Second Time Lucky

amycool

Make that £391!!! My beautiful little Adeline seemed out of sorts and started coughing and wheezing, and the other two were also sneezing. So my first ever trip to a vet happened yesterday and we're £63 worse off and have 10 days of trying to put foul tasting medicine in our very anxious girl's mouths!! Apparently the stress of moving can cause a flare-up of respiratory problems. Also, if this happens young, they will likely have lots more as they get older. Joy!

Having said all of that, they are worth it. Watching them play in the evenings is great, especially when there's nothing on TV. We're still working on socialising them as they are quite anxious of being handled, but we'll get there in the end. Lots of treats needed I think.

So today I didn't get paid for the first time in a long long time. It's a bit scary but I know it's the right decision not to go back. Just have to let work know now but I'm in no hurry as not due back until October.

OH's new work contract came today. There are some worrying phrases like having to work unpaid overtime and only getting 4 weeks holiday a year including bank holidays. :cool: I'm hoping the reality will be different as in this job there was a fair bit of flexibility. He starts in September. The pay is about the same as before but we will save on travel costs.

OH has also found out that he may be owed some money from when he was a student and paid tax on his grant (or something - over my head). He doesn't understand it either but a girl from his course has just received about a £3000 refund so we'll see what happens. It looks like you have to fight for it but maybe if a few people go for it, it'll be easier for us! £3000 would be welcome. :rotfl:

The mums are doing a collection for the teacher. I was thinking £5 (3 teachers to buy for) as 27 X 5 = a lovely gift for each. They're saying £10!!!! They're nice teachers but they are getting a wage...

It's raining yet again so yet another load in the tumble drier. Grrrr. I have at least managed to avoid putting on the heating but it's been close. The rats create more washing (hammocks, plus pooing on everything!) and I had hoped in July I could hang it out.

Had a nice day out last weekend and treated ourselves to a Crepe and an ice cream - yum. Then went to B&Q to make another safer enclosure for the rats. This weekend we're visiting some friends so it should be a cheap weekend.

I managed to get lots of Aldi school uniform. No idea of the quality and may have bought too big (DD grows out of everything so fast) but it should get some use. I'm thinking halfway through the holidays I should get her to try everything on and see what else I need. Still need cardigans as she has lost ALL of them.

I am no longer eating healthily. The stress of the poorly rats has driven me to binging on sugar. Shame on me.

Pushkin

Hi Amy - oh no how unlucky to have a vets trip so early on - are they insured - can you even get pet insurance for rats? When I was in the vets this week there was a man in there getting his tortoise checked out as he thought he was under the weather (not sure how you tell!) - vets really do have to cover a wide range of creatures huh.

End of term presents for teachers is another thing that winds me up - there are even cards in the shops as well now - the whole commercial pressure of it totally takes the joy out of it. Not to mention the fact that as you say they do earn a salary. I used to get DS's teachers a box of chocolates at Christmas and end of the school year and that was it -one advantage to working I guess is that I was never part of the school gate clique so didn't tend to get involved with clubbing together with other parents - one of whom often tends to be somewhat bossy :cool:

Enjoy the rats - keep your blog updated with their progress - I find it fascinating - never realised they were so interactive.

amycool

Sadly pet insurance for rats doesn't seem to exist. I was aware that they're quite susceptible to illness so it wasn't a huge shock, but I was thinking we'd get a few months before the first vet trip!

All three seem much better over the past few days and they're awake a lot more. I weighed them all this morning and Angora (the smallest) has put on 25g in a week! Adeline (the fattest) put on 24g and Apple (who used to be the greediest) only put on about 12g. Not sure what the norm is for this age but I'm happy they're not losing. I can't work out why Adeline is so chubby as she rarely eats when I'm there. A secret eater.

Since hand-feeding, they all come up straight away now when I go in the cage. Still hate being picked up though.

I'm not in any of the cliques. I never have been! I like to flit from person to person and some people don't like that I do that. I particularly like chatting to anyone who is always on their own or the grandparents who seem to get ignored a lot.

So, today was home insurance renewal day and it was a bit depressing! How can having more years of no claims still make the prices go up so much? Last year it was £90 with £32 cashback. This year I had the choice of £98 with no cashback so I tried Aviva and got it for £135.80 with £50.50 cashback plus £30 M&S vouchers. They paid out pretty quickly for the car insurance so hopefully will again.

One day I hope to be one of those people you see on here who somehow get paid to insure with massive cashback. One day...

Right, better get the second load of washing on.

amycool

Sports day today! So funny watching 5 year olds completely ignore the instructions and picking up the wrong coloured bean bag etc. :rotfl: DD was hilariously bad at every event apart from the egg and spoon, where she did great. She loved it and didn't get upset when her team came last.

One more day of school and then the summer holidays begin! To add a bit of structure (DD hates lack of structure and gets very stressed during holidays) I've decided that Mondays we will do some crafts, Tuesdays baking or shopping, Wednesdays library and story writing, Thursdays parks and numbers and Fridays a proper day out. The weekends will probably be much the same as usual. I have virtually no spare cash now I'm not earning so ideally we won't spend much. There's National Trust places and beaches for free, just petrol. I will probably buy her a few treats and she has pocket money now.

I wish we had more kids on the estate (or just kids who actually leave the house) as she loves playing out and is very sociable.

In teacher gift news, I ended up paying up the £10, only to discover that they only gave a gift to 2 of the 3 teachers!!! So I spent another £2 on a box of chocolates. Grrr.

The plan for tomorrow is to look in my box of goodies and see what I can use in the holidays (I have a magic trick book but not sure she is quite old enough to get it yet) and get all my plans out. I might get DD to plan Thursday and Friday and then my plans start Monday. Then I will cross my fingers for lots of nice weather.

Muser1

Crikey you break up late! We are halfway through week 2!

debtfreeoneday

Plans are always good! Hope it works out well

amycool

Oh dear.

Well, the first few days of the holidays, being Thursday and Friday, went fine. I think DD thought she was going back to school on Monday despite telling her a million times. Some normal 5 year old behaviour but we had a nice trip to the park, played together, and had a day out with daddy, which cost more than I had hoped! By Sunday though, it dawned on her that she had to put up with me for another 5 weeks and it's been awful! Today has been particularly bad. Sigh.

I still have my plan though and I'll keep sticking to it and hope the routine eventually works.

Money-wise I have no idea what has been going on! Groceries for this month were nearly £100 more than last month!!! I've just realised why actually - I bought all that uniform from Aldi, plus some summer holiday stuff. That makes sense. Phew.

It was very fortunate than in the first single wage month my OH got some money back for some stuff and earned a bit doing work for another uni. So that was £150 extra. So I overpaid £450, which is pretty good.

Just waiting for Halifax to update my account. I think I'll be at about £48200.

DD is currently at the in-laws so I have time to do the end of month finances. How exciting. Tomorrow was supposed to be baking, but I'm really not sure how that will go. Plan B is a day of cleaning the house as then DD can join in (she quite likes cleaning sometimes) and I can use it as an excuse to walk into the village for cleaning spray. Wednesday we're meeting Nana, Thursday a friend is taking us to the park, then Friday we're going to a NT place. I'm just focussing on this week at the moment!

Goals for August:

Survive
Be a bit more careful with the food shopping
Stop buying things on a whim
Hand in resignation (work out how to do this first)
Sort out phone and internet deal as this runs out
make more hammocks and buy more rope so rats can use top half of the cage (currently closed off)

amycool

Forgot to mention I got a voucher for £5 free on tombola.com I won £9.97! Got very excited then realised you can't withdraw less than £10 and you can't play with the free money until you've spent yours.

On the plus side, bingo is very very fun. I just do 10p each go so I can have lots of fun without spending any of my own money. Still hoping for a big win. As if.

debtfreeoneday

If it helps, behaviour of my littlies was appalling the first few days of the hols.. Keep with your routine, I'm sure it will be fine!

amycool

Just checking in very quickly whilst DD watches a film (been frantically getting some admin done!).

Holidays are going okay, with a few wobbles. The weather has been utterly rubbish so far so hardly any outdoor stuff done. I have the tent waiting but hasn't been dry enough to use it! Fingers crossed for sunshine.

We have baked and painted, cleaned and coloured, watched the Olympics, played lots of lego and barbies and been to soft play. We've been to a few National Trust places too. £6.50 for 3 ice creams!! :eek:

I have officially resigned today - work said I should keep my mind open in case I change my mind in the next 2 weeks. nice to be wanted!

I need to sort out the phone and internet as that deals ends in 2 weeks and my gas and electric is going to go up next month too. I also need to book driving lessons ready for September. I'm thinking once I find an instructor I like, I might try some intensive lessons and hopefully get this whole learning to drive thing out of the way quicker! We totally can't afford it but we have savings.

In rat news, no more vet trips thankfully, although they're all still slightly sneezy. They're so much fun to watch - they all went crazy over a piece of broccoli the other day, then we put an eaten sweetcorn cob in and they loved it. I'll have to order more food and litter soon.

Struggling to convince OH that we now have less money. He's still spending as he was before and when I try to have a serious conversation he just makes jokes. I know he must feel annoyed that he works so hard and gets very little money to have fun with, but I get £0 now! I forfeited my "spends" when I left work. I guess I'll have to keep mentioning it without nagging. Or show him the spreadsheet but his eyes will glaze over.

3 and a bit weeks left to go! Still got a few nice things planned but today was a relaxing day. DD was still in PJs at 9.30, which was lovely!