Courgette's 'Frugality gives us options' diary

Courgette

Great idea EG! Sounds very organised too!

Did some sums and worked the cost of us visiting all the museums just once over the next 12 months would be £59 so it definitely is money saving. Gonna hunt out some more free stuff first though

museumworker

Just popping on to say your London weekend sounds lovely, so glad you enjoyed it and apologies I wasn't feeling well enough to meet you. You'll have to come again soon

Sorry to hear you're not feeling great - I had low iron levels in pregnancy and I felt really worn out. I subscribed to spatone on Amaz0n which worked out only a few quid for a month's supply, it's one of the few supplements I've noticed making a difference so I still take it now to deal with fatigue.

Great news on possible daytime work and also eBay sales sound like they're doing brilliantly.

Definitely buy the annual Musuem pass

Courgette

Thanks MW!

Yes, London was really great and yes, shame but as Arnie says....I'll be back! :eek:

My general malaise has been solved - a severe vitamin D deficiency. I've let Gallygirl know she needs to get the spare room ready as I'll be overwintering with her from now on :cool:

I've not seen the GP yet (just got results over the phone) but in the meantime have bought a load of vitamin D and spatone from Amazon to start building me back up again. I'm glad to get an explanation but I'm a bit worried about it all really too as I have a lot of symptoms like painful wrists when I pick the children up and painful hips too. Still, must be positive. Might mean to move to Shetland will have to be swapped for a move to the south of France (what a shame :rotfl:)

Half term here now and the weather is being suitably grim. We're having a day out at the Deep in Hull today but this is the only expensive day we've got planned. Tickets already bought so just train fare. Will take a packed lunch obviously

Rest of the week should be pretty much free except for bus fares.

Oh, exciting eBay news....Drum roll please.....We've passed £9k!!!!!!! That's £9k turnover for two months. I had a hardcore offence day on Tuesday and that's pushed it up. I'm very very pleased as you can probably imagine! :T

Right, time to crack on. Have a good day, all!

gallygirl

Courgette wrote: »

I've let Gallygirl know she needs to get the spare room ready as I'll be overwintering with her from now on :cool:

I think I'm going to need bunk beds :eek::eek::eek:

Well done on ebay :T.

Save

newgirly

That's so impressive courgette well done :T

Tropically

Wow that's very impressive! Great work!!

Pooky

Brilliant turnover - can't even begin to imagine how many parcels you've sent out! Do the post office collect from you?

earthgirl

Sorry to hear the vit D is a problem..hope it improves soon and you get the help and support from the docs you need.

Great offence!!

Courgette

So there I was minding my own business mooching around an allotment with the lads when I spotted a courgette. The boys got very excited and started shouting "Mummy, courgette, look Mummy courgette" (clearly I need to get them out more if seeing a vegetable growing on a plant arouses such high excitement :rotfl:). Anyway, it got me thinking....yeah, Courgette - where is she these days? I used to get such fabulous support from this place so I really need to be back don't I!

Some news, but not loads. eBay 60 day turnover has now gone over £10,000 which is totally fab. Mortgage something like £78,000 which is less fab.

We also got planning permission granted for our kitchen extension. I drew the plans myself and it only took three attempts to get the planners to accept them, apparently they need to be accurate. Who knew! Anyway, quotes from the builders to do the whole lot averaged around £12,000 excluding the actual kitchen units themselves obviously so we, being tight gits, decided it'd be a good idea to do it ourselves. You know, both work, three kids one of whom has only just finished A levels and another who is only at nursery 15 hours. What could possibly go wrong?!

So far it's taken us 4 weeks and counting to dig the footings (we decided to do it by hand. Never, ever again) but we are thankfully nearly at the point of Latin cement.

I've also had to have lots of ridiculous conversations with various people way more knowledgeable than I am about various building related stuff. It's fun and I'm learning loads but it's gonna be slow going!

I've also started teaching online, working with a school in China. I'm really pleased about that as the hours are much more family friendly than tuition usually is although the rate of pay isn't quite so high.

All family debts are also cleared which is obviously great.

So actually I've been pretty busy! One more year before DS3 starts school (we deferred his start date due to being a very late August boy) and I've enjoyed this time. I haven't been as aggressive with the mortgage as I could have been but in hindsight I'm pleased despite sometimes feeling frustrated by this.

I'll start posting more regularly again now as we start to move into this new chapter in our lives

earthgirl

Great to have an update courgette!
Wow to drawing your own plans and actually doing your own building work. £10k in 60 days is ace.

Ds2 starts school in August so I've been enjoying this year