Trying not to fall off the DF wagon

Mags30

Hope you and DD are having a lovely Christmas :xmastree:

vasseur

Thank you ladies. We had a lovely xmas - I knew we would. It was quiet because it was just me, dd, mum and dad on xmas day but it was very relaxing. My sister joined us on boxing day with my nephew (they had stayed at friends) and dd and I went out dancing with my friend and her dd for a few hours. Mum and dad had friends over last night so another excuse for more lovely food and drink.

We came home about midday today. We dumped all our stuff and went straight out to the sales at the outlet centre. Did not spend too much but got dd some new school shoes (£22.99), some new PJs (£8.10), myself a teapot (£4 - halfprice), dd a new divet cover (£35 down to £11.25 and it's beautiful) and some underbed storage boxes on wheels (£17.99 for 2) to make some sense of the disorder under my bed

Got home and decided that before I could do anything else I would need to put the heating on. Went to the boiler cupboard and while we have been away it has leaked :eek:. I always kept an old baking tin in there to catch the odd drip but it has leaked about a litre of water :eek:. The tray was overflowing - fortunately some old pillows at the bottom have taken the majority of the leak and some old towels (why do I keep old towels?) got a bit wet at the edges but I have had to empty the airing cupboard completely. Our house was in complete disarray what with all our 'going away' stuff and new presents plkus all the bedding and towels i seem to have loads) everywhere.

I got the number of my dad's plumber and have rung him but he's not called back yet. Dad is going to pop and see him tomorrow if I haven't heard anything. We seem to have plenty of hot water and heating so I'm not sure what's happening. I've put another baking tin up there now and have been checking it frequently. It's still dripping. Incredibly I am feeling very calm about it. If we need a new boiler then so be it. I'll just have to get into debt again and pay it off (again :cool:).

Good thing is it made me get my backside in gear. I've done loads of washing, sorted out the dumping ground that is my breakfast bar and sorted the mess under my bed into the new storage boxes. I've got a bag of books that were down the side of my bed that I'm going to take to the station near work where they will sell them to commuters to raise funds for the Air Ambulance. I have a bag for charity, a bag for fleabay and a bag for the tip which I might brave tomorrow...

Oh and we have both written our thank you notes

Right, need to get a load out of the machine, put the next lot on and check on that leak...

pixiechick99

Wooooah, you've been busy:D

What a bu**er about the boiler - hopefully its something small that wont cost you much:o

We had a nice quiet couple of days at my mums too, home around same time as you...though we didn't make the sales afterwards, saving that for tomorrow;) Girls are at their dads now and I'm planning on getting to my bed soon. The Holiday film is on later which I love, so watching that in bed sounds fab:T

sidneysmum

Found You !!!

Havent you been busy ? You are just like me Polesalot. A bit of a drip from the boiler means a new boiler, loads of money and loads of debt!! What it probably means is a perished washer or something else very small which can be fixed quite cheaply. Dont panic. I do that all the time and i will put myself in an early grave. I will keep my fingers crossed for you x

vasseur

sidneysmum wrote: »

Found You !!!

Havent you been busy ? You are just like me Polesalot. A bit of a drip from the boiler means a new boiler, loads of money and loads of debt!! What it probably means is a perished washer or something else very small which can be fixed quite cheaply. Dont panic. I do that all the time and i will put myself in an early grave. I will keep my fingers crossed for you x

Welcome sidneysmum :beer: and thanks.

I do tend to worry a lot about everything. Thing is it was leaking a bit last year (hence the baking tin already in place) and it had to be flushed through. It's also been a bit temperamental lately. I'd be more annoyed if there was no heat or hot water. I just want to know what it's going to cost - looks like my £100 in my emergency account will be used sooner than I thought (and some more....)

Mags30

So impressed by how much you got done, wow!!
to the boiler leak and :T to fabulous sale bargains

vasseur

The boiler was still dripping this morning (and faster than before :eek:) and the plumber hadn't got back to me so my dad rang him. He was abroad! I quickly rang another plumber who I had been recommended last year and he came round straight away as he was just finishing another job! How lucky was that? Turned out it was a perished washer (phew) and he replaced 3 of them. It was £65 if paying by cheque or £45 cash - cue loads of scrabbling around in old handbags and money boxes :rotfl:I scraped together £43 but I was dammed if I was going to pay an extra £20 for the sake of two quid and eventually the elusive £2 was found. So far no more dripping :T

We celebrated by nipping to Sainsbugs. Ours has been recently done up and it is lush - so much more stuff, lovely wide aisles, clothes, beautiful homeware - it really was a bad idea to go there :cool:

We needed to get some vouchers for birthday presents so we did that (£20) and to be fair I was wandering round with an empty basket for about 20 minutes. Then I found the towels . I've been meaning to get a new set for ages and now we have one - 2 bath sheets, 2 hand towels and 2 face flannels in a beautiful teal colour all for £17 :T. I also bought a cafetiere that was half price at £6 and some loose leaf tea to go in my new teapot . I was rather hoping there would be a tea gift set (hopefully with a nice tea tin) for half price but there weren't any.

DD is at a cinema party/sleepover today so I dropped her off at 1.30 and took a load of our junk to the tip. I was halfway to A1di to do the food shop when I decided that actually I would go for a bike ride while the weather was still [STRIKE]nice[/STRIKE] dry. I quickly got changed and drove up to mum and dad's (where my bike lives) and I swear the minute I set off up the road the heavens opened :mad:. I wasn't too deterred and although it was windy I carried on and did 11 miles :T It felt lovely to do some exercise and I felt quite smug but my god I was a mess. i even had dirt on my face.

I came home, had a quick bath and went off to A1di. I spent £22.42 :T so I have come in well under my £40 budget again which is just as well given the amount of money I have spent in the last 2 days. I will update my cashbook later and will probably have to shufffle a bit of money around.

It feels weird sitting here with dd out of the house. I was going to go ice-skating with my friend this evening but she's now come down with the flu . At least I can use the laptop without dd going 'my turn, my turn!' I am seriously on the lookout for a little netbook (for me) and she can have this laptop. She's going to have to use it a lot more for school soon whereas all I want is something lightweight for internet and email. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Following new towel purchase I have had a clearout of the airing cupboard. It was all in my bedroom anyway following the leak. I have an insane amount of face flannels - 17 and that's not including the 2 in the bathroom at the moment and new ones bought today . I've also put a load of blankets - mainly baby fleecy blankets and some duvet sets that I no longer use in the charity bag.

I think that's it for now. Another busy but quite successful day.

Mags30

WELL DONE on finding the cash for the plumber, the £20 you saved paid for the towels :T

Re laptop: How about an iPad or Kindle Fire from Amazon? Wouldn't that be the more modern version of a new laptop? Should be ideal when it's just for internet and email

vasseur

Mags30 wrote: »

Re laptop: How about an iPad or Kindle Fire from Amazon? Wouldn't that be the more modern version of a new laptop? Should be ideal when it's just for internet and email

I can't really afford an iPad and I'm probably old-fashioned but I prefer proper keys! I have a limit of £250. I was looking at the $amsung Chromebook but it has its own OS not wind0ws 8 although it does mean it would be virus free.

vasseur

To-do list

Sort through dd's wardrobe for possible eb*y items.
List things on ebay
Cut tags off new towels and put away
Make soup
Re-attach hook to dd's bedroom door
Go to library
Think about new years resolutions
Update cashbook with recent spends
Shuffle money around

Ta-da list

Ironing done and put away :T

Not really much on the ta-da list but to be fair I got so much done yesterday there wasn't much left for today