would love to be mortgage free!

coldcazzie

NSD today: bit of a do at a friends' but they live within 5 minutes walk and we're taking a couple of desserts from the freezer to contribute. Shouldn't have to spend anything now until next Tuesday when the man-wife goes back to work and I do our next grocery shop.

Changeover to new current account has been successful, so the money remaining in our old account is going to be the first payment into the virtual op pot: £115.36 :T :T

Before the kids go back to school I want to:
- [STRIKE]finish photographing eBay items to list on the next free listing weekend[/STRIKE] DONE
- [STRIKE]sort out DVDs that we don't watch which can move on to new homes[/STRIKE] DONE - need to find somewhere to trade them in now
- [STRIKE]water change on the biotope and plant leftover plants[/STRIKE]
- [STRIKE]photograph anubias in garage and list them for sale, wood will be rehomed to 240L tank[/STRIKE]
- finish reading Chapter 1 of my textbook and make notes on it
- weigh eBay items
- [STRIKE]get man-wife to sort through his jumpers and t-shirts: some can be sold, others will go to a local initiative which feeds and clothes homeless folk during winter - donated jumpers will be greatly appreciated[/STRIKE] DONE

coldcazzie

Today started out so well... this morning we were really organised. Collected together the bags of clothes for my mum to take to the charity places, plus some things that belonged to her, a jumper the man-wife has outgrown that we have passed on to my dad, a late christmas present for my sister, cartons and glass bottles to go to be recycled (council doesn't take glass bottles in their recycling bins for some reason). We're usually a bit useless at remembering everything so we were really chuffed we had :j

After mum left, there was cleaning and sorting, we have windowledges in the bathroom and at the top of the stairs again! :T then it went downhill. For example, this evening I went to make sausage casserole. Realised we have no passata. No worries. Substitute chopped tomatoes. Don't have any of those either. Fine. Send man-wife to supermarket. I also forgot bread rolls on Weds and we've been going through ham and peppers like nothing on earth so I tacked those with a couple of other things on the list, plus he topped up with petrol which he needed to do anyway. He comes back with everything except passata. Gah! Send him to the shop to get something, anything! Comes back with plum tomatoes which I blended with my hand blender, only to realise we've no red wine either. :mad: what a fail of a meal! (Edited to add: and while I was typing this the pasta boiled dry!) Plus I read a feedback thread on here that the place I was going to send our DVDs to is a bag of pap. Good job I haven't sent it yet. Back to the drawing board with that...

So, to cheer myself up a bit I sorted out my seeds to see what I can grow next year without spending any money, and I have:
- chantanay carrots
- basil: lemon, purple ruffles, and sweet genovese
- curly cress
- tomatoes: alicante and tumbling tom (got loads of these in 2011 )
- mini sweet peppers (got one plant of these in 2011 - must plant more seeds in 2012 to get a better crop)
- french radishes
- little gem lettuce
- californian salad mix
- french parsley

Bringing forward my previous aims and updating them
- Food bill <£500 ~ so far <£400
- Cc total <£850 ~ looking like <£650 (including some purchases I have to make next Thurs)
- £100 kids clothing budget ~ £82 spend so far
- Brainstorm birthday party/present ideas for Lumpy's 5th in January ~ we have established it will only be his school friends, and an underwater theme: fish shaped cake (homemade of course), blue fabric everywhere to simulate water (already have laods of this leftover from decorating our wedding hall), not sure what else yet...ideas welcome!

coldcazzie

I opened another eSaver yesterday, to be the virtual OP pot. Today I got an email saying that while the account was open, my details didn't match my previous details so I'd have to fill in a change of details form and send them some ID yada yada. So I rang them and queried it, and the lady said "yes, you're right, they are the same details, I'll make sure this is rectified so you don't get any more emails of this nature". She couldn't explain why the system reckoned they were different when they clearly weren't.
I also registered the new account for gross interest. Another thing to tick off my mental list. I now officially have £115.36 in my OP pot! :j :j :j :j

icontinuetodream

:TWell done on the OP .....You are doing great....:j few words of wisdom for you....never send the man-wife to the shops....he will always come back with cr*p you don't want or need...;)

love the interesting names for the sprogs....:D how old are squishpot and j'raff ?? oh, and as a bike lover (although never ridden one...vertically challenged :mad:) what bikes do you have???

I apologise for being nosey...but that's just how I am!!! won't be offended if you don't want to answer any of these questions

coldcazzie

icontinuetodream wrote: »

:TWell done on the OP .....You are doing great....:j few words of wisdom for you....never send the man-wife to the shops....he will always come back with cr*p you don't want or need...;)

love the interesting names for the sprogs....:D how old are squishpot and j'raff ?? oh, and as a bike lover (although never ridden one...vertically challenged :mad:) what bikes do you have???

I apologise for being nosey...but that's just how I am!!! won't be offended if you don't want to answer any of these questions

Oh I know - I once sent him out for sweetcorn and he came back with a TV! :eek: and no sweetcorn! :rotfl:

Squish-pot is 7, J'raff is 2, so have to find space for 4 years worth of clothing. And we have a bandit, although I can't ride it.

And please don't apologise! I don't mind at all

nhampson

Good post Cazzie.

One thing I will mention is considering not buying pet insurance. Our border collie started to have epileptic fits, costs for tests and the first year of medication was over £2,000 which the insurance covered. Suddenly the £11 a month we were paying was a bargain so would recommend that anyone with a pet has insurance.

I would bring to attention to anyone buying pet insurance though that they find a policy which covers conditions for the the life of the pet and not for one year as ours does, we have ongoing bills of about £500 a year now. Don't begrudge it though, we love him to bits!

Good luck as a MFW, doing similar myself and always feel slightly smug when the annual statement comes in

icontinuetodream

coldcazzie wrote: »

Oh I know - I once sent him out for sweetcorn and he came back with a TV! :eek: and no sweetcorn! :rotfl:

I rest my case!!!:eek::eek::eek::rotfl:

nhampson wrote: »

Good post Cazzie.

One thing I will mention is considering not buying pet insurance. Our border collie started to have epileptic fits, costs for tests and the first year of medication was over £2,000 which the insurance covered. Suddenly the £11 a month we were paying was a bargain so would recommend that anyone with a pet has insurance.

I would bring to attention to anyone buying pet insurance though that they find a policy which covers conditions for the the life of the pet and not for one year as ours does, we have ongoing bills of about £500 a year now. Don't begrudge it though, we love him to bits!

I must admit....my dog insurance is very expensive (£24 per pooch pm), but the cover is comprehensive - pays up to 5k per condition, lifetime cover - and with one of my dogs thinking he is made of titanium, its a cost that I will always swallow!!

Good luck in 2012 cazzie...:D

coldcazzie

To be fair to him... we do still use that tv (in fact, it's on right now!) in our kitchen as an extension of the tv in the living room, but the point is still valid that he forgets stuff even with a list. He's much better now than he was, and in all honesty, I'm just as bad sometimes. Yesterday fell over because we didn't have stuff that I thought we did - stuff we usually have in the cupboards.

The cat ins this year is not too bad. Next year I'm finding a better policy though. Cheap = not very good policy = not very happy Caz.

Today my focus is my fishtanks.
- [strike]180L: cleaned, sand and Aquabasis+ removed, snails put in a tub to be mailed to a friend[/strike] (this tank is going to a new home next weekend...£130 for my new tank pot to add to the £70 already there :T) done the snails, tank gone to new home earlier than planned!
- [strike]240L: water change, poop removal and rearranging to accommodate more wood[/strike] DONE fishies are clean again!
- [STRIKE]biotope: water change and planting[/STRIKE] DONE - I'll post a piccie if anyone's interested
- [strike]garage: photograph anubias and list for sale (proceeds towards new tank fund)[/strike] DONE, except I couldn't bring myself to sell my hastifolia so I've been naughty and put it in the biotope

Best crack on

coldcazzie

- [strike]finish meal plan and shopping list[/strike]
- [strike]make sure pe kits and school uniforms are ready for tomorrow[/strike]
- pack up 2 apple snails to post tomorrow
- research DVD trade in, going to post office tomorrow so if I can find somewhere today that'd be grand
- [strike]finish cleaning 180 tank and move into the garage until Sat[/strike] (can start getting living room rearranged then)
- read more chapter 1, don't think I'm going to finish it though

coldcazzie

Weekly grocery shop today. Managed to get meal plan and shopping list written sufficiently in advance to not cause a mental meltdown this morning (which is what usually happens). Thought I was doing great - rang pharmacy first, got on bus with shopping list, bags etc etc, and then realised I left the snails at home so now I'll have to make an additional trip out to the post office.

Shop went well, got all the groceries on the list for £53.46.
Did also buy some nappies, which were on offer at 3 for £10, I got my calculator out to work out whether that was better value than the larger pack, and it was, by 2p per nappy.
Finally I got a pack of 8 very nice Christmas cards for 98p, which had in it a booklet of vouchers for 50p off a purchase of 2 greetings cards. There's 12 in total, 1 valid in each month, so £6 worth of vouchers, and with a bit of forward planning I should be able to use them all no problems. We have a glut of birthdays at the end of the year, so I'll be buying in advance. Seems very meagre when I write it out, but I'm still pleased, especially as I didn't even realise at first and just wanted the Christmas cards. I shan't buy any more now - with the ones left over from the last 2 years I'll have enough to do them all this year now.

I've put myself down in the grocery challenge thread for £500 for this month's grocery bill, to include toiletries etc, cat food and the food for Lumpy's birthday party. I'll start on the 9th, as that's when our "credit card month" starts. Crossing fingers!