Boarding the Bus of Positivity (for 24 months of travels!)

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

Good to see the loan balance going down - you really are getting there and it will feel great when the thing is paid off.

Like wantabetterlife, I gave up with online shopping due to them bringing so much nearly out of date stuff, not packing it well and the infamous bizarre substitutions. I always thought the supermarkets must make lots of money out of online shoppers because they can get rid of stuff which is almost out of date, but a relative of mine who is a supermarket manager says they don't because the process is so labour intensive for them and the delivery hassle costs a lot when things so wrong.

At risk of wishing the month away, I am still trying to minimise the damage in terms of my spending until I get paid at the end of the week. My credit card bills are awful and will make things unecessarily tight next month.

So I am making efforts to curb the spending and will be looking to eat more cheaply. I have had a lot of emails with offers from various bookmakers so I think I need to psyche myself up for a bit of betting. I've just got out of the habit and even a brief return could make me some easy money.

Still no news on the house selling front. A couple of weeks ago, I had a cheque back from the bank because I had overpaid the mortgage! As you know, I paid a lot off the balance in preparation for moving. I left a relatively small balance of a few thousand, partly to keep the mortgage product in case I wanted to draw down on it again. Anyway, it seems I have now paid off the lot. I know I need to keep up the motivation to save because next time around I will get a huge mortgage which will make things very tight for quite a few years. It is just hard when the money is sat there (or not at the moment, but you know what I mean!)

Have a nice week off - I think you will still get some sunny days to visit the park.

debtfreesomeday

I had a reasonably nice week off last week, until myself and DS came down with a virus again. Poor little thing has been rough all weekend, so we are quite stressed and extremely tired at the moment.

We have been enjoying the sunny weather though which has helped to make everyone feel better. I hear it is not going to last this week though. :mad: I planted £9 worth of 'summer colour' plants yesterday which I bought from B&Q with a voucher, but am concerned they are not going to like the colder weather now, so may have to cover them tonight. I wish this weather was more predictable.

We have also roamed into the world of geo-caching and it is providing us with free and fun exercise with DS on hubby's back in the carrier. We're enjoying it immensely! A free(ish), active hobby - great!

It was my birthday recently and I was lucky enough to receive quite a bit of money from family. £100 has gone towards buying garden supplies as we are currently turfing part of the garden for DS to play outside when the weather allows. I spent around £50 on summer clothes for myself as the contents of my wardrobe (or two drawers I should say!) is embarrassing once again. I charity-shopped a lot of stuff that was looking very worn or didn't fit, and there wasn't a lot left.
DH also took a day off and treated me to a lovely 3 course meal in a place we love and used to go to before DS was born. He'd saved up for a few months to afford it, bless him. It's not particularly posh, but is very relaxing and felt like a real treat. We had a lovely afternoon of a geo-caching walk around the coast afterwards to walk our lunch off. We felt revived after that day, it felt like pure luxury!

I have another pile of stuff ready for ebay and have photographed some of it, but it's just finding the time to do it at the moment. I must try this week as it does bring us in a bit of extra money.

We had another delivery from Tesco's last night, which will be the last! Once again, they refused to accept a £10 code which they had actually sent me, all of the stuff was more expensive than the guide price (surprise, surprise) and some items were missing. We'll have to go back to the Aldi shop run. It's a shame online shopping didn't work for us as I was able to keep track of the budget more easily that way.

I've opened a Junior ISA for DS this morning, to put his savings in which we removed from the post office account after the stupid change of terms and making it postal-only. My family also gave us some more money for his savings last week, so he has a really nice sum in there now. He won't be able to access it until his 18th birthday, but it will help with uni costs or whatever he decides to do.

I'm at that impatient point in the month where I'm anxious to do some more things to save/make money, but there's not a lot more I can do. It's frustrating! We're sticking to the meal planner I've drawn up - just planning for 7 evening meals a week and choosing which we want the night before - and it seems to be working well for us. It must be saving us money too as we're not buying too many extra bits and pieces in the supermarket.

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

It sounds like you had a lovely birthday and a nice treat to go out somewhere special.

My Dad likes geocaching and it is a nice hobby adaptable for all ages. There are loads of caches where my family live (there usually are in tourist towns and also there is a big American contingent there and I think it is very popular in the US). I recall some difficult finds at the beginning when we didn't have a very good GPS and hadn't appreciated just how small microcaches are! It is great for finding picturesque spots you never knew about or titbits of local history. Have fun with it!

I might just have a buyer for my flat. The buyer's situation is very complicated so I am not getting my hopes up too much at this stage, but it would be great if it did go ahead. If nothing else, I don't have to tidy everything away every morning .

My money situation is not great but I am at least trying to do something about it now. I put a pair of shoes on Ebay last week. I love these shoes and was reluctant to sell them but they were extremely uncomfortable once out of the shop and were just sat in my wardrobe. I felt rather better about Ebaying them when they sold for £40 last night.

I am really tired at the moment and looking forward to the Easter break. I am going away to a lovely spa hotel which had a great half price offer. It was booked a while ago and has already been paid for on the credit card so there is no point in me worrying about the cost now!

I hope your plants survive the week. I think there is snow forecast here tomorrow night so I hope it is warmer with you.

Best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

(Potentially) exciting news about the flat, Chocs. I do hope it goes well for you and a sale is in the very near future. I'm sure you can't wait to move on to the next chapter, so to speak.

£40 for a pair of shoes is a great result, well done. I guess if they were uncomfortable too you were unlikely to wear them again.
I have added to my ebay pile, hopefully I'll get it listed by this weekend.

Enjoy your spa break, it sounds wonderful! X

debtfreesomeday

Another night of awful sleep for us. Ds woke screaming at least every hour from 8pm until 1.30pm, then woke at 5.30am. I feel a bit zombie-like lately!

My working day started quite nicely though as I had a client meeting off site in a nice picturesque location which has broken the day up a little bit. I picked up a few bits from Sainsbury's whilst I was there - not all essential supplies, but some very nice reduced home bits and a bath toy for DS reduced to £1.99. I spent £21 exactly, but paid in cash, so nothing to come out of the bank account.

Yesterday I printed off a form to transfer my ISA to Lloyds. It's currently with halifax, but we have so much trouble logging in to the website and transferring money to and from it is extremely complicated so I will close it. There used to be a lot in there a few years ago, but a wedding, car and house depleted it to about £79! I just want it linked to our account though so I can add extra bits as and when I'm able. I'm going to suggest hubby does the same with his, although there's only about £39 in his too!

I also ordered some meat via an online butcher 'offer' yesterday. I compared the prices to the supermarkets and all of it came in cheaper than buying small amounts from Sainsbury's or tesco, so we'll give this a go and see what it's like. I also ordered a log of goat's cheese and plan to portion and freeze this too.

DS's highchair has broken after less than a year of use. :mad: Thankfully it's under warranty for 4 years, so a courier is picking the part up tomorrow to return for replacement. Unfortunately it means we'll be without a highchair for 5-7 days, so not sure how we're going to manage that. I don't really want to go out and buy anything else but I don't think DS will sit still long enough to eat, not that he eats a lot at the moment (we're having food issues with him - he'll eat fine at nursery, but not at home... ).

Hope everyone avoids the snow...

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

You have had a busy day - and on very little sleep! How frustrating that DS decides he doesn't want to eat at home. Do you think it is just a phase or that he is more fussy later on in the day?

Well the lady that bought my shoes sent me a nice email today saying she is very happy with them. Isn't it great when within 36 hours of an auction ending, the goods have arrived and both parties have left positive feedback. It might just have inspired me to dig out some more things to put on Ebay.

In preparation for a (probably brief) return to matched betting, I had a trial go tonight to make sure I could remember what I was doing! It went fine (I didn't lose any money) so I'll have to look around to see if there are any good offers. I've even played bingo tonight and it is a long long time since I last did that. The possible flat sale has inspired me to make a bit of effort on the money front. I think that in the past I have tried to do too much week in week out and it got tiring. I think I prefer concentrating my efforts into, say, a week a month so it doesn't start to feel it is taking over my life.

Hope you are fast asleep whilst I am typing this!

debtfreesomeday

Well done on the bingo Chocs, hope you had a win or two!

debtfreesomeday

On the whole, we had a relatively good bank holiday weekend and really quite a frugal one too, considering the activities we packed in.
We did a lot of geo-caching when the weather allowed and took a picnic, of sorts, for the three of us on Friday and Saturday. We did buy a coffee/hot chocolate on Friday and hubby treated us to hot drinks the following day. Sunday, MIL took us out for a lovely Easter meal which she paid for, so we didn't spend a penny. We did take her out for cake and a couple of coffees the following day on the way home, so spent about £20 for the 4 of us. All in all, not a bad weekend money-wise.

Yesterday, a combination of things left me feeling very down to the point of tears. The weather was rubbish, so we couldn't get out and spent much of the day in the house which is never a good mood lifter for me.
We have also been let down a lot by 'friends' lately which has left me feeling really fed up. We had organised to cook for some friends at the weekend and catch up, but, once again, we had to contact them to find out whether they were coming at the last minute, which they weren't.
I understand people lead busy lives and don't mind people changing plans at all when something comes up, I have had to do it a lot myself in the past; but I do resent being treated a bit like a doormat and being left in limbo, especially when we are spending money on food and drink for others.
DH and I talked and agreed that we do too much for some other people, like organising get togethers, cooking meals, researching cheap breaks for us all to go on etc. and we either get let down (which has cost us a lot of money in the past), or end up being taken advantage of a little. It always seems to be us making all the effort and others reaping the benefits. Our wedding was a prime example of this for reasons which I won't go into now, but I didn't enjoy it all for such reasons. We've decided to wise up a bit now and are not going to let it happen any more. We enjoy the company of others immensely, but are tired of being let down by other people. We're just going to focus on doing things as a family now and if anyone else wants to join in, they can do so of their own steam. I hope that doesn't sound too harsh.

The (lack of) money situation also got to me yesterday. We are in our 4th year of debt-busting now and although we're in a much better position than we were, it just feels like a long slog sometimes.

Work today has been pretty rubbish too, I am finding it hard to summon up any motivation to do much.

I have managed to order our shop online in my lunch hour. We're low on fresh bits and a few staples. I should really go to Aldi, but I know I won't get everything I need there and can't face the multi-supermarket run at the moment. I have ordered with Mr. S. this week as I got tired of Tesco not honouring vouchers and the quality of some of the produce was shockingly bad.

I still haven't got that stuff on ebay, although the pile has grown slightly more...

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

I am sorry to read you are having a bad time.

Regarding the issues with friends expecting and relying on you doing everything, I do sympathise. I have been caught out with the same and it is irritating to say the least. They say that you find out who your true friends are when you stop initiating all the contact and see what happens next. I am incensed on your behalf that they would not even call with plenty of notice to cancel and apologise. That is just so rude.

Its funny that, for some reason, an event has been playing on my mind recently regarding a good friend letting me down.

It must be about 10 years ago when I agreed that she would come up to stay one weekend and we would go out for dinner and the ballet etc. I should add that we had done this before on several occasions and she was the one that was particularly keen on going to the ballet. Anyway, one time she did not call beforehand to confirm the arrangements and she did not show up which was very odd. I had got the tickets and everything which had cost quite a lot and they just got wasted because I wondered if she was still coming.

I tried contacting her a few times over the next two weeks to see what had happened because I was concerned. She lived 150 miles away and I couldn't drive so I could not just pop over to see her. I found out that she was alive and well. She never got in contact; not even a note to apologise.

About 5 years later, out of the blue I got a Christmas card from her saying she still lived at the same address if I wanted to contact her. It said nothing else. At the time I thought she had a real cheek and did not reply. With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder whether when she occasionally disappeared, it was due to depression and that I should have handled it differently.

Anyway, back to people taking advantage of friends with a good nature. I suppose there is a point to my ramblings which is this. Some people will never take the initiative or will be thoughtless and let you down. They may not intend to be like this, but nevertheless, they are. My approach is to decide whether I like and care about them enough to tolerate it or not. Maybe I made the wrong decision with the person in my story above and it is regret that I feel. Some friends will respond to some unsubtle hints that they need to put some effort in and may even gladly do so once they have got into the habit of arranging things.

With your job, family and their health issues, you should not be organising friends who probably have more time and energy than you. Unless these people are such good friends that you would forgive them anything, it sounds like a good idea to let them fit in with your plans or sort something else out.

You are getting closer to repaying that loan so hang in there. I know there is the CC but you always knew that you would need something and the CC is more flexible.

I hope you have a good week x

debtfreesomeday

Thank you chocs, you always manage to make sense of things and throw light on a subject that makes me look at things in a different perspective, I appreciate you taking the time to comment. X

What a strange story that is. I wonder what on earth went on there. I can understand your concern at the time as I would be worried about a friend in those circumstances too. Maybe your depression theory is correct but it would've been nice to have an explanation, even after the event. I hope one day you find out what the concern was.
We have decided exactly what you suggested - to just wait and see when they contact us next. The lack of apology or even regard has upset me more I think. I don't learn though, I suggested to hubby this morning that we invite two sets of neighbours over for a BBQ at the weekend, but then I thought that we would end up providing all the food, BBQ and hosting the afternoon and despite hosting loads of days like this, not once in the 7 years we have been here has it been reciprocated. Not that this is the issue, but they all earn more than we do and have lots of family and friends locally to support them with childcare etc. I don't want to lose friends with this attitude but I am wondering if some friends are worth having.

I'm probably not in the best frame of mind to analyse things at the moment; a horrific day yesterday and very little sleep last night has left me feeling very low.