Conquering Debts Once and For All...

Box_of_Fluffies

My crochet is coming along nicely. Who'd have thought that crocheting with plastic yarn (made out of plastic bags) could be so fun? I just hope I don't run out of plastic bags before I've finished, which will hopefully be today!

The people that won our auction last week finally came to collect so I've put the money into our emergency fund. :j

Saved us about $15.00 on the weekly food shop on Saturday. It would have been more but we had a friend coming for dinner so had to buy a couple of bottles of wine. It was lovely to see her and have a catch up.

Mr P is building us another raised bed to grow more of our own veggies. It quite a long one but only about half as wide as our others. I think we might be busy next weekend planting. We've used all the potatoes now and only have 1 cauliflower and 1 cabbage left although the courgettes and spinach are still going strong and we're waiting for our tomatoes to go red. Wonder what we'll plant this time?

I think I might have to do some baking today as we're out of goodies. Hmm.. what do I feel like making? Might have a look on the recipe thread for ideas.

Box_of_Fluffies

Well, I didn't quite manage to get my crochet bag finished yesterday. Still working on it though and hopefully either today/tomorrow.

So a couple of other items got collected yesterday and one lady even gave me twice the price she had bid as she thought it was worth it. :j Obviously gave her really good feedback.

Mr P managed to get the vege box finished, next step is to dig out the spot where it will go and fill with compost. Next weekend's job I think.

We've decided to sell our camping equipment as we've only used it once in 2 years. It's almost new so hopefully will get a good price. I pointed out to Mr P that by the time we can afford to go again, the boys won't want to go with us anymore and the tent is way too big for two people!

Box_of_Fluffies

Just for brizzledfw here are a couple of shots of the river, which is a couple of minutes from our house.

PinotGrigio41

Lovely photo, you should have posted it on my diary as well, to make it more colourful and interesting ! I cant post one of where we live and our nearby river at risk of my cover being blown !!:rotfl:

It looks beautiful, maybe one day we will up sticks as well, its sooo tempting !

We sold our big tent last summer on ebay, we got a great price for it actually. We had brought a smaller one the summer before, although still plenty big enough for us and it goes up in about 20 mins which is great, so we use that still. I am determined to carry on camping despite the situation, as I find its the only way I truly relax these days. Campfires, burnt sausages, marshmallows and a glass of wine or two ! Roll on Spring and I can head off again ! Its sleeting here today and is cold wet and miserable

Box_of_Fluffies

Oops, been a bit lax in the last couple of days with the diary, both reading others and writing my own.

It's been a busy couple of days with DS2 starting High School on Wednesday which he was very anxious about. He has moved from a small school with only 100 (approx) students to one with over 1800! :eek: His first couple of days seem to have gone okay. He actually came home with a smile on his face yesterday. :T

I was looking forward to spending a few hours with DS1 but on the way home got a call asking me to help out on a job. I couldn't really refuse so ended up with a four and a half hour chunk out of my day. Got back to school just in time to pick DS1 up again. So no alone time with DS2. :mad: Fortunately he didn't seem to mind.

Yesterday was spent in a round of school runs, school appointments (DS2 had been given wrong subject) so along with what seemed like the whole school :rotfl: had to sit and wait to see the Dean to get DS2 the right subjects.

My job for today has been moved to next week which is slightly frustrating as Mr P had booked the day off to come and help as it's a big job and about an hour's drive. I found out too late in the day for him to cancel his leave. :mad: On the bright side, he now has a four day weekend as it's a public holiday on Monday.

I've been feeling a little frustrated this week at my lack of progress in making any extra payments off the credit card but on the up side I have managed to buy uniform for DS2 and DS1, plus all the school stationery (a total of about $800:eek:) without having to resort to the credit card. :j

Apologies for the long post. Must remember to keep it shorter next time.

Box_of_Fluffies

PinotGrigio41 wrote: »

Lovely photo, you should have posted it on my diary as well, to make it more colourful and interesting ! I cant post one of where we live and our nearby river at risk of my cover being blown !!:rotfl:

It looks beautiful, maybe one day we will up sticks as well, its sooo tempting !

We sold our big tent last summer on ebay, we got a great price for it actually. We had brought a smaller one the summer before, although still plenty big enough for us and it goes up in about 20 mins which is great, so we use that still. I am determined to carry on camping despite the situation, as I find its the only way I truly relax these days. Campfires, burnt sausages, marshmallows and a glass of wine or two ! Roll on Spring and I can head off again ! Its sleeting here today and is cold wet and miserable

I was careful in my choice of pics so as not to include any with our house which is quite distinctive!

Our tent is going on trademe this weekend so we'll see how it goes.

f1widow

oh pinkpiggy the views are beautiful - you are lucky
Can you please not mention weather - here in Britain we are poised to come to a grinding halt as we have lots of snow promised:D - boy is it cold too

Really glad that your son got on well on his first day - that must be a relief for you

Youve been busy with the trademe site etc - hope you do well with the Freecycle - Ive been really lucky here with the bits Ive received - although I dont seem to get the hang of "getting in quick" - items go so quick.

Crochet sounds great - I just cant get the hang of crochet - have taught myself to knit over the last few years and have picked up a few old crafts that I have not done for ages ie cross stitch but me and the hook :mad::mad:

Box_of_Fluffies

f1widow wrote: »

oh pinkpiggy the views are beautiful - you are lucky
Can you please not mention weather - here in Britain we are poised to come to a grinding halt as we have lots of snow promised:D - boy is it cold too

Really glad that your son got on well on his first day - that must be a relief for you

Youve been busy with the trademe site etc - hope you do well with the Freecycle - Ive been really lucky here with the bits Ive received - although I dont seem to get the hang of "getting in quick" - items go so quick.

Crochet sounds great - I just cant get the hang of crochet - have taught myself to knit over the last few years and have picked up a few old crafts that I have not done for ages ie cross stitch but me and the hook :mad::mad:

I promise not to mention the lovely weather anymore. :rotfl:

Still got a few more things to load on to trademe this weekend but plenty of time. I haven't had much luck with freecycle yet. Have replied to a couple of offers but not heard back so am guessing they've already been taken.

I love to crochet. My mum and I were taught by an elderly neighbour of ours when we lived in Holland (in the 1970's). I've always preferred it to knitting as I'm what is commonly known as a cack-handed knitter, which also means I am a slow knitter. Also, my husband hates the click-clacking of knitting needles. :rotfl: I've just finished my latest crochet project, a shopping bag out of plarn (plastic yarn). Hope you like.

f1widow

Im in love with your shopping bag! - its fab - are you are "crafty" lady? - I knit mainly for charity (but a bit for the family and friends), cross stitch, card making, dabbled in decopatch and doll reborning, latch-hook and am quite taken with the idea of rag-rugging! CANT COOK MIND tee hee ....


How is the freecycling and trademe going ...... I asked the same question about what to do with any saved money from the month ie mine was I saved £8 per month on the house insurance - a few people said pop it in the emergency fund - so I will do this but was also thinking of splitting it between a debt pot (to pay off in lump sum on my smaller debts) and my emergency fund - if this is any help

Hope you have a good day - its way cold here - please dont tell us how warm you are :D xx

Box_of_Fluffies

Morning all,

As you'll all see I have changed my user name to "Box of Fluffies". I requested this quite some time ago and didn't think it was going to happen but it has! I was a little concerned about being identified as I am quite well known by the other name on a number of other sites. A big thank you to the support guys for allowing this.

fiwidow I like to think I'm crafty but really it's just crocheting. I dabbled in decoupage a few years ago but don't really have the time anymore. Although I'm definitely feeling more creative at the moment.

Trademe is going well. So far have made $350 but have had to use $65 to get our DVD recorder looked at. It keeps switching itself off and we have to leave it switched off for several hours before it will switch back on. It's very frustrating. :mad: This payment is definitely being put towards reducing credit card debt. We have more auctions finishing on Sunday so whatever we make on those will probably half into emergency fund/half towards credit card debt.

We are now dealing mainly in cash (with the odd exception) so I now have several pots / grocery shopping / bus money (for boys) / $2 jar and another jar for 'leftover' cash. Now technically it's not leftover but it will be used for those little things we forget about like needing to go to the tip (we have to pay here can't remember if you do in the UK). Once the 'leftover' pot reaches $50 this will be used to pay more off the credit card (iykwim).

I'm feeling very motivated at the moment and it seems to be rubbing off on Mr B as well. :j