Getting a grip...and hanging onto it!

[Deleted User]

PS...

Clearly all that socializing discussed below will be in moderation! But 'my' grown up friends - uni mates etc are all so far away now, and my lovely local mates are largely other parents or work colleagues, its very very rare that I go out for a drink...although I stay in for a drink with them every few weeks! Its nice to have a chance to be with people who know me in those other ways!

HOK3Y

CL, I think a bit of a depressed start to the week was in the cards for everyone - I think there was something in the water yesterday! Well done for finding the positive though. x

[Deleted User]

This was a long and complicated week…even actively trying, I haven’t managed to carve out much time for anything more than surviving each drama as it unfolds around me. I think this crazy-busy lifestyle might well be a contributory factor to my original lack of grip, you know. I am conscious that keeping this diary (and feeing more accountable to myself and to all of you) is changing my feelings about money though. Whilst I’ve never been a carefree spender , I’ve spent with anguish unnecessarily sometimes when it seemed like the mountain was big, what difference would another XXX make. But all week this week I’ve been conscious of making active choices when to spend, and what on.
So, good things this week…

• There were paying guests staying 2 nights, and another friend who stayed unexpectedly = £100 income, and a reasonably clean house, and a cupboard full of breakfast cereals (from Mr A’s).
• · My old bed that didn’t fit the recently won high quality mattress was sold for £40, and a new bedframe (that does fit the mattress) gifted from a friend, and conveyed to my place for free by another friend. Its now up, and the room looks excitingly new. Mattress cover is drying, can't wait to put it all together!
  
• · I travelled up to the big city for a 19 hour visit, tickets paid for by work, and expenses for my breakfast and tea. Reinvigorated some work contacts (after the main meeting I went for) and also caught up with a friend for coffee en route back to the station. I definitely curbed my spending, avoiding my habit of buying a few books in WHS to read on the train, avoided Christmas shopping. I did get to eat burritos (paid for by work), lovely blustery walk by the Thames (between meetings) feeling like a tourist with time to stop and notice sights I hadn’t taken in before, do some research ready for our trip to London town for my DMs birthday.
• · Gorgeous day out with aforementioned friend, who ran me around the coast in his fantastic camper van, stopping to make cuppas in the back at beauty spots. Found a couple of very reasonable birthday gifts for DD and generally had a very precious day, for the price of a couple of bags of chips and a pint of beer to say thanks.
• · Had a daunting docs apt – was very brave! Now need to stay brave through the follow up appts.
• · DD’s thriving at her athletics club, only £2 a session now the membership is paid for. Ex and I are getting her the hoody from the club as our joint Mum and Dad birthday gift – we probably would have bought one soon for her anyway, and by drawing a line around the shared cost it means I can avoid getting caught up in big spends if they want to spoil her.
• · A friend in need came to stay for a few days. . I was glad to be able to help give her some much needed space, and it was lovely coming home to the smell of dinner cooking.
• · I got an invite to the free listing weekend on Ebay, and have a pile of stuff in the loft ready to be listed, and some time can be made this weekend!
• · Taken some more bookings for paying guests over the next few weekends and one big booking in Dec that will really help toward cost of xmas
• · Free apples made into apple crumble, twice! And an offer of more being dropped in today..
• · Instead of a night out at the movies had a friend around for dinner (used up lots of bits from the fridge and freezer, and a bottle of wine bought for my entertaining earlier in the month – no new purchases) and then we watched the great british bake off on iplayer, with the cable a friend gave me for collecting the computer to an old tv monitor making a big difference. No more crowding around a laptop screen!
• · Got all but one credit card now on 0%, and a balance transfer offer for that one, just need to ring up as the HSBC website wasn’t playing ball with a transfer from a Amex card.

To think when I started the post I was feeling like it had been a bad week! :rotfl:

However I’m some way from my goals for the week so best I get my skates on over the weekend I think! Luckily DD has lots of homework to do so we are planning on staying in most of today. I may have to work around her use of the computer use though, but luckily I have lots of offline jobs to do too.

[Deleted User]

Lay in bed this morning thinking about all of the things that haven’t gone well this week and generally beating myself up, before thinking of all of the things that have gone well, financially…

• Just returned from two nights away with work, met lots of interesting people (networking for the future J) but also enjoyed being fed and watered for two days, ate as much fruit and other expensive stuff as I could! Spent £15 on a round of drinks for my team, and £10 claimable back on food during the journey home (but I still have lots of this for treats over the weekend). I did get two loads of washing and drying done at the centre where we stayed, so I’ve come home with a suitcase full of clean things :rotfl:
• I have a paying guest staying this week (seems nice) so £150 coming in later this week
• Just accepted a booking for renting our whole house out for a week over half term (worth £500:T). DD is only with me for three nights over the time the people are here, but we’ll have to plan some nights away with friends and family. I was a bit wary about whether this was going to be too disruptive, but I think it should be easy enough to weave into general half term fun, and it’s a big amount to turn down, especially in this expensive month (lots of birthdays etc). My aim though is for that to be a big chunk off the CC’s.
• Rearranged meeting up with friends today for lunch out somewhere to them coming here, and all bringing something towards lunch. I’ll be making apple crumble from my freebie apples and some soup from the freezer. They are bringing clotted cream and home made sour dough bread! Yum!!
• DM has given me some cash towards the apartment for our long weekend in the big smoke at the end of the month
• We got free tickets to the Houses of Parliament tour from our MP, so that’s one cheap event during the trip. Well worth planning in advance! I also found out I had about £45 on various old oyster cards, so that will help avoid expenditure too. DM is getting some Tesco vouchers for restaurants, but we have an apartment so we can eat in quite a bit. My cousin is buying DD a skate at Somerset House for her birthday present. Another relative giving a voucher for Hamleys. So it’s a mixture of not costing too much, and a few pre-planned splurges (trip up the Gerkin and dinner at the Royal Albert Hall before the gig).

So on the whole, I shouldn’t be feeling so bad about:
· Lack of progress on the list
· Driving into work 3 times last week (only once was avoidable, to be fair)
· Generally not getting many ‘at home’ jobs done
Away from moneysaving, my best mate is in hospital, which dramatically puts all of the above into context. Its been scary and it still looks like things are touch and go for her unborn baby. I’m expecting lots more trips in and some unpredictable demanding times (time, energy, expense) so whilst I’m going to try to be as savvy as I can, I’m going to cut myself some slack. Anything that’s progress towards my own list will be a bonus I think. Maybe there are some ideas on here somewhere about cutting expenditure during long stays in hospital? Off for a little poke around…

HOK3Y

Hi c_l, don't beat yourself up. You've done a good job of pulling out the positive from the week which is essential to keep you on track and you know what you need to do to go forward. It's okay! Sorry to hear about your friend and you are right to give yourself a little more leeway. Relationships with others are vastly more important than anything else so give it every priority.

I wish you positivity for the coming week!

[Deleted User]

Thanks HOK3Y! We are both terrifyingly frightened and immensely grateful to welcome another little life into the world :j, at 24 weeks very very very early, but both mum and baby are safe, if not securely so. An unpredictable time ahead for us I think - the mum and I have stood side by side during a lot of lifes challenges, living together for a long time and in and out of each others houses and lives to this day. I hope to be able to pick up some of her everyday burdens for a while, just as she has shouldered mine when they have been too heavy in the past. If I can just stay treading water and not go backwards with my own financial journey whilst doing this I'll be very very happy and hope to get the discipline from here to keep plodding away.

Given the subject matter of the forum, I hope its not insensitive to note that it looks like being a parent of a very pre-term baby, especially when you live 80 odd miles from the hospital where you've ended up, could be a massive financial strain amongst all of the other stresses. As the days go by finding some ways to cut some of the costs could be one of the most helpful things I can do I think. But in the meantime, we are celebrating tiny babies arrival! With some very strong tea! :A:A

HOK3Y

Oh my! That is very early indeed! Thank heavens for modern medicine! I wish your friend all the very best of luck but by the sounds of things she already has an amazing best friend. Frankly that is priceless. You are one heck of a friend c-l.

[Deleted User]

So, most importantly both mother and baby are doing well... still in intensive care but the prognosis good!



I stepped away from the diary for a while whilst life really was very testing, and tried to live as frugally as I could without putting additional pressure on myself. It has been a very expensive few months, a lot of petrol, car parking, and random other expenses associated with having someone close to you in hospital, but against that backdrop I’ve just worked out that since the start of October I’ve managed to slice £752 off the credit card / overdraft debt mountain!! :j



Some of the things that have helped have been – getting everything transferred to 0% rates, reducing some big and unpredictable bills (e.g mobile – I moved in the end to a slightly more expensive base rate but massive allowances, as you can imagine the phone has been a bit of a lifeline recently), and being largely too busy to eat or socialise! All the debt is now on interest free cc, with the overdrafts only being dipped into when I got the transfers between pots a bit wrong. Need to work on this.


I am really relieved that I’ve managed to chip away at a bit of this, especially as this came at my most expensive time of the year. For the first time in a long time I ordered my car tax ahead of its expiry date so there was no nervous /stressed wait at the end, paid for everything for DD’s birthday upfront, and was able to settle a big car repair without crying. I even treated myself to a new fan motor for the car as for the last 2 winters we’ve been defrosting the inside and the outside of the car, and having to pile on the layers to sit in a car with no heating. Hot air to clear the windscreen feels like the height of all luxury! I’ve tried to buy frugally where I can and have stockpiled quite a few bits and pieces for Christmas time.


We managed a couple of weekend visits to see friends as I thought DD really needed some time away from the stress of home – for her birthday various friends of mine bought her vouchers to do things in London, so we had one weekend up there ice-skating at Somerset House, visiting Harrods, and doing some of the museums. These special weekends were a little in lieu of Christmas this year, as DD goes to her dad for the key festive bits. We swapped the arrangements around so that we are no longer having to co-ordinate meeting up and swapping over on Christmas day itself, and so she gets to have the whole bit from xmas eve to boxing day in one house. Financially and emotionally this year I thought her Dad was better placed to give her a great time, but I definitely aim to be able to do so next year!


We’ve continued to rent the house out sometimes but business has been pretty slow – not a problem as it has been a lot harder to fit in. We had one awful experience where the people who came smoked – it took me many, many weeks to get rid of the smell. Yuk. But since then some nice people have visited and that has really helped rebuild our trust in the system.


I am going to set myself some baby steps again as it has been hard dipping my toe into the MSE world again!
Before the end of the year:

• Work out the snowball and set some monthly goals for 2014
• Submit work expenses
• Book photographer for house publicity shots (need to work out when it can be clean!)
• Keep on top of the filing / shredding (to be honest, I haven’t been too bad at this! One good habit that stayed during my couple of months away was being brave enough to open envelopes and deal with the contents)
• Set up the DD for minimum payments to cc’s so none get missed

[Deleted User]

Just spent a lovely hour catching up on diaries and being re-inspired! Its lovely to have a little spare time to spend on me - it really has been too hectic to do more than get by recently. Here's to getting back into a bit more of a routine now mum and baby are settled into a closer hospital to us

[Deleted User]

A great day today! All is going well at the hospital, I won a hamper in a raffle at work which has resolved a few present dilemmas and given me some treats for the festive period too

Bought home a lot of work today but have nailed some really big presentations this evening so hope to feel a bit more on top of it all soon. Work have been very supportive over the last few months but its been tricky learning how to keep a grip on various projects whilst I've been out of the office so much.

Just found out DD is in line for a big present from the grandparents - an unexpected gift which will get her online to do her homework much more easily. This will save me from an expense I could see coming sometime next year but had no real way of saving for.

Finally, we had a request to stay for a few nights ahead of christmas from another single parent and her girls, via the site we book one of our rooms out with. I wasn't going to accept any bookings over the school holidays but DD is very excited and so I've said yes. This family also share their house with paying guests in the same way we do, but in a much more exotic location overseas. It'll be fun sharing a bit of the run up to christmas with them, and I'm determined the money will go straight to the cc.

We ate up lots of leftovers from the freezer tonight and I had so many phone calls to make that I didn't stop for my usual cuppa during DD's club tonight, saving me a couple of pounds. So - a good day all round really!