My Proper DFW Diary

Lucy5781

Building works all done and paid for.

Will admit, mental health not great but coping and physical not brilliant either.

Not eating great so despite walking over 20km a week, with kids in buggy etc I've gained weight. My abdominal core is shot (two c-sections in 19 months has cause problems, my eldest was also 9lb 10oz), causing awful lower back issues. Can never plan a visit to the chiropractor with suitable childcare etc so haven't had issues sorted or any massage for months now.

I always thought that once I had money sorted I could do all this. Can I !!!!. No. urgh.

Additonal upside of the building work, now that garden office is built, DH has vacated his little cubbyhole mancave in our bedroom. It's now mine!! Mini office. Lady cave lol

Lucy5781

Coming to you from Mummy's office.

Back to limited finances. Paying off the building work used more of my money than expected, thought to have been covered for another three to six months by it, i.e. until DD started at preschool and was settled enough to start longer hours there if I needed to go back to work. Gonna be a slightly wobbly couple of months. DH is working and earning fine though and I do still have the preschool fees saved up in my second account so that's not short.

Just that I hoped to pay for driving lessons etc with the last of the money once I had a couple of mornings a week with both of them being looked after and looking for work.

Have made inital equiries with my old employer's sister company who are based very local to me and I'm already scanning job sites having updated my CV as well.

Sigh, thought I'd have had longer to do this. It;s stressful, a bit depressing (like I feel blunt, numb, down etc) and it's harder not having Mum to call and talk to about it.

Need to visit the agency in town and have a chat about what I need work wise. The irony is, I never actually did any small, lower level jobs when I was younger (I'm now able to say I'm 40 next year...), like bar work, shop/sales etc.

I need a small admin role, gonna sound all wierd but have to keep it all in my mind that way I want to to make it happen. Not focus on what I don't want, that isn't helpful.

Lucy5781

Well, We've just completed isolation day one.
Hubby developed a slight cough last night, no temp yet but we all seem to feel a bit ropey so home we are. DDs activities have all now stopped and DS's nursery will now close on Friday anyway. 
Thankfully, after years of habit whilst short for cash, I've always got one more of everything before it could run out in the house, loo roll, kitchen roll, showr gel, soap, etc but have been buying one extra of anything like that and long life food, milk etc on each shop visit so whilst not buying massively, we have a decent stash of food etc to keep us going for the fortnight. Thankfully we bought our toilet roll in Costco back on 7th of March when we went to get party food for hubby's birthday evening. We've been able to give some to a friend who was a bit stuck (couple with three girls, 17, 14 and seven so plenty needed!).
DD, who is two next month, has decided to start trying to potty train so we've moved to pull ups whilst she gets the hang of things. Grateful to not need actual nappies and deprive others who really need them!
Lxx

Lucy5781

So, over 70 days later...
Lockdown has been ok for us. Husband still working from home. Kids old enough to play together but young enough to not need to cover loads of school work. DS was in with the year above at nursery, his Birthday is September 5th, he's only a week behind the youngest of the year above him. Right now I'm really grateful for that as he's basically about to repeat this year from September rather than about to start Reception. DD should start Preschool this September as well so that will be a bit of a shock to the system after having them home together for near six months.

Unfortunately, in other news, three weeks ago my Mother in Law was taken to hospital with a suspected UTI. It turned out to be a nasty kidney infection. She wasn't improving and scans showed she actually already had stage four non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Her body was already shutting down. She passed away in the early hours of this morning. She'd not be a well woman for years and had been quite depressed after losing her husband of forty years (she was only 66  and they'd met at barely 18 as well) only about 18 months ago, and I'm just glad she's not suffering any of this anymore, the world is crazy today, I'm thankful my Mum's not having to endure it either.

If you've followed this blog at all, you'll know that I lost my own Mum in early 2018 whilst pregnant with DD, we then suddenly lost my Father in Law just over six months later.
The scale of estate my husband and his brother now have to deal with is not to be sniffed at. She owned four properties. Her own and three rentals (one is our old flat and another their old second home up north). The value of the main house alone is about ten times the value of our outstanding mortgage here. 

If we thought the money from my Mum's etstate would be significant, it's a drop in the pond compared to this.
Can't belive we're here for the third time in just over two years. My head is stuck in planning/listing mode, apparently that's how I'm coping this time because I can't just !!!!!! off out and go shopping at the moment.

Lucy5781

The very last of my Mum's inheritance money ran out at the start of September. My Dad has loaned me some extra until MiL's estate can begin distribution. In theory, if things are all covered, the solicitors should be applying for grant of probabte next week. Fingers crossed, with Probabte office now running more online than ever before and the backlog from the covid peak easing off, interim distrubtions of liquid assets might reach us before Christmas.
The estate is worth near enough £2 million. Obviously a large chunk of this will go to the tax man. The remaming then split between DH and his brother. There is the main house in North London and the holiday home in the North West to be sold and two flats, currently rented, in North London which we aim to keep, effectively buying out from Brother in law. So between paying off the mortgage on this house and gaining the rental income from two London propertires, we'll be in a decent situation.

If all is possible within the plans, DH hopes to reduce his hours and I'll go back to work in some capacity, so that by next September, DS will be in Reception and DD will qualify for full 30hrs at nursery, with both of us working part time possibly.

How far away is all of this in the seven years since I got my DRO? Almost exactly seven years, was September 30th 2013.

SuperSavingD

Read your diary and wow you have been through so much.  Sorry to hear about your losses x

Lucy5781

SuperSavingD said:

Read your diary and wow you have been through so much.  Sorry to hear about your losses x

Thank you, It's been a strange few years to say the least.

Lxx

Lucy5781

Gotta love the irony, all that time with extra cash flow, and now, when it's tight again, my glasses prescription has changed for the first time in several years. Need to update two pairs of glasses and have months of contact lenses that were never used to maybe try and find a new home for. Only upside here is I don't drive so I can still use my current glasses without breaking the law!

Lucy5781

In other details, DS turned four at the start of the month and is back at nursery five mornings a week (having missed a term and a half worth of his free hours...) and is now in with his own year group, having previously been with the year above him, seeing as he's only a week out of being in the year that has just begun Reception. I'm grateful for this though as obviously he's missed half a year due to Covid but as I may not have mentioned, in January he finally had a hearing test confirming that due to glue ear he has a mild to moderate hearing loss. He's now due to have grommets under GA in a few weeks time (it also explains that fussiness with his food that I have mentioned).

DD was due to start preschool in April but obviously that didn't happen. She's now started earlier this month (two mornings a week) and is doing brilliantly, potty training nearly complete and she's been dry at every preschool session so far... We're actually paying for it out of the years of birthday money the kids have had put in the bank for them. We'll be setting up child ISAs for them once MiL's estate is distributed. 
In about five weeks I'll be applying for their Nursery (DD) and Reception (DS) places for Sep 2021...

I'm still not batch cooking as due to small appetitites and fussiness it's not usually worth trying. (this seems to be a reoccuring issue in this blog, always something stopping it!!) I do however plan a lot better. We made one random Ocado order online during lockdown as we had won a voucher at DS's nursery Christmas raffle that was due to expire by Easter. The delivery came with a free magnetic weekly planner which now lives on our fridge. It gives me a chance to think ahead each week as Covid has enforced a Monday night Asda main shop with top up Thursday or Friday as we have DsS (who's now 14, wearing a Men's medium, 34" waist trousers, size 11 shoes and is equal to my 5'8" height!! Charity shop items still winning there!!!) with us Friday night - Sunday afternoon every week which also affects our food shopping, we're also adjusting to not visitng the inlaws for meals on Friday nights and Sunday lunches, though every other week we now see my brother in law on a Sunday.

Lucy5781

I've started clearing out my old financial paperwork. Having taken my DRO out in September 2013, we are now well past the six years that the details would have been on the insolvancy register and the old statements and other related paperwork no longer need to be held on to. I went through just one of the four credit card folders the other night. removed all bits of personal information and shredded that and then bagged it with the remaining paper which is now binned. Looking like a slow process for the other three folders and the old bank account one as well. Will get there eventually.

DH finding the house clearing process at his Mum's really hard, his brother isn't getting involved at all and he's finding that difficult too.