PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

I have decided to try and do a proper update today! It is the last session of my course tonight so I shall be here late – this means it is going to be a long day today and I need to do something to help it to speed by!!!

I was really poorly all last week with a nasty kidney infection – I had pain in both kidneys and my bladder, I felt sick nearly all the time, I also felt dizzy, feverish and very wobbly on my legs. I felt absolutely rubbish, basically.

I am feeling a lot better now, I am glad to say, but still tire easily – today is going to be great then!!

One of our cats, PC1, was very poorly last week (this is the one who hasn’t been really well all year). In fact, we really thought we were about to lose him as he is showing all the symptoms of the beginnings of kidney failure. He had to stay at the vets from Wednesday to Friday last week because he they had to put him on a drip to push some fluids in him as he was so dehydrated. When I picked him up on Friday they said his blood test results were much improved and only time would tell whether he would stay that way. Gradually over the weekend he became more his normal self, eating, drinking and weeing (Thank God!!). We were still worried because he wouldn’t touch any of the prescription food that he is supposed to have, so we had to give him fish and chicken – but at least he ate it. Also he was still being sick once a day, which was also concerning us, but he seemed so much better himself. We went back to the vets on Monday and they were very pleased with his progress. As he won’t touch the prescription food the vet recommended that he have a good quality senior food and occasionally try him with the prescription food. Apparently, giving him too much fish or chicken is not a good idea because it is too rich for him (it contains too much protein which his kidneys can’t really cope with) and it has been equivalent to the hangover from hell, which is why he is being sick. Apparently he can still have it occasionally, as a treat!!

Anyway he is much better now (how relieved are we?!) even if he is costing us a fortune! The balance on the Egg card is really quite scary – OH has said that he will do his best to pay it off as quickly as possible but I really need to be looking out for some more balance transfer deals to try to reduce the amount of interest we are paying. This is because, with the best will in the world, OH is not going to be able to clear it all for a few months yet.

When I was stuck at home last week I finally got round to listing some more books for sale on Amazon and I have sold 2 already which I have posted today.

I managed to do nearly all of the rest of my Christmas shopping online last week. I shall use some of the money from my savings account to take care of that. Unfortunately this means I will have to transfer some more money from my ISA soon. OH is aware of this and starting to panic a bit about how little emergency money I have now got left. Good! If he is panicking he might do something about it!! Next year is going to be an interesting one!

We put our Christmas tree up and decorated it on Sunday – how organised is that? The past couple of years it has been Christmas Eve before we have done it. I have even wrapped up some of DS’s presents. Blimey! I am even shocking myself! I haven’t done my Christmas cards yet – I suppose I shall have to hurry up otherwise I shall miss the last posting date for 2nd class post.

Anyway, I think that is all for now.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I realise that I never got round to updating my figures on 1st December (I normally update my sig on the 1st of every month) – I did some preliminary work on 30th November but needed to check a couple of figures. As I have been ill I never got round to doing it. I have decided that I am going to use these preliminary figures anyway – I can’t be bothered to wait until I have fished out the relevant statements. It’ll be the end of the month before I get round to doing it!

So please see new sig below – the figures are actually pretty close so I am not going to lose too much sleep over it! I promise I will do a proper accurate summary on 1st January!

As I think I mentioned before, these are nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. However, unless OH pays a serious chunk off the Egg card this month, I dread to think what the 1st January figures are going to be like. We have had to fork out an awful lot of money on vets bills this month.

Coo! One thing I have just noticed – my total credit card figure is back down again to less than in was at my Light Bulb Moment. That is something to celebrate at least!!

Anyway, must get on with some work now – I am staying a bit later today but not too late.

Bye all!!

peb

Sorry to see you have been unwell; hope you are better in time for a break at Christmas (assuming you get a break!)

I go away for a couple of weeks and your OH gets his internet banking sorted - progress. Hope he continues and gets his bill payments etc set up.

PigginSkint

Hi All (again!)

I have just realised what I meant to also include in my last post, but I forgot. Because of the space restrictions for signatures now, I couldn’t include last month’s figures as well as this months, so you can’t see how much I have managed to clear in a month. So here it is

Total Credit cards: 30/7/06 £23,646.22 1/11/07 £23,875.21 1/12/07 £23476.72
Catalogues: 30/7/06 £1060.92 1/11/07 £212.39 1/12/07 £181.75
LTSB loan: 30/7/06 £9746.76 1/11/07 £7893.04 1/12/07 £7752.81

Total non-mortgage debt: 30/7/06 £41,680.59 1/11/07 £36,980.64 1/12/07 £36,411.28

PigginSkint

peb wrote: »

Sorry to see you have been unwell; hope you are better in time for a break at Christmas (assuming you get a break!)

I go away for a couple of weeks and your OH gets his internet banking sorted - progress. Hope he continues and gets his bill payments etc set up.

Hi and Thanks!

You're telling me it's progress that OH has finally set up his internet banking! He is not working much over the next couple of weeks (his sort of work tends to peter off at Christmas) so hopefully I should be able to bully...er I mean persuade him to sort out his bill payments online!

I am really looking forward to the the Christmas break - I work at a University so we get a really good one. We break up on the 21st Dec and don't go back until 3rd Jan. In addition I have 2 days annual leave to use up which I was going to use on 20th and 21st, however I have decided I would like the 3rd and 4th Jan instead - this would mean that I wouldn't go back until 7th Jan. I have sent my request to my manager but she is off sick at the moment so I haven't had a reply yet. I can't see it being a problem though.

hypno06

Those figures are certainly heading in the right direction. Fingers crossed the vets bills are not too horrific!

And I hope you feel in top form soon - DD and I are both prone to kidney infections, so I sympathise completely x

PigginSkint

Hi All

Hope everyone had a good weekend – only one more to go before Christmas. Woohoo! I love Christmas – can you tell?! :xmassmile

I don’t think I updated on Friday – how did that happen? Oh I remember, I was invigilating all morning, then had to go out to post a parcel (Christmas presents) and buy a sandwich (because I couldn’t be bothered to make one in the morning) and by the time I got back it was nearly 2pm. Then I tried to do some work, talked for a long time to one of my work colleagues and then it was time to go home!!

I had a busy weekend and I am not really awake yet this morning! We did some shopping on Saturday daytime, then went to see the panto that OH directed in the evening and then on Sunday we went to our local retail park (which we walked to because it is not far) to finish off our Christmas shopping. I had planned to write our Christmas cards last night but I didn’t get around to it. Today is the last day for 2nd class post for guaranteed delivery before Christmas – however I think I shall take the risk with posting my cards 2nd class tomorrow (very MSE!).

One thing really p****d me off yesterday. We had run out of coffee so bought a big jar from Asda which cost nearly £5. As we were doing our Christmas shopping we were both juggling quite a few bags and as we were leaving Hobby Craft a few minutes later we had a quick check to make sure we had got them all…and the bag with the coffee in was missing. I was so angry with myself that we could spend £5 on something and then promptly lose it. Grrrrr!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

One bit of good news is that I have managed to sell another book through Amazon – that’s 3 in a week so I really quite pleased!

Anyway, I suppose I should attempt to do some work now.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

hypno06 wrote: »

Those figures are certainly heading in the right direction. Fingers crossed the vets bills are not too horrific!

And I hope you feel in top form soon - DD and I are both prone to kidney infections, so I sympathise completely x

Thanks hypno!

I am feeling much better now although I seem to prone to kidney infections as well. I had to have 2 ops 18 months apart a few years ago which did help, although I was warned at the time that I might have to have it done again - hope not, the last time was horrible!

Our darling kitty cat is a lot better than he was so hopefully we might have a reprieve for a while. But the week that he had to stay at the vets for 2 days it cost us just over £200:eek: :eek: :eek:

PigginSkint

Hi All

Still tired today but considering what time I went to bed last night it is not surprising! (About 1:00am then I was up again at 6:30am).I don’t feel like doing any work today but I suppose I must – I think I will try and wake up a bit before I do anything too taxing!! More tea needed I think. :coffee:

I forgot to mention yesterday about the saga of our drain. I discovered on Sunday that it was blocked as it was overflowing when the washing machine was running. The drain cover (the grid thing) had fallen into the hole, which obviously hadn’t helped. So I had a wonderful time on Sunday afternoon with my apron and rubber gloves on, scooping out water and sticking my hand down the hole trying to shift whatever rubbish was down there – some food bits, lots of dead leaves etc. The further I got down the more disgusting it became! :eek: Anyway I tried sticking a broom handle down, 2 lots of soda crystals mixed with boiling water and a whole bottle of Mr Muscle sink and drain unblocker in 2 lots, the 2nd one overnight. Nothing worked! On Monday OH discovered that it was only the waste water from the kitchen that was affected – dishwasher washing machine, and sink. When he emptied the bath it was fine (this was my bathwater from the night before which we had been afraid to drain!). Anyway we called my Dad (because I know he has drain rods) who advised us to try using a mop but then most unexpectedly turned up on the doorstep just as OH was about to go and have a bath (I was at work) and before OH had any chance to have a tidy up in anticipation of my Dad’s arrival. As I suffer from CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome), the house was not at its best (although it is not that bad as I have been trying to get it sorted for Christmas), OH got very p****d off because my Dad did nothing but complain about what a mess the house was, such comments as ‘I wouldn’t want to come home to this’ and ‘does she do any washing up’ (by the way, please note that we were behind on the washing up because of the blocked drain – I did rather want to minimise the amount of dirty water that was draining onto my garden!). As a result I was rather p****d off as well! :mad: :mad: Anyway rant over! Drain is unblocked, that’s the good news! Turns out the main culprit for the blockage was lots of grit which had come down the down pipe from the flat roof part of our house (extension to the original house). It’s hard to know how to avoid that happening again!

Anyway, now that I have bored you all silly about the saga of my drain I might report on other things!

I left OH with some jobs to do yesterday and he did nearly all of them! He reheeled my winter boots for me, but the Christmas tree box and a bag of clothes into the loft and loaded the dishwasher. The only thing he didn’t do was pay the bills that I had asked him to do – because this will involve him setting up his bill payments on his online banking. One of them is due by next Monday so he must do it today. I can’t be too harsh on him because he had to catch up on his sleep during the day yesterday because he hadn’t managed to sleep at all on Sunday night – he does tend to suffer from occasional insomnia.

Also last night I got some of my Christmas cards written – the ones that needed posting anyway – and wrapped nearly all of our Christmas presents. The only ones I haven’t wrapped yet are OH’s (because he was sat with me at the time) and one or two of DS’s. Ooh I love Christmas! :xmastree:

My Avon delivery came yesterday which took me by surprise a little bit – my delivery is usually on a Tuesday but because of the shorter campaign lengths over the Christmas and New Year it was Monday this week. I am a bit miffed because I have got loads of returns which I was hoping to shift before Christmas. Oh well, can’t be helped! Anyway I bagged it all up last night and tonight I will be doing my deliveries.

I think that’s all for now. Bye all!

chocaholic110

Pfft, Dads! Did you explain it's your house, not his and you can do as you want in it? Especially if you can't wash up because the drain is blocked. At least you got it shifted though - not a problem you want over Christmas!

Can you send your OH round to my house? I have some boxes to go back in the attic that I asked OH to put away this weekend and he didn't :mad: . Will just have to do it myself!

Hope you don't have to work too hard today and that you get a better night's sleep!