Ruby's Stop Spending and Start Saving for 2013 and Beyond!

ruby_eskimo

So much for paying money off the credit card, had to get a new tyre and brake pads for the car and even with a 20% voucher it still came to £98! Owning a car is starting to be more trouble than it's worth! Oh well I still have another 15 months to pay it all off!

Woke up this morning with a very swollen left eye. Have washed it out and not touched it all day and it's still a little swollen. Hope it goes down over night because I don't really want to have to go to work not wearing makeup tomorrow!

In case I can't get on beforehand, I wish you all a great Christmas!

ruby_eskimo

So Christmas was...a nightmare to say the least. It started off really well, had a nice relaxed time at my parents house for lunch then when I went to the OH's mum's house in the evening it got progressively worse. One of her friends was there and I'd barely been in the door 5 minutes when he started asking when the wedding was next year...and it carried on from there. OH's mum just kept going on and on about different venues in the area SHE'D been to look at, what dress she thought would suit me and quotes for a photographer! It all got a bit too much for me and I ended up having to say that I wasn't sure if I still wanted to marry her son because we've been having a lot of issues recently. With that I just walked out and drove home. His mum phoned my parents in the mean time to complain about my behaviour so I came home to my dad having "strong words" with her.

I'm back in Surrey now and he's still at his mum's. I've had one message from him saying he's coming back tonight and we need to talk.

I don't know if I'm just freaking out about the idea of getting married, like normal people have the jitters, or if it's just the feelings I've had before that things aren't working out. To be honest I've kind of liked being on my own the last couple of days.

Anywho onto money, I managed to get some more transferred into the virtual sealed pot today, so that's looking quite healthy. There is also more in the Wedding fund because, and this is something else that added to me freaking out, his sister and mum gave us money towards the wedding rather than Christmas presents this year...that's not normal is it?

Hope everyone had a better time than me and if I don't update before, hope you all have a brilliant new year! Let's hope 2013 is better than 2012!

Dinah93

Hey hon. I'm sorry Christmas was rough. I think you're right not to be planning the wedding right now, you will only feel more pressured that you have to go through with it when invites are out, deposits are down etc, and you need to be certain first.

I'll be honest with you, as I've known you a long time and I don't think platitudes do much for anyone. Only you can know if you want to marry this man, If you were confident in it you wouldn't be panicing when people discuss the wedding. Yes your MIL does sound like she's being quite pushy on the arrangements, but equally she may just be really excited. I know they say jitters are normal, but you know the difference between 'what if there is someone better suited out there' when you've just bickered over doing the laundry, and preferring to be on your own to together, a sense of tension when you're together, that feeling of just not being connected. I can honestly say I never had more than a fleeting feeling of questioning if we should get married, always after we'd bickered, I stressed about the actual wedding but I couldn't wait to be married to him. Sometimes it's a serious commitment that gets us to thinking if something is as we'd be happy for the rest of our lives. When my ex showed me engagement rings in a local jewellers I realised I didn't want to be with him in ten years time, I'd just been pootling along with him. It took me another 6 months to leave, but it was that discussion of getting more serious that prompted me to realise I'd lost enough time in a so-so relationship. A lot of me was thinking about what people would think that I'd left, that another relationship had failed, and I realised if my thoughts were those and not how much I'd miss him then that was enough of an answer to if I should stay or go. Within 3 years I was married to NIM and I don't regret for a minute walking away.

ruby_eskimo

Dinah, you've just put into words exactly what I've been struggling to say. I think I just need to try and figure out what I'm going to do about it and when. Thank you.

ruby_eskimo

Things have been a lot better with OH since the New Year. You know what they say, new year, new start. We still need to have a talk about things and that will be happening this weekend.

On a financial note, I've paid another £84 off of the credit card so I'm on track. By the end of March I'll have £62 left to pay and then I'll be renewing my car insurance on it. Then I'll have it all paid off at the end of September by the latest and then it would have served it's purpose!

I've also started the 52 week savings challenge over on Dinah's thread and I'm going to definitely try and dejunk a bit more in the rest of January!