misscousinitt's MF Diary

misscousinitt

- Accounts done; just need to be filed now
- Charity Christmas meal was good - really enjoyed it.
- More self employed stuff...
- Door done - still sent the wrong inner but it is now fixed using new outer and existing inner!!!!! Can't believe how much they have got wrong!!! Oven got tested at the weekend and it was ok!
- Car was fixed - £155

Still eating from the freezer - really need to make some room for Christmas stuff.

Hope everyone is well.

MCI x

misscousinitt

Hi guys...Happy New year!!

Sorry I've been AWOL for such a long time.

It was such a busy time before Christmas I din't have time to do any updates at all and I am so behind with everyone's diaries.

I hope that everyone had a good time over the festive period - ours was very quiet...will explain later.

Full update to follow.

MCI

lincoln-potter

hey MCI,

Good to see you back.

misscousinitt

So, what have I been up to - I'm not going to go into a long drawn out explanation, but it goes something like this:

- Very busy at work!!
- First self employed outing - made £77
- Christmas Shopping, decorating, visiting etc...
- DH went down with stomach/sickness bug two days before Christmas
- I had to do remaining wrapping, delivering etc...
- Christmas lunch postponed till 27 Dec (though we had the smallest dinner in history on Christmas Day)
- 2 nights spent on the sofa trying to avoid getting said sickness bug (and succeeded in remaining healthy! Thank God!)
- had to cancel some plans we had for the week; but when he felt better we did manage lunch and a trip to the cinema.
- just the two of us for NYE - in bed before 1am
- Nice walk on bank holiday Monday - DH feeling much better
- Back to work - boooo....

Major jobs for this week include:

- overhall of finances and payments to CC
- we are doing another toy fair on Sunday - hope to make a bit at least
- my tax return
- apply for gateway for DH to do his tax return

Looking forward to catching up with everyone - exciting (but also slightly scary) times ahead - all will be revealed in the coming months.

Will be looking at my 2016 goals shortly and see how I got on - I think I set myself too much to do and it unravelled a bit towards the end of the year - fresh start and determined to achieve during this year.

Happy hump day! ( I love short weeks...)

MCI

lincoln-potter

Morning MCI,

Well done on your first self employed outing!

It sounds like quite an eventful xmas & new year then, especially avoiding the sickness bug!

misscousinitt

Eventful, but not in the right way LP - so we are going to make the best of the new year.

Plan is to pop into Mum's on the way home to take her tree down and then go home and take all our decorations down - always a bit sad as everything looks so bare and depressing - but with 12th night approaching it is a must!

Quick and easy tea planned tonight of salmon and pasta - we love this meal and it's real comfort food any time of the year.

Done a bit of number crunching at lunch time and we spent under £200 on December groceries (including Christmas Food and Drink!) The original total was of course heavily discounted by savings stamps and clubcard vouchers - but it's still good to come i way under our normal food budget despite the festive season.

Plenty in the freezer, but not as much as usual - but it really doesn't matter as I am sure that we will be under budget again this month with use of left overs etc...

Couple of payments made to the CC - but still some more to be worked out and sent - a bit of money shuffling to be done too as it looks like I transferred money to the house fund in November instead of paying it off the CC - so need to take it back out and put it where it belongs.

Another £500 OP and the normal Mortgage payment went out today - money from our rental only - we would really like to OP more, but the finances are a little tight at the moment with paying off the remaining balance on the kitchen and the velux windows we purchased when we had the roof done - but at least there are payments being made and we are now keeping under that £100k mark - downwards is the only way!! The CC is the priority really - don't want to keep having to swap debt round without paying it - would prefer it to be gone!

Hope everyone is having a good first week of the new year and I am slowly catching up with the diaries.

MCI

Karmacat

The finances sound well under control, MCI, congratulations.

Sorry your Christmas was pants too seems like there was a lot of it about. Mine certainly was, as you'll have gathered. In fact, although there were two very nice family weddings, and I managed to stop work, there was such a lot else going on I'm glad to see the back of 2016!

edinburgher

Happy new year MCI, I have been remiss and managed to go a year without commenting, which is pants (as I've always enjoyed your diary). Baby and our home renovation are my excuses

Waiting that long to catch up was also a terrible mistake. You are a helluva busy woman, it took me the best part of 2 hours to read it all! :rotfl:

Glad that your house is starting to feel like a home, we are finding that it's only the final, decorative touches that do that (no matter how many other general improvements you have made) and it's lovely when it all starts to fall into place. Your forever home type comments have been interesting for me - they've made me realise that our new home is definitely not ours...

Ps. Was the reduction in fried rice dinners an intentional ploy for 2016? I can only find 2 references!

misscousinitt

Karmacat wrote: »

The finances sound well under control, MCI, congratulations.

Sorry your Christmas was pants too seems like there was a lot of it about. Mine certainly was, as you'll have gathered. In fact, although there were two very nice family weddings, and I managed to stop work, there was such a lot else going on I'm glad to see the back of 2016!

Hi KC - good to see you. I am so sorry about your bad news. (see your thread).

As for keeping the money under control...I discovered another receipt!! D&mn!

edinburgher wrote: »

Happy new year MCI, I have been remiss and managed to go a year without commenting, which is pants (as I've always enjoyed your diary). Baby and our home renovation are my excuses

Waiting that long to catch up was also a terrible mistake. You are a helluva busy woman, it took me the best part of 2 hours to read it all! :rotfl:

Glad that your house is starting to feel like a home, we are finding that it's only the final, decorative touches that do that (no matter how many other general improvements you have made) and it's lovely when it all starts to fall into place. Your forever home type comments have been interesting for me - they've made me realise that our new home is definitely not ours...

Ps. Was the reduction in fried rice dinners an intentional ploy for 2016? I can only find 2 references!

Thanks so much Ed - I hope you weren't too bored! More of the same this year probably and I hope to have at least some disposable cash to continue making our house a home - starting with a new rug for the lounge (hope the renovation pot has enough left in it!)

As for egg fried rice! I have answered this on your thread - no - not intentional at all - prob down to non reporting and circumstances rather than not enjoying this fab dish (Note to self - buy chicken to roast so we can have egg fried rice soon! :rotfl:)

MCI

misscousinitt

As said in previous post - found another receipt for Christmas food...and not a small one. £62 spent in Herr A. However, I do still have some money left in the 'Christmas pot' which will mop up £39 of this and then the remainder can be added to the food budget for December - which will still be under budget, so still happy!

Going to finish sorting the money out in the morning.

Over the holiday, we were invited round to our next door neighbours' for drinks and nibbles - we really didn't want to go, but thought we should show our faces. But as it turned out it was a very pleasant evening and we managed to secure ourselves 10 rolls of insulation from one of our other neighbours (who moved in a few months after us) as they had some in the loft that had been left there by the previous owners - they don't want anything for it (but will get some gifts or bake something as a thank you). This will save us a few quid which I am really pleased about.

Took Mum's tree down last night and we took all our decorations down too. Was going to cook salmon, but DH said he wanted to go out for a cheap and cheerful (because of the house looking depressing and he said he was going a little stir crazy still after being trapped in the house when he was ill!). So we went out and spent £16 - but it will be salmon tonight!

Off to Mr T on the way home - I have a £6 off £30 spend voucher - was a bit remiss with using one before Christmas as I forgot all about it - but didn't think I would be using this one so in effect it's the same thing. Need to stock up on cat food and the like and decided to get all the shopping from Mr T this week instead of splitting between them and Herr A - overall we will save!

Back to yoga tonight and I can't wait as I am as stiff as a board and struggling (literally) to get out of bed in the mornings - alright once I'm up, but I haven't been like this for a long time.

I hope everyone has had a good week. I for one am very pleased it's Friday - despite the fact that our Sunday lie in won't happen this week due to us doing another toy fair - but we must earn some money (and it is fun really!)

Have a good weekend all...sorry for the ramble.

MCI