Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

AleMrsT

Hi MissT. As it turns out one of the other girls is not very well so we've all decided to give it a miss, especially as it has been pouring with rain all day. Just cooked steak for me and my husband, we're about to cosy up on the sofa under a blanket catching up on episodes of the flash, arrow and supergirl, with candy floss from the fair. Lovely. Hope you're enjoying your Saturday evening so far.

twiggy86

Thanks AleMrsT - you've just made me realise I have a long forgotten bank account that potentially has a few pennies/pounds in! It's my money and I want it! £1.01 is better in your pocket than just sat there!

misstara

AleMrsT wrote: »

Hi MissT. As it turns out one of the other girls is not very well so we've all decided to give it a miss, especially as it has been pouring with rain all day. Just cooked steak for me and my husband, we're about to cosy up on the sofa under a blanket catching up on episodes of the flash, arrow and supergirl, with candy floss from the fair. Lovely. Hope you're enjoying your Saturday evening so far.

Sounds like a lovely evening hope this weekend has also been good.

AleMrsT

Hi All. Been to Bingo tonight with the girls from work, its free on a Monday but I spent £2 on the national game and £2.50 on some totally horrendous nacho's, I shared with my friend but honestly it was all greasy cheese and cheap tortillas just warmed through in the microwave. _pale_ None of us won any cash, although my friend was one number away from winning the £3000 jackpot.
Ah well, it was a cheap night out for less than a fiver.

I have used my emergency savings to make sure I have enough money for the car insurance DD and I desperately needed a new foundation, I found it on Amazing for £4.98, it was £12.99 in 8oots so very pleased with that. Going to try and replenish the emergency fund when I get paid as I'll get a full months wages, but OH has said not to stress too much. We also used his CC to pay for my passport renewal, so really want to try and help him get some of that paid when he finally sorts a new 0% CC to do a balance transfer.

In other news, I have managed to get back in with the ear nose and throat department at the hospital to talk through the options with my right ear. I still haven't received a copy of my letter so I called last week to follow it up and explained to the receptionist that I need a copy of the letter so that I can go back to the GP to get re-referred because I'd been discharged, even though the consultant said I could just call back if I wanted to discuss options etc. She said that didnt sound right so she got a copy of my letter and it stated that they recommend I do go back for another review, so she just booked me straight in for 4th January without having to be re-referred from my GP. Fingers crossed I can finally get something sorted, my colleagues are now getting frustrated with me too so I definitely need something sorting out.
On the work front, I'm still looking for jobs, as always! Nothing has come up recently, but I keep looking.

I have 3 days holiday left to book for 2016 (we have to have the majority of it booked by February), and I wanted to book three days off in February and got told I couldnt, I need to save those three days to use for next Christmas, the only way they could approve the days was to cancel some I have already booked!
I then asked exactly what days we'll need to use the 3 saved days for, and the response was 'we won't know until the summer'! I've just had confirmation a couple of weeks ago that I have a days holiday left to use for this year because we didnt need all three days saved for Christmas, so I've booked next Friday off which is my next hospital appointment.

It really bugged me! I had to cancel days I've already booked, despite me sticking to the deadlines they've set, to save 3 days holiday for dates they can't even confirm yet. So I've cancelled two of the days for our wedding anniversary, we haven't booked anything yet and we probably wont need to as we're going to Amsterdam in February, hence needing the 3 days.

Anyway, the place just makes me more angry every month. I get 16 days holiday, but as I said to the manager, I really get 13 to book of my own choosing, she disagreed with me, but I said they should say it how it is and just say 13 days holiday and 3 days paid leave at Christmas. I wouldnt mind as much if the 'saving holiday for Christmas' concept had always been the case, but it was introduced 2 years ago, presumably to save cash. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be rewarded for loyalty, not just end up worse off each year the longer you work there!

Back to positive stuff, we're going to Amsterdam in February through the charity that we're part of. Its a European convention, so the European charity will pay for our accommodation for 2 nights, and the UK charity has agreed to pay for our flights. We're going to extend the trip and pay for an extra two or three nights in the hotel ourselves, so the whole thing (including my passport renewal) should cost us less than £200!! Of course we'll have to budget for spending money etc, but we have a few months to sort it. I'm so excited!! Whether or not my holiday request gets approved by the second manager, I'm going! (because I work across two departments, both managers have to sign my holidays before they get passed to the director for approval. I'm the only person that has to do that, hence why I like to get all my requests in as early as possible)
Its our work christmas party next week, I really don't want to go but it is the ONE thing that the company pay for, so I'm going to go! Shouldnt cost too much as I will only have a couple of soft drinks and lifts there and back have already been arranged.

On the christmas front I have so far got a small gift for OH, something for my sister, part of my niece's present, and the two secret santa gifts. Need to give my mum some money towards my grandma's present, then have around 5 more gifts to get and I'm done.
OH and I have had some very sensible gifts this year, we asked my parents for some new kitchen pans, (wok and a frying pan) and we've asked OH's parents for a new suitcase with wheels, as the holdall we have gets far too heavy to carry around, and especially now we have Amsterdam arranged we need some decent luggage. Very rock and roll this year! :rotfl:

I think thats all for now from me, hope everyone is doing ok, I will try and get caught up with diaries this week.

AleMrsT

Happy Sunday everyone!

It has been a pretty standard weekend, work yesterday, husband was at work until 11pm and I was at my parents babysitting their foster children whilst they had dinner out.
Today has been another spend free day, I have put a load of washing on, OH went to work for the late shift again and I have been out with my sister and her husband to see the christmas light switch on with my niece.

Since I got back I have applied for 5 jobs! I applied for two more on Tuesday, and got a phone call about one of them on Wednesday morning, unfortunately it wasn't in the right location and it was impossible for me to get to without a car. Really frustrating as it was a decent pay rise and the job sounded perfect.

Ah well, lets hope something comes from the five I've applied for today :rotfl:

My husband doesnt finish work until 11pm again so going to head off to bed shortly to read my book as it is so cold, and I'm also quite tired so could benefit from a reasonably early night.

Payday tomorrow cannot come soon enough!!
I've just realised it is the end of the month so my stepchange totals will have updated, then I can update my signature :j

Off to catch up on diaries, update my signature then sneak off to bed with my book for an early night.
Hope everyone has had a fab weekend.

AleMrsT

Just done my payment review on my DMP, apparantly I have an extra £10 a month to put to my debts, and will be debt free a year earlier. Woop!

AleMrsT

PAYDAY!!!

I've paid for a few bits and bobs today and the bills money has gone out of my account so I currently have a balance of £450.41 (with some payments to be processed from today)

The breakdown is as follows;

Balance of account £5.67

Income £1045.31

TOTAL £1050.98

£550 bills
£30 to savings
£6.45 to post passport renewal application :mad: (special delivery!)
£3.30 postage for secret santa gift
£3.29 lunch
£9.99 for 24 toilet rolls :rotfl:
£2.99 for an xbox game for me an hubby to try
£3.49 for toiletries

Leaves £441.47 left.

BUDGET:
£20 savings
£71 debt
£120 food shopping
£28 bus fare
£13 gym
£25 for next months pension payment
£20 work christmas party
£30 meal out with friends

leaves £114.47 surplus.

I have £130 (including what I've transferred to savings today) saved for christmas, and will have another £20 to add when the savings DD goes through, I would like to replenish the £50 I 'borrowed' from the back up fund, but it would be better to get christmas out of the way, especially considering we'll need around £60 in petrol to get to the inlaws, so I think i'm going to transfer £64.47 to the savings account linked to my current account, so I can't see it when I check my balance at a cash point, but I can instantly transfer the money across online if I need it for anything.

I've just had a text off my mum asking for my bank details so she can transfer me some money to buy myself an outfit for the work christmas party, she's giving me £100 :T Bless her. So I may budget £80 for an outfit :eek: and the rest as spends for the party, freeing up an extra £20 from my wages (to put back towards the back up fund?! decisions decisions)

All looking good so far, but we shall see what happens!!!

Applied for another job today, and heard back from one of the ones I applied for yesterday saying I've not been successful.

Off to write a shopping list so we can go food shopping tomorrow now we've been paid, looking forward to checking the bills account with OH tomorrow to make sure everything has gone out ok and to see how much surplus we have, if any.

AleMrsT

Hi All,

So Friday night update, its been a VERY spendy week (for me anyway) but I still have £200 in my account and all of the bills have been paid and food shopping done!! Woo hoo.

Spent £22.67 in tesco and £45.34 in aldi for the grocery shopping, (from the bills account) we didnt need too much as I bough toiletries from savers and we have a lot of meat left over in the freezer so that should all last us a while.

I bought two dresses from tk Maxx to try for the christmas party (with the £100 that my mum gave me), spent £60.03 but got a £24.99 refund as I returned one of them.

I then bought a pair jeans for £19.99, a jumper for £12 and another jumper for £16.99

Then on Wednesday I got 3 more christmas presents from b&m (and a few little bits for the house), spent £29.06 in total but got washing up liquid, shampoo, hair spray, shower gel and an oil burner for the wax melts I made from melting down the dregs of my yankee candle!

I also had a look round the charity shop today and got three tops, two for work and one is a nice smart top, spent £13.32 in total (including a british heart foundation raffle ticket to win an M&S hamper). Two of the tops are next ones and one of them is a F+F tesco one!

Seems like I've spent way more than I really needed to, but it came from the money my mum gave me to treat myself with so I'm happy with that.

I've just ordered three more christmas presents on AS0S, £26, only a few more to get now and I know what I need, apart from deciding what else to get my niece.

All in all, things seem to be going well!!

OH said on Thursday that in the new year he's going to look at his finances to see if he can afford to get us a second car, this means that we can get a newer, small car for me to use, and it means I can apply for more jobs further afield as I won't be restricted by public transport, and we can keep our current car rather than swap it as we will have a second car to fall back on if the main car does start needing repairs. :T I'm so excited, but not sure what the budget for this is and we havent looked at it seriously yet.

Got to get Christmas and Amsterdam out of the way, and the holiday. We'll see!!

Off to catch up on some more diaries and see if there are any more christmas presents I can buy online, then wait for husband to get in from work at 9.

Its the work christmas party tomorrow so I'm going to get my hair dyed (I have the dye already and my mum will do it so it wont cost anything) and we're putting the christmas tree up on Sunday so looking forward to the weekend actually!

Have a good weekend everyone.

AleMrsT

ALSO, my new passport arrived already!! Literally took less than a week. Very impressed!

The husband and I sat on Wednesday night scanning all of our important documents and saving them to dropbox in case of emergencies. I just worry that if theres ever a house fire, all of your documents get lost in the fire, so if we have an electronic scan of them, at least we'll have insurance policy documents and passport/driving licence numbers to order replacements.
I hope we never need the back up, but at least they're there and for peace of mind we don't have to worry about it now!

AleMrsT

I haven't posted in a while so thought I should stop by with an update. I have finished all of my christmas shopping, everything is wrapped and ready to go. I have around £75 left in my account and STILL have all of savings left :T I need to transfer the money to OH's credit card for my passport renewal, and remembered I still owe my grandma £50 from when she paid my sister for the sofa, so going to pay those bits off as soon as I can.
Have been to the hospital this morning to get my line flushed, so mum and I then went for a wander round the shops, it was lovely to get there early, we were finished by 10.45 so we went to see my sister and niece, I then looked after my niece whilst my sister went for her flu jab.
I have four more working days at work until I finish for Christmas, and I'm not back in then until Saturday 2nd January :j:j:j:j:j:j So happy about that! I'm actually pleased my first day back is a Saturday, as they are usually quiet so it will ease me back in gently after two weeks off. :rotfl:

The flights for Amsterdam are all booked, £330 but the charity has paid those, we just have to pay for the hotel which is £72 per night as it is subsidised, so a four day break in Amsterdam is costing us £288 (not including my passport renewal).

My mum told me today that we're no longer going on holiday in September as my sister doesn't want to go now as they can't afford it (they've moved house and bought a new car so have used up their savings). I would still like to go away somewhere, maybe even with my parents, and they've said they will still give me money for my birthday so that we can book a holiday, so I'll speak to my husband and see what he says. I think I'd quite like to go somewhere just the two of us, as we haven't ever been abroad by ourselves before.

I returned both dresses that I bought with the money that mum gave me for the christmas party and bought two winter jumpers and a pair of jeans, then used the rest to finish my christmas shopping, then me and OH went for a meal on Monday night which I paid for, it was £26 so wasnt too bad really. Still have around £10 left in change which means I won't have to use my card if I need anything from town during my last four days at work.

The christmas meal with friends on Saturday is £25 for three courses, so I have budgeted £30 including drinks (my friend or I will drive), which leaves me with £45 in my account until I get paid next Wednesday, which I'm hoping to forget about until the end of the month and treat it as a normal pay day. I hate the long wait until January pay, I usually love getting paid early in December because it means I can buy some extra christmas stuff, but I'm not doing that this year, I'd rather plan better for it. I saw the Soap and Glory offer in Boots today, mum said to get one but I only use one of the items so its an expensive bottle of shower scrub when you look at what I'd actually use. I sold a load of Soap and Glory stuff on ebay when we were at the old house, it was products leftover from two previous half price deals that I just never used.

Think thats all for updates from me, off to make a cup of tea and do some washing and ironing before my husband gets home from work.