I don't need another skinny Latte

Skinnylatte

:o:o:o Yesterday was a spendy day, went a bit mad, but not as much as I could have.
I have been looking for a new suitcase for a while, and DD has run off to the party island with my only decent sized one (that was still covered in mud from Leedsfest).

With the travel I do, a decent case is a bit of a must. Any how I found one for £90 (reduced from £237 apparently, yeah right), and as they had a buy one get one free offer on I also chose a really snazzy new cabin case too.

My old and trusty cabin case is 17 years old, I brought it from M&S for £50 all those years ago, and it's a bit like an old friend, but one of the zips has gone, and if the other went while I was traveling it could get messy, so it is time to sadly say goodbye

Then I 'just happened' to buy 2 new bras, pair of floaty trousers for hotter climes and a new pair of shoes, total of £55.99.

I've been going through my wardrobe, as where I'm working next week is going to be over 40 degrees :eek: Its going to be a mixture of aircon offices and sweaty factories, and I need to present a professional image (no bare shoulders and cleavage!) I think I can put a 10 day wardrobe together, but I'm going to go into town today and get a couple of pairs of 3/4 length leggings to go under summer blouses, and light weight cardi or wrap to see off the aircon.

I have £126 in my clothes budget :T, although I've got a strong aversion now to touching any of my savings or budget pots, I just love to see them grow, so I'll see if I can finance it from my general spends pot.

DSs prom night tonight, he tried his suit on yesterday, what a handsome man!!
He's working again today labouring, and all next week too, plus this weekend in the pub. I think my aim to firmly install the work ethic is a success it's safe to say .

DD has also found a job, PR for a strip club, mmmmm, which involves hanging around outside the club encouraging people to come in, payment seems to be in the form free drink, oh dear. I am just holding on to the hope that when she returns from this adventure she'll have settled down a bit, but I fear that time could be some years away yet.

Yesterday was the first time I didn't speak to her since she left, I'm reduced to checking facebook every couple of hours to see when she was last online. She is such a free spirit, I'm torn between watching from a safe distance and wanting to wade in and keep her safe.

There would be no point in telling her she can't do this or that, as she'd do it anyway, and she's 18 now, there's nothing I can do about it. I just have to keep the communication channels open and hope my words sink in a little, I'm forever saying 'stay safe and healthy', all my conversations and messages end with this!! (ie remember to eat, at least once a day, girl can not live on Mediterranean cocktail alone)

When do we ever stop feeling responsible for our kids? Never I guess

in_need_of_direction

absolutely never. my dd is, at 28 (soon to be 29) in her tenth year working a summer job in the US. i've met so many of the staff and visited site last year. i now try to work on the principle that if there was anything major, someone else would tell me.

as for your clothes purchases, if you're anything like me, the ourchase of the bras was probably overdue!

liltdiddylilt

Peekaboo. Am popping in to bookmark you. I'm on page 15 back later xx

Skinnylatte

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Peekaboo. Am popping in to bookmark you. I'm on page 15 back later xx

You're actually going to read it all!! WOW :eek:

Greetings from a very hot country :cool:, although I have had a major fight with the aircon as it was just too cold and noisy, it took me ages to work out how to switch it off, and then the fridge was noisy so I had to find the plug for that too.

So far I'm very pleased with my new purchases, floaty trousers are so comfy, and I've worn everything so far. Still trying to get my head round on spending £90 on a suitcase, but I did manage to get all the way across London on the underground on my own and it's behaved very well. As long as I get at least 10 years hard labour from it I'll be happy.

Bad news (very bad) is that I had some-one else to look at my patio, and he's confirmed an unvoiced suspicion I had, that subsidence is effecting both the conservatory and the patio. he says to claim off the insurance, what a stress, :mad: I'll put it out of my mind until I get home

That all for now, I think, all very frugal, as I don't get home until 16th and then it's only a week til payday again!

Have a lovely week all xx

safehouse

Oh bad news regarding subsidence..... I am in a similar boat as regards to house, needing new roof, dare not even get quotes, but know it needs sorting as getting more and more wet patches and drips from almost all ceilings with buckets spread around the house whenever it rains. Trouble is who to trust to carryout the works..Fingers crossed you get things sorted Enjoy the sunshine

Skinnylatte

safehouse wrote: »

Oh bad news regarding subsidence..... I am in a similar boat as regards to house, needing new roof, dare not even get quotes, but know it needs sorting as getting more and more wet patches and drips from almost all ceilings with buckets spread around the house whenever it rains. Trouble is who to trust to carryout the works..Fingers crossed you get things sorted Enjoy the sunshine

That's a big issue safehouse, finding some-one who will do a good job. Sorry to hear of your drips, at least my subsidence is passive!

Skinnylatte

Back home safe and sound to gone off milk, mouldy bread and a note saying 'can you pick me up from football when you get back'. back to reality with a bump :rotfl:

I rarely suffer from jetlag, but it's 4.30 am and I've just put the second load of washing on and catching up with every-one's diaries!

I've also just 'had a word with myself' and cleared my credit card, it was creeping up to £600, slipping back to my old ways. I did some shopping in the US, as it really was so cheap, DS has some new bits to add to his wardrobe, and I have a new pair of running shoes. it's a shame a couldn't have bought my new suitcase in the US, they were less than half the price I paid here :mad:

Had a big 'kick my self moment' I had to do some rearranging of hotels while away, which meant putting nearly £800 through hotels.com, and I forgot to go through topcashback :mad::mad: so cross, I could have netted about £85 for free

DD is staying on in Greece, and I've decided to go out and see her, encouraged by DS who is up for a sun holiday! I did say that if we go to Greece he forfeits his Xbox for doing well in his exams (not that we know he has yet!!) he quite happy with that arrangement.

I've done some research and we can get the flights and self catering accommodation for about £300 each, which seems very cheap to me. I will have to delve in to one of the savings pots, whether pension over payments or 2018 holiday, probably holiday I guess as it's sort of related and the pension payments are worth a 40% tax break to me.
Then of course we'll need spending money for food and stuff, no idea really how much this is likely to be, any ideas?

Today (Friday) I will probably sleep a lot at some point. I also have an amazon affiliate earnings cheque to bank, $280, although that has been accumulating for a year, so no get rich quick scheme there, plus I need to pay some corporation tax, and ring the tax office about the NI payments I have to make, as I'm still not sure why I owe them, and they've not replied to any of the letters I sent, at the very last I want to see if they will let me pay over 12 months.

I had a very unexpected letter from the mortgage co saying they had 'capitalised my credit', no idea what that means, but it has reduced by nearly £1000 and the payments are £280 now instead of £288 (interest only), in reality I need to be paying £800 a month to clear it within the term - 17 years remaining.

Need to catch up with ex to see where he is with moving out, and when I can move back in (to my subsiding house) I can start making bigger over payments.

That's my catch up so far, I've got a busy weekend, but will post more later xx

Skinnylatte

Sooo tired, still not sleeping properly, got to sleep at 2am last night then woke up at 4.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. And I must have been grinding my teeth when I was asleep as my whole face to so sore. I'm supposed to be out with a friend all day today, what company I'm going to be!!

Paid my corp tax yesterday, couldn't bank my cheque as NW no longer take cheques in foreign currencies :mad:. Rung tax office (was only on hold for 20 mins before they answered) who said they will put a hold on my NI payment until they've written back to me :T

Not much else to report, I will try and not spend too much today, will drink cider it's cheap!

safehouse

Hope you get a better nights sleep tonight skinny... I can totally relate:) x

Skinnylatte

safehouse wrote: »

Hope you get a better nights sleep tonight skinny... I can totally relate:) x

Thank you SH. I haven't posted for 9 days, and I only just feel now that I've got back into a proper eat/sleep cycle. It happened Saturday, I was soo hungry all day and then slept for 10 hours, in a tent too!

So the first festival of the summer happened this weekend, we went to Womad, 13 of us, all women and kids, although mine didn't come. Too old for that now and Mum's dancing is just embarrassing! Had a really great time, although we did leave a day early as the weather was a bit rubbish and the mud...well you don't want to know :eek:

The weekend really was great value for money all in all. We all brought food and shared the cooking, highlight for me I think was the laughter yoga, a real tonic!
My friend, who wants to leave her NHS job, is looking at setting up lots of different income streams, she already does some catering and takes in students (gets £500 a month for that!!) and was really interested in the laughter yoga, she'd be brilliant at it as she's a right extrovert. But made me think, as I so want to travel more, we were talking about Costa Rica next year, how can I up my income.......!?!

My next excursion now is not until the 13th August when we go to see DD, so I want to make August as frugal as possible, and I'm starting today as I have a day off work, so freezer stock take, meal plan, ebay clear out, make some new videos for my youtube channel. I'm going to record all my expenditure again for this month, I did this when I first started my debt free journey and it's very useful, but I've got a bit lazy.

I've also checked my bank accounts, moved some £££s around, and topped up my Sainbobs card which gives me 6% off all purchases in store.

I am absolutely delighted to see the price of diesel come down, I reckon this is going to save me around £15 per month, it's about time.

I better make the most of my day off