The Ultimate Incentive part 10. The only thing holding you back is you.

clearmydebts

Hi all!

Good to see some chatter again. Quick update: our flat sale has gone through so we can start house hunting!

tinkerbel

congrats on being debt free Cinny!! well done!! is this everything for you and OH or just your things? (sorry i forget)

Loving GBBO here but can't find the time to watch it!!

Congrats on the house sale CMD!! and on all of the disney bookings!

duchy

I love Port Orleans - we've stayed there twice.
Always lots of wildlife around which is lovely with little ones (good wild life - birds and squirrels not bad wildlife )

wendz86

So exciting CMD, have you seen anything you like yet?

Hi Tink!

Having an expensive month here, lots of birthdays including a good friends 30th and my sisters 30th end of the month. Have started my shopping for the 'c' word though hehe.

We are going to look at a school tomorrow eek! It is the closest one to us so is the one she is most likely to get into. It looks good on ofsted so hopefully we will like it as will be less worrying then. Going to see a couple of others as back up as well.

Anyway hope everyone is ok.

Birdie85

Hi! My first KIT day so of course I am using the opportunity to check in here! Planning a phased return using KIT days during Oct then holidays to have some 3 day weeks from my official return on 27th October. Cannot believe how quickly all this has come around. At least I know Zach's having fun with OH on a morning then will be spoilt in the afternoons by his grandmas! Still need to get nursery sorted for 1 day a week though... I've been so deep in denial about going back to work I haven't even sent any enquiries!

How is it that Poppy is old enough to be looking into schools?! Tell her to stop growing! Hope you like the school.

Well done on getting DF Cinny! Enjoy your well earned button! :T

Congratulations on the sale of the flat CMD! Brilliant news, hope you find your perfect home soon and it all goes smoothly!

ruby_eskimo

Can't believe Poppy is almost ready to start school wendz!? Seems like 5 minutes ago she was born.

Well done on the house sale CMD, hopefully you find your dream house soon.

Congrats on being debt free Cinny (not sure if I posted on your diary or not.) Hopefully I'll be debt free as well at the end of the month.

The phased return sounds good Birdie, hopefully you can get Zach's nursery place sorted.

Nothing much happening around here apart from mine and OH's jobs are both a bit up in the air at the moment. Not going to think too much about it as it's out of our hands, but I would still like a job next year!

Cinny91

wendz86 wrote: »

Have started my shopping for the 'c' word though hehe.

Me too There was a BodyShop deal yesterday where I managed to snag £42 worth of goodies for £12 :j So that's a few "I need to get you a present to be polite but what do you even like?!" presents sorted. Also got one of those monster boxes of Thorntons chocolates fo'free so that's Mrs Next-Door sorted.. provided I don't eat them :A

Can't believe you're back at work Birdie, or that Poppy is old enough to go too school! She was the first threadie baby from what I can remember, have we really all been chatting for that long??

Lovely to hear you sold the flat, CMD! Happy House Hunting

And thanks for the congrats, getting paid this pm/tomorrow am so I'm looking forward to having that mythical thing some people call.... savings. Hoping you aren't too far behind me now Ruby!!

wendz86

CMD's Max was the first :-) . Not school till next September but got to apply end of this year. Very scary how grown up she is though.

That sounds like a good plan for your return to work and for Zach. Hopefully you will find a nice nursery as well for the one day.

Ruby - sorry things are up in the air work wise.

Congrats on being debt free Cinny!

Dinah93

*sneaks in the back*

Hi guys! Apologies for the prolonged absence, a second child under 5 needs to come with a health warning; You'll love this one just as much but any hope of time for yourself to read, sew, blog, eat, heck even shower most days is completely gone.

Loving having them both home with me and Grace is lovely with him, very protective as she's still too young to have any concept of jealousy. We took him to get his eyes checked last week and she was happily reading with me while he was checked, when the doctor shone the bright light in his eyes he started to cry loudly and Grace just went ballistic at the doctor 'GET OFF HIM! That's MY baby Ben! You're not being very careful! He's not yours! Put him down!'

Proud to say I've hit the 3 month mark breastfeeding Ben, realistically this is what is really taking up my time. If I express and give him it in a bottle it takes 10 mins to feed, from the breast it takes 40-50 mins to fill him up! But then you need the time to express.... basically out of every given day I'm spending about 6-7 hours feeding in some way. I want to get him at least 6 months, I can't claim it's in any way easy, he has such a weak suck I have to express just to keep my supply up, for the first 3 weeks after he came home he'd feed hourly to 2 hourly through the night, but he's now settled to feeding at midnight, 4am and 6.30am, not a normal amount of sleep but better than a few weeks back.

Started Grace at nursery on Monday and she seems to like it. I was hoping it might encourage her to eat when she sees the other children doing so, but no such luck. Finding it very hard how much my time to enjoy with her has decreased, not just because of nursery but the feeding especially. I had the feeling when I was pregnant but I have it again now, I wish timings had been different so we hadn't had a second one until she was in school or at least nursery half time.

Money news.... erm? Ben is now 14 weeks old and I'm STILL waiting for my maternity allowance to go through. I called them last week, they said there are substantial delays, but they have all my documents and they should reach my claim in 10-14 working days. So back pay on that should be nearly £2000 I think, which will all be going off the debt.

Our debt came down quite a lot to under £8000, but has gone back up to about £10k now as between NIM changing jobs and having time off for paternity and only getting paid around £900 in a month compared to the usual £2000 or so, and having to buy him a new car as his died a sudden death on his first day in the new job, delays in maternity allowance and tax credits, and me not making any extra income for several months due to nicu time we've not had enough income to cover outgoings. I live in hope one day I'll have time to ebay the crazy amount of stuff I have in the guest room. There must be about £4k of stuff to sell in there.

Going to try to update at least once a day, even if it says just 'no news, kids are conspiring to give me a breakdown'.

Most importantly I'm happy at the moment, the anxiety and depression I had after Grace hasn't returned, Ben obviously came home in a much better way with a good outlook where they didn't expect her to see her first birthday. Yes I'm still finding my feet and our routine needs some tweaking so I feel Grace is getting as much time and attention as Ben, and money things are a matter of luck rather than control, but small steps and we'll get there.

wendz86

So lovely to see you here and that you are happy .

Well done on the bfing as well, considering what you both went through that is a real achievement. Is hard work especially through the night.

Glad Grace likes nursery. The eating may come when she is more settled. Poppy eats so much better at nursery than at home.

Money doesn't sound too drastic considering. I am sure when you have more time (does that ever happen with two kids?) you can get the ebay stuff sold.