The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

shrimpy_80

Happy Friday! What a long time coming it's been this week!

Birdie, I spotted the gloves last night but had already decided to get my sis a necklace to finish off her Christmas present, however I did not think of buying another mag to get both! You are a genius My current gloves have been steady unravelling themselves since I got them out a few weeks ago, they definitely aren't going to see the winter out!

Ruby, thank you for your encouragement and CONGRATULATIONS on passing :beer: I feel exactly the same about parking, I'm already worrying about driving to work as the parking is all off road on a big grassy hill and people are always getting stuck on it! Still, one worry at a time!

ruby_eskimo

The thing is, I could park perfectly in my instructors car. It just seems that the thinking behind the manoeuvres doesn't work in my car! Might go out today and have a bash at it.

On a MSE note, just had two letters in the post offering me credit cards; one from Natwest who I still have and account with and a second one with Barclaycard who I have never had dealings with! Both have gone in the shredder already! No credit cards for me!

Birdie85

I think it's a confidence thing Ruby, I could do everything perfectly in my instructor's car but it took me a long time to get it right in my own car once I'd passed! I remember trying to reverse park into a space in Tesco and my Mum had to get out and do it for me as I was just going back and forth, going nowhere and making a right mess of it! Whenever I parallel park I misjudge how much space I need at the back, I think I'm as close as I can safely get to the car behind then get out and realise that there's about 6ft between us!

Well done on shredding the CC letters!

Feeling quite relieved that I'm not still in my old job today, just found out that all of the team I worked with have been put 'at risk' of redundancy and the team has to shrink from 14 to 9! Phew, glad to be out of that although sad that they've got all this to deal with when it's so close to Christmas, feel really bad for my ex boss for having to make the decisions, I work with her OH and he said she was in tears last night trying to figure it out. I don't think I ever want to be a manager as I couldn't cope with stress like that! I felt really bad last night when OH came home as I'd just been bragging about how we're all going out for free beer and food on Monday night as thanks for completing a big project and he tells me that the place he works in is in turmoil! Luckily his job is safe

shrimpy_80

Well done on the shredding Ruby, your signature is looking great by the way! Sorry if you've already said, when's your wedding?

ruby_eskimo

shrimpy_80 wrote: »

Well done on the shredding Ruby, your signature is looking great by the way! Sorry if you've already said, when's your wedding?

Umm well we haven't set a date yet. I'm thinking 2013 but we're not in a position to book anything at the mo. Only because I live in Essex and the OH lives in Surrey and we don't want to plan anything till we're actually living together. Although I did go and have a brief look at wedding dresses at the weekend with my best friend and I started freaking out! We went into this small dress shop that does prom dresses and a small selection of wedding type dresses (so it doesn't really count). Most of them were hideous but when we walked past the veils and my friend said if I wanted to try one on...I had this really weird sinking feeling and the realisation that I will be buying one of these things in the future. I had to literally run out the shop because I thought I was going to have a panic attack! I'm sure I'll be ok when I actually have to look at dresses.

Oh and we really want to get married in Prague

Sorry for the wedding talk, we're back to regular chat now :rotfl:

Dinah93

Morning all (ish). No real news here, most exciting thing to happen in my day is that I'm trying to eat my baked potato with a spoon as I have no knife and fork.

ETA: Don't worry Ruby, I HATED dress shopping, I hated the idea of being a bride, but I loved the getting married thing.

shrimpy_80

I can't wait to go dress shopping! I'm so tempted to get a Big Fat Gypsy Wedding dress just to see OH's face!

Good luck with the jacket potato Dinah, guess it could be worse, could be soup and a fork!

wendz86

I am a rubbish parker too, OH is really good and only been driving a year. He scares me though the small spaces he parks in.I am glad our new car has parking sensors.

Ruby- well done for shredding the letters!

Birdie - sounds like you are lucky to be in your new job. I don't think i could cope with making decisions like that either...

Dinah - hope you are managing to eat the potato .... :rotfl:.

Just had a not very succesful trip into town. Did 2 mins silence in the shopping centre, everyone stood still outside shops and this chavvy family walked right through oblivious, the old ladies were quite angry after!

All i managed to get was some new gloves with my accessorise voucher. Got some socks for Poppys stocking,some wrapping paper and birthday cards for OH's sister. Had a praline mocha in starbucks so feeling all christmassy hehe.

Birdie85

Mmmm praline mocha sounds nice Wendz! I love Christmas time for all the lovely treats, although dispapointed in Pizza Express, a few years ago they did a festive pizza which was really nice but they haven't done it since and in their last e-mail they said 'we promise there is not a turkey & cranberry pizza in sight. We wouldn’t go that far.' and I'm like, 'But you did... and it was gooood!'

Ruby, we all love a bit of wedding talk so don't apologise! I liked wedding dress shopping, I tried on some really big ones just for fun but man those things are so heavy and cumbersome, no idea how the ladies manage in them all day! OH was expecting a massive gypsy style dress and he looked soooo relieved when he saw my dress for the first time!

Starting to worry a little about December money-wise, still got all of OH's presents to buy plus about half of everyone else's gifts, got to get a wedding present for my brother, have to pay for the hotel for the night before and night of the wedding, still haven't found any bridesmaid shoes so will probably end up getting them from a bridal shop and getting ripped off, got my work Christmas party to pay for (and I need an outfit to wear), my Dad's birthday and my parent's anniversary... feeling a little overwhelmed and poor, it seems to have all snuck up on me, I'm not usually this badly prepared!

Dinah93

Ooooh not spending money, this I can try to help on.

Do you need a new outfit? I know you've binned a lot of things to the mould recently, I'd resent buying anything that might get ruined until the issue is sorted. Also, if you get that bfp for Christmas you won't be back in the dress for at least a year anyway, and might not like it by then or you may find your shape has changed and it no longer fits (I'm doing my best, don't buy clothes persuasion to save you the cash - is it working?!). Look on places like asos for something seriously reduced if none of this works.

Is the wedding far away? Could you just stay the night of not the one before? Can you get rooms cheaper on hotels.com or similar rather than booking direct.

Can you not have a chat with OH about presents this year? NIM and I have agreed a £20 limit as we have more important things to put the money to - specifically paying off the debt to afford a family. Babies and maternity leave aren't cheap even with help from family or buying things second hand. We both agree this is our priority so don't feel like we're missing out sacrificing goodies in the short term for the long term gain.

It's really helped this year that we're all pretty skint, so the whole family has a one present each limit, grandad has a box set of comedy CDs, I'm making mum a stained glass candelabra, dad is getting a framed art print of a olde timey bike rider dicing with some sharks.... in all Christmas is costing us around £120, plus probably another £40 for food (mum and dad providing booze, grandad paying for turkey and crackers). It doesn't have to be a big spend to be special.

Can't rationalise away the wedding gift though!