Here I am in debt again. 2nd time lucky

StressedSteph

lurvlyloz wrote: »

great news about the course.

crikey £200 p/m is a lot to find to sell. i'd be hard pushed to think of something so i hope you can coz would be great to get rid of your OD

have a good day x

Hi LL

Yes I am going to have to get my thinking cap on the make that amount. Fingers Crossed

StressedSteph

Morning diary.

Well.........Had abit of a naughty day so far .

I called after an advert in our local paper for Orphan lambs.:D

I am going to pick up 5 in about 15minutes :T.

Its very naughty of me as its spending money....BUT....

The orphan lambs are £20 each (The man also said he would do me a deal so got to go with my haggling hat on )

Last year I bought weaned lambs and they cost me £80
each :eek:.

So my thinking is, that if I do the extra labour with these young lambs then we will have cheaper excellent meat come October.

We only need three lambs per year so if I manage to get all five to survive, I might be able to re-coup any feed costs by selling the two extra lambs.

When you are debt busting its sometimes tricky to justify spending money to make money. But we have to rear our own animals for meat as this saves us alot of money in the long run.

Children are going to be so excited. We have never bottle fed our own lambs before so will be fun/exhausting.

Will report back later xxx

Lad75

Hi Steffens
I'm addicted to your diary, how do I follow it? I'm a newbie on here x

StressedSteph

Lad75 wrote: »

Hi Steffens
I'm addicted to your diary, how do I follow it? I'm a newbie on here x

Hi Lad

Its nice to hear my waffling isn't totally boring :D.

If you scroll up to the top of the page, there is a green bar that runs along the top of the first post.

I think it is called "Thread Tools". If you click on that you can "Subscribe".

You can then find all the threads you have subscribed to under the "USER CP" Button on the top green bar.

Hope this helps
Speak soon xx

PinotGrigio41

Ooh baby lambs !

DD2 ( who is animal crazy ) always loved feeding the lambs at MIL's farm. The only trouble is she could never get her head around the next bit , when they went off of their holidays and never returned. Although 12 now and clearly knows where they do actually go on their hols, we still cant speak about it !!

Bit belated, but great news re the course ! Well done x

laineygirl

Been lurking and reading your posts and really enjoying the ride, quite amazing how you're doing especially with no help from OH .
You really should tell him just how bad things are though. I didn't tell mine for 3 years working on the premise that what he doesn't know about he doesn't grieve about.
'It was me who got us into this mess' seems to be a recurring theme from loads of people but its true, we didn't spend the money just on ourselves we tried to make everybody happy, fulfilling their wish lists, including OH's. He must have stopped and thought, if only briefly, how I was doing it on the money coming in and going out. Like all OH though they think you are coping,they don't really want to know, things must be OK, the boat is sailing smoothly and so they blithely sail on with a list of 'wants'.
I finally bought the bullet and told him when I was ill and realised I couldn't go on like I was, juggling phone calls, secreting mail and answering it when he was out, stealing from Peter to pay Paul. It was a merry-go-round I was glad to get off.
He went quiet for a while but didn't explode like I thought he would. Asked me to show what our expenditure was and what I'd done so far. Told me I was an idiot (in the nicest way) for not telling him and saying 'NO' to what he wanted and why he couldn't have it and when he digested that he went about pruning things from his budget and came up with ideas how he could make extra money.... He has and has given me it all to throw at our bills. He took out 2, 24 month 0% interest cards and transferred a load of debt to those and these we can service and will have the amount paid off in month 21months. (We couldn't get a loan, because of me, and this was cheaper interest wise and will be paid off much quicker)
Now we pull together,he's the one who says no when we are invited out when we cant afford it instead of me 'borrowing' the money then whittling how I'm going to pay it back. We do have a FUN FUND but its for 1 night a month at the moment and we pick and choose what we spend it on and if we dont really fancy it we dont go and the money rolls over. We enjoy going out more and treat it like a date but with friends. We take it in turns to have games nights now and bbqs (bring your own food) and everybody brings their own drink and the host provide homemade sausage rolls and quiche (Thank you for Aldis' puff pastry at 85p and their £1 sausage and their £1.49 cheese) or nibbles bought from £1 shop or bargain shopper we set a £5 limit and we can get quite inventive with a fiver. Cheap night and much better than spending £60 and upwards for a night I'd dread because of the cost.
You'd probably be amazed just how many of your friends, including those that you think are financially sound, welcome the low cost evenings out. to varying degrees I think everybody is in the same boat just needs one to push it in another direction for everyone to heave a sigh of relief and join in.
By the end of 2014 we should be clear (just the mortgage) and I hope and pray I dont do the 'I'll just pop it on the card' thing ever again, I'm cutting them all up as we speak, but they insist on trying to send me replacements when I haven't spent on them for a time, shows you what a good customer I must have been. Its monoply money, you dont realise just how much you spend and it so quickly mounts up.
I was reading about your e-baying and just want to know just what are you selling to get such sums of money? I have books, cd's and,dvds but you get only pence for these so any ideas will be gratefully accepted. I could do with an influx of £200 per month like you seem to get but just dont know what I should be selling.
Your rural life seems tough but fulfilling and if I was younger....
I should have done it 20 years ago when my husband wanted to but there was always schooling and clubs and their friends for my kids and now it is too late to do the whole thing but we are contemplating a few chickens at the bottom of the garden if the neighbors don't object, We have one who might....
Keep up the journey and I'll be following your thread with interest.

rising_from_the_ashes

StressedSteph wrote: »

Had abit of good news - Have been accepted onto a Teaching Assistant course starting at the end of February. Just one day a week 9.30 - 2.30. Hopefully that might help me get a flexible job in the future :T.

StressedSteph wrote: »

I have really enjoyed being home for my children, but there is a large part of me that cant help but feel like a lesser person with not having a job. I know its silly but even if its a part-time job, it would give me a purpose to my day.

A TA would allow me to work but be home for my children. Just perfect.

Just catching up Steph that's wonderful news:T fingers crossed for the course & that it leads to a great job - hours would be perfect with the kids too as you say so no worries about childcare:T

Ohhhh to the orphaned lambs - we used to get the odd one when I was little and, yup, ours went on their holidays too like PinotGrigio's I'm afraid I just can't help get attached so it's something I can't do now!!

StressedSteph

Hi everyone

Thanks for posting Lainey, Pinot & Rising.

Sorry I have been Missing In Action. Been abit of a hectic of a hectic few days since i collected the lambs on Friday.

I went to get 5 lambs and ended up with 9 :eek:. The last 4 were really weak looking. I asked the farmer what was going to happen to the ones that were left and he said they would probably die as no one will want them and he has'nt the time to hand feed them . So I bought them home :T:D.

I have to do four feeds a day, which is every six hours. Boy it was a struggle to stay up till midnight last night and then get up a 6am .

Getting abit of routine sorted now though. Have taken my microwave into the barn so I can easily warm up the milk without waking anyone in the house:o.

So the bank balance ended up taking a £140 hit, after I paid for the lambs, bought straw, hay and bottles with teats.

If I can keep them all alive, then we will be able to sell about 5 of them in October.

Each lamb has cost me £13.30 to buy. I have calculated it should cost me about £15 in milk per lamb, add on maybe £5 misc extras per lamb (Lamb creep feed, straw, hay).

That is £33.30 per lamb. It cost me £30 per lamb for slaughter = £63.30.

Think I bought half a lamb last year for £65, but will have to look into how much I can charge.

So that should make me nearly £500 in October :cool:.

This is all of course as long as I don't get any vets bills and I manage to keep them all alive:o. Finger Crossed.

Felt abit out of control Friday, with me spending money, but have balanced the spreadsheet this morning, and even though I bought stuff, I made sure if was only stuff that I really had to have for the lambs etc.

REALLY wanted a takeway last night as I was starving and had'nt sorted anything for dinner, but hubby reined me in and we had poached eggs on toast .

Will make time for MSE more next week, it is getting easier now I am in a routine with them. At least I will have lots of help end of next week as its half term.

Speak soon.

armchairexpert

Awwwww, baby lambs! I hope your scheme works out, that sounds like a lot of hard work. With the TA position as well, it sounds like you're going to end up with two jobs to your name.

Laineygirl makes a good point about blaming yourself for the mess when the reality is that you spent money on the children and your husband at least as much as yourself; but it sounds like your OH is mostly on board now, which is great.

StressedSteph

Morning Diary,

Hi ArmChairExpert.
Yes hubby seems to be pretty much on board. He has'nt asked how much the total debt is, but he seems happy with not knowing and as long as he is trying to be frugal and on board then it is working.

All this hard work will only be for the next 5-6 weeks. Once they are weaned, they should be ready to go outside and then its hardly any work. Just feeding every morning and checking in on them a couple of times per day. (You know how sheep constantly try to kill themselves ).

Lainey - Yes sorry , I did'nt have time to reply properly to your post. Sorry .
I do think hubby finally realises that it was just my inability to say "No" that got us here. It was'nt me having beauty treatments and expensive clothes every week.

He has had a big shock lately with me actually saying "No" we can't afford that. You will have to save up etc. But I am so glad I have. Its going to take two years to get rid of this.

We have what feels like 2 phases.

This year is the new debt - (L1ttlewoods, N#xt, Overdraft & Barclaycard)

Next year is my last two biggies that we seem to have had forever - Tesco & Virgin Credit Cards)

I think it works out to be around 8-9k per year. Wish wish wish I could pay it off quicker, but think, what with life being how it is, I should just be glad that I might manage that. .

I do need to set up a Fun Fund. Hubby already has his as he has £20 per week for skittles. But I have not had anything so far.

We have two sets of friends - Our old friends are great because I know they have in the past and do still abit struggle with money and like to cut costs etc. But we have another group in our village that all give the impression of being VERY loaded, so I could never mention to them money struggles or having a budget night.

I met up with my old friend the other day and it was soooo nice to be able to talk honestly and admit to budgeting and struggling and it felt like such a cathartic feeling.

I almost feel like I have to pretend to be someone else with our other friends. Admittedly they are not close friends, they are just villagers we meet at the pub sometimes. They are my most dangerous temptation with money spending, because sometimes I get swept up with them and end up agreeing to spend more money than I would like to. .

Anyway enough waffling, Hope everyone had a good weekend.
xxx