Pay Off Before Lay Off!

tootallulah

Sorry to hear how stressed Mr HBBBO is, horrible for both of you. Great that you have had such good students, they sound life enhancing. If you get more does that help bring your MFW day forward?

Habibiboo

:wave:

Hello lovely visitors, I appreciate you all taking the time in commenting and thanking this week, it's been lovely to "see" everyone even though I haven't felt too much like "talking"!

Goldiegirl wrote: »

That's great that you and Mr H are going to have long weekend 'down time' in August. I hope Mr H will get some respite from his work concerns.

It's entertaining hearing about your students. Most young people seem to get a bad press in the media, but I think most youngsters know how to behave when they are guests in someone's house

Hope tomorrow is a good day

Thanks GG, I think we're moving into the respite phase: he needed to vent and then have his calm down time from the end of term before he could move into holiday mode, I think. The fine weather and garden time is definitely helping!

Yes, the students are good, we have been very lucky. The pair we have now are also very entertaining! Most teenagers are absolutely fine, as you say.

I hope you're getting garden time too. And we're now in August so another month closer to retirement for you! :T

tootallulah wrote: »

Sorry to hear how stressed Mr HBBBO is, horrible for both of you. Great that you have had such good students, they sound life enhancing. If you get more does that help bring your MFW day forward?

Thanks Toots, the students are definitely helping to lighten the mood and does give us something else to focus on. Having the money definitely helps (although you do have to plan carefully to make it pay - menu planning, healthy but value for money packed lunches etc).

The very real issue it's throwing up though is that it's making it very tempting at the moment to see this extra money as the chance to ditch a faceless corporation client who pays badly and slowly, is always upping the scope of the job for no extra money and is generally a complete pain in the 'arris in my day job, including putting pressure on me to work weekends and deliver by 8.30 am on Mondays. Mr. Hbbb is all for having students instead of me working for this client, but then the student money wouldn't be extra. Bally tempting though, to get my weekends back to myself.

I think we may let fate decide ... see if we get offered any students through the autumn, in which case I will politely tell the client that my prices have gone up in which case I know I won't see them for dust! Alternatively client may make the decision by kicking me off their poorly paid team if I don't take any weekend work through August (as I've promised Mr Hbbb I will take weekends off for the month so we can have time together and sort garden etc).

If you're there Watty, do you have any regrets since liberating yourself from a similar client?

But back to the question Toots ... yes, originally we were looking at knocking 4 years off the mortgage (MF in 2020), but if we carry on at the rate we are, we'd easily do it in 5 (MF in 2019). It's all a balancing act though isn't it, finding what's manageable in terms of daily life as well as finances? We're still motivated to find that balance, even if it has seemed a little hard lately!

Hope you're OK and will enjoy some you time this weekend! x

Habibiboo

:wave:

Happy Friday y'all!

MFW actions:

* Account shuffle and spreadsheet sorting has resulted in £200 MOP plus an extra £50 goodwill payment has come through from student co because they messed up so royally in respect of payments etc, so total of £250 added to SMASH.

* Spendy day re: groceries but budgeted for and I think we've done pretty well for the month as it includes student lunches and meals. Am focussing in this area for August to try to shave a little off the outgoings as I have 4 birthdays this month too. Going to try to keep food spends below £200 (but have emergency £40 buffer in case it's needed for student extras, eg: packed lunch stuff that we only buy in for them).

SMASH day 62 / 100 = £ 2,838 / £ 3,000 ... can't believe how fast these 100 days are going by!

Grey Clouds:

Bit of work-related stress with another missing payment from same quick-with-demands-but-slow-to-pay client. Am looking at just knocking this one on the head and concentrating on students and other clients instead as a way of keeping my sanity really!

Silver linings:

Did a little work first thing, then took rest of day off with Mr. Hbbb!

Daily Declutter:

Pile of old bricks from dwarf wall that Mr. Hbbb took down in back garden is being artfully recycled / upcycled into front garden as part of budget front garden makeover. Total of 40+ bricks but I got bored of counting them so will add 20 to total. Will try to remember to take pics tomorrow. Total 267 / 365.

Simple pleasures:

* Starting to bond with new students
* Long dog walk in park with Mr. Hbbb, also met up with mum and s.dad for cuppa which was lovely.
* Had myself a cheeky nap in the hammock this afternoon whilst listing to my Andrew Johnson relaxation thingy on MP3 ... haven't listened to this for months and forgot just how lovely his voice is. So relaxed I nodded off, in fact!
* Pannini pizzas for tea (HM except for L*dl panninis as cheat's pizza base as I wanted to go for walk not make pizza dough) plus h/m paprika & garlic tattie wedges and homegrown salad for tea. Students declared it all very good, so very pleased with this, approx cost was £1 per head. This is the challenge to feed them well but frugally.
* Neighbours over road put a selection of books out front this morning on a help yourself basis so I now have six new to me books for nowt!

Hope everyone has a great weekend x

Habibiboo

:wave:

Ps ... Does anyone know what the little green or red buttons at the bottom of our side bar bits are for? Mine has recently changed from red to green, is this good? I notice that some of us are red and some green but have no idea why! :think: x

Alchemilla

Red means you are not currently on MSE. Green means you are. X

Habibiboo

Habibiboo wrote: »

:wave:

Ps ... Does anyone know what the little green or red buttons at the bottom of our side bar bits are for? Mine has recently changed from red to green, is this good? I notice that some of us are red and some green but have no idea why! :think: x

:wave:

Ahhh ... thanks for shedding some light on it Alchemilla ... I must be imagining seeing my own as red then because I guess I wouldn't have seen it when I'm logged in then!

I wonder if I confuse the system though because iFad is usually upstairs and often I just turn it off but have kept MSE open in the browser? Or I use iFad for research or FaceTime with clients whilst I'm in work docs on laptop and although MSE might be open in browser I'm not in there. Hmmm, I guess these are literally my light is on but no one is home moments!

And A, what are you doing up at the silly o'clock time of your posting? Are you struggling with winding down into your holidays or are small ones keeping you up? Hope you're Ok m'dear!

Alchemilla

We sleep with all the windows open and we had a mahoosive rainstorm...blinds flapping about madly!

apple_muncher

hope you've had a good day with Mr Hbbb x

Habibiboo

:wave:

Alchemilla wrote: »

We sleep with all the windows open and we had a mahoosive rainstorm...blinds flapping about madly!

Ooooh, lovely and dramatic ... I love that although tis a pain to have to get out of bed to calm the blinds and shut windows if the rain's pelting in! I see why you were awake then!

apple_muncher wrote: »

hope you've had a good day with Mr Hbbb x

Thanks A*M, we've mostly been doing chores (separately rather than together unfortunatley) but did take breaks together in the garden and I cooked us a nice (but frugal) dinner for two as students were out on London trip all day.

Bit disappointed that the majority of the lovely looking green beans I bought from L*dl on Thurs had to be thrown into compost though, as in the centre of the net was something very slimy growing a fur coat! :eek: We ended up with a tin of sweetcorn. Nowt romantic about sweetcorn.

apple_muncher

You're up at silly o'clock again! Hope you are getting early nights to compensate...