Diary of a Secret Saver

Harri-bear

Work done for now - just a few bits to complete later.

Going to hunt for a book to read as have just finished the second Stieg Larsson book. Have decided I am not to buy any new books, except from booties of charity shops. This is a real challenge for me as I am a bit of a bookworm. We have books everywhere! They are double stacked on the bookcase, they are under the bed and they are also in the loft (although I will not be going up there, as I fell out last time ).

A few months ago I gave my mum a load of my old books and last time I was at her house I had to borrow them back as I had nothing to read. This works fine as long as I remember which books are good. After all, who wants to read a rubbish book twice?

Haven't done a lot else today - clothes washed and put outside, then brought inside when it rained. Can't bear this weather.:(

Still can't be pestered with the cottage pie, but hubby says he's going to 'knock-up' a chicken soup for tea tonight. Sounds intriguing!

Starting to get the Sunday Blues, so need to find something to do to take my mind off it. Think I'll start under the bed ....

castlelough

Hi Harri-Bear!
Subscribing to your diary!!!
Have a similar situation with my DH, so I can really identify with you there! :rotfl:
xxx Castle

karenccs67

Hi Harri-bear,

I just came across your thread and I too am a secret saver, I have almost £9,000 in an ISA hubby doesnt know anything about, I am aiming to have £11,000 by the end of this tax year. My mum always said a wife should have money her husband doesnt know about and thats not just in case he leaves me for a younger model :rotfl: but he is older than me and had a heart scare a few years ago, he could get run over by a bus or something and there would be no income.

Hubby isnt bad with money because he lets me deal with everything but because of this i think he is unrealistic at the cost of things and pulls a face when i say we have to save or wait till the end of the month for something. A friend maintains our cars but that means paying him in cash which can be hard to get hold of especially when something unexpected happens like last month, almost £500 on my car and another £100 on his :mad::mad::mad:because of this I ended up using the credit card to keep us going till pay day :mad:

I too watch the petrol gauge now, my son goes to school in the next county, we dont qualify for the school bus so I do the school run twice a day, approx 130 miles a week and as a result I hardly go out now, I need to make the petrol last 2 weeks. I meal plan, and try very hard to stick to what we need that week but sometimes that means boring meals or a repitition if I have bulk cooked.

Anyway enough rambling, I am looking forward to following this thread.

Jazee

Subscribing too! Well done on keeping out of the overdraft, only three days to go!

liltdiddylilt

Harri-bear wrote: »

Hey, Lilt, welcome to my ramblings!

Firstly, glad you managed to extricate your Harry bear from down the side of the washer - definitely don't want tears before bedtime . Harri-bear is actually the affectionate name we use for DD2, although she gets called many other things besides (and not all of them affectionate! :rotfl:).

You reminded me of a time when we had an 'incident' with DD1's ladybird hottie. Every night we would dutifully warm it in the microwave and she would snuggle in with him at bedtime. Anyway, one time, said ladybird was in the microwave and we could smell this awful burning smell, followed by sparks and flames. It quickly emerged that DD1 had only gone and made ladybird a lovely bracelet out of a pipecleaner, which, in turn, had set fire to both him and the microwave! Quick inspection revealed that ladybird needed to 'go on holiday' for a week, before returning in even better condition than he went in! (thank God for Am**on, is all I can say )

You deduced right Sherlock regarding what I do and I am currently (supposed to be) planning for next week. I have had to move into the bedroom as everywhere I go I seem to be followed by small children who are determined to make me taste pretend pizza, pretend ice cream and pretend fruit salad. There are only so many times you can say 'Mmmm, that's delicious'.

I really am hoping that having an SOA will keep me on track with budgeting. You seem to be doing well with your savings Lilt, and hopefully, with a less 'eventful' month I should be able to make a start.

As for updating, I have found that I really like keeping a diary, although I do tend to ramble and have an over-fondness for brackets :rotfl:. This is probably the first time I have ever written a diary and kept it going. When I was a child I would always be seduced by the pretty diary covers and would start writing with good intentions only to give up after about three days.

I can, however, offer an [STRIKE]excuse[/STRIKE] explanation for this. At uni we once did a learning styles questionnaire and I found out that I have a tendency to 'intense bursts of activity followed by long periods of inactivity.' This pretty much sums me up :rotfl::rotfl:

Haha thanks for the welcome. You're not kidding, although we have a substitute bear called 'Mr Bear' who she has had since birth (a gift from my lovely boss) and she is happy to snuggle with him at bedtime, or Harry, depending on which one stinks more... a quick wash and they get swapped over. :rotfl:

Sorry you have the Sunday blues. I only work Weds to Fri since going back from maternity leave in Jan so I consider myself lucky to be happy when Monday comes around!

Hope your work gets done. DH said yesterday ''I can't wait until jellytot (our own nickname for her - ooh look!! brackets!:rotfl:) is able to talk. I'll have so much fun chatting with her... I just looked at him thinking.. really? He is the stay at home dad the 3 days that I work and spends most of it playing on the PS3 and chatting on skype. Will he actually enjoy the sorts of conversations you're describing?!?! Hahaha!

I have half a million books I am desperate to get rid of, stuffed into a cupboard in my already overflowing flat. Why do children take up so much space?!? I've switched to the ibooks app on my phone, millions of free books there!!:T:T

LOL at the ladybird's bracelet. Thank god for ama**n indeed! We actually considered getting a small supply of mr bears as jelly was so taken with him at first, but my sister has a standing order in to hamleys each year for harry bear so hopefully we will be fine when he falls apart!

As for my savings... they are hard won, for sure. We finally got out of debt in March this year. I had a credit card that I was paying £30 a month off a £1k balance, and in 8 months I managed to pay £30 off the entire balance. Between that, my overdraft of about £1300.00 and being on maternity leave, I never thought I would get myself sorted. But in reality it took a lot of hard work and scrimping and we managed to pay it off between Sept & March! (Thanks mainly to the big boost our working tax credits gave my statutory maternity pay!)

Here's to being the breadwinners eh On 3 days a week I earn 4x what DH does :eek:

Harri-bear

Greetings Castlelough, Karenccs67 and Jazee . Hiya Lilt, pleased to see you again.:D

Well, had a bit of a snooze and the Sunday blues, whilst not completely gone, seem to have faded a little.

Hubby 'knocked up' the chicken soup this afternoon, although it turned more into a broth with barley, sweetcorn, carrots, peas and potatoes. Was absolutely delicious! I enquired as to the 'fat' content and having been informed that it is 'negligable', will be taking a big bowl of it with me tomorrow!

I'm sat at the laptop now, kids in bed and hubby in the shower. In the background, however, I can hear Bruce Forsyth and The Price is Right. This is because DD2, who can now work the TV control like a pro, has discovered the joys of 'Challenge TV'. This last week we have [STRIKE]endured [/STRIKE] enjoyed re-runs of Bullseye, Fort Boyard and Supermarket Sweep (brought back my student days, I can tell you!). We only have one TV, and whilst I try to limit the time spent in front of it, the horrible weather has meant there has been little else to do today.

It has also meant that I have had the heating on for 2 hours today (gutted!) as the washing has no chance of drying otherwise.

Get paid on Wednesday. Yay! Would love for it not all to be accounted for.

'Hurrah!' for your savings Karen, that's some going and 'boo hiss!' for your petrol costs. Sometimes everything seems such a battle, just to get by.

After my meltdown about the housework last week, Hubby has been very helpful, hanging washing out, drying the pots, sorting the girls and not complaining about the lack of heating! I have already planted the seeds for his day off on Tuesday by mentioning that the stairs need hovering and the bathroom needs a good clean. Not sure if it sank in - but worth a try. Maybe I should wait till he is asleep, and whisper it repeatedly in his ear? Subliminal cleaning rather than subliminal messaging :rotfl:.

Have also made a decision regarding repayments on the loans. It would seem that the longer money remains in my account, the more likely I am to spend it, and this month has seen a veritable yo-yo between accounts which has still resulted in me saving practically nothing. I am, therefore, going to ring N*****wide and arrange to overpay a set amount monthly.
Now, this wasn't the loan I wanted to pay first, but I think it's wise to get rid of this as it is the only one that comes out of my account. I am thinking of £300 a month which will also allow me to create a bills and savings pot. I am still scrabbling around trying to think of a way I can get to work - so will try this for the next couple of months. Nothing ventured nothing gained, and all that.

Harri-bear

Oooohh! Someone's just won a nest of tables on Bullseye!

karenccs67

Morning everyone :wave:

Monday is house cleaning day, bathroom already done including new toothbrushes put out and handwash topped up :T just everywhere else to be done . Also we have our roast dinner on a Monday and today we are having a leg of lamb that I bought reduced from £15 to £5 in A*da two weeks ago, not my favourite but it is hubbys.

I have added £50 to the savings account :T and today will be a NSD, and whilst typing this I am watching Extreme Couponing, oh my, I wish we could use vouchers and make such huge savings, I cant even remember the last time I used a voucher for a product apart from the A*da price promise ones.

Have a great day

liltdiddylilt

Hey Karen

Have you tried supersavvyme.co.uk for coupons? Some are rubbish and depending on where you have to shop for them, you may find better elsewhere, but you can print 40 coupons a month from there... That's just one of the sites I use. I love a good bargain!

Well done on the £50 and the NSD. I need to give myself an insormountable amount of NSD's for the next couple of months and rein in my spending!

Julie67

Morning all,

Can I join you Harry Bear. I soo want to be a saver. It's all we can do to keep our heads above water at the moment. Our dream is also to move to the country, hence my new diary. We are further on in life and the fun your having with your little ones at the moment I'm now enjoying with our four year old grandson, with another new grand baby due in October:D
I've enjoyed catching up with your diary and have subscribed. Look forward to hearing about your journey.
Oops almost forgot we are off to Devon in June for a few days as well. Can't wait, although will spend most if the time drooling over houses we can't afford, before returning to sunny old Manchester.