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

poorbutrich

mouche wrote: »

I guess there is nothing to do but to continue to let him know when his behaviour is unacceptable and be consistent and firm with doing that. Thank you tootoo, pbr and everyone else who has commented with your own experiences – one part of me knows it’s just a phase and will pass and another part still has that dread of being ‘called into the teacher’s office’. I was an ultra-good boring child myself so I don’t really know how to cope with a slightly naughtier one. According to all sources, OH was a holy terror as a child so I guess LO gets it from him.

LO was quite well-behaved in the evening after nursery and the counting to 3 and ignoring his screaming worked well on the two occasions he didn’t want to listen. Also, OH managed to get home just before bedtime and LO was so happy to see him – he wouldn’t let him out of his sight till he fell asleep.

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Haha! Love that DS takes after DH! My parents always take great delight in reminding me who my DS gets his stubbornness from. And I also have experienced him getting so upset that he vomits over me - it's not easy, is it?


Hope you have a nice weekend too!

tootoo

hi mouche - hows things?

mouche

Hi too and pbr…thanks for dropping by and checking up on me. It’s been virus-central at the mouche household for the past two weeks and yesterday was the first day all members of the family were back at their respective work/ play places. LO had a nasty flu-type virus all of last week and OH and I had a tummy bug over the weekend and into this week. Kind of threw a dampener on our wedding anniversary which was on the weekend! Still, we did manage to watch a film together on the first day LO was well enough to go back to nursery.

Poor LO has just lost his best friend at nursery to the pre-school room and is feeling a bit confused and lost as a result. I hope he makes a new best friend soon but I suspect he is a bit like me and does NOT like change. The nursery is being very nice about it and letting the boys have some time together during the day so that it’s not so hard on LO. They have also said they will probably move him up to pre-school whenever he is ready and not necessarily wait till he is three. He is speaking very well now and understanding a lot of things so he may well be ready before he is three.

Being ill meant the budgets skyrocketed due to the need for food and juice for LO and special tummy-fixing food for us. I think we overspent quite a bit on last month’s budget but have lost track so not sure how much. All I can say is this month’s budget is looking quite small so it’s a good thing the fridge and freezers are overflowing. OH and I have set ourselves £5 budget for groceries this week as all we need is milk and onions. Let’s see if we can stick to that.

Edit: Errr….we ended up spending £12.53 but £5 of that was kitchen roll and the rest was some YS beef that OH turned into some yummy beef redang last night so I’m not complaining.

I missed 4 days at work last week – my boss let me make one day up on Saturday but that still leaves 3 days to take as unpaid or annual leave. Still haven’t decided which. On the plus side, I’ve had 2.5% salary increase.

Now that health and energy are on the upswing (relatively speaking), I am going to restart my gentle housework challenges.

Friday: Ironing
Saturday: Sorting the flights etc. for our holiday and checking the villa booking is confirmed
Sunday: Sorting out our new electric and gas
Monday: Sorting out a new mortgage deal
Tuesday: Sorting out OHs Natwest account

Rest to be decided next week. Have a lovely weekend all and hope the weather is as nice for everyone as it is predicted to be for us.

poorbutrich

mouche wrote: »

Hi too and pbr…thanks for dropping by and checking up on me. It’s been virus-central at the mouche household for the past two weeks and yesterday was the first day all members of the family were back at their respective work/ play places. LO had a nasty flu-type virus all of last week and OH and I had a tummy bug over the weekend and into this week. Kind of threw a dampener on our wedding anniversary which was on the weekend! Still, we did manage to watch a film together on the first day LO was well enough to go back to nursery.

Poor LO has just lost his best friend at nursery to the pre-school room and is feeling a bit confused and lost as a result. I hope he makes a new best friend soon but I suspect he is a bit like me and does NOT like change. The nursery is being very nice about it and letting the boys have some time together during the day so that it’s not so hard on LO. They have also said they will probably move him up to pre-school whenever he is ready and not necessarily wait till he is three. He is speaking very well now and understanding a lot of things so he may well be ready before he is three.

Hi Mouche - I wondered where you'd got too. Sorry to hear you've all been ill and hope you're all on the mend.


My LO has just changed rooms at nursery too which came as a surprise. Fortunately he doesn't seem to be too attached to anyone, but I did feel for your LO is losing his friend. Your nursery sounds great in trying to help them. I'm sure he'll make more friends - he'll have forgotten his mate by the time he catches him up!



Happy belated anniversary!

mouche

Thanks pbr…we’ve had a lot more talk about Katie this weekend and less about Louie, so I expect you’re right about LO getting over the loss of his friend quickly.

Health-wise we're all on the mend though the coughs are taking a while to go.

[STRIKE]Friday: Ironing[/STRIKE]
Saturday: Sorting the flights etc. for our holiday and [STRIKE]checking the villa booking is confirmed[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Sunday: Sorting out our new electric and gas [/STRIKE]
Monday: Sorting out a new mortgage deal
[STRIKE]Tuesday: Sorting out OHs Natwest account[/STRIKE]

Progress has been made over the weekend though not in the sequence that was planned. Slight delay caused by the fact that despite the paperwork Nationwide’s logo all over it, I insisted on trying to log into OHs new account with NatWest and abusing their online banking system. OH intervened and I got there eventually (albeit slightly red-faced!) I also know which new mortgage we are going with – just have to ring them tonight with OH as it’s a joint mortgage and also their online option doesn’t allow me to reduce the term. The new mortgage is 0.20% more than the existing one but the only cheaper one I can find does not have online access, is fixed for 4 years instead of 5 and is with a building society that has no branches within 500 miles of me. And it’s less than £500 cheaper over 4 years. So we’re biting the £10 a month more expensive bullet.

Lovely weekend with feeding ducks in the park and playing with LO. Also bought several trousers for LO as all of his are getting too small. Will be returning 3 of them but will still have 2 new trousers and a new summer raincoat/ coat for him. Still need to get pyjamas as he is fast outgrowing his existing ones. We also had a meal in a proper restaurant with LO and though it has blown the eating out budget for the month, we really enjoyed ourselves. So an expensive but nice weekend.

Can’t really think of any other MSE activities, so I will list my plan for the week instead:
Monday: Laundry & sorting out a new mortgage deal
Tuesday: Sorting the flights etc. for our holiday
Wednesday: Laundry, filing paperwork & tidying ground floor
Thursday: Night out with friend if she can find babysitter!
Friday: Laundry & list one item on ebay

mouche

It appears LOs new friend Katie is an imaginary friend as there is no one by that name at nursery! How odd.

Last night, after I switched the lights off and cuddled up with LO for bedtime, he suddenly sat up and said ‘Go ‘way mummy. Bye Bye. Want papa.’ So I got to watch some telly on my own after a long time!

MSE news….totally unnecessary grocery shop (biscuits, ice cream, fruit) for £16 yesterday. But progress on mortgage front as well – have applied for the new rate and they will send the paperwork through. Apparently our house value has increased by £20,000 so we are now at 67% LTV – yay! I did check if there were any better rates available for 65% but there isn’t anything so we’ve stuck to the 3.19% fixed for 5 years rate. By my calculations we should be down to 50% LTV by the time the fixed rate is over.

Apart from that, I’ve updated my spreadsheet with the contents of our bank accounts. I have about 6K sitting in a 1.8% savings account and I really should try to maximise its earning power. But I’m becoming a little overwhelmed with the number of accounts we have (5 current accounts, 2 regular savers, 2 cash ISAs, 8 instant access) so am hesitating. Most of that money will be spent by next year so am tempted not to go through the hassle.

[STRIKE]Monday: Laundry & sorting out a new mortgage deal [/STRIKE]
Tuesday: Sorting the flights etc. for our holiday
Wednesday: Laundry, filing paperwork & tidying ground floor
Thursday: Night out with friend if she can find babysitter!
Friday: Laundry & list one item on ebay

mouche

This holiday is turning out to be more expensive than anticipated. The car hire cost for an automatic (OHs first time driving in Europe) car with 5 doors for 7 days is more than the cost of our villa! We’re going to do some more searching tonight but I don’t think we’ll get it anywhere near what we were hoping for. We’ll just have to be very careful with our spending money while we are there.

Had to collect LO last night so £5 there. Will also have to drop him on Friday. But this month is proving to be much better than last month on that front.

Night out with friend is confirmed for Thursday so my untouched pocket money for March is going to take a beating!

I want to get LO a slide for the garden now that summer is coming but they are so expensive new. And I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get them into the car if I buy from ebay. I would also like to get him some scissors as apparently he enjoys cutting and sticking in nursery – any recommendations on good ones for toddlers? LO spent over half an hour last night blowing bubbles and encouraging me to pop them. This from a boy who can’t sit still for 5 minutes!

[STRIKE]Monday: Laundry & sorting out a new mortgage deal
Tuesday: Sorting the flights [/STRIKE]and car hire for our holiday
Wednesday: Laundry, filing paperwork & tidying ground floor
Thursday: Night out with friend if she can find babysitter!
Friday: Laundry & list one item on ebay

kirstypark

i would try the early learning centre for scissors, mouche.

Pearla*Merle

Glad to hear you're all on the mend, mouche! & great news on the salary increase. :T

Re: the large number of accounts, can you close any down that are earning a pittance? Clearing the decks can do wonders .... but I suppose it depends how much you have stashed in them?

Scissors - I really love these ones (click here) but I'm not sure if they're age appropriate? Quite a few places sell them (I'm sure ebay has some better kid safe ones... ooh, they do, just search for 'kid scissors'). They provide endless hours of fun

mouche

Yesterday evening I managed to find a somewhat reasonably car hire for our holiday so that is now booked. Yay! But it means I didn't get any of my scheduled jobs done - boo. Will have to try and get them done tomorrow as I am not allowed to come home tonight as LO sometimes gets very upset if I leave the house in front of him. So I will get a rare hour or two browsing the shops in our local high street (fortunately, Thursday is late opening day) before meeting my friend for drinks and a meal. How decadent am I? :rotfl: There is an ELC on the high street so I’ll have a look for scissors there – thanks for the idea Kirsty. Pearla, I LOVE those Hobbycraft ones but for ME not for LO! If I don’t find anything I like in ELC, I’ll be strongly tempted to pay Hobbycraft a visit.

And thank you for that suggestion of closing the useless accounts - I have several that have £1 in them as the interest rate has dropped. Really must move my backside and get them closed.

Confession - treated myself to spiced buns for breakfast today - £1.35. But they were yummy.

Am glad I’ve booked a fixed deal for our mortgage given Mr. Carney’s prediction that the rates will go up to 3% in two years. Our new mortgage rate is only 0.2% more than our previous tracker so even if the base rate goes up by 0.25%, we’ll still be better off for the next five years.

As you know, OH and I are keen to send LO to private school when the time comes. One of the local private schools (there are three) is having an Open Day this Saturday. Do you think it is worth a visit given that LO wouldn’t be starting for another 2 years? It’s really just to have a look and enquire about fees. We’d go again closer to the time for a deeper assessment. The thing is OH and I are both getting cold feet about attempting to go private. We can just about manage it financially but if one of us lost our job (and OH has been out of work for various reasons four times in the past 8 years), it would be very difficult to sustain. We could do it for a term or two with help from family and I don’t think it would take that long for us to find a new job but it does seem a bit risky. Plus, it would mean a far more frugal lifestyle than if he went to an LA school. We’re still on the fence about it but perhaps a visit would help to clarify things? We’re not near enough to any good LA schools so we’d need to move if we decide against private but the long term costs might actually be less.

[STRIKE]Monday: Laundry & sorting out a new mortgage deal
Tuesday: Sorting the flights and car hire for our holiday [/STRIKE]
Wednesday: Laundry, filing paperwork & tidying ground floor
Thursday: Night out with friend if she can find babysitter!
Friday: Laundry & list one item on ebay