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The Ultimate Incentive Part 11 (or 10B) It's The Final Countdown

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Comments

  • Dinah93
    Dinah93 Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Bake Off Boss!
    Gosh no no lie ins CMD Grace had us up by 7.15 every day, but we did have a lovely time as a family. Lots of firsts for Grace. She's a very active child and loved being so busy, the pool was a massive hit and she gained some confidence in the water. She also had her first go on a horse which she really took to too. She had a go on a bike .... got on it backwards, think she may take after me who managed to fall off navigating a small bend rather than my dad who was a semi-pro in his youth.

    Training went well, I'm now a fully qualified children's yoga teacher. DBS applied for and I should begin teaching after Easter.

    Very in the zone on getting things in order, so working hard to clear the debt. Spent the last 2 days sorting baby clothes, listing on facebook.... I've sold one thing. Completely disillusioned. So new plan, I'm going to sort out the best bits, anything I think is worth £3 individually - the designer stuff, mamas and papas, snowsuits, coats, shoes etc, count it, box it, label it, and put it in the attic. I'm going to register myself, NIM and my mum and the Teesside and Darlington NCT sales and each take our allowance to both sales, this is the best plan I can think of to maximise the value in what we have for least time. Anything that doesn't get boxed up today for those sales will get listed on one massive ebay listing, all the vests, sleepsuits, leggings etc. Even if I only get £5 for it is's £5 more than I have now and lots of stuff out of the house. Also been going through Martin's updated 50 ways to up your income guide so going to be investigating and signing up for some of those.

    NIMs to do list:
    • Organise mystery shop times and do ones that can be done today
    • Do todays MS reports
    • Find proof of qualifications for new job
    • Call solicitors
    • Reply to speed awareness course
    • Take Grace to softplay
    • Send Dinah's parcels
    • Sort out HSBC account

    Dinah's to do list
    • Pay Amex bill
    • Get updated debt figures
    • Sort out baby clothes into labelled, sealed boxes for NCT sales in May and put them in the attic
    • List all remaining baby clothes in one big ebay bundle
    • Do buzzagent surveys
    • Write out a plan for how we're going to tackle our debt from here forwards
    • Wrap 1x fb parcel and 1x ebay parcel
    • Reply to all texts/fb emails
    • Contacts friends hubby about surprising her on Saturday
    Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
    Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
    Met NIM 23/06/2008
  • Cinny91
    Cinny91 Posts: 6,022 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Debt-free and Proud!
    Got to say, you sound so much more positive in this post!! It's like the original MSE Dinah vibe from when you first cleared your debt :j

    Really hope everything's okay, Wendz. Always good when you can share your problems and get things off your chest! Sometimes I think even if the person you're speaking to can't really do much to help, just getting words out of your head and into the air works miracles!

    Spent all yesterday sorting the back bedroom and have officially reclaimed it as a bedroom and put some pretty cute Stag print bedding on to make it look pretty (got the set for something silly like £5 at Ikea!)

    Had Extreme Cheapskates on in the background and decided there's a lot more I could do to save us money. Not as extreme as they go - attempting to cook biscuits in my car, sharing dental floss or making breast pumps from things I find in a skip. But there has to be new ways to cut back that I just haven't thought of yet?!

    Totally unrelated (in a way) but I found this video last night and thought it might be a good thing to make for Mother's Day - or something cheap to make with kids for Grandmas? Although, obviously, the kids help would more be with decorating the jar than dealing with hot wax (as useless as I am with tiny humans, I assume they don't mix will with danger??)
  • wendz86
    wendz86 Posts: 7,171 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Sounds like the holiday was great and Grace had a great time. She would get on well with poppy, she won't sit still either!

    Its true Cinny, just knowing you are not alone helps a lot.
  • Dinah93
    Dinah93 Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Bake Off Boss!
    Thanks Cinny. It's very hard to get my head back in the game when there are little people taking up so much of it but at the moment I'm fairly there.

    Back on the health and fitness wagon too. Saw the GP yesterday, bp is lower but still high so tablets upped again. In her opinion if I can get down to 'at least' where I was weight wise between children I am likely to come off them again. So 3 stone to go, nearly 1 down. In her opinion the rule of everyone's bmi should be between 18-25 is a very blunt tool, some people could go their life at 28 and be completely healthy, some people's body will feel the extra strain at 23. She believes I'm someone designed to be healthy only at the very low end, as thats the only time my bp has ever been in the normal range. Focussed on the food at the moment as it's easy enough to make healthy meal choices but hard to find the time sometimes to exercise.

    Cinny, if you're looking to cut back to save money I'd give a lot of thought to the storage unit. What sort of stuff are you storing? What's martin's mantra about it being regularly used, making you money or seriously sentimental or something? Fits in with your can you get it in 20 minutes or under £20 too. If something is used so infrequently as to be in long term storage is it really worth keeping in your life? Mum was looking at a wardrobe sized unit to store some furniture that belonged to her grandad, but at £80 a month it really added up.
    Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
    Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
    Met NIM 23/06/2008
  • Birdie85
    Birdie85 Posts: 9,330 Forumite
    Glad to have you back and I'm happy that you had a lovely break. Looks like you got up to loads of fun stuff with the littlies! :)

    Glad you're feeling a little better Wendz, we're all here to give you virtual hugs and cookies whenever you need. :)

    I read 'storage unit' as some kind of shelving in the room, now I'm wondering what you did mean Cinny?! And £80 a month for a bit of storage space, yikes! I'm going to make sure my next house has a big garden so I can fill it with sheds and rent them out as storage space! :p

    Will have to watch that video tonight Cinny, not allowed on the you tubes at work! :o
    Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!
    Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb
  • Dinah93
    Dinah93 Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Bake Off Boss!
    Oh if you mean bookcase or cupboard then definitely worth the outlay!
    Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
    Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
    Met NIM 23/06/2008
  • Birdie85
    Birdie85 Posts: 9,330 Forumite
    Phew, happy update re: my missing frame, it's been delivered! :j It had been left in a shop a few doors down...??? Luckily my friend went sleuthing and found it, and loves it! :)
    Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!
    Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb
  • Cinny91
    Cinny91 Posts: 6,022 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Debt-free and Proud!
    Waaaahey! Glad your parcel made it there safely :) Must be a relief!

    I did mean more of an extra wardrobe/shelf system for storage, was actually this that we settled on. But I completely get where you were coming from, Dinah :) Still, we decided against getting it. Managed to sort everything quite tidily and at least 4 of the bulky items (floor lamps, curtains, rugs etc!) have been claimed by my Sister for her house so they'll be out of the way in a few months. So, technically, saved ourselves £45 there :p Just need an under bed storage box as OH's Mum sent a box containing alllllll of his primary school work (it's so cute, there's even some needle work samples I'm determined to frame!) and it's currently just looking messy in a box too big to put anywhere. And I'd rather it was messy in a box I could put out of sight.

    Forgot to say thanks to CMD in my last post :) I think we just live in a world where, especially as a woman, you're brought up thinking you're never quite good enough as the norm (obviously not by your parents, but by media influences) It's taken a lot of rewiring of my mentality to work against it but it feels pretty good! I've noticed the more accepting I've become, the less anxious I feel and I don't feel like I'm constantly fighting against the next bout of depression nipping at my heels. S'all good!
  • Dinah93
    Dinah93 Posts: 11,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Bake Off Boss!
    NIMs to do list:
      [STRIKE]
    • Organise mystery shop times and do ones that can be done today
    • Do todays MS reports[/STRIKE]
      [STRIKE]
    • Find proof of qualifications for new job[/STRIKE]
    • Call solicitors
    • Reply to speed awareness course
      [STRIKE]
    • Take Grace to softplay
    • Send Dinah's parcels[/STRIKE]
    • Sort out HSBC account

    Dinah's to do list
    • Pay Amex bill
    • Get updated debt figures
      [STRIKE]
    • Sort out baby clothes into labelled, sealed boxes for NCT sales in May and put them in the attic[/STRIKE]
      [STRIKE]
    • List all remaining baby clothes in one big ebay bundle[/STRIKE] Given away instead
    • Do buzzagent surveys [COLOR="rgb(72, 61, 139)"]Started but there are a lot! [/COLOR]
    • Write out a plan for how we're going to tackle our debt from here forwards [COLOR="rgb(72, 61, 139)"]Brain too fried by this time of night. Tomorrow. [/COLOR]
      [STRIKE]
    • Wrap 1x fb parcel and 1x ebay parcel [/STRIKE]
      [STRIKE]
    • Reply to all texts/fb emails[/STRIKE]
      [STRIKE]
    • Contacts friends hubby about surprising her on Saturday[/STRIKE]
    [/QUOTE]

    Wrote last night, forgot to post.

    Really glad your parcel arrived Birdie.
    Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
    Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
    Met NIM 23/06/2008
  • Birdie85
    Birdie85 Posts: 9,330 Forumite
    Cinny91 wrote: »
    Forgot to say thanks to CMD in my last post :) I think we just live in a world where, especially as a woman, you're brought up thinking you're never quite good enough as the norm (obviously not by your parents, but by media influences) It's taken a lot of rewiring of my mentality to work against it but it feels pretty good! I've noticed the more accepting I've become, the less anxious I feel and I don't feel like I'm constantly fighting against the next bout of depression nipping at my heels. S'all good!

    Ah, you're so right! I have been spending far too long looking at photos of the skinny-as-a-rake Eva Green recently (nothing weird, just that I'm dressing up as Vesper from Casino Royale tomorrow night!) and been bemoaning the fact that my portrayal of her will be Vesper-after-eating too-many-pies when really I just have to accept that I'm going to look like a great version of myself dressed up in the style of a character and be happy with that! :)

    Hope everyone has nice weekend plans, I've not even thought about Mother's Day yet :o I know it's supposed to be a nice day for all Mums but I'm just getting stressed and annoyed about having to see and please our 2 Mums when it's supposed to be 'my' day, and I'm not even bothered about it! We're going to be pretty hungover too so the thought of having to drive 30 mins to see Mum is pretty blegh. :p
    Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!
    Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb
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