is also not always great with some dogs so that is too much to ask of a friend. We did try home boarding for a while till she was paired with an old, sick lab that she took a strong dislike to so we can't go back there
She seems ok at the kennels and they love her.
The training people we use do free chipping

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

If your dog doesn’t mind kennels then that’s great. Our little family dog was put in one once and hated it and I’ve been against them ever since. She was so traumatised that for years afterwards whenever we got close to the place (while driving past in the car) she would stop running around in the back seat (she was in the back with us 3 kids and would keep moving from one side of the car to the other and sticking her head out the window) and not make a peep (totally unheard of!) until we were well past the place. In her mind it was probably the equivalent of sticking her head in the sand like an ostrich – ‘if I make no noise and draw no attention to myself they’ll forget I’m here and I won’t be abandoned at that place again’. People who say dogs have no memories are nuts – our poor little poochy remembered that kennel very well, knew exactly where it was and what it was and she was terrified for years afterwards that we were going to leave her there again . Another time we stayed at our relations farm and spent one night up at the main house and she stayed down with the work dogs in a kennel. The next morning we camed own and found out that she had howled herself hoarse! God only knows what the farm dogs must have thought ‘ Somewhere along the lines of ‘Shut the £$%^ UP!!!’ probably :rotfl:. So after that we would stay out in a tent with her. She clearly had issues about being left alone in strange places.

Obviously she was never put in a kennel again. Back in those days we didn’t go on holidays that we couldn’t take dogs with us anyway but the one time we really had to leave her because we were moving cities, the house sale fell through and we had to live in a motel for months, Dad convinced his parents to take her. They had had dogs previously but didn’t seem at all keen to have her at first. Well,t hat didn’t last Very reluctant to give her back they were! She eventually was handed overweeks after we were settled in, cleaned and brushed with a big yellow bow in her hair. And there was no further problems about finding a dog sitter if needed (although they lived in the place we had our holiday ‘home’ which was about 2 hours drive away).

She was such a lovely dog – typically stubborn terrier and a delight to us every day.

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Good News: I have found my 0% credit card and I still have enough time left on it to put my purchases on it so I can pay off my mortgage with my cash and make my target.

Bad News: I remembered that I haven't bought my flight to NZ yet. That will be around the £1k mark. Ouch.

Good News: I have had another 'no spend on food day.

Bad News: I have spent money on other things.

Good news: I have found an Aldi store close to where I live.

Bad News: It's still a bit of a pain to get to.

Good News: Dante arrives tomorrow.

Bad News: I haven't finished doing up the house yet.

Conclusion? Meh. You win some, You lose some. Life carries on :cool:

TallGirl

Thanks for popping into my diary ade me pop over here and read it all. Really enjoyed reading about your MF journey hope to stick around if you don't mind.

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

So the pooch arrives tonight and I am woefully unprepared (of course!). I’ve been a bit slack on thehouse front the last two evenings. Once I finished off the living room I went off the boil and instead of working on finishing my bedroom I’ve been reading political news and lots of MSE Forum diaries – both here and on the Debt Free Wannabe’s. It’s great for motivation and inspiration, not so great for getting the house ready for pooch!

Still kept up with the money saving (well, apart from the large amount of furniture I’m about to buy of course!) but today wasn't a non spend day on food – Friday treat . I did get a bought breakfast yesterday but I didn’t pay for it so that doesn’t count ;-). I’ve got a few old cheques I need to try to bank, I probably won’t be able to and it will be wasted money but that’s what you get for being really slack for so long. I think I’ve also lost a £100 Amazon voucher through not using it in time. Doh!

Well, if I lose £200 worth of money through being slack it will serve as a reminder to get my finances properly in order again and not let them slip this time! Let's hope that is the last time I have to pay for that particular lesson. They are quite expensive...

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

TallGirl wrote: »

Thanks for popping into my diary ade me pop over here and read it all. Really enjoyed reading about your MF journey hope to stick around if you don't mind.

Hi TallGirl I've been reading a lot of diary's now I'm back. Not in the last few days as pooch has arrived and I've been too busy with him. Dogs are almost as big a time sink as babies!

Please do pop in and say hello whenever you please. I always like the company

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Ok, well my new family member has arrived and run off with my heart . The first day was a bit scary - after so many years of only worrying about myself and doing what I pleased I suddenly had this noisy, chewy and disruptive little thing wandering around my flat requiring my constant attention and making it impossible for me to sleep. I was looking for the receipt so I could hand him back! :rotfl:

But, he's settled in and so have I and I am beginning to get to the 'couldn't imagine being without him' stage. He's really sweet natured, very smart, and now that he's settled and had lots of exercising and some decent doggie socialising time, not very troublesome at all.

One thing he is though is very expensive. Here's a tip I already knew, if you want to be :money:don't get a dog! My £5k target is really starting to look a little shaky, what with all of the purchases I'm having to make - although I am taking advantage of my 0% credit card.... I am also being very good as far as food goes. So far I really haven't spent any money on 'bad' food since I started telling myself to reign it in. Even better, it hasn't been a struggle. Where I am spending money is on Dante. New food, new toys, dog training, dog walking, new harness, leads, vet bills and so on and so on... Wow. Lucky I'm not expensive in other areas!

Still I'm sticking to my £5 each working day that I don't buy my lunch and I paid £1700 from my last pay onto my mortgage so that is coming down. Only £3,249.99 to go and 4 more day days to do it in. It will be tight - I won't be able to keep paying such large sums off each month. Oh well, I'll :beer: the progress anyway :-)

On the house side of things today my Blanket Box, Wardrobe, Chest of Drawers and Cuboard/Bookshelf turned up. All flat packed so that is going to be a barrel of monkeys putting all those up. I'll start with the Blanket box - hopefully that won't be too difficult?

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Oh boy - the blanket box has been a disaster, after hours of work all I have managed to accompish is have the four sides standing up on the base board. They aren't even screwed in! The base has drill holes to match up with pegs on the side boards, only they didn't totally, so I spent ages!!! tryings to make them fit when it was impposible. In the end I just had the one side which didn't fit slot in without the stability of the pegs to hold it there. I will just have to use the screws to hold it in place.

I am really dreading trying to put together somethink like my closet if one little blanket box causes me this much trouble!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

I've been looking at flights to NZ for Jan/Feb of next year and there are a lot around for under £900. I've seen some good ones for £930 that are with Singapore Airlines and they are my favourite airline so I'll book those tomorrow so long as my boss gives me the go ahead. And the flights actually turn out to be that cheap - sometimes there can be a bit of 'smoke and mirrors' with these website.