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

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

Lovely to see a new diary. And one day into it, you have 161 people on board, given the view counter on the front page.

Sorry to hear you have had a trying day. You are so organised for Christmas; only 2 present left! I haven't started my shopping yet. I work near a big shopping centre so I can leave it quite late if necessary. I might do a bit of online shopping this weekend to get things started. I try to put some money away each month to pay for Christmas. You have prompted me to check the balance and there is £400 in there which is more than I thought and should be more than enough for presents and to cover my travel costs .

Without wishing to lower the tone too much on page 1 of your diary, following a trip to the physio last week and noticing that my knickers were covered in bobbles like an old sweater, I chucked some pairs out and went to replace them today. I picked up 8 pairs today; nothing fancy, just plainish ones from M&S. Imagine my surprise at the till when she said it was £32 :eek:. I also needed some new work shirts and managed to get some nice ones very cheaply at H&M, so the costs evened themselves out by the end of the day. So not a very MSE day, but since I have been on a real bus today, does that count as joining in?

I also did one pointless MS. The idea was that I went to the shop with a set of facts given to me and let the member of staff explain the available options and recommend some add on services. Instead, the member of staff asked me to phone the shop another time and could not be persuaded to enter into any kind of conversation. And I am a nice MSer and do try to give them every chance to redeem themselves. It was not to be today. It is going to be a very short report :rotfl:

Best wishes for the journey!

debtfreesomeday

Crikey chocs, even knickers haven't escaped a price jump in this economic climate! I guess they're somewhat of a necessity though!
Nice you got some work clothesfor a reasonable price though.
Are you feeling any better today?

Ds is now poorly again :0( he was not himself at all yesterday and last night we had to phone the out of hours doctor as he had a high temperature, was inconsolable and obviously in a lot of pain. It turns out the poor little chap has an inner ear infection so has antibiotics to take. I also stocked up on baby ibuprofen whilst I was at the pharmacy, that cost me £7.98 but is worth double that as it obviously helps him a lot.
I haven't done much today as Ds just wants to sleep on me and wants cuddles, so it's a lazy day for us today.

I popped to the supermarket next door to the chemist and picked up a few bits we needed, plus various 'chocolatey' Christmas gifts for the neighbours etc as they had good offers on in that particular shop. You can tell I'm tired and hardly had any sleep too as I came out having bought biscuits and sweet stuff for ourselves, something which we rarely do.
DH is finishing work early today, in half an hour or so; so it'll family snuggled on the couch this afternoon I think.

sugarcube84

have you tried the supermarket own kids ibruprofen/paracetamol? I found my son liked it more than the branded stuff and seems to work just as well (much cheaper too)

wantabetterlife

You can get a bottle of it in poundland...for a pound obviously

Itsadogslife_2

Sorry to hear DFSD that DS is poorly. Ear infections can be so nasty with little ones, even more so when they are not old enough to tell you what is the matter.

I think a lazy day sounds amazing - I need one of those

debtfreesomeday

Thanks everyone, I have tried the own brand infant paracetamol before but didn't stop to think about getting the ibuprofen from a cheaper place TBH. We were just desperate to buy some ASAP this morning! Good thinking though, I'll definitely stock up on it from poundland as that's a huge saving. The ibuprofen seems to help Ds a lot more than the paracetamol for some reason.

Well, financially, not a great day. I logged on to our credit card banking today to find the balance a lot higher than I thought it was, by nearly £350!!! I don't know how I did it, but I got the balance completely wrong in my head - think I must've accounted for the recent £300 payment we made twice or something. I've double checked the statement and it is all correct, unfortunately. So , there's around £1400 on it, not the £1079 I listed on my signature. Grrr. Oh well, it is being paid off now whilst languishing in the freezer, as opposed to being used for other things, so at least the balance is going down. I'll update my signature when i know the actual figure.

It's payday tomorrow anyway and I get to find out how much money I'll be earning every month. I'm almost to frightened to look!

Dfsd
X

debtfreesomeday

£636.77

That's my new P/T monthly salary once £234 in childcare vouchers and everything else has been taken out. Being the positive, glass half full type of person I am !:rotfl: I guess it's more than I brought home whilst on SMP during the mid to latter stages of my maternity leave. Once we know how much hubby has been paid (as he also has childcare voucher deductions starting this month oh, and has lost his online banking details so has to wait for new ones to be sent out. :mad:) I'll fill the shiny new (found in a drawer) notebook with the less shiny, but new nonetheless, budget. Hey, I may even fill in and post a new SOA for the fun of it.

Ds seems a bit better today although didn't have a great night. He has big dark circles under his eyes this morning which rival mine! Bless him.

I had an interesting email from my so-called manager in the week (it's not like I actually go in to work now so he could tell me in person is it? No, he decides to email me at home on my day off...).
It seems 'someone' has messed my holiday entitlement up and I'm owed 29 days holiday. Some of this has been built up over maternity leave, the rest has been missed 'in error' If I'd known this, I could have taken an extra month off, been paid full (full time) pay and saved us £400 on nursery fees, so I'm around £1700 worse off because of their mistake.
Out of the goodness of his heart (!) I'm allowed to carry over 5 days to next year which leaves me with 24 holidays to take from now until march. Only, there aren't 24 working days for me in this period. Oh, and they won't pay me for any of them. Furious, is too weak a description to describe how I'm feeling.

LAM2011

Oh that is shocking! I would be well peeved off too - I never have enough annual leave for the things I want to do and would be well miffed to find that I would be losing some. Can you not take it higher and explain how it has affected your financial status etc?

Hope your little one gets better soon x

sugarcube84

Thats shocking! Why wont they pay you forthem if you take them?

I think that the whole accruing holidays while on maternity is why my company insists on you taking your whole years entitlement before going on maternity leave,it worked out well for me. Hols run from the beginning of Jan to end Dec so i had 26 days to take, baby was due on 28th March so i finished at 34 weeks had 6 weeks full pay (holiday) then 6 weeks full pay (maternity) and then dropped down to SMP. I actually started maternity leave officially on my due date (good job he wasnt early!!)

debtfreesomeday

Sorry, I didn't explain that very well. Yes, I am able/have to take the holiday, but it now means I will not be at work for 2.5 months! Sounds great, but I've just got used to going back; we still have to pay Ds's nursery fees or lose his place, not to mention that I have no spare money to do anything, and my family and 99% of my friends live 300 miles away, I really would rather be at work! I asked about the possibilty of being paid for some of it and giving it up, but that was pretty much laughed out of the room as I thought it would be. Plus, work is busy at the moment and it won't be good for either party for me to be off for so long. I am dreading it. If I'm totally honest, Maternity leave was one of the loneliest times of my life and I'm not happy being on my own a lot. Any suggestions of how to while away the days would be welcome!

Tonight I've worked out the budget and it's not that bad. We can afford to pay off £100 a month off the credit card and still have £272.78 (to be precise!) left over a month to cover everything else other than groceries, petrol, bills and savings towards the car and house maintenance bills. This month, however, we only have £152.20 left as we were overdrawn by £113.58.

Going to find the SOA calculator and paste it up shortly...