Here I am in debt again. 2nd time lucky

maddiemay

We lived in Beaminster, West Dorset (Where the tunnel collapsed), we were there for 30 years and loved it, but decided to move back to our home area while we were (just about) fit to cope with the move. We now live in a gorgeous little town in Shropshire, it has a castle, a river and the most wonderful old buildings, I am 30 mins drive from my elderly Mum, so it is great to be able to spend more time with her, it used to take 3.1/2 hours!

The cheese will taste fine, but after being frozen it does tend to break into chunks, if you use much grated cheese, it might be worthwhile in the future grating and bagging some of it first, I think you can also grate it from frozen, but have not tried it (OH used to work part time for a cheese making farm, so we always used to tuck some in the freezer), they also produced high quality bacon and we really miss that too.

We have a small T*sco, a C*op and an A*di, the A*di is good but the others do not have much from the budget ranges as it is quite an affluent area.

Keep battling on, you are doing great.:)

StressedSteph

maddiemay wrote: »

We lived in Beaminster, West Dorset (Where the tunnel collapsed), we were there for 30 years and loved it, but decided to move back to our home area while we were (just about) fit to cope with the move. We now live in a gorgeous little town in Shropshire, it has a castle, a river and the most wonderful old buildings, I am 30 mins drive from my elderly Mum, so it is great to be able to spend more time with her, it used to take 3.1/2 hours!

The cheese will taste fine, but after being frozen it does tend to break into chunks, if you use much grated cheese, it might be worthwhile in the future grating and bagging some of it first, I think you can also grate it from frozen, but have not tried it (OH used to work part time for a cheese making farm, so we always used to tuck some in the freezer), they also produced high quality bacon and we really miss that too.

We have a small T*sco, a C*op and an A*di, the A*di is good but the others do not have much from the budget ranges as it is quite an affluent area.

Keep battling on, you are doing great.:)

Hi Maddiemay,

Beaminster is lovely, we often go to West bay or Burton Bradstock camping. My dad used to live in Shropshire and its also a beautiful part of the country, nice to be nearer your mum.

Thanks for the help with the cheese, no one in our family is a fan of cheese sandwiches so it will mostly be used for cooking
so its not a worry if its crumbly etc.

Quite please with my bulk shopping, don't think I made any major mistakes fingers crossed.

StressedSteph

Morning Diary,

Not too much going on today. Ds has his first appointment with his new tutor at 11am. In his school report they said he was struggling with his spelling, hand writing and reading, so I have signed him up for some extra help. Its not cheap (£22 per hour), but I figure its important to get him the help when he needs it.

After that we don't have much planned so back home to clean and tidy up after rampaging children etc etc.

Got a 40th wedding anniversary party to go to Saturday night so had better get them a card, other than that its should be a relatively cheap weekend.

Hope you all are doing well today.
Speak soon

samika

Morning Steph,

A night out will do you the world of good! Have fun xx

lurvlyloz

sounds like a nice weekend.

i agree with getting DS help when needs be. i had to have handwriting lessons as mine was awful when i was younger.

StressedSteph

Afternoon all,

We Ds went to the Tutor and got on really well, she is a lovely soft spoken older lady and seemed to get Ds on side and I think he actually ENJOYED himself :eek:. BRILLIANT!!!.

He is booked in for next week onwards so fingers crossed it helps him, even if it just builds up his confidence then that is a good start. .

Ok so I thought I would re-visit my old friend the snowball calculator. I do love it and it has been a while .

So I inputted my 6 debts, not including my OD, because I have some sort of psychological issue with being able to tackle that, so figure as my debts go down the OD will naturally sort itself out (Hopefully).

Well I listed all my minimum payments and said I could add an extra amount of £200 per month to my debts. This is a safe amount, I could add more but don't want to stretch it so far that it is doomed to failure.

Well.......It reckons April 2015 we would be debt free if I stuck to it.

So..... I have decided to try to stick to it as much as I possibly can, hoping this might keep me on track and help me by crossing off the months as they tick by.

I am off to cut and paste it into a spare page on my spreadsheet, and then update my budget.

I can but try xxx

lurvlyloz

thats not even that long if you think about it

StressedSteph

You're right LL, really if I can just get to the end of next year then I will only still have £1600 left ot pay off which is a sinch.

I just need to get through 2014 without any diasters!!!. unlikely.

I have set up a £25 per week standing order from September to cover car TAX, MOT and any unplanned breakages of anything car & household.

I could really do with another standing order for birthdays but will be over the OD if I push the savings pot any further. With any luck and no disasters the £25 per week savings pot might help with Birthdays etc.

I have updated my spreadsheet to copy the snowball calculator and the £25 weekly standing order and it all looks possible....IF.......and its a BIG if, I can stop all the misc leakage of money on the little things that constantly crop up on a monthly basis.

That's what kills the budget - When I get more on top of things I could do with an entertainment budget for myself and kids which would cover the misc things, but just can't afford it right now. Just got to start restraining myself some more.

LEARN TO SAY "NO" :o:o

StressedSteph

Evening all,

Well we collected the five lamb carcasses today and have butchered them all up and put them in the chest freezer. Its so nice to have a freezer full of meat again, food security .

Have got a tonne of courgettes/marrows that I have to process tomorrow, Thinking I am going to have to find a chutney recipe or something because I have way too many.

Feeling more in control of things at the moment which is helping my anxiety levels.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. xx

StressedSteph

Morning Dear Diary,

Am feeling just a little tired today, Got home at 2.30am :eek:. After a strange but fun night which ended up with 7 people in a hot tub!!!. Not as seedy as it sounds, there was a lot of girly giggling and spilling of wine.

Got to spend some time tidying the house today, it looks like a bomb landed .

Not got much to report apart from the budget looking incredibly tight and I have to try my best not to have any misc spends next week, the budget cannot cope with much else coming out of it without getting into some serious mess :mad:.

I have quote abit happening next week though so think I need to plan the week out carefully, I have a chalk board in the kitchen, so will write it all down so I can keep an eye on it.

Enjoy your Sunday xxx