One frugal year = freedom and choices

lobbyludd

oohh no! son is fine now, hope your daughter is too, mind you it's comforting to hear that everyone is being afflicted as I was beginning to wonder if it was my "cooking".

£29.48 in bids on ebay

lobbyludd

took children swimming today, took 40 mns and blunted 2 razors to remove the winter leg fur, I really don't like swimming, (the faff of preparing, packing, finding towels, public changing, having to be in a swimming costume, when I usually try to encase myself in as much material as possible, dragging exhausted kids out at the end) but the kids love it, so decided the least horrible way for me would be to take them to the big all bells and whistles centre rather than the cheap and cheerful (not) pool. figured with ebay sales the £8.25 was covered.

very excited kids, all the time in the queue were beaming and telling everyone how excited they were, when I went to pay, found out dd would be free, so down to £6.25, handed over my card, which promptly broke their machine, apparently because it has a contactless chip that sent the machine into a loop trying to read it, I offered a different card, but the girl was so apologetic and the kids so excited that they let us in FOR FREE.

This was the best swimming session I've ever had. kids helped each other, no bickering, lots of laughs and smiles, they are still happy 3 hours later and I feel like a good mum.

brizzledfw

Wow..result, well done LL. so pleased!

mum2one

bar the beauty treatments sounds a fab day.

We were mse as well, took DD to movies for juniors, saw Mr Poppas Penguin, it was brilliant, only £1 each, and even better as I conned dad into getting the tickets last ngt on the way back from taking DD to ballet. xx

FrugalLina

I thought I would drop by and say hi and thank you for your diary - it has taught me a couple of things and given me some ideas! I hadn't heard of Zapper until you posted about them and I shall be going through my heaving bookshelves to see what my books are worth. I shall also look to doing a credit card transfer to a 0% card too.

Sounds like you are doing a great job, especially with 2 young'uns to take care of on your own.

Re your ex's CM payments - you probably already have considered CSA, I think it may help get payments on time and in correct amounts.

Good luck with the giving up smoking - I struggled for a long time to give up (22 years ago) and had several false starts, but managed to do it finally, despite really enjoying smoking,lol. My incentive was my son had began to notice and I didn't want him to see. To this day, I still feel I could take it up again (but obviously wouldn't). I don't miss it at all, but I sincerely used to enjoy it. Anyhoo, keep on trying, there is loads more help out there with patches and inhalers and all that I hear are very good.

FrugalLina

Again, many, many thanks, I have Zapper coming to collect my books on Tuesday and hopefully a cheque for £30+ will be on its way to me once they are accepted!

lobbyludd

fab stuff frugalina (although I am actually still waiating for my cheque from zapper, but I put the wrong post-code initially so it's my fault it's all delayed). Ex has been assessed by the csa, but I've been dithering on asking them to collect, I imagine it will come to that.

Yay m2one, sounds like a fab extra mse day for you too

thanks brizzled

drum roll.......£65 in ebay sales this evening wooohoooo.

just as well really: found an error in my spreadsheet-of-wonder, an incorrect link which means I've paid off £50 more than I can afford from my credit card this month, wasn't quite sure how I was going to be able to juggle things but now I can just hold off paying childminder for a portion of next month's fees until the end of the week until paypal gets to my bank account.

I have a box full of things to list on ebay next week, but they are very much of the "if they sell at all it will be for 99p" varierty - I'll list these on thursday. Have yet to allocate any fabric to the selling pile, I will spend the next 2 weeks slowly sorting through and putting some into a box and seeing if I can let go

I have not had a cigarette for 4 hours (what fortitude!).

SO I'm leaving all cards at home tomorrow, taking a baked potato in and attempting to chain myself to the desk all day.

meals for week planned, 6 jacket spuds cooked around the roast today, It's going to be a very "potatoey" week. House is very slightly less of a tip than when the weekend started, and all clean washing has been put away (I always falter at this step, thinking it will take hours when in fact it only takes 20 mins or so). I am going to try and channel some energy into flylady for the next week and make some progress.

4 card blanks plus envelopes found, not the ones I was looking for, I'm *fairly* sure I had some left over from a pack a couple of christmases ago, can't locate them, but it's a start.

going to try and get to bed now, kids have decided to erect a makeshift tent and sleep in it at the end of my bed, last time I popped in dd had migrated to my bed and had star-fished across the middle, between her, a cat and the supporting "poles" of ds's nomadic masterpiece, there's not much room!

Cherryjack

Hello , really been enjoying yr diary has taken me a couple of nights to catch up but have suscribed ) I'm not normally up at this time, but my 6 week old daughter is keeping me busy lol. You've given me a motivation kick.. well done with the ebay sales. I to am strugglin with de-cluterring xx

mum2one

hope you don't mind me being cheely, but I would go the csa route, if you were getting it correctly on the day (give or take a bit), then stay as an arrangement, but if ex is late its you that has to find the money.

Any spare jck potato, could murder one, xx

lobbyludd

thanks Cherry, wow, at 6 weeks postpartum I was struggling with remembering my name let alone decluttering! please take it easy and pace yourself,

Thanks mum: no, it's not cheeky, and at some point I probably will if only to stop the humiliation of having to ASK for cm each month (I have an automated email sent to send each month the day after it's supposed to be in), but communication is so bad between us and he sees everything as an attack, so going to the CSA to collect would be a declaration of war. There are other issues, in addition to which he keeps threatening to live abroad which would mean no money and the kids not seeing him. So whilst he is paying something and I am in debt, I'd rather not rock the boat, it's cowardice really, but I am working up to facing it.

at home today as dd was sick at 4 this morning, no idea how I'm going to make this time up, worked from home to finish a paper that had to be in at noon, prelim draft finished at 10.30 for boss to see then stupid computers meant I spent 2 hours trying to get it emailed to her, had to dictate it over the phone eventually, late, and only as a preliminary draft, whilst dd trod the results of her upset stomach all over the bathroom floor , have to have a meeting with boss when I get back about my leave, and managing my work/home commitments better. parents and family are 180 miles away, their dad is overseas on hilday/looking at property to buy and has addiction issues which mean I couldn't have him look after her anyway, short of employing a nanny/au pair who would look after them if they were sick (financially not an option) I don't really see what I can do.


god this is hard some days, my boss is very understanding, but there are limits, she needs me to do the job i'm paid for, and I hate doing it badly.

I've been accepted for the mr t cc, I know because they sent me a pin this morning, no other info, so no idea what limit, whether they've accepted the 0% bt, and if so for what balance, so still a mystery but potentially good news.

will post ebay stuff tomorrow