two frugal years to freedom: a fritterer's tale

lobbyludd

thanks on your thread Lilt

LO chicken and chips etc for monsters, I took the rest of the carcass and made lemon-spiced chicken w/chickpeas:

from here

extremely yummy - in fact have eaten 3 bowls worth and had to put the pan in the fridge to stop me eating more, will prob make a veg version when this runs out as it may be my new favourite meal and has cheered me up no end - I really need to work less hours, I'm a bit tired and miserable at the moment, as it feels like such a treadmill (which is not generally a good cycle for me to get in MH-wise) but I'm clearly not on a slippery slope to a breakdown if some spiced lemony chick-peas can make the world a better place.:) (some = loads, but still).

lovely mum is having kids for first week in hols and will pick them up and drop them off saving me over £100 petrol and £150 + childcare. Mood will pick up when that comes as I'll be able to sleep and just be without being "mum" or "colleague".

I always feel slightly giddy, unreal, and not-quite-tethered to the earth: honestly as if I'm floating slightly when the monsters are not around and I'm not in work (I've mentioned this to friends and they generally have no idea what I'm talking about so I guess it's part of the idiosyncratic experience of being me LOL) - I think it's the abundance of possibilities, and the lifting temporarily of the responsibility. It takes me a few days to settle into a reality where I can do things on a whim without holding myriad tasks and timetables and duties simultaneously in my mind.

not that i generally do anything very exciting - but I could.....:p

final credit card statement is actually tomorrow so will be able to tot up total then.
spent money on chocolate and oreo's for the monsters. hmm - I clearly need to break the kid/snack cycle.

still - done some swagbucks and 2 loads of washing on line before breakfast (one actually still on there from the night before, but it rained overnight, and then it started to rain just as I got in from work, so it was put in the td - but only for 15mins).

X

mum2one

Glad to catch back up with you, - you now have a new stalker.

Thats good news about mum doing the pick up run, and give you chance to re-coup as rest of the holidays will be mum.....

My vice or should I say downfall is £1 shops, - we had a new one open about 18mths ago on the local retail park, its so easy to overspend it there... usually as min payment £5 for card payments - so your looking for 5 items, wam bam basket full. Usually choc and stuff dont really need. xx

lobbyludd

thanks M21

I have to avoid poundshops like the plague - everything always seems such good value, and then somehow I've spent £10....

although I did get some really lovely flowering bulbs for my garden and mum's christmas presents last year discounted to 25p each at the end of the summer....

picked 3 blackberries from garden, and 500 sawfly caterpillars squashed whilst devouring the goosegog bushes.

eaten the last of the chickpea casserole, for lunch and dinner, was very lovely so that's definitely going on my list of routine dishes.

spent money again on puddings for the kids, am going to have to wise up and be much stricter. But I'm very tired: fell asleep on the sofa after I picked them up from child-minder, I got them a snack, sat down to have a quick rest and open post: next thing I know DD was telling me she was hungry and could she have tea, this was an hour later at 7.30! so no time for baths let alone baking puddings tonight.

some swagbucks done, will check adpoints in a mo and look again to see if my Hx CC statement is online - it's due today - why is today the only time it's late!!

had a lovely snoop around people's diaries, very inspiring stuff

lobbyludd

3.36% repaid - tadah the right direction, although a drop!

lobbyludd

so our pay offer is in - actually it doesn't even appear to be an offer as the drs refused to negotiate and the uplift for cost of living is:

0%

again.

those on the national minimum wage will have it uplifted to the living wage which is obviously a good thing, and the rest of us get a one-off bribe of £160 (less tax, NI and pension contributions - which add up to 40% for most, so 96 quid, not to be consolidated into base pay - don't get too excited). My council tax went up £120 this year let alone any other inflation.

oh - except for the Drs, they get 1% obviously, and the GPs - which is fair enough, because they are hardly scraping by on £120K (sorry, they got an uplift last year as well, so £121.2K).

and i think that's where it really sticks in my throat: how is that OK?

my pay has increased 1% in 5 years, compound cpi is about 13% over that time, plus I've had a 3% rise in pension costs. so I'd have needed 15% to regain my position of 5 years ago - hey its a time of austerity though and the country's having a hard time, so I would have taken 1.5% and been happy - but no - nothing.

and no, I don't get a yearly increment.

How much did those MPs get again????

liltdiddylilt

Wow the unfairness. I am very lucky that I got a 3% rise this year. Just cost of living basically, but we are a small firm and I do realise how genuinely lucky I am to have employers who recognise that my salary needs to keep in line with inflation sometimes. Guess that is the perks of working for an Independent Financial Adviser. They can't well put their own employees into a negative financial position.

My MIL is a carer. I do not for the life of me understand how I am paid as much as I am per hour to sit at a desk and crunch numbers when she is looking after elderly, infirm, dying people, washing, cooking, cleaning, handing out medicines, cutting nails, not to mention all of the other much less glamorous things she does on a near hourly basis. She gets minimum wage and her 'wage increase' amounted to just over £10 for the year. Unbelievable.

I feel for you. I think that employers are using the 'recession' as an excuse!

lobbyludd

thanks Lilt - I've readjusted my expectations and am fine now - just a little rant really, I am fortunate, I am well paid and whilst prekids and for a wee while after I was very definitely a career woman who gained enormous satisfaction from her work, I had to leave that career and now I am aiming to reduce main work hours to a different w/l balance (one where I am not so tired I count the days until the kids go away......)

life is swings and roundabouts and I have choices that lots of folk don't have.

annoying bank charge has gone through which I had not budgetted for so am on the hunt for an extra £20 income for the end of next week so direct debit for broadband will clear. I've got £10 of phones to post off tomorrow, and have found £7.50 in the car - essentially because I've found that the back seats fold further away than I knew they did (had car for 4 years :rotfl:) and they've been hoarding money for me . AND very sticky hair covered sweets etc, bleugh, but it's worth the trade-off. must try and clean car at weekend, it is vile.

so I'm about 2.50 away, I think I may be able to scrape 50p from odds and sods in bank accounts, so that leaves £2.....

thinking cap is on....

also think I'll have to put unlocking the phone on credit card (orange charge £20 odd pounds and I need the phone unlocked before payday otherwise I'm wasting money on the cheaper new tariff and also have no phone) but I've the money to pay that straight off once payday comes.

12 days to payday, 10 days until kids go to lovely mum's for near a week

lobbyludd

have had to pay broadband with credit card. they wanted it today not next week. bah. but will transfer what's left in bank to credit card, I've obviously written the date down wrong - or perhaps the first month went out on a different date?

so that is now no money to last 11 days - there's going to be lots of that free fun going on at the the lobby family estate.

we're bursting at the seams for food, I'll have to get bread and milk next week which the phone recycling money will pay for, and I'm going to think hard about the phone unlocking.

jam tarts baked with dd this evening, very scrummy. will be lemon and lime biscuits tomorrow. I've an all day work thing tomorrow where they may provide lunch, but pate and watercress sandwiches to take just in case any way.

liltdiddylilt

We are all allowed a good rant. What's a virtual diary with real readers for if we can't say what we think and how we feel!? Still think it's pretty poor the way certain employers handle their employees. I've always been taught that no matter how insignificant someone or something may seem, they are a vital and integral part of a well oiled machine. Without them, the wheels undoubtedly come off. It is very true in the workplace. This week my colleague is off on holiday. I've seen people carting toilet rolls upstairs in the middle of the day because they haven't magically appeared. Envelopes have run out. The never-ending bypass tray of green paper on the printer is mysteriously empty. Not to mention the ENORMOUS piles of client files on top of the cabinets threatening to spill into piles on the floor. And when someone asks where something is? No-one knows! she is fantastic. Hope she knows! (Note to self: get her a thank you card!)

Sorry you're struggling with money pre payday. I was £180 in my overdraft but as at midnight my tax credits went in to clear me out of it. I have to try exceedingly hard to stay out of the OD though. I don't get paid til the 28th and if I don't stop this neverending cycle of using next months money to pay for this months things I will soon be back in debt, even with savings piling up in my bond.

Lmao at your discovering new bits of your car after 4 years! Love it when you find money down the back of the sofa. Unfortunately as no one in my household ever carries cash, there is literally not a penny spare!

Take care of you. 10 days to go...

lobbyludd

7 days to pay day......

neither weekend day was an NSD, but they were lsd's....

made an enormous amount of pizza dough, had hm pizza and froze the rest in 3 flat base shapes.
made vat of bolognaisse/chilli base will be portioned up to freeze tonight as is in fridge at the moment. All meals from stocks.

made brownies saturday - by sunday all gone.
made small experimental batch of lemon and lime biscuits - kids hated them, so I ate the all!

tried to get some DIY jobs done (which I've clearly underestimated as they are taking far longer than I'd thought - but all free). Nectar adpoints, swagbucks etc, completely exhausted

had to raid DD's piggy bank to send tenner to eldest's class for the "voluntary" snack money (eldest who is very picky about food does not eat the snacks provided so I stopped paying for them) but for reasons I am too cross to go into, I have capitulated and sent the money in.

so 7 NSDs coming up and then will have to return dds money.