From debt to freedom...

Honeysucklelou2

Driving is a valuable skill, not least because it allows such a greater degree of independence especially if you live in very rural communities. I counted down the years to my 17th birthday so that I could learn to drive and really do value my licence!

Honeysucklelou2

Glad to have got to the weekend. Work remains as busy as ever and extra evening commitments at work this week has made me extra grateful for the weekend!

I seem to have my food spending creeping up again:(. I'm sure it's a combination of one or two more at home (DD1 is home for Easter :T and the boys seem to be taking it upon themselves to invite friends round for part of the weekend so we have at least 1 more ) and the extra evening commitments this week. Must try harder this week to keep the tins topped up and menu plan.

Today I need to pay the final nursery payment for this term of just over a hundred pounds, DD2's driving lesson (£55) and DD2's driving test fee that has to be paid to the instructor who applies for the test as we are using his car for the test. :eek: lots of money going out.

On a plus side I was able to sell something locally for £10 so will put that in the bank today and use it to pay off a debt. Every little helps as they say!

I'm shockingly behind on the garden front although I suspect that the two bouts of snow has probably slowed growing down a bit anyway. Everything I'm growing is on window sills or the propogator at the moment so am hoping to get time over the weekend to clear out the greenhouse at the allotment and get some of the seedlings moved there.

Spendless

Aren't you off for Easter now Honeysuckle? My two finished yesterday (Secondary and FE college)

Honeysucklelou2

No I have another week to go. We finish on Maundy Thursday. To be honest I prefer working right up to Easter and then getting the time off after the Easter weekend. It makes the summer term a little shorter, or at least feel shorter!

Busy morning...DD3 had to be at the opticians by 9.30 for an eye test. Turns out she needs glasses but thankfully the NHS voucher has covered the cost of the glasses. While I was in the town (15 miles from home so don't often visit) I decided to get the toddler's feet measured. Turned out that he was wearing the wrong size shoes so got him a pair of shoes that are correctly fitted. £41! But better to get the shoes fitting his feet correctly and hopefully they will last a little while.

While we were at the bigger town we popped into Home Bar3 gains as it is useful for shampoo and conditioner at reasonable prices. All in all it's turned out to be a spendy day. My lovely grandmother did give me some birthday money which I had kept in my purse for a while so I spent that today on a pair of fleeces that were on offer.

Off to get cooking and fill the empty tins. I get the hint when DS1 starts rattling them!!!!

Honeysucklelou2

Glad to have got to the end of term. Yesterday was busy as we celebrated my grandmother's birthday and today (Sat) we have celebrated DD1's birthday. DD1 was happy to go to a nearby NT place. There was an Easter trail which I did spend out on, since it was a birthday day treat. DD3 found a recipe online for a peanut butter cake with icing, so we gave that a try. DD1 would live off peanut butter, given half a chance, so she enjoyed the cake. We found some reduced Reece's peanut cups which we used to decorate it.

Payday was on Thursday. I did a huge ( for us) shop and spent £150 on food although that did include Easter eggs for the children. I have planned a menu for the coming week and am hoping that having more time to cook in the evenings will help with keeping our food bill down and our menu choices a little healthier.

I have noticed that the council tax bill has risen as has the electricity monthly direct debit. At the same time, the tax credits will reduce from this week onwards meaning £80 a month less. I need to go through the budget again to see how best to manage it all.

Drawingaline

Our council tax, electric, gas and water all go up from this month! Not by masses, but enough to make juggling the budget harder. Luckily our tax credits are due to go up by £150 from next week (I honestly have no idea how they work this out, it makes absolutely no sense to me lol!) So we should be ok.

Spendless

It was my DDs birthday yesterday too.

I do think spring has you wanting to de-clutter, clean and sort out your budget. This morning I've sat with pen and paper working out how much we won't be forking out for DS when he goes to Uni, to see what the difference is between that and the accommodation we're paying for him

louby40

I finished work on Thursday too. So ready for a break, although I do plan on going into school on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons to tidy my store room out!

DS failed his driving test for the second time last week. He's gutted. It's booked again for the 2nd May. He has a car all ready to go so he's very frustrated with it all.

Enjoy your break.

Honeysucklelou2

I've got a fair bit to do over the holidays...trying to balance work stuff with keeping my children happy. The younger ones have to come with me when I do things at school and it's not fair on them to be in school too much in the holidays. DS1 is supposed to be revising for his GCSEs in May so definitely need to plan a balance of days out and days to work/revise.

Today has been lovely as we had a bring and share lunch with friends. I quite enjoy making the puddings so did carrot cake, iced simnel cake, brownies and pavlova. We didn't get through it all so some has come home with us. No doubt the children will make short work of the remains!

Honeysucklelou2

We had enough time yesterday evening to do an Easter egg hunt at the allotment, albeit in the rain. The children all seem to enjoy it and talked about it in the run up to Easter.

Today and yesterday have been NSDs - hurray!! Need to have a lot more this month. DD2 as been really helpful today and helped clear a backlog of ironing and clean clothes sorting. We also got a fair bit of hoovering and tidying done before I had to get outside into the garden.

I've transplanted 5 tomato seedlings into 3" pots and transferred them to the greenhouse at the allotment. The sweet peas have also been moved to the allotment until it gets a little warmer to be able to plant them out. Beetroot has been sown today as well as parsley, calendula ( orange king variety) , cornflowers, cauliflowers and sunflowers. The sunflower seeds were bright pink when I opened the packet. On closer inspection it turns out that the seeds have been coated in some kind of chemical . I've never used seeds like these before and must admit I wouldn't have bought them if I'd realised at the point of purchase.

Most of the seedlings/trays are in the allotment greenhouse. It felt good to have time to get out and be busy in the garden. Having the chicks at the allotment over the last couple of months has been beneficial as there seems to be less weeds there at the moment. The flip side is that I will need to net the plants so that they don't get eaten!