Sepa seeks freedom

Hurdler

Yay to a fellow writer - I should be writing a couple of things tonight but I am just achingly knackered after 3 hours of revision.

Lois_E

Sepa74 wrote: »

Well, It's been an interesting weekend... more (bad) news on the bf front, but I don't want to go into it / bore you all with it now.

Sorry to hear that.

Don't ever post anything you're not comfortable putting here - it's public, after all - but don't worry about boring us. We're not bored.

Well done on the articles! :j

Sepa74

Hi Lois, I know I can post anything here and you guys will be happy to read it... but thanks for reminding me! This is an amazingly supportive forum.

Met up with the bf today and we had a lovely day - drove up to Epsom downs and had a bit of a walk. Unfortunately I neglected to make a booking for a pub lunch, so there was a 2 hour wait, so we just came home again. That'll learn me!

It's my birthday weekend, and it's been lovely. My best friend and I went to see the gymnastics at the 02 on Friday, which was great fun. She is Italian, and Italy won two gold medals, so she got to sing the national anthem twice! and then, believe it or not, Britain won the last medal, so we all sang "God Save the Queen"... the only problem is that I'm a republican, so the bit about 'long to reign over us' rather sticks in my throat!

Then yesterday I met up with friends and we saw The Iron Lady which was excellent, Meryl Streep is amazing in it. It's well worth seeing, as long as you leave your political prejudices at home, safe in the knowledge that it has successfully upset everyone! There were a couple of moments when it felt wrong to be depicting her while she was still alive, but apart from that the focus was very much on a powerful woman who is now elderly and powerless.

After the movie we had a couple of glasses at the Champagne Bar in St Pancras. I love it, as one glass is a very affordable treat, but if you start having two it becomes an expensive one! Fortunately one of my friends paid for me as a bit of a birthday present!

Then we went out to Hoxton to see a friend of a friend play in a band, so all in all it was a lovely night

I hadn't heard from the bf all week, so I really had no idea if he would turn up or not, however he did. As usual I don't know where things are going there, we shall just have to wait and see. I've seen a therapist a couple of times, and that really helps my head feel a lot calmer. I think I might try and see her fortnightly. It's expensive, but definitely worth the money for the clear head she brings.

Sepa74

So... MFW news.

This week has been much better! I have had 4 NSDs, and on Friday I only spent £1.40 as we had run out of bread at work so I had to buy something to top up lunch. I have spent nearly £650 already this month (a big chunk of that on food for the cats and a new jacket and top in a sale) so I was starting to get quite stressed about getting my spending back under control.

This week should be reasonable as well. Phew!

I am desperately waiting for my annual mortgage statement to arrive so I can work out what my baseline is for the MFW 2012 thread. I think I set my target as £15K. I suspect my mortgage is probably ~£128K, so £15K would take me down to £113K... how exciting :j

I hope everyone else has had a good MFW week!

Radish72

Happy (slightly belated) Birthday weekend, sound like you have had a fab time doing lots of lovely things

Iron Lady, I've not seen it as it hasn't appealed to my "pay for cinema tickets" nature and as much as I don't agree with her politics, I do admire her for being the first woman PM

shala_moo

Happy Birthday weekend Sepa.. sounds like you had a busy weekend!

Would it help put you off using your TD if you worked out how much it costs to run? Then you know how much you're saving by not running it - or is that a little too obsessive

Sepa74

Thanks guys

I've been looking at the boards a lot this week for some reason... and this is a mid-week post... yikes! Am I becoming too obsessed?

I love my TD, but they are expensive. The new radiator racks I bought seem to be doing the trick as I've been using them and avoiding using the TD. They are quite discreet and you can fit a surprising amount on them.

I refused to do any washing last weekend coz of my b'day, so I will have lots and lots to do this weekend, so I think the TD will get a work out, but that's OK... It will be the final part of my birthday celebrations!

In other news I have paid off my 0% CC. I got turned down for a CC earlier this year (I suspect I had been applying for too many) so I've decided to stop stoozing. It worked well for me as it meant I maximised the amount of spare cash I had over the period I was made redundant a couple of years ago, but 2 years of steady contract work has done wonders and I don't feel I need the security blanket any more.

I did a mega shop this week - it would have been over £100 except for all the bargains I got on sale, and then I used £50 of nectar vouchers, so it ended up costing less than £50, thank goodness! I have spent SO much money this month it's scary, so it's good to feel I've actually saved some as well. The shop should last me literally months, and I'm wondering where I'm going to store it all!

Still waiting for the annual mortgage statement... grrrrr! I want it, and I want it NOW!!!!

Hurdler

Oh belated Happy Birthday!

lulabelle1

Belated birthday greetings from me too! Hope it was a good one...

Sepa74

My mortgage statement has FINALLY come through, yippee!!

As you can see from my signature, I've made significant inroads this year... partly thanks to MSE, and partly thanks to my current contract, which has given me over two years of steady income.

My goal this year was to reduce the mortgage by £15K. I've not done it - it's down by £12,734, however I have also increased my emergency savings from just over £8K to £10K, so if you take that into account, I got very close! The emergency fund sits in one of my offset savings accounts, along with my stooze money and my savings pots (holiday, and home maintenance), so the actual amount I am paying interest on is significantly less than the £126K. Yay for offset mortgages!!

So I am pretty pleased, and have given myself a mental pat on the back AND a target to actually reduce the total by the full £15K this year, including normal payments.

I have had such a shocking day, today. I live in a downstairs 30s maisonette, and above me is a mother with her 2 1/2 yr old daughter. The father has recently moved back in with them, and I suspect that she has her sister, bil and niece staying with them for a few weeks too, while their house is being renovated. That flat is NOT big enough for six people!

There has always been a problem with noise, but the mother has always been very considerate, but since the father moved back in, the noise levels have increased as he plays roughly with the lo. Yesterday the child/ren were very noisy, but I was out and about so it wasn't the end of the world. But this morning, starting at 7.30am, they started running up and down the length of the flat, really digging their heels in and jumping around. I dozed on and off through the noise until 9am, earplugs in my ears, but of course the moment I took out my earplugs, it got worse! Finally at 9.30 I knocked on the door and asked them to stop the child running around... they were NOT happy. 'but she's only 2yrs old... it's the weekend... your bathroom renovation was really noisy...'

I hated doing it, but I was so distressed, pretty much in tears over it. I really wish I had held out, I value my relationships with my neighbours. <sigh>

Well, it stopped the galloping up and down, but the children still regularly jumped around, father yelling every or hour or so, child having short-lived tantrums all the way through until 5pm!! Fortunately I had something on that got me out of the house from 10.30 until around 2pm, and at 4pm I realised that my spare room (under the parent's bedroom) was probably a lot quieter than anywhere else in the flat, so I made a little nest in there and put some music on, which calmed my nerves considerably.

And tomorrow I have to be up at 7 again to go to work, and a new week begins. I feel like I've not had a weekend because of it, although of course that's not true.

It is blissfully quiet now. The children must have gone to bed, thank goodness!

I hope everyone else has had a good MSE week. I've not had time to catch up on diaries, I'm afraid!