From debt to freedom...

Cherryfudge

I think I'd be inclined to make the CC payment manually then complain to the bank that it had been missed. When the bank didn't change my mortgage payment as arranged, causing a missed payment, I rang them up and explained and was given a compensatory payment as it was their mistake and if I'd not been ahead with payments I'd have been penalised

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge, a manual payment seems to be the best thing. Yesterday I had to transfer £100 to use towards the council tax payment I'd forgotten so glad that's out of the way. I'll make sure council tax is in big red capital letters in my financial planning book for next month!

I spent 4 hours at work yesterday trying to get everything ready for next term. We got back at usual work time, so tea was cobbled together. I had some frozen fish portions in the freezer so poached them in milk, flaked them and made a kind of cod and salmon kedgeree. It was quite nice, not as good as using smoked haddock but a decent alternative. I was going to do banana and custard for dessert but got callled away on taxiing duty.

I need to fill up the tins today and make time to defrost the freezer and stocktake. Nhoping that I can get out with the children, even if for a ramble somewhere!

Honeysucklelou2

It's been a delightfully busy day today and I didn't manage to do either task I set myself this morning! I've not done any work based tasks today and tried not to worry about it :cool:. Instead I've done more loads of laundry, can't remember how many, and got some line dried :T. I found my push mower that I bought last year, put WD40 on all moving parts and then cut the lawn. It was so beautiful outside and I really enjoyed just pottering around the garden. DS3 joined me and was happily rediscovering his pedal tractor!

I had to go to the nearest town this afternoon but got a couple of jobs done from the list the solicitor gave me last week. Both were little jobs but needed doing and I felt better feeling I'd done something towards the list . I had to do a little top up at Mr T's then DD1 volunteered to cook tea ( enchiladas) which gave me enough time to nip to the allotment and dig over part of a bed and plant 3 gooseberry bushes :T. These bushes have been waiting to be planted for the last 2 or 3 weeks, so am very glad to have got that job done. I also had time to walk a dog with DS1.

DS3 helped me to check the plants this evening and I got a large tray of calendulas sown, a tray of echium ( bees love these and the vivid blue colour is beautiful) and a tray of sunflowers. I potted on 2 lupins and a couple of scabious plants . Potted up 4 strawberry plants too.

Back inside I've done a bit of ironing until I got too tired to do anymore!! It was a satisfyingly productive day. This week
I have my occupational health appointment which I am not looking forward to and am quite worried about

Drawingaline

Sounds like a fab day. We had awful rain for most of it, so much less outside stuff done here!

Honeysucklelou2

The appointment went better than I thought. It helped me to see that my everyday juggle is stressful before you add in bereavement, the legal stuff and work stress . If you are plodding though a situation, sometimes you get so used to it, it becomes your normal, but the stress doesn't stop. It helped me to see that a couple of health niggles are a direct cause of stress, which I hadn't realised.

Did a fair amount of taxiing yesterday for children but spent the evening walking the coast path with DD2. She had found a route that was circular. We ran out of light to get the whole walk done ( it is a 5 mile walk) but the part that we did was beautiful and we were able to see the sun set. I definitely felt better for the exercise .

On Tuesday I popped along to a local gym. I have been paying a monthly subscription for DS1 for over a year, which worked well when he was at school, as he used to go after school most days, but now he is at college in a different location, he rarely goes. I cancelled the membership and have cheekily asked if the DDs can use up the notice period time.:D That will be an extra £22 saved a month .

Cherryfudge

I've found occupational health can be very helpful too. I talked to someone who coincidentally had had the same injury as me, so we compared notes and she gave me additional information - very supportive.

The cliff walk sounds lovely: this time of year is so beautiful, if a bit chilly at times. Good to blow the cobwebs away and make memories with your DD.

£264 a year saved over the gym membership! Well done (and a freebie for the DDs too ).

Honeysucklelou2

It took me a little while to get going yesterday ( not such good sleep the previous night) but since the weather was dry and sunny, I headed to the beach with 4 DDs and DS3. We took a picnic and enjoyed being in the fresh air! DS3 has reached the stage of everything being fascinating. He ran, climbed, splashed, collected and dug non-stop. It was so lovely to see his zest for life...it's infectious!! The tide was out so there was a good amount of rock pools to explore.

I did get 3 lots of laundry done, most of which was line dried. I paid £15 off one debt, gave £20 to DD1 towards a birthday treat of having her hair done and spent more on food than I wanted to. I need to find a cheaper way to do picnics. I'm fine at the sweet baking side but find that I tend to nip to Mr T!'s and if I'm not careful, too much is spent on savoury snack. Need to adapt my baking I think to include sausage rolls / cheese straws etc

DD has a party today so I'm hoping to get a fair amount of work tasks done. I can't believe we're a week through the holidays already.

Cherryfudge

I was thinking of cheese straws for your picnics then saw you'd already got them. I used to do a sort of pizza pinwheel - it was from a packet mix (Morries I think) and I've no idea if they still make it but it would be easy to replicate.

Other good ones are cold pasta salad, or a rice or cous cous salad.

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge, I remember making pizza pinwheels when DD1 was about 5 but haven't done them since. I know which cookbook has that recipe!!! What a good idea about pasta salad or couscous. DS3 loves pasta in any form so that would go down well:).

Yesterday (Fri) was an odd day, I had mislaid something and ended up turning out half of my bedroom trying to find it. The good thing was half a bag of clutter left the bedroom in the process of looking and DS1 found the item fairly easily even though I'd been searching for ages! I didn't get done much of what I'd planned to do, so will need to crack on with those tasks today.

Paid £65 off a debt yesterday and have planned the next couple of weeks carefully as I hope to get more of the school trips paid.

crazy_cat_lady

Pleased that the appointment was helpful HSL. Are you going back again?