Aiming for a debt free life on latitude 60.2100° N

Marru

What a week. I can't believe it is Thursday already, and I can't believe that it is only one and a bit week for xmas. I don't have the foggiest what to get for DH. Also need to get some bits and bobs for DD's stocking, or perhaps I delegate that to DH. I do need to send some cards but I think I can get away with just the three. I can wish Happy Christmas through Facebook anyway.

I am very tired thou. I was on the course all day yesterday and today even than it wasn't busy it was quite intense. Also I had my second treatment fo rmy back today. Back is much better and after the treatment it is not as painful as last time. I think my gym visits have definitely also helped. I was again on the easy spinning class on Monday. On Tuesday didn't have time as we went to see a dance performance in the evening where my nephew performed, yesterday went to hunting down some curtain materials and today back doctor so need to go tomorrow definitely.

DD has managed to get herself grounded twice this week. She is very difficult at the moment. I think the fact that her dad won't have to have anything to do with her is upsetting her more than she lets out and only way to rebel is to be difficult with us. We were going to see Santa in his weekend hideyhole (20 min drive from us, no need to go to Lapland) but the way she has been this week I think that is now called off. The rules were set quite clearly. I am going to take her skating thou this weekend. Last Saturday we went to the outside ice rink (plenty here and all free to use) but this weekend I would like to take her to the ice hall. They have couple of hours free skating time for public in the closest one to us on Sundays. I loved to be able to skate again and despite not being on the level I was when still in secondary school I didn't fall once and was able to get to some kind of speed.

I mentioned four categories where improvements are needed but there is one extra dimension affecting all of them and that is organisation. I am afraid this week nothing has been achieved except one gym visit, one back doctor visit, little bit weight loss (tiny weeny bit but direction is right) and that all the bills are paid and handed to DH for filing. But weekend is coming and if we really are not spending Saturday afternoon with Santa then I should have plenty of time to get cracking. I think getting the budget done is no one on the list.

Bitsy_Beans

Your poor DD has he just not been in touch or is he actively avoiding her? Makes you wonder if all this time his involvement with her was just a way to get back at you :mad: I hope she realises eventually that she's better off without a man like that in her life xxx

Oooh outside free skating rinks sound heavenly

Marru

We have decided to go and see Santa. Lets hope that is will be worth it, what I mean that I hope that DD will understand and appreciate it. I am feeling tired. I have to say that the exercise has been good and I have been feeling better, more energetic but also physically better but today I can't get the engine going. I even scoffed packet of sweets for no reason at all.

Don't know what else to say. I really need to finish DD's jumper so that I can start knitting this "hoodie" for myself. Also there is a long list of curtains to make. At the moment I am waiting to get the heading tape delivered. When I get that I can start doing the ones for downstairs. But I have now difficulties getting blackout lining delivered from UK. I ordered some from Amazon but they refused to send it here as the postage they quoted was too little for it to be cost effective for them. I have now sent them a message back that I am willing to pay the higher price. Still lots cheaper that way than trying to find something here. Also I am in a process of getting curtain weights from UK. I don't think the downstairs curtains would need them but I want to do them properly. So all curtains are going to be hand made (I must be mad) and only the heading tape attached with machine.

Oooh and I have seen a lovely pattern for a cardigan for myself. Now I am thinking of getting the wool as I happen to know where it is reduced at the moment. If you knew the size of the wool pile you would be convinced that I really am mad. I might after seeing Santa today pull it all out and take a picture before starting to organise it. Should be fun. Tomorrow I am going to the Swedish furniture shop as they had some lovely material for the study:



I still haven't found anything for our bedroom. I have one in mind in the same Swedish store but really need to see what it looks like in real life:



But now I need to stat digging out what Santa's address is.

Marru

We went to see Santa and it was great. We were the only ones there!!! So we had Santa and the elves for ourselves for a whole hour. We had a chat with Santa, went and ate sausages drank mulled wine, sat in a "Saami kota", DD went sledging with the elves. All in all good experience.

!kea is off today. It is snowing very heavily and as it is Sunday the snow ploughs are not going to be able to keep up with it. We are going skating thou, the ice hall is not as far away.

My brother is coming to visit later. They are picking up DH's laptop that has died. DB is bit of a whizz with the computers so if he can sort it out that would be great and also very :money:.

That is it really. I am hoping to get to the gym later today as well. I might put DD in the creche there giving DH a bit quiet time.

But now I need to go and dig the car from the snow and go skating...

Marru

It is the shortest day of the year:

Sun rises today 9:26. Sun sets today 15:13. The lenght of the day today is 5 h 47 min

But to counteract the darkness we have lots of snow. November was one of the warmest and then suddenly on the last day of November the winter started. So in the last three weeks we have had about half a meter snow. And according to the forecasts more is on the way. It makes a huge difference as it doesn't feel so dark. Also the temperature has been surprisingly consistently under zero meaning that it has been nice and dry. None of this sleeting and then the very wet sloshy snow freezing again. So very nice indeed. It has been a bit of a challenge for the snow ploughs thou.



I am still enjoying the work and today I am going to my first client visit on my own. Very exciting. I hope I will know what I am talking about. And today is last day before one week holiday. I have taken two days off next week and then I am working remotely on New Year's eve.

Still no budget has been made and it is getting pretty crucial now. My tax rate is going up in January, it was very low for these three months as I haven't been the full year in this country. Also talking about tax. I need to do two tax returns to UK and hopefully get some money back from this year's tax. That list still hasn't been done. At least all the Christmas pressies have been bought and apart from one toy for DD everything is something we would need to buy anyway. I just need to get something for my brother and his Mrs. I am thinking of getting them cinema tickets but am running seriously out of time.

Over Christmas then I need to get that todo list done, start doing the curtains, finish DD's jumper, start knitting my "hoodie", sort out and tidy away all my craft stuff, get on with the tax returns and finally sort out the child benefits. Oh and that budget really need to get on with that as well.

Marru

The perfect job for a New Year's day seemed to be getting a good look at the finances. I have now managed to set up a spreadsheet with all the transactions that have been done here. Only problem with that is that I have given 2,5k for DH for household stuff and also took 900 cash that is not accounted for :eek:. I have pile of receipts in the drawer to plough through to get a proper idea what money has been spent for.

Also I do now know how much money we owe. We have car loan and mortgage and nothing else. Mortgage has a very low interest and minimal fees, car loan has higher intererst (not bad thou) and fees are over half of the interest over the life of the loan. I think there is a penalty for paying the car loan back early but not paying the mortgage. So to be honest it is not worth putting extra money towards the loans, better to get a decent savings rate.

Oh about the car loan, we might have more equity in the car after the loan has been paid than what we paid as a deposit. That means that the next car loan will be lower. Or even better yet if we could get enough savings together for not having to take a new loan, then we could continue with the other plan which is getting our own detached house when DD goes to secondary school. Our mortgage for this place will be paid in five years and then we have nice little piece of equity that can be used as a deposit for out own home. I haven't done the calculations thou if that is enough.

My tax rate is going up now as a new tax year starts and it will be full year earnings in this country. That is worrying as we have been eating into our savings (ok, DH's savings) when furnishing the home and getting bits and pieces. Now we need to stick to the budget to be able to live with the income. There is no need for more bigger purchases. We would need some rugs and couple of drawer units but apart from that we are all set.

I need to start dividing my time between sorting out the spreadsheet and putting my todo list together. I am trying to pull all the paperwork in one place and get on with the big filing. At the same time I should be able to find all the documents that need my attention. She says.

Anyways, Happy New Year eveyone. _party_

Aesop

Happy New Year Marru.

It is going to be a pretty amazing year for you. You are married, in your home country, new home, new car, and new job.

Everything will work out as you are so determined to make it work.

I think there is a lot of us this year working on savings, clearing debts and being in a better place. x

Marru

I have been avoiding writing here as that would have meant admitting that I haven't been doing anything I have promised to do. It is so easy to go to work, go to gym, come home do some knitting and reading, go to bed and then do it all over again. I know there are hours in the day I could allocate to:
- doing things I am putting off
- getting my filing up to date
- start making up the curtains (curtain weights arrived from UK so no excuses left anymore)
- unpack last boxes
- create reading/crafting corner in sitting room

So today there are two frog tasks:
- Sort out child benefits (inform UK not there anymore, give info asked by authorities here)
- Sort out my UK tax

So shouldn't be too - haha - taxing...

And as a late new year resolution - I will allocate half an hour every day for getting my filing sorted, this has been the pain of my life so it would be amazing to finally crack it.

Marru

Small progress made. Filled all the forms for both countries re the child benefits - and then forgot to take one in and put post the otherone - DOH :doh:

Tax thingy: I am missing one P45 so now chasing to get the info. Can't get a copy I have been told.

Filing - Nope, none, nada

DD's homework - long and hard one but ended victorious. :T (where is that wiping sweat off ones brow smiley?)

On that note I am retiring to read for an hour and then nighty night, my excuse is that I am trying to (re)learn another language as I am not reading on my mother tongue nor on English. (Yeah any excuse to be able to read :rotfl:)

marietje

Just started reading your diary. I move to the UK 9 years ago and I'm trying to move back to my home country. I'm held back by debts for the moment and I would also need to find a job there.

How did you prepare for the move and how do you find it being back?