Keeping up appearances.......

HappyNow

SSG - thanks for the suggestion. I will defo be scouring the internet for vegan meals, along with your diary where I've already picked up some tips!

HappyNow

Dolphin1 said:

Hi HappyNow

Just popping on to see if you are ok after all of this flooding?  It's crazy where we are.  Roads were blocked with trees and flooding but ok now.  Don't know when the trains will be running again.  A few properties flooded by the river but thankfully we are halfway up a hill.  I know that it's worse in other areas of West Yorkshire though so I do hope you aren't affected.

Thanks for thinking of me Dolphin and I'm really pleased you've not been too badly hit. I'm up a hill too, 1000 ft above sea level,  but there's a lot of moorland even higher and loads of water from there rushes past our house on its way to flood the village and town further down. They've been really, really badly hit again   .We've had a few leaks through windows and doors with the ridiculous rain, but no flooding in the house. It has washed away much of our access lane though so we've some repair work to do. Luckily we have 4 x 4s so can still get in and out but we won't be having many visitors until it's done. The lane is owned by us and one other property so the council have no liability for it. 

HappyNow

So here's an update for Feb so far. Very poor posting record this month, but I've not done too bad with my Good Intentions.
1) Head towards a vegan diet  I'm still munching through the cheesy, milky, eggy food in the fridge and cupboards but I've only bought vegan stuff for myself. The problem is that Mr H isn't up for going vegan so he's bought more milk, cheese, tinned tuna and eggs, which is his choice obviously but I need to remember to keep my mitts of it! So far I'm impressed with oat milk in my porridge and Alpro yogs. And I bought a sandwich for lunch last week (I know.... waste of money) from the Tesco Plant Chef range and it was gorgeousl.  
Keep up the healthy lifestyle Well! I hit my weight target of 8 stone 7lb on  3rd February!! It gave me quite a psychological lift, but then I looked in the mirror and re-set the target to 8st 5lb! I do feel slimmer and I'm getting a bit of a waist back (not had one of those for years) but there's an overlay of flab still to shift. My friend and I decided to start gym twice per week for six months to get toned. We went once, then both the local ones flooded and closed yesterday. 
Keep the spending sensible Nothing to report here. 

SingleSue

HappyNow said:

SingleSue - Sorry I haven't been about to welcome you and congratulate you on your marathon read. You are very, very welcome to join in the thread - no debt required! Wow, that's a tiny calorie intake needed to lose weight. You'll remember that my daughter spent several months in a wheelchair when she had her vestibular episode a few years ago and she found the same, so I suppose most of us burn more calories than we realise just in moving around. She put on about 2 stone and it took over a year to lose it when she got her mobility back, so I really appreciate what you're up against. Hopefully posting regularly will help you keep the momentum up - it has definitely helped me. Good luck too with building that Pot of Dreams

It certainly is a battle to keep it stable. It's quite soul destroying when people assume you are stuffing your face or that you have a wheelchair because you are overweight when in fact, the complete opposite is the truth. Before the crutches and wheelchair, I would walk for miles, loved doing fun runs, was a cross country runner in my youth and did dance training of 5-6 hours per day, every day (ballet was my love and career choice until my body started to go wrong). Everything I did was at fast forward rather than go slow...I even earned the nickname of Aunt Sally (from Worzel Gummidge) as I walked so fast.

As for food, I have one meal a day, usually a sandwich and a light snack later to keep me going. This has kept the weight stable for the last 5 or 6 years with occasional ups when I go into a teenage like oppositional mood and eat more like a normal person for a couple of days and down when my system goes into revolt and nothing will process through (EDS isn't just a joint thing, it can have an impact on the digestive system alongside other major systems too)

My update

POD (Pot of dreams) - I managed to put £26 in it last week

Able to say no - Erm, not been quite so successful at this one. Pondering at the moment, I am covering on a temporary basis an extra shift but I have been asked if I would like it to be permanent. The extra money is tempting but physically, I'm not sure it is the best thing for me as I have been struggling to do the hours I already have and had a major flare of all symptoms the weekend before last which led to me having to be knocked out with extra strong painkillers and on complete bed rest for 48 hours.

Weight loss - Hmm, I'm 15 (in a nigh on 50 year old's body) and having a rebellion....

bd80s

Yay well done for hitting your target weight happy.......even if you've now moved the target  
I will agree that the Alpro range is really nice (not that I would ever go vegan!) but last year I tried their chocolate and hazelnut ice cream.........that did not last long I can tell you 

On_my_way

HappyNow said:

Welcome to my debt-free diary. I am going to use it to monitor my progress as I start my (very) long journey towards debt freedom. I hope it will inspire me to stay motivated when the going gets tough. Because the going WILL get tough from time to time - I have an absolute marathan ahead of me.

Today I have totalled up all our debts..... Including our mortgage, the scary bottom line is £127,899.00!! If I deduct the mortgage, we are still left with the very frightening figure of £69,579.00 (give or take a few quid) unsecured debt. It will get a bit worse between now and payday (15th of each month) as we have very little money to live on and a few bills coming up.

So, why have I called my diary 'Keeping Up Appearances'? Well, on the face of things my husband and I are a lucky couple. Both working full-time and earning good money. We live in a lovely house (worth more than double our total debt), have two gorgeous children who are now grown-up and away at university, run two cars, own another house which we rent out etc etc. We seem to have it all. And I suppose we DO have it all - we just haven't actually paid for it yet!!

The worst thing? My husband doesn't have a clue how much we owe. I have taken sole charge of our money for years, and what a mess I have made of it! I have had personal problems, which are now resolved, but which made me lose touch with reality for a while. I'm not using that as an excuse, but it does partly explain what has happened.

My husband is one of the nicest, kindest men you could ever meet and he really does not deserve to be in this mess. He knows we are in debt and need to watch our spending, but he does not know the extent. And I intend to keep it that way. I will scrimp and scrape and save and earn and do whatever it takes to reduce and eventually clear our debt, but it will be done without him knowing. He is a worrier and not in the best of health, so I do not intend adding to his stress by telling him the extent of our money problems. Not that he would be angry or leave me or anything - he wouldn't - but he would be so worried and disappointed and it would break his heart.

He trusts me to take care of our finances, and for a long time that trust was misplaced. Well, now he finally CAN trust me and I will not let him (or myself) down any longer. Then, when the debt is less heart-attack-inducing, it will be something we can work on together.

So, I am going to crunch some figures and get some inspiration and I will be back.

How does he not know? He must surely know what the expenses are and how much you both earn? I find it bizarre that someone is unaware that more if being spent than earned. 

Dolphin1

On_my_way said:

HappyNow said:

Welcome to my debt-free diary. I am going to use it to monitor my progress as I start my (very) long journey towards debt freedom. I hope it will inspire me to stay motivated when the going gets tough. Because the going WILL get tough from time to time - I have an absolute marathan ahead of me.

Today I have totalled up all our debts..... Including our mortgage, the scary bottom line is £127,899.00!! If I deduct the mortgage, we are still left with the very frightening figure of £69,579.00 (give or take a few quid) unsecured debt. It will get a bit worse between now and payday (15th of each month) as we have very little money to live on and a few bills coming up.

So, why have I called my diary 'Keeping Up Appearances'? Well, on the face of things my husband and I are a lucky couple. Both working full-time and earning good money. We live in a lovely house (worth more than double our total debt), have two gorgeous children who are now grown-up and away at university, run two cars, own another house which we rent out etc etc. We seem to have it all. And I suppose we DO have it all - we just haven't actually paid for it yet!!

The worst thing? My husband doesn't have a clue how much we owe. I have taken sole charge of our money for years, and what a mess I have made of it! I have had personal problems, which are now resolved, but which made me lose touch with reality for a while. I'm not using that as an excuse, but it does partly explain what has happened.

My husband is one of the nicest, kindest men you could ever meet and he really does not deserve to be in this mess. He knows we are in debt and need to watch our spending, but he does not know the extent. And I intend to keep it that way. I will scrimp and scrape and save and earn and do whatever it takes to reduce and eventually clear our debt, but it will be done without him knowing. He is a worrier and not in the best of health, so I do not intend adding to his stress by telling him the extent of our money problems. Not that he would be angry or leave me or anything - he wouldn't - but he would be so worried and disappointed and it would break his heart.

He trusts me to take care of our finances, and for a long time that trust was misplaced. Well, now he finally CAN trust me and I will not let him (or myself) down any longer. Then, when the debt is less heart-attack-inducing, it will be something we can work on together.

So, I am going to crunch some figures and get some inspiration and I will be back.

How does he not know? He must surely know what the expenses are and how much you both earn? I find it bizarre that someone is unaware that more if being spent than earned. 

Hi On_my_way

Welcome to the thread!

The post that you have quoted is from 8 years ago when HappyNow started this thread.  I think that if you read the rest of the diary, you'll find that her circumstances have changed dramatically over the last 8 years and her husband is far more aware of the finances nowadays.

Dolphin1

HappyNow said:

Thanks for thinking of me Dolphin and I'm really pleased you've not been too badly hit. I'm up a hill too, 1000 ft above sea level,  but there's a lot of moorland even higher and loads of water from there rushes past our house on its way to flood the village and town further down. They've been really, really badly hit again   .We've had a few leaks through windows and doors with the ridiculous rain, but no flooding in the house. It has washed away much of our access lane though so we've some repair work to do. Luckily we have 4 x 4s so can still get in and out but we won't be having many visitors until it's done. The lane is owned by us and one other property so the council have no liability for it. 

It is terrible!  It certainly brings back awful memories of the Boxing Day 2015 floods.  I hope you manage to get your access lane sorted without too much work and expense involved.

HappyNow

Hi SingleSue - That must have been heart-breaking, to have to give up your active lifestyle. I'd never heard of EDS so I've just googled it and it sounds quite difficult to live with (I realise there are lots of variants). When it comes to accepting those extra hours I think you should work on your Ability To Say No! The Pot of Dreams will still build up, albeit a little slower, but bed rest/pain killers are no fun at all  

bd80s - I see Alpro do ice cream without nuts so I will put that on my 'try' list. I don't have a nut allergy or anything, I just like my junk food pure!

 Dolphin - We've had a mooch up and down our lane and decided to just ignore it until spring. I believe the forecast is for more rough weather and we don't want to do it twice!

HappyNow

On_my_way said:

How does he not know? He must surely know what the expenses are and how much you both earn? I find it bizarre that someone is unaware that more if being spent than earned. 

Hi On-my-way, thanks for dropping by and posting

Like Dolphin said, that particular quote is an old one. Back then, we were very close as a couple (as we still are) but we each took on different roles within the household just because our lives were so busy. We both worked full-time and Mr H worked lots of overtime, we had two children, loads of animals, we all had time-consuming and expensive hobbies (horses and motor sport) and we lived in a high maintenance ancient house. So, Mr H's took on the role of handling all the practical stuff while I dealt with all our finances. He did his jobs splendidly, while I f*cked up royally 😁. 

Nothing was ever really hidden from him - he could access all statements, credit card bills etc - he just didn't, because he thought I had it all under control. And as soon as had my LBM and started this diary, suddenly I DID get it under control, thanks to the support and advice of the lovely people on this forum. 

Mr H and I now speak very openly about our finances and debts. But if I asked him how much we still owe, I bet he wouldn't know to the nearest £10K!