Mouche’s adventures with her first mortgage (while coping with her first baby)

mouche

Visitors, how lovely! Thank you hurdler, Pearla and clairey - yes I am strongly tempted to give OH a £100 Premium Bond for our anniversary. It will satisfy the very small, dormant risk taking element in him. I've always said a lottery ticket is basically cheap entertainment as you get so much joy out of planning what you'll do with your millions - PBs seem an even better way of doing that. I read somewhere that you lose money with premium bonds i.e. the interest you could have earned on that money. But given interest rates these days, I'd be lucky to earn £5 a year on £100 - which is the cost of two lottery tickets that I won't be buying if I have a PB. So a winner all round for me I think.

On to the updates...

What a weekend! Thursday evening, there were major train delays on the way home and severe overcrowding at the station. I am mildly claustrophobic so couldn’t face fighting my way through the crowds so I got on the only train I could reach relatively easily. Fortunately OH was already on his way to collect LO so didn’t have to worry about that. OH then had to collect me from the station I ended up at – not too far from home but outside my ticket limits so had to pay £2.70 extra. Boo.

That night LO had a very high temp – he’s had a cough and cold for a few weeks now. We gave him Nurofen, he cooled down and Friday he seemed fine and went off to nursery. Saturday afternoon he was hot again and not acting right so we took him to the out of ours GP who immediately sent us off to the hospital with a letter. 6 hours later we got the usual ‘viral infection’ diagnosis but were given antibiotics as well because his chest Xray was ‘inconclusive’. By that time his fever had come down from 39.7 to normal and he was jumping up and down on the bed as the doctor tried to examine him.

So after all that palaver, we had to go to the supermarket as we were very short of some things and OH was working Sunday so we couldn’t have gone then. The new app I had used (the mysupermarket one) to make the list decided to lose my list so had to shop by guesswork while an overtired and fed up LO screamed all the way round. Amazingly, we were still under budget and I think we managed to get everything.

Sunday was quiet at home with even LO not going to football as we wanted him to have a day at home to rest. I do love the little monster – he’s really showing his personality now and when he’s in a good mood, a sunnier little fellow would be hard to find. The other day I said ‘Right LO, one more Peppa Pig and then it’s bedtime’ and he turned round and said ‘Two more’. I know he’s learning numbers at nursery and I do count with him while we play but I didn’t realise he knew what two meant i.e. that it’s more than one. Negotiating with his mum and he’s barely past his second birthday. Kids these days, I tell you.

mouche

Update on the chores front - LO is loving his new toy cabinet and is being very tidy as a result. The same cannot be said of his mum and dad who have cited tiredness and don-t-feel-like-it-itis for falling back into their slovenly ways.

However, I did manage to get the week's ironing done last night so all is not lost. The plan for this week is:
1. Keep on top of ironing, laundry, filing post
2. Tidy downstairs (again!)
3. If I win and can collect bedside cabinets on ebay, finish tidying bedroom
4. List one item on ebay.
5. Buy fitted sheet for extra-deep mattress on upstairs bed.

Pearla*Merle

mouche wrote: »

So after all that palaver, we had to go to the supermarket as we were very short of some things and OH was working Sunday so we couldn’t have gone then. The new app I had used (the mysupermarket one) to make the list decided to lose my list so had to shop by guesswork while an overtired and fed up LO screamed all the way round. Amazingly, we were still under budget and I think we managed to get everything.

That's some good going! :T

Hope the LO gets better soon

mouche

Thank you Pearla, he's been very grumpy lately but otherwise seems ok. Perhaps it's just the terrible twos combined with the usual winter bugs.

Bit of a ding-dong last night with OH who announced at the last minute that he wanted me to drop LO to nursery today as he has a training session at different location from where he normally works. I checked and he could have easily dropped us and been on time. So anyway, £5 on taxi this morning. BUT even though there was nothing for me to bring in for lunch, I cobbled together some bread, a tin of flavoured tuna, some packet soup and an apple. So a saving on the lunch front.

Won a pair of bedside cabinets on ebay for £23 – need to collect them on the weekend. I hope they fit in the room, I have a nasty feeling they won’t. Will be very useful if they do though as we have too much stuff under the bed and on the floor tripping us up all the time.

The cheque for OH has cleared so there is a big lump sum sitting in his current account at the moment. I’m tempted to pay the planned OP for this year (£1236) off straightaway and then refund the car fund as the year goes on. Edit: I just checked my spreadsheet and doing that will reduce my mortgage term by 3 months getting me to a total reduction of one full year so I am definitely doing that. It will also save me about £40 interest compared with OPing in monthly instalments.

I have been so tired of late that I have been going to bed straight after LO but that means none of the housework is getting done. So, my plan to tackle that is Project Energy Boost. I have a pretty bad diet and I don’t think I can improve it in one fell swoop. But my target for the last few days of January and all of February is to drink 2 litres of water a day (currently I drink next to none) and to eat at least one piece of fruit. And take my vitamins. Let’s see if I feel a little better at the end of the Feb.

To try and help me with the chores, I am breaking it down per day:
1. Tuesday: Keep on top of laundry, filing post
2. Wednesday: Tidy downstairs (again!)
3. Thursday: Buy fitted sheet for extra-deep mattress on upstairs bed.
4. Friday: List one item on ebay.
5. Saturday: If I win and can collect bedside cabinets on ebay, finish tidying bedroom

Have ordered my prepaid card topup for next month. I get 5% cashback for doing this through incahoot - whose membership is discounted by my company. So far, I've just let the cashback build up and put £50 on an M&S card for Christmas. Today I've asked for it to be paid out so I've got £44 en route to my account. Yay!

LO moment: OH tends to get LO to do things by saying things like 'No tidy Lego, no Peppa Pig'. LO has clearly understood the concept as the other day he tearfully announced 'No biscuit, no hug-kissi'. Little blackmailer!

To the lovely people who read my diary and comment, thank you for being there and apologies for filling this diary with the tiny details of my mundane life and self-help plans! I know I use this diary shamelessly as a ‘diary’ and not and ‘MSE diary’ – thank you for putting up with me and continuing to read and comment.

tootoo

mouche -
sunday should have - long hot bubble bath

i like mini mouche has worked out the blackmail already!

poorbutrich

mouche wrote: »

LO moment: OH tends to get LO to do things by saying things like 'No tidy Lego, no Peppa Pig'. LO has clearly understood the concept as the other day he tearfully announced 'No biscuit, no hug-kissi'. Little blackmailer!

To the lovely people who read my diary and comment, thank you for being there and apologies for filling this diary with the tiny details of my mundane life and self-help plans! I know I use this diary shamelessly as a ‘diary’ and not and ‘MSE diary’ – thank you for putting up with me and continuing to read and comment.

Your life is not mundane! I love all of it non MSE and MSE! In fact, I think it is quite MSE to appreciate the little things in life and not feel you have to spend lots to be happy.


Hope you all feel better soon!

Pearla*Merle

mouche wrote: »

LO moment: OH tends to get LO to do things by saying things like 'No tidy Lego, no Peppa Pig'. LO has clearly understood the concept as the other day he tearfully announced 'No biscuit, no hug-kissi'. Little blackmailer!

:rotfl:

To the lovely people who read my diary and comment, thank you for being there and apologies for filling this diary with the tiny details of my mundane life and self-help plans! I know I use this diary shamelessly as a ‘diary’ and not and ‘MSE diary’ – thank you for putting up with me and continuing to read and comment.

You can't say that just a few paragraphs after doing clever things with your lump sum/car fund! *waggles finger* & I agree with poorbutrich, it's a holistic thing this MSE lark (& I love hearing all the daily chatter as well!)

BlueMoo

You can't say that just a few paragraphs after doing clever things with your lump sum/car fund! *waggles finger*

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Indeed - well done on working out the savings!

mouche

Thank you tootoo, pbr, Pearla and BlueMoo! May my ramblings amuse you forever!

No real news today other than £1.10 spent on a choc bar from the overpriced caf! downstairs. I had a repeat of yesterday’s lunch today only today it didn’t satisfy me at all. Still, I still have more than half my ‘pocket money’ left this month so I’m not feeling too guilty.

OHs account still won’t let me transfer the lump sum – it says insufficient funds. Perhaps the cheque is taking a while to clear – I wish they wouldn’t put it in online banking as available until it is.

£8.10 received from Amazon today of which £5.50 OP made. Just two days till I can do the money shuffle yay!

OH is working late tonight so I’m on nursery duty – another £5 for taxi. We were 3 minutes late picking LO up last night (delayed trains) and the nursery manager said this would be the last episode of lateness he would not charge for. From next time it will be £1 per minute. Ouch!

SmlSave

I like hearing how you and LO are getting on mouche, even if I don't post much

Your LO is a few months younger than DS and hearing what he gets up to remind me of DS not long ago.