I Wanna See the Light

Mysteek

Well I would definitely eat smarties like that too ShirePiskie if I were allowed to have them (they're not gluten free!) as its Smarties Law and I wouldn't want to break the law!


I eat food a bit like that, if say I'm having meat, pots and veg, I like to eat them in a balanced way so that I don't finish one before the others, so I end up with a potato, a piece of meat and a bit of veg ha ha


Well thank goodness for being crackers I say!

Mysteek

Don't you just love it when someone bids on your item, thereby scaring off all your other watchers, only to retract the bid when its close to finishing.............

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Mysteek

Just to clarify, is it still an NSD when you've only spent from your budget or does it mean no spending whatsoever whether its been budgeted for or not?

Mysteek

Well I had my blood tests on monday and results were ok so no change to my thyroxin. They took my blood pressure and I have to monitor my bp at home for a week and take my measurements in to the surgery, as my reading on monday was a little high. Nothing that 6 months on a desert island wouldn't cure!!

I have this thing with my bp when I am near anyone or anything medical. Please don't laugh, its called 'white coat syndrome' and its well documented and its something I am not able to consciously control. Well one of our doctors believes in it and the other doesn't. So I have this yo yo thing going on. One doctors sends me to the hospital for tests and puts me on a low dosage of medication (she's the one that doesn't believe in WCS). The other doctor said he wouldn't have sent me for tests and promptly takes me off the medication! Hmm

Now this time its a third and different doctor who looked at my readings, so wonder what she'll make of them.

And people wonder why I don't like going to the docs!

ShirePiskie

I'm not stalking you, honest.

I got sent home with a BP measuring machine for that exact reason, my GP said even if I didn't feel anxious at the surgery (I didn't), about 20% of people get raised blood pressure just by virtue of being there.

Mysteek

Stalking? Absolutely not! lol I'm grateful for your company.

Ah your doctor sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I had to buy my own bp monitor

Mysteek

Sorry ShirePiskie, for short message yesterday, had to rush off MSE as I was at work and had someone breathing down my neck! I wanted to say that I hoped everything had worked out well with your bp.

Last night, I managed to find the safe place where I had hid my bp monitor, it was bought about 3 years ago to replace one that had broken, it had not been used still wrapped in plastic. However, despite trying new battery after new battery it doesn't work! Great! Now I'll have to buy a new one and that wasn't in my bugdet! Don't think my surgery will lend me one as it was them that told me where to buy one in the first place! Meanies!

Mysteek

Its friday, yippee! and we're on flexitime so hoping to leave at 12.30.

Well although we've spent our food budget this week we haven't gone over it, although DH says he's run out bread and will need a loaf today. We start our new weeks budget tomorrow so might be cruel and make him wait till tomorrow lol

Might need to spend a few quid today. DD2 has had to give me a couple of lifts this week so I will offer her some money towards petrol. She'll probably refuse so I'll treat her to coffee and a bun at M&S this afternoon. Its only fair and I'll take the money out of my little stash I have from selling cards and stuff so no spending the food budget.

DH not working this evening so we'll just chill, he'll probably want to watch the football which is fine as I'll either watch it too or get on with some knitting I have on the go for my DGD.

Checked bank accounts this morning, transferred £7.85 from paypal and £9.00 left in my lottery account that I don't do anymore, which have gone into the overdraft.

All bank accounts behaving as expected, will update spreadsheets this evening when at home.

I'm getting to the point where I don't want to spend money and seeing any go out of the bank account annoys me, and it pleases me when I see money going in to reduce the overdraft. I must admit it makes me excited lol .... I just hope this resolve continues and gets even stronger as we go on. Stumbling blocks please keep well away!!

Mysteek

Where does the time go? Its Monday again and I realise I haven't made an entry in my diary over the weekend, in spite of promising myself that I would try and write something each day to keep myself motivated.


I've not strayed though, food budget spent but not exceeded and we should not need anything for the rest of the week. No other money spent.


At the end of last week, any carrots and onions left were peeled, chopped and frozen. The potatoes that were left were par boiled and frozen ready for roasting when needed.


I made a meat and potato pie from some beef I had slow cooked and frozen and if I must say so myself, it was delicious!


No more Eb*y sales as yet, just watchers. Fingers crossed they turn into buyers!


Trying to do some surveys but struggling to find the time to do many and my email inbox is almost full to bursting! Have now joined N*ctar A*points and must check out Y*u G*v. There must be some way of earning more for less time spent...just need to find it.


Just got in from work so gonna get something to eat and watch a bit of footie with DH. Might try and do a couple surveys too!

Mysteek

Apparently its ok to make a mistake (phew what a relief!), provided you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake again (oh!).

On that note, I want to make some pledges to myself to not repeat things that I consider were mistakes (for us anyway).

Things I will NOT be repeating:

Consolidation Loans: seemed like a good idea at the time, but all they do is increase the interest and length of the debt. If we had struggled on just a bit longer the original loans would have been paid off one by one.

Remortgage: again seemed like a good idea at the time and got us out of a hole in the short term, but in effect its costing us more and has added 5 years onto the length of the mortgage. Would have been paid next year L. Maybe if this forum had been in existence/known about then, I would have found the inspiration to deal with it differently. BTW this remortgage was to consolidate the consolidated loans!! And credit cards.

Credit Cards: evil things! When I’ve paid the 3 off I have, they’re going to get closed and I will not have another. We should have closed them when they were paid off after remortgaging, but we didn’t learn and racked them up again (bad!!!). We took them out in the days when banks were literally throwing them at you. I received one before I had signed and returned the credit agreement! Another I never even applied for, I got a message from the bank where I have my current account to say my credit card was waiting at the branch for me to pick up! And then the constant balance increases……….tooooooo tempting! Get thee behind me satan!

Overdraft: don’t think in itself was a mistake as its helped us through some difficult patches with DH being SE and not knowing what money he’s bringing in. The mistake was to keep accepting the bank’s balance increases and treating this as money they’ve given us to spend as we liked. The bank have just increased their charges from 1.5% pa to 11.5% pa so this cannot continue. By the end of the year this will have either been cleared completely or balance under £500 as its 0% free up to £500.

Things I will TRY not to repeat:

Impulsive Buying: this always feels good at the time but won’t be as fulfilling or last as long as the feeling of being debt free will. At the moment we don’t ‘need’ anything and anything we ‘want’ will have to sit on the back burner till we can afford it. Any ‘needed’ items that will no doubt crop up will have to be thought about, and thought about again, and thought about again. Best price sought and only purchased when we’ve thought about it yet again. The feeling of instant gratification will have to be controlled.

Helping Children: this is a difficult one as I love my kids to bits and hate to see them upset or in trouble. And I love to treat them and also my gorgeous DGD. My DD1 is now 31 and married and her and her OH earn probably about double what me and my DH earn so I can’t foresee any problems there. My DD2 is 24 with a fiance and baby. I’ve helped her a lot financially in the past, long story to do with relationships, but hopefully now she’s settled. She still owes me around £3,000 which she will not be able to start paying back until next year when she returns from maternity leave and completes her nursing training and gets a job. I think I need to step back and let them sort out their own problems from now on, they’re old enough and either are or will be earning enough to live on comfortably. I have explained to DD2 something of what we’re doing and told her I can’t keep helping her out. She did say that she regarded me as a safety net and really should stop doing this and start to manage her own money better. Maybe I should have said this earlier !!!

I have to think about me and DH now, 7 years to retirement and need to get our finances in order and then hopefully we can enjoy life much better.