New Year, New start.....

October_Starter

You are doing well HM.

Each little bit you pay off helps to reduce the debt. I don't know whether you have noticed, I know I did, your way of life changes without you even fully realising. I am always aware of what I am spending and how I can save money now. I still have a long way to go but I think I have made some huge improvements.

I don't have any children of my own but I can sympathise with you on the nursery costs. It seems ridiculously unfair for parents who want to work full time and therefore pay taxes and NI but who also have to pay huge sums for nursery fees. Unfortunately, like a lot of things, I don't think the government are going to help.

Keep going, you are doing so so well.

October xx

HarrysMummy

Lilt - Unfortunately the anitbiotics are mine, chest infection ahoy!! Not sure what to say for your collegue getting away from poor child lol I'd happily stay at home all day everyday with dude if somebody would pay my bills and give me spending money lol. He's such a little character of late and really becoming a proper little person. It's amazing to watch and I swear he changes daily.

DFOD - OH actually works at ome but the jobs he's doing really wouldn't work with dude around. So we decided even though it does cost that nursery would be the better option so daddy could spends evenings and weekends with us. Days like today wouldn't work anyway as he's out and about working and so wouldn't be able to have dude around! (it's a complicated job but he can be called out at any point even though he's actually working from home the majority of the time. Roll on when he turns 3 for the free hours!!

October - You are so right on the way I spend changing. I really loathe spending anything now and quite happily go into town with my mum etc and come back not havin even though about opening my purse. The debt is going down, slowly but maybe it's like weight, the slower it comes off the more likely it is to stay away :rotfl:

Having said that dropping dude at nursery this morning and a warning light has appeared on the car :mad: one thing after another at the moment. We were having a really good month and haven't really touched the accounts for un-budgetted spending.... the emergency fund really needs to be built up for times like these I think, luckily there's no council tax this month or next so that should pay for it and hopefully save the rest (if there's any left over!!)

Another bank account round down means £5.51 made it's way to emergency fund yesterday though. AND magpie FINALLY paid today so once I get home I will be paying that off the MBNA card too, so that will be another £14.71 gone yay

liltdiddylilt

Hey lady... I didn't honestly know what to say to my colleague. Frankly if I had the option I would NOT be at work!! And I would have a raft full of kids. Colleague is chinese and very set in certain ways. So I think that has a lot to do with it. They were also very hard up for money so there was not much choice even sacrificing most of her income to childcare. I complain about being away from my family, but honestly she is on a different continent to hers, speaking a different language and bringing her son up bilingually!

Hope the car doesn't need anything doing to it and you have had a good day! I know the one about not spending! I am so tight that Him asked me to day if I could have ANY treat what would it be and I could not think of a single thing I would happily pay money for. Not even a takeaway :rotfl:

xx

HarrysMummy

Thanks for popping by everybody. A busy couple of days for us. Not much spendy news, had to buy a new printer but work will cover that so not really out of our pocket.

Paid off another £30 to MBNA and minimum payment of £25 has also been paid. Now putting the MBNA at £863.96, so well under the £900 mark. This means since the beginning of January I have paid off just over £100 , plus about £20 interest has been added over the 2 months so really chipping away at it.

Feeling a lot more positive about getting rid of the debt recently. I'm in the process of loading pictures onto the pc from the camera to list some things onto eb*y so hopfully have a few sales. I have a fair bit on TCB waiting to become payable too so this will really help once it lands.

Little dude has been a bit of a nightmare the last few nights, he just fights bed time and sleep so much and it's obvious he's so tired and just won't give in. This means lots of late and then sleepless nights for me as he wakes up 5-6 times!!:( Of course it has to be me who gets up with him, then me who gets up with him in the morning. I still have to do the housework and look after him all day too so this has caused a few issue with me and OH recently.

Anyway, enough waffling on. Not much else to report.

liltdiddylilt

Hello!

I feel your sleep issues pain. Jellytot only started sleeping through after she was nearly 2. And I breastfed for the first 8 months, giving him carte blanche to sleep through everything because he couldn't feed her. He continued that, even when I went back to work I would wake up at the noise and have to wake him 2-3 times whilst staying awake to make sure he actually went and did something rather than just going back to sleep. It actually got to a point I started kicking him. So I know how many issues it can (and still does) cause. Even now she has the odd bad night, Weds night being one of them. She spent most of the night awake, eventually climbed into our bed without me even noticing on Hims side, and as he gradually moved out of her way and pushed me away I woke uncomfortable to hear her snoring. She woke up after 9am! Little monkey. All explained now as she has been under the weather since Weds daytime at nursery and has started being sick this afternoon. Bug.

Hope little dude gives you some much needed sleep!! And OH mucks in and does some housework.I ended up writing a chores list and he stick to it now and does more washing than I do!

YAY for being under £900. What an amazing amount you've paid off already! :T xx

HarrysMummy

Thanks Lilt, I've been feeling a bit disheartened recently thinking if I could just find extra money and have them cleared it would be great. So logging on today and finding my minimum payment has gone out and then rounding down my bank with an extra payment has really given me a boost. Being below the £900 mark just makes me more determined to get rid of it asap. I know I still have the other card, but my main focus is the MBNA and once it's gone I'll worry about the other. Too much to tackle extra payments for both.

OH has gone to the pub!! I think he realised when he was going out that I wasn't in a good mood with him and half heartedly offered to stay. I told him to just go. Dude ended up in my bed on Thursday night just so I could sleep, this resulted in OH on the sofa. Funnily enough dude slept through till about 8.30 in MY bed! Typical. The thing is he was a great sleeper from about 11 weeks he slept from 7pm (on the dot, you could literally set your watch by him) till 6.30-7am and he did this until he was around 11 months when his teeth started really bothering him. Since then he's been a bit of a nightmare. He's 15 months now, not sure I can cope with this till he's 2!!

Having said that I saw some friends this morning with their new tiny babies and got very broody, and would be extremely happy to have another one now given half the chance! I think it's more that fact that I know hes tired but he just wont give in. If he wasn't tired or was poorly or had a reason to not sleep it wouldn't bother me as much (I'd still be a zombie but at least I'd know why) Kids, who'd have em:rotfl:

Well manage to list 4 items on eb*y and taken 77 photos of things to list earlier today. I didn't even realise there were 77 things in my pile to list!!:eek: Not sure where I'm going to fit those into the mix, but they are duly imported onto the pc and I'll list as and when I have a spare few minutes. Unfortunately since I sold my Iphone and got a Nokia I don't really like listing from the app. I don't think the camera is much cop on the Nokia so would rather do the long winded way. I prefer my stuff to have a great looking picture as I feel it makes all the difference, I know I'd pick out the listing that had the better photo so presume everybody else would too. If you're gonna do a job, you might as well do it right and all that.

Checked accounts again and can't do much till the other cards minimum payment has gone out and then I'll know what I've got left to play with. Must remember to keep £20 back for a hair cut next week. I've booked the mobile hairdresser to chop my mop! It's very long over due, the last time I had it cut was for my wedding, It'll be my 4th anniversary in 4 months time!!!:rotfl:

liltdiddylilt

OMG to your hair!!! I wish I could do that. I left it just over a year once after a really awful cut and since then have had it done religiously while my hairdresser grew out the bad cut. It was finally all gone the last time. Serves me right for having it done by someone I knew was rubbish jst because it was cheap and I had no money.

I think my to list pile is similar to yours :eek: - thank goodness for my iPhone... the pictures I take of Jelly number into the dozens a week. :rotfl:

I had a friend come with her 7 week old baby. It made me want a tiny one but at the same time I magically remembered the feeding every 2 hours etc and sleepless nights and decided to wait until Jelly is at school

I've just run my whole budget through YNAB, successfully budgeted everything and you've reminded me that jelly & I both have haircuts booked. D'Oh. Re-jiggle. xx

debtfreeoneday

My two turned 4 recently and it's only been the last 6 months that we are reliably getting through each night from both of them (says she who was up four times in the night last night).. they seemed to tag team, one would wake for a week and then the other would take over.

If we were in a different situation, I would love to have more.. but realistically it's not going to happen. One of the big contributors to our debt was lots of IVF and there was no way we could save for that. You can't put a price on children and I'd of gone into as much debt as necessary to have them.

Sorry I'm rattling on in your diary!

Have a good weekend, well done for getting so many things pictured and ready for ebay!

stepuptothepl8

Hi! Just to go back to the tablet question.. We bought DD a hudl for Christmas, used all our vouchers and one of those double deals etc. It's great, and the children safety things are easy to use and set up. Reminder to self - I need to reset the time limits after half term..

Part of my debt is from IUI, DFOD

You're doing great HM, keep it up!

HarrysMummy

Sooooo figures in signature have changed a bit this morning. Don't worry no spending spree (I wish), but my MBNA card offered me a 0% balance transfer for 12 months. They also increased my credit limit :rotfl:probably to give me funds to be able to do a balance transfer!
So I've moved £1000 from the NW card to the MBNA card. It's cost me £35 in fees but thats the interest I pay monthly on the NW card anyway!!

Now I just need to wait until my next statements come through so I can work out what my minimum payments are for each, then I can work out what I can actually pay off. I hate this waiting game!!

DFOD - I would have had no issue at all getting into debt to have children, little dude has 100% been the making of me. It took me just over a year to fall with him and we had a few scary test results at the beginning but thankfully he turned out perfect. I'm not sure realistically if we could have another due to finances but I feel very lucky to have him so if it doesn't happen I won't be too upset. I have brothers and sisters so I'd ideally like him to have a sibling but we shall see how the future goes I guess. It was a big worry whe I fell pregnant that I would have twins as they feature in both my immediate family lines! I seriously applaud parents of twins, I genuinely think you must be super heros, I know people say when it happens you just deal with it but I cannot imagine how I would have managed with 2 of little dude running around!