MF at last! Now for the £300,000 'Mansion' Fund.

Chell

I found there were quite a lot of tips to relieve the pain of mastitis. Lying in the bath with flannels soaked in the hot bath water placed over your boobs is good. Having them under the shower was another tip. I could feel where it felt blocked so was able to massage it to try to unblock it. Hope you feel better soon, it is horrid. I felt like I had full blown flu, I was shaking cold and allsorts.

earthgirl

Thanks Chell, I have been doing all of the things, and they seem to bring a bit of relief, but then it just returns. I think I had my 'flu' day on Friday, as I have been ok since then.

Meantto reply to this, but wanted to get it straight in my head too...

CathT wrote: »

Re: the change of house plans, are you going to lower your budget and just get a mini mansion? I can understand you wanting to move sooner rather than later.

I hope that we are going to get somewhere that is our forever house, and has all that we need (4 + bedrooms, 3+ bathrooms, garage or outbuildings, large garden) and some of the things we want (sea view or shore access, driveway, proximity to family) So it might mean that we compromise on other things but we will still get our dream house. Now this might mean that we get a bigger mortgage in 3 years time, which will be scary!!

Today went for a walk and met a local farmer, who offeref us as much as we could carry from his fruit orchard, and gave us bags, telling us to come back again... amazing! House is now full of fruit again, so I will have to get more storage and sugar soom for more jam and chutney!

Today I plan to do some small business work (which I don't really have any notion to do, so best to do it straight away!) finish a few house tasks, and cook my curry and onion bahjis. We are over at a friends later for drinks and a catch up. Despite no longer bf ing, I still can't have a drink as I am taking antibiotics and painkillers :rotfl:

earthgirl

Hi All,

Struggling with a few things, so I will try and look at them on here with an objective eye, and try to see the opportunities in my problems, as although this is a bit clich!d, it does leave me feeling a lot more positive.

1 Small business work
I have got LOADS of work to do here. I think that the website needs redoing, we need new marketing literature, and sustained internet presence campiagn. This is a lot of work for me.
Opportunity: Have an amazing marketing strategy in a months time.
Make myself feel better and a little more in control by breaking the tasks down into smaller chunks, and then get a budget from oh to start employing other people to do some of this. The outcome should be better than me just dragging myself to the computer as and when!

2. Paid less this month. For some reason I have been paid less this month by £150.
Opportunity: Now that I am no longer bf I can earn more at school by doing lunch duty. I can also step up my tutoring again. (I still need to find out why though!)

3. Feeling very untidy and a wee bit disorganised
The house is a bit of a mess, I seem to tidy only for mess to appear 20 mins later! I also keep thinking of things I should do - call this person, remind the childminder of this... and never do it.
Opportunity: Have a clean and tidy home - Clean, and declutter. Have a major ebay session next weekend. Make a list of all the little things and just start doing them!

4. Worried about returning to work again after the hols.
opportunity: Step up to being a working mum again (This comment is just to try to get me a bit more motivated, and by no way a comment on what I think anyone else is doing - I admire people who work so hard at being a SAHM, and there are some shining examples posting on here. One day I will be a SAHM I hope, but at the moment with oh being self employed, and us wanting to move, I can't)
Hone my organisation skills so it runs smoothly (see above) and re read a few of my theory books to get me in the mood. Don't take on any extra initiatives for a while untill I get my new routines sorted.

Phew, lots to do in, erm 2 days!!

earthgirl

Just upated sig after being paid. I have also got £72 from ebay sales transfered over, and I am expecting £20 from ms this month. This will leave me with £140 for emergencies and £18,224.8 saved towards our forever house

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Well done, you are doing brilliantly and I think bringing the dream home timescale closer will keep you focused. Not sure if I could keep going for 9 years of saving!

museumworker

I have missed sooo much since I've been away - including the freaky psychic powers of the MF ladies! Courgette, I think your true calling is a detective :rotfl::rotfl:

So sorry to hear about the mastitis, have heard it is horrendous, luckily not suffered with it myself.

earthgirl wrote: »

No posts for a while as we have been visiting inlaws. We had a lovley time and lots of lovely chats and cuddles with oh. My inlaws have a lovley little bungalow and at the end of the garden, they have a little gate which leads out onto the shore (West coast of scotland). It was just wonderful - ds and I played on the beach and went for walks..heaven. It got us thinking though, when is the best to to move with children? 4 years old? I would love to live by the sea and we need a bit more space, but we will get trapped here if we don't move within the next 3 years or so, with ds and schooling.

Oh agrees and we would ideally like to move to our forever house in 3 years quite a bit earlier than I had first predicted (9 years). So now we are looking to save AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for the next 3 years so that we don't have a massive mortgage on the forever house.

Glad to hear you had a great break - I felt soo good being in the countryside and out of the big smoke. I really, really, really want to live a simpler life in a more remote part of the world - but need to be MF and with an income to do it as jobs will be harder to come by. It makes me a bit , but I am trying to see it positively as a motivating force. I'm sure you'll do incredibly well saving, and any new mortgage will be attacked until gone. Plus it means you have to hang around on this board for longer :rotfl:, which I'm happy about as I'll be here forever at this rate .

earthgirl wrote: »

The house is full of chutneys, jams and jellys now! I plan to make another batch of chutney, just for some variety, and for presents as well. I need to go and forrage about a kilo of elderberries for the chutney - everything else I have.

Any recipes you can share please please please? Particularly the elderberries, I only worked out what they were the other month , and have never made a jam or chutney :o but it is one of my ambitions this year. And also I don't know what the wild damsons look like :o:o.

I totally understand the stress of being a working mum. I have a book which is quite light hearted but has some useful suggestions in it which may be of interest. It is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-When-Just-Dont-Have/dp/0745953751/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1314731038&sr=8-3, I have a copy I can lend you (if you want and that wouldn't be too weird for you just pm me), or if you may be able to get one off readitswapit.

better go be amazing myself and tuck DD up.

Courgette

Earthy, try not to worry about work (easier said than done I know, I would be hysterical about now). For what it's worth next week will be much harder for you than Earthlet, babies are very adaptable. He'll actually need you around much more when he starts school and lots of other things. I actually think I'm needed much more by ds1 than ds2 even though it's the baby who's the one clinging to my neck.

Good luck with it, I think you're amazing :T

earthgirl

Thanks. I am trying to be positive!

I will dig out my recipe for elderberrys at the weekend when I hopefully make the chutney.

Feeling a bit down, but as I said trying to be positive. I am having the autumn/returning to work/seperated from baby blues I think!!

Ii am going to do small business work tomorrow evening. Saturday I need to get the back bedroom sorted as we are having a paying guest to stay, via website crashpadder, for a few days. With evening meals, she should pay £70.

I have also had a one off translation task to do £12.50 and took 10 mins.

I am missing the baby so much and hate being away from him. But every penny saved means that I don't have to work quite as much and be away from him!

He seems to love the childminders though (new childminders) and it seems to be going well.

earthgirl

Not had much sleep but feeling much more positive today. I am really going to try to keep my positivity going all day.

Looking forward to having my b and b guest at the weekend, that will be interesting!!

earthgirl

museumworker wrote: »

I totally understand the stress of being a working mum. I have a book which is quite light hearted but has some useful suggestions in it which may be of interest. It is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-When-Just-Dont-Have/dp/0745953751/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1314731038&sr=8-3, I have a copy I can lend you (if you want and that wouldn't be too weird for you just pm me), or if you may be able to get one off readitswapit.

better go be amazing myself and tuck DD up.

Going to try and get the book from the library first - thank you!