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

Chocforever

What a frustrating and expensive day. There is always something that crops each month, isn't there?

Well done on your charity shop haul. That was really good to get DS a wedding outfit; you were lucky there.

After my dreadful credit card bills (and there will be another to pay in early May), I am going to make a big effort to have a cheap month in May.

I am staying at home over the early May holiday and have some voluntary work lined up locally at an arts festival which should be good and means I get free entry!

I have a trip to London planned. I managed to get some unbelievably good advance train tickets (£6.75 for a return) and have paid for the main event I am going down for so as long as I avoid the shops, it shouldn't cost too much on the day.

I've done a couple of Ebay listings tonight. Good to get them out of the way. I had a bizarre telephone MS where no one picked up after 5 attempts. Bit of a pain having to call a few times but the report was quick to write up!

debtfreesomeday

How did you do on ebay Chocs?

We had a reasonable weekend, but the weather made us pretty miserable. We still managed to get out for a bit though to stop up going crazy in the house!

Financially, not a great weekend as I managed to 'lose' £20 by forgetting to pick up my cashback from a self serve till. I checked with the store later, but someone had swiped it... grrrr.

Our bank balance is shocking, as expected, due to last month's overdraft, so I'm doing what I can to minimise the damage this month.
I have had a refund of £14 something to my paypal account, so Itransferred that to the bank today. I have also found the 'coupon' thread on here and have printed off a few coupons for things we already buy, to get them a little cheaper. Annoyingly, I can't seem to download the coupon printer programme so will try that at home later if I have time, as there's a few more I'd like to print but I have to do it through this programme.

The grocery budget is doing ok so far. We are pretty stocked up, it's just fruit and veg that we seem to spend money on every few days, so it seems like I'm always shopping!

DH and I did a stocktake of our freezers yesterday and wrote down everything we have in them, so it is easier to plan meals and not buy in duplicate. We have lots of meat in there which should see us through this month for sure. We need to get better at using up 'bottom of the freezer' items that have been in there a while.

I've sent off for a couple of free samples of things, also received some baby wipes to test last week with a survey supposedly attached to that, but I can't access it for some reason.

Back to work I guess...

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

Ohmigod, just checked the bank balance again and, combined with the money left in the groceries pot, we only have around £170 to last us for the month beofre we hit the overdraft. What a long month it's going to be! :eek::eek::eek:

We have a long distance trip this weekend to go home for a family wedding, so that is going to cost us at least £60 in petrol.

It's going to be a case of only buying absolutely essential things this month now as and when we run out of supplies. I was going to print off some coupons tonight for shampoo etc, but need a cartridge for the printer. That'll will have to wait until next month now, and we have 3/4 of a bottle of shampoo left so that will easily last us the month!

We have already covered the two wedding gifts we had to fund this month, so that's a relief. It is also a friend's birthday this month, but thankfully, I bought a gift for her last year after Christmas in the sales. Next month sees another friend's brthday, but again, I bought and wrapped that gift long ago.

I have been looking for stuff to ebay, but we really have exhausted that avenue for a little while. All of the clothes that are too small for DS have been ebayed, and the house has been pretty much decluttered of stuff we can sell. I shall have another sort out of Ds's clothes after the weekend to see if there's anything else he has grown out of. He has so many clothes and never gets to wear half of them before growing out of them! We have lots of grobags (sleeping bags) that he no longer wears as he started to get frustrated with getting tangled up in them at night, so they might be the start of another ebay pile.

Hubby is currently sorting through his dvds to see if there's anything we can 'music magpie'. Gently coaxing him to look at the 3 drawers of cds we have too!

DFSD

debtfreesomeday

Well, hubby did sort through his DVDs and CDs and I entered them on Music Magpie, but each were only valued at 30p, so I told him we're not selling them for that amount, I'd rather he keeps them!

We are still waiting for our 20,000 tesco clubcard points to come through - I've had several arguments with tesco about it - but they assured me it will be done this month. For now, we have 850 points from vouchers we haven't used from last year, so we have decided to exchange them for meal vouchers, so we don't feel totally deprived this month and can at least have one meal out.

DFSD

Chocforever

£170 for the month does not sound good, and that was before I read that £60 would go on petrol this weekend . I hope your freezer inventory helps to cut the grocery bill this month.

Having mixed success on Ebay. I sold two items for very good prices. I am waiting for both buyers to leave feedback and, until they do, I always feel a bit nervous that they won't be totally happy.

I put a couple of household things on there which I thought were quite good items. No bids on them :cool: so I relisted.

I also listed a few very small items, just to see them go to someone that might use them. I have staggered the auction ends so as to stagger the wrapping and posting tasks, so it is early days which these. One sold today for £4 and it was something surplus which I probably would have thrown out, so I was pleased with that. In fact, I think it is time to unearth a few more things to list this afternoon.

Best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

Well done on eBay chocs, sounds like a good result.

debtfreesomeday

Not a good night of sleep last night as Ds woke up a few times and was very unsettled. DH hd also come down with this flu virus I had for six weeks and have just manage to shake off, so he was feeling rough in the night too. Looks like we're gonna have a pretty terrible night tonight now; Ds is streaming with cold, coughing and obviously feeling rubbish too. He took ages to settle at bed time and hasn't been right all day. DH working until 9pm tonight again, so feeling very tired and a bit stressed after battling through the day on my own, after little sleep.

Only spend today was £1 on entry to a soft play centre for Ds. I thought it might cheer him up a bit, but think it was all a bit too much!

Urgh. Just, 'urgh'.

Chocforever

Tough day for you yesterday. I hope today is less trying but I realise this could be very hopeful in the circumstances.

I'm feeling very lethargic today even without sleep deprivation so I think it is going to be a quiet one. There is plenty of time to catch up with things over the long weekend.

Take care x

debtfreesomeday

I hope you have a restful weekend then chocs, sounds like you need it. Maybe all that extra time and stress at work is catching up with you?

Surprisingly, Ds was relatively ok last night which was a real shock, considering he developed croup in the night too. He woke at 2am but went back to sleep after some ibuprofen, then woke at 6am. It's all thanks to the cool air humidifier we bought long ago, which we left on all night, at full power, in his room. It definitely makes a difference, but has left the carpet quite wet this morning!

Today we have been out to the main town centre as we had to buy some bits - cough medicine for Ds, deodorant and tissues (essential in our house at the moment!). I bought these in a 'savers' shop as didn't fancy boots or superdrug's prices presently. £4.78 spent there. I also picked up some new (much needed!) dummies for Ds but got these with my boots points so were free. Would love to stop buying them but attempts to be 'dummy-free' have failed so far.

I also had an item for £28 to exchange in debenhams which I bought months ago but was unsuitable. I've been trying to exchange it for ages but nothing has jumped out at me for myself, DH or Ds, or the house. Had to do it soon before item was reduced so today picked up a waterproof jacket and pair of jeans for Ds in bigger sizes, both in the sale, both more than I'd normally pay but used the credit up so cost nothing today.

We're home now and Ds is napping. I'm hoping to bake some cakes later as have all ingredients and baking is my form of de-stressing activity!

debtfreesomeday

Another rubbish bank holiday weekend for us. Ds & DH ill so haven't been able to drive home, so we're missing the family wedding, missing a planned get together with friends (after a christening), and won't be seeing my family, most of whom I haven't seen for 3 months. Oh, and that's after not seeing any family and friends at Christmas as we were all ill then too and had to cancel Ds's first Christmas. Most of all, we're missing a chance to get away from everything for a couple of days after a really rubbish start to the year, we really needed a break and were counting down the days. To top it off, there's no money left in the bank after filling the car with petrol to go home before all this kicked off, oh, and my mum's illness is flaring up again. When will all this cr&p and bad luck end? I really don't know how much more I can take. There have been tears already today to add to yesterday's quota. I'm feeling at an all-time low to be honest and not entirely sure how to get through the rest of the weekend until Tuesday, when I return to the job I loathe.