Frugal frump to Fab - Astonishing Autum Exquinox to Wondrous Winter Solstice

fedupandskint

I had a bit of a Magic Monday afterall as I sat down all day decided to tackle some of my credit card repayment plans. Took the decision to stop banging my head against a brick wall and continue to face up to things.

Turns out things weren't as bad as I though they were afterall. Have worked out a good repayment plan instead of a consolidation loan and this will work out fine leaving me feeling like I have broken through the wall at long last rather than banging my head against it like I have felt for the last few years

Cherryprint

Well done to all who are getting the week off to a good start. LL, I knew your positive attitude would pay off! Well done.

Everhopeful - I'm in the 'Blue Monday' club with you, I'm afraid! Similarly overworked and had the most rubbish day I've had for months for various reasons, Every day I think 'I could just resign right now. I could do it!' Must try harder at job hunting to get out of this hideous situation. Maybe we can help each other get motivated?

I ended up staying 2.5 hours later than usual :mad:. Paul Mckenna's mantra to 'eat slowly and enjoy every mouthful' thing failed for the first time today, as I was so stressed, and I just wolfed down a bowl of chilli and now feeling wayy too full! I guess I will learn how to deal with emotional eating better in time.

Hoping tomorrow is better and that I get home in time to do some serious pampering!

Have a great sleep/chill out all, and see you tomorrow. xx

chanie

Wow, everyone is doing well on the fabbing front.

I had a fab Thursday (which is my 'dress up day', as DS is at nursery so its just me and DD, who is 6 weeks). I had a nice soak in the bath, wore make up and perfume and had a nice wonder around Westfield Statford.

ALthough I was dressed casually (denim skirt, flat boots and natural make up), I did feel really good in myself and wouldn't have felt embarassed bumping into people I may know. Definitely going to keep it up, starting with Thursday and building up from there.

evilsquid1603

wow, go LL!

hugs to those that need them. xx

had the competition at work come out with a right corker today. her washing machine has broken so she spent quite a while telling us the saga and then bemoaning that now she doesn't know where the wash got to and if the clothes have detergent or not, have the been rinsed or not, have they been spinned or not. it was basically a disaster and obv her clothes will need washing this week. when i pointed out that if she really were THAT desperate, she could just hand wash the clothes i got "what?! i'm not standing over a sink like some sort of FISHWIFE!!!!!" i can't wait for the real world to come and hit her on the back of the head!

WelshWoofer

Evening all. I've had an ok day - LL yours sounds great must be a big relief?
Hugs for all of those that are having a hard time at work. Its awful when you're not happy there considering all the time we spend in work.:(

Got paid today so have moved some money around, put some in my savings, paid the CC and next bill and had a general overhaul of the budgets.

The only fabbing done today has been wearing make up and a nice suit to work (got called skinny today:rotfl:), walking the dog and having a nice bath.

Have a really busy week again - no rest for the wicked.

sexyjacksparrow

Sounds like everyone is doing great. Welcome, mineallmine.

Yesterday's fabbing involved going and buying some new underwear. Two more new bras plus one pair of matching knickers for each (trying not to put myself down by thinking they look big enough for Felix Baumgartner to use as a parachute!). £101. Ouch. But pretty. And comfy and supportive!

Also had a good wardrobe clearout yesterday morning while DH took DS swimming. It's a lot tidier now and sorted by type of item. Plus more space after I got rid of a big pile for the chairty shop, a pile for the bin, a pile of maternity stuff (hanging on to just in case we have another baby but no point it being in my wardobe) and a pile of stuff that is just slightly too small so has gone into the wardrobe in the spare room.

In the next week or so I want to go through the other stuff in the spare room wardrobe (stuff that is one size too small) and also stuff in the loft (2-3 sizes too small...). Might keep some of it that I particularly like but even if/when I get smaller again, chances are I'm going to want some new stuff.

lessonlearned

Good morning all

Sparkles - well done on grasping the money nettle and working out a plan. This is what I'm doing at the moment, yesterday was making sure that the pension was in the pipeline.

For the next couple of weeks I shall be drilling down into my finances and seeing how we can make them lean and mean. After that there is a load of legal stuff to do. I had a meeting with a solicitor, she's given me a "to do" list :eek: Just need to get it sorted.

Had a good google last night to check out the up and coming antique fairs from now until Christmas. Now that I'm finally free of DWP I can set my stall out (literally) and make some money.

Now that the nights are drawing in it's time to get some jewellery on the go - no more lolling around watching junk TV.

I am sorry to hear that so many of you are struggling at work. I agree WW - 7,8,9 hours a day, every day is a long time to be miserable.

Whilst I appreciate that times are hard and jobs are scarce I don't agree with the "you should be grateful you have a job" mentality that some people have.

If you can't switch jobs at the moment then perhaps you could use your free time to start up a second income stream, build up a buffer so that when the time comes you will have the cash behind you to either go it alone, or take time out to retrain or even take a lower paid less stressful job.

Recessions don't last forever and the wheel will turn eventually. Think about the rest of your lives, what would you like to be doing in say 5 or even 10 years. Sometimes you have to take the long view and take baby steps towards achieving your long term goals.

When this thread began - nearly two years ago - how time flies :eek: I was in a pit of despair. My world had collapsed, the man I loved was disappearing in front of my eyes, we were up to our eyeballs in debt, in danger of losing our home. I was exhausted and I felt that I had little left to live for.

There have been times when I thought the long dark tunnel would never end.

I've said before the one area of control we have is our bodies and our environment. We cannot easily change our jobs and careers, we cannot suddenly become rich. But we can start to wrest back some control in our lives. We start with ourselves first and work out from there. I call it Fabbing.

Start by taking good care of yourself and your home. Fab, Fab and Fab some more. Make the changes that you can, the rest will follow.

All in good time....

When it gets tough - just remember the Elephant.

And ..... you are allowed the odd day off - the odd duvet day - to lick your wounds and regroup.

fedupandskint

Marvellous words there LL - I have had my head in the sand for years over the CC debts and now feel completely motivated and committed to paying them off. I'm in the right phase of life now to do this and this is the final piece of the jigsaw of change.

I'm not feeling better today so its another day on the sofa - will ring another bank and see what response I get this time and also do some lean and mean budgeting for food shopping, petrol and so on for the next month to increase the payments and bring the DFD closer

mineallmine

Hi everyone,

Going to do some house fabbing shortly (set myself a target to declutter 25 things today over on the declutter thread). Then I'll lay out what products I need to target to use up (from my stash) and have a pamper.

:A

podperson

Hi all,

Cherry - good progress on the goals last week - though get on with the writing

LL - am so glad they revised the payments, was sure they couldn't get away with charging you that much! Good news as well that they're finally admitting your OH may need somewhere else - hope it's not the usual long slog to get him there though

Sparkles - hope you're feeling a bit better hun x great job on sorting the finances!

EH - I feel your pain re work! I do about 3 peoples jobs most of the time, have to get the quarter end accounts done by the end of this week and was promised I would be given time to do them. Yesterday afternoon had to go to a 3 hours, completely pointless training meeting, where I knew more then the boss running it as he kept asking me if he was doing it right! and then today the part time girl hasn't shown up so in on my own, covering phones and getting none of my own work done! Won't stop them complaining when it's not done on time though :mad: As I said before, hun, you need a plan

evilsquid - oh dear, you don't know whether to laugh or cry sometimes that people can be so ridiculous :rotfl:

Not had a very productive week so far I must admit. OH's gran is in hospital so we went up to visit her on Sunday - he's not very happy as she went in on Thursday and no one bothered to let him know until Sat night! His mum said that she 'didn't want to worry him' - !!!!!! he's a grown up and has a right to know, especially since his mum couldn't be bothered travelling up to see her and we could have visited her earlier :mad: Hoping she will be home some time this week, something wrong with her back, they're not sure if it might be a chipped bone or a trapped nerve so waiting on x-rays, tests back. Also think she needs an assessment as she could do with some help when she goes home on her own.
After that went to meet his brother Sunday afternoon, went out at 4pm for 'an hour or two' - famous last words! So ended up getting nothing workwise done all day and feeling a bit rough/tired all day yesterday so early night last night. No choir tonight for a change, they're on holiday, though so hopefully can get caught up on things a bit.
Miserable day here today, got completely drenched this morning and still haven't fully dried out - hate working in wet clothes Anyway, hope everyone else is having a better day x