From debt to freedom...

Cherryfudge

I love your description of the sunset reflected in the water... and glad you managed to avoid the cows! I'm wary of them because occasionally someone gets killed by cattle and as they're bigger than me I'm not going to argue!

Oh no! to the leaky washing machine. I hope the new cap sorts it.

savingholmes

Sorry JanB re your ex

Hsl good to read about your walks. Sounds like lots of challenges still. Glad job 2 is restarting

Spendless

Oh God, I don't envy you the encounter with livestock. My very first job I had when returning to work after having kids was for a forestry company that had a utility contract to cut trees that were growing through power cables on agricultural land. I lost count of the times colleagues came back with tales of how farmland animals would suddenly all appear together and weren't best pleased to find strange humans on their patch. One once had to one handed leap over a fence to stop himself being squashed by sheep huddling into him, then ran into the farmer who was running 10 minutes late to meet him and was most amused by the sheep. 
Hope your payments start coming through soon.  

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you Cherryfudge, SH & Spendless.

The good news is the new drain filter gap appears to have stopped the water gushing out of the washing machine so normal washing can resume. With a large family, we have mountains of laundry so the thought of the washing machine not working was unnerving!

On Friday the PPI payment hit my bank account🙂, so will be paying half towards the window loan and half on a water bill. I went back to job no 2 on Wednesday. I was so thankful to be out of the house when the ex was there to do tea for the children. Shifts are a bit all over the place. We’re not as busy as we were so only 1 person is required on a week night rather than 2,  so that halves my work times but I’ve been able to pick up a couple of shifts temporarily, so am hoping I can keep a steady flow of income  coming in. I know that January and February are the quietest months anyway, so will make the most of what can be earned this month.

I am really behind in Christmas preparations. Other than the cake being made I’ve done nothing 😳. Thankfully it looks like my parents are able to join us for Christmas as we are in the same county / tier. Unfortunately DD1 has to move just  before Christmas to satisfy quarantine regulations in the country she’s going to, so I’m finding it hard to look forward to Christmas knowing that she will be on her own in a new place.

I have saved a little every week towards Christmas in a savings account. I first opened this account about 8 or 9 years ago. I openeD  it in the local branch which was in the nearest big town. In order to make me be sensible with it, I had no cash card, so had to go into the branch to withdraw the money. That worked well until they closed the local branch. I then had to find and use their mobile lorry for the last 3 years which was ok. Unfortunately when I looked up online to check what time  the mobile bank lorry was due in at the nearest town, the website said all mobile banking lorries had been stopped due to Covid😒. Not quite sure when I’ll have time to travel across the county to find the nearest branch, probably not until after the end of term.

Hoping to get out for a walk today and need to spend some time topping up the cake tins for the coming week.

Sun_Addict

What a pain with the savings account. Maybe time to move it to something more accessible. I do an online monthly saver where you have to commit to the same amount every month and can’t touch it until the year is up. Removes temptation to dip into it.

savingholmes

Glad your ppi money came through. Sorry to hear DD can't be with you at xmas. 

Honeysucklelou2

Thank you SH and SA.

Sunday turned out to be a mammoth baking session - 1 batch of vanilla cupcakes, 2 batches of chocolate muffins, a lemon drizzle cake and 11 pasties were made. Not all for us as some were gifted but enough to keep me busy!

I sat down for half an hour at one point and just looked at the figures for the first window loan. I figured out and wrote it out step by step, that if I use the money from the 2 council tax free months, the PPI money and £100 from back dated pay rise that is due to be paid at the end of December, I could clear the loan by the 1st March.🙂 Somehow the simple  act of writing it out step by step with amounts  made me feel more hopeful about it being a reality. From March onwards I could then use the monthly payment I pay now to be an overpayment on the second window loan which would in turn halve the balance ( and reduce the interest ) by December next year🙂.

I’m working an extra day today (Monday) but hoping I can get a walk in as I missed being able to on Sunday.

janb5

That's amazing news HSL!
The cake session sounds delicious!

Sun_Addict

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan in place there and as for the baking 😋

savingholmes

Drooling at all that baking. Sounds delicious