Over the Rainbow and Happy Ever After

HOK3Y

Hi CL! :wave:

Your horse is running!! How exciting is that! I will keep all my fingers and toes crossed - keep us posted!

Best of luck with the car insurance. I was considering calling my insurer and asking to increase the excess to see if I can shave some pennies from mine. I snooped about on the comparison sites and the prices varied massively so definitely dig about.

And I firmly believe you will have a piano one day - if it is something you really want, you will make it happen.

Have a lovely debt-busting day! X

castlelough

Thanks HOk!

Well I did a shop around for my car insurance, and it turns out that nobody was able to do any better than my current insurers - the only way I could bring it down was to go for 3rd party instead of comprehensive.... is that something I should consider?

Good news, and I can't believe it happened so fast, but my tax refund on my health bills came into my account today! I only posted that off last week, so that was fast! So €127 which I transferred onto the credit card to pay for my clothes shopping spree. Now once the €140 from DH's birthday present appears in the account, and I transfer it over to the cc, I will be back to a clear credit card.

And that is how I plan to keep it. I'm allowed to use it occasionally, but I have to pay it off in full each month.
The way normal people do...... :rotfl:

Little horse's racetrack debut has been delayed until Sat 28th Sept now, which actually suits me a lot better! And it means a few of our friends and family may come along to cheer him on with us! :j

Made a MSE dinner for myself, DH, DH's mother and aunt this evening. Lasagna. I started to keep a bowl in the freezer for excess spaghetti bolognese. So I will cook up the whole packet of mince, then transfer the extra into this bowl once it has cooled. As we have spag bol most weeks, after a few weeks the bowl becomes full enough for me to make a lasagna from it.
I used to keep picking at the leftovers, or feed them to the cats (which was fine, until they started turning their noses up at it!) but now I save them up. They are frozen as soon as possible, so it makes a lovely fresh lasagna...and it makes it quick to assemble the lasagna too - another bonus!

Almost the weekend...... :j

beanielou

Looking good

EchoDelta

Piano lessons - cool! How long have you been learning?

Wrt car insurance personally I would only drop to third party cover if I had enough cash to replace the car without feeling too traumatised about it!

castlelough

Thanks Beanielou and EchoDelta!

EchoDelta I had lessons for a year or two as a child and (completed Preliminary and Primary grades) then went back as a teenager for another year purely to learn some nice pieces to play - no exams!

When I changed teaching jobs a few years ago, I found myself (thanks to my job interview grovelling!!!) with the additional job of playing the piano for school mass, Communion, Confirmation and other school events.

So I decided to go back to piano lessons again! I knew I had the ability if I would just commit to proper training, practice and lessons. So in the last two years I've taken Grades 3 & 4 and I'm starting on Grade 5 now... I must say I really, really enjoy it. I cannot wait to have my own piano though!!!!

Well, a NSD today :T.

Have spent the day with my mum and sisters, on family jobs that need sorting. One of the jobs was to meet an auctioneer at our grandmother's house. She died more than 13 years ago, and my late father and his brother had a terrible falling out over the sale of the house. And so it has been left to my mum now to insist that it be sold. The house is in such terrible shape at this stage, but it has the makings of a lovely home for somebody who will be happy to completely gut it and renovate it. Anyway here's the thing....

There is some nice antique (75+ yrs: it that antique?) furniture left in the house. Not valuable, I'm sure, but quite nice. A chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a dressing table. They all match, are made from solid wood, with pretty carving and antique brass handles and are in good condition. I think I'd like to take them for our new house...
My question is- Am I mad? I don't mind sanding them and refinishing them. I don't mind hard work.... <whispers> but how much hard work would I be taking on?! I've never done something like this before.............

EchoDelta

The piano playing sounds fab.

Hmm, no idea about furniture.... Could you take something small to experiment with now to see if you would be up for it on a grander scale?

castlelough

Well it has been three weeks since I last posted!
I haven't been a very good dfw, I'm afraid. I haven't been :eek: but I have definitely not been :A.

My total debt has come down by €200 only, although I boosted my Baby Fund to €165 and I paid for my clothes shopping splurge mentioned above (and made myself return a couple of the items!!)
But... I developed a little eBay obsession... and I'm ashamed to say I made three purchases. And I'm regretting two of those!

Now, I was definitely distracting myself from my upcoming gynaecological procedures (D&C and hysteroscopy and removal of a polyp - all done last week).
I obsessively stalked eBay on my iPhone for two weeks before the procedure and haven't felt the urge to look at it since! (thank God! :rotfl:)

I first bought an absolutely divine antique seed pearl ring that I LOVE and I'm afraid to say that I don't regret at all. It cheered me up so much to have it to look forward to, and it arrived the day after my procedure, and is every bit as beautiful as it looked in the pictures!
But then I bought a pair of drop pearl earrings to wear with it. They were so disappointing and I've had to send them back as they are faulty and more than likely fake. The seller is sending me a replacement pair, but I wish I could just get my money back.
Third purchase led me to realise I just HAD to stop! Talk about a crazy purchase :rotfl::rotfl:..... I bought an antique toasting fork! Yes, you did read that correctly. And NO I do not currently live in a house with any kind of fireplace at all. Still waiting on it to arrive. Cringing. How will I explain that one to DH (or anyone else for that matter....oh dear!)

I also bought a small gardening tool on Amazon that I had been admiring for absolutely ages.

But all this purchasing has resulted in a small bill on my credit card. I'm not putting it into my signature, yet, because the proper bill hasn't come yet, so I have some lee-way to pay it off before it becomes an unpaid 'debt' as such on my card.

And I hereby BAR myself from eBay temporarily!

In other news, our mortgage application/offer has been held up because the solicitor discovered that we don't officially own part of our site. Which could have ended up being a nightmare! DH's father swapped some fields with his neighbour more than 40 years ago, and neither bothered to do the official paperwork to make it all legal at the time. So, now DH has spent the past fortnight driving between neighbour, solicitor, engineer (to draw up new land maps for the transfer) land commission and council trying to sort out the mess. Grrrrrr. And, it has cost us €€€€ all round with everyone too. Anyway, we are almost there, I hope. It is the final hurdle, I hope. We should have all the necessary paperwork for the bank once that is sorted out.... and then hopefully it will be full steam ahead!

Finally, my little horse is costing us a small fortune in training fees and entries to races..... and due to the lack of rain, he has yet to have his first outing on the track. It's very frustrating!!! Hopefully we will have an outing with him very soon................
Myself and DH began riding lessons again in July and have gone most weeks since then. which has been really enjoyable but yet another expense! It's no wonder my debtbusting has moved into the slow lane...

I did however ring my internet provider and reduce my monthly bill from €20 to €5 (I didn't need 10 GB!) and I've moved my phone plan down to a €35 pm plan (where it has usually been €65 pm). So that is €45pm saved. Then I actually increased my health insurance plan (by €20), as I hadn't coverage for pregnancy :eek:. But it is still an additional €25 pm in my bank account, so I'm very pleased! :T

Off to cook dinner - chicken stirfry. Meal plan is done for the fortnight, and every penny has been budgetted for. I actually can't believe that I am managing to get so much mileage from my salary. A couple of years ago I earned more, but had nothing to show for it, nothing in my purse,and was in so much debt. How life has turned around!

castlelough

Just a quick little post before I go, to remind myself that I have three mini-projects to sort out in the coming weeks:

1. Removal/collection of my Gran's furniture - a friend of DH's is supposed to be doing this for €100, but the mission was cancelled last week, so hopefully we can still get this sorted out.

2. My car - my sister's boyfriend has not yet decided if he can afford to insure himself to drive my old car (or any car) and I need to have an answer from him. It's been sitting outside the door for about 6 weeks now, and if I'm going to have to sell it I'd need to get a move on.

3. My wedding dress.... I need to decide whether to sell it or donate it to charity. There is one tiny stain in it that didn't come out after it was professionally cleaned. I could easily have a fold of the fabric stitched in place over it and it would be perfect. It's two years old now. I must make a decision! Did anyone keep theirs?

LittleMissKitty

I have to admit, I still have my wedding dress and I've been married 9.5 years, my Mum still has hers too and she's been married 33 years!

EchoDelta

Wow Castlelough you have a lot going on! Take care of yourself, hope that the procedures went well.

I hear you re ebay - such a great distraction.

I still have my wedding dress 6 years on. I used to like dressing up in my mum's when I was little and like the idea of my dd and niece (and what the heck nephews) doing the same one day.