Bricks Not Books

sunshineli

Your holiday sounds lovely. Good idea to get it booked in again soon then you have plenty of time to save up. I hope you're feeling better now

VintageHistorian

I have just booked to go back next year. We'll be going in April instead, closer to DH's birthday and our wedding anniversary. Paid £53 deposit and the balance is due next February so that gives plenty of time to side hustle some cash towards it.

Total OPs for Feb: £53.82, including the print on demand money at last.

I have got some money in Prolific but it's less than the £6 minimum cashout so I need to try and focus on that a bit more this month.

I have sold some of DS's old clothes to people at work, got £5 on Thursday and hopefully another £15 next week but that money will be put aside to buy more things for DS on Vinted. His winter coat has lasted really well but it's very thick so I'll need to look for a thinner waterproof coat and a hoodie or two for the spring. I think we'll also be due a shoe update soon too. I need to send another email around the work mailing list with his old wellies and his swimming nappies as that will get a bit more in too if they sell.

DS's birthday is this month! So far have spent £57 on things worth around £90 (including quite a few books). I do want to get one or two more things for him, particularly little wooden trains for Brio or similar. We have plenty of track from carboot sales but the trains themselves seem to be far more valuable! I did look for some Thomas the Tank Engine ones on eBay but the faces all look weird so I think it'll just have to be regular trains. I might try to pop into town next weekend as we have a brach of The Entertainer there so I can see what trains they have in stock (if any). I'll try to cap spends at £70 and then the leftover £30 can go into his savings.

We're not sure yet what we'll do for his birthday. I have the day off work, so we can go out somewhere. I did see that Audley End is reopening their mini railway at the end of the month so we could just take him to soft play on his birthday and then go for a train outing at a later date. Not that he'll be too fussed, £6 on softplay and a packet of carrot puffs would make it the best day ever as far as he's concerned

Dinner tonight is a very decadent chicken breast wrapped in parma ham, with homemade potatoes wedges and some kind of veg. We spent slightly over the food budget last month as we took a lot of picnicky lunch things on holiday with us, but I can't miss out on a dinner involving parma ham We do use the whole packet in one weekend, tomorrow is an even more decadent chicken and parma ham pasta

Have a good weekend everyone!

VintageHistorian

March OPs have kicked off at £19.91, consisting of the standard £14.20 plus £5.71 TT..

Got £10 of my £15 expected for DS's clothes, the final person apologised as they've been extremely busy so hopefully they can pick up from my office next week. The money has already been spent on Vinted, Mr VH said DS could do with a few more short-sleeved vests, and then I bought an M&S raincoat which is technically for 3 year olds but that just means a jumper will fit under it. The seller highlighted that it had a few small marks on it but they're just marks and DS will do a lot worse to it when he's at nursery

I also bought another birthday present for him on Vinted. Someone was selling a little set of London guardsmen skittles in wood. DS already has something similar as little animals but doesn't yet understand the point of skittles. I thought these would be quite nice just as little figures he can play with. Only £2 plus postage so it won't be a waste of money if he doesn't play with them. I took him to a "Little City" yesterday and he had a lovely time but mostly with a small wooden washing machine, which we don't really have space for. He also liked playing with a wooden teaset so I'm going to get one of those too. All the ones I'd seen so far said they were for ages 3+ years but he was playing fine with it yesterday so maybe that's just an abundance of caution.

For dinner tonight I did a large roast chicken in the slow cooker so once again I will be aiming for multiple meals from one chicken. Tonight was a roast dinner, tomorrow will be chicken and chorizo pasta, Tuesday will be chicken risotto, I'll aim for at least one sandwich and Mr VH might have a chicken salad.

I made a lemon drizzle cake yesterday so I can take slices to work to have in the afternoon with a cup of tea. I have a feeling I shall be in need of the small cheer each day.

Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

Will I squeeze one final OP for the month in this weekend? Depends if I remember to do a money shuffle. I could do it now but I'm comfortable on the sofa and my purse is in another room.

We have had DS's birthday! The surprise win from his birthday gifts was a last-minute one I got off Vinted, a plastic toy of the "Greendale Rocket" train from Postman Pat. He's also enjoying the Thomas the Tank Engine DVD boxsets, which have the "proper" episodes from my childhood, before it all turned CGI. We had a morning at softplay, I made a cake (which DS is refusing to eat so more for me and DH), and we had a pleasant afternoon playing.

DS also had his first nursery settling in session and did surprisingly well (he also managed to catch a cold in the 90 minutes he was there and is now very snotty). He even cried when it was time to leave as he was enjoying playing in a little wooden wendy house they have outside. He has one more settling in session next week and then starts properly at the end of the week. Once he realises he's being left there for more than 30 minutes I think the problems will start, but I'm the one doing the dropoff so at least it will only really be my problem.

That means that next month the fee deductions start coming out of my payslip. Mr VH will pay half of them but I'm still dreading the amount. £775 per month for 3 days a week, although it will be less due to salary sacrifice. At least it includes all food and snacks, we just need to provide nappies, wipes, and of course spare clothes. Once again I am grateful that we are both very careful with money so although I can't save up as much as I used to I won't be reaching for a credit card. But how the government expects my generation to save up for a decent private pension and move up the housing ladder I don't know.

Speaking of the housing ladder, our neighbours are moving on Monday. I'm looking forward to the sold price updating on Rightmove in a few months time so I know what they got for it. I was tempted to ask when we were chatting yesterday (they kindly gave DH a box of biscuits while I was at work so I nipped into the shop on the way home and got them a box of Celebrations and gave it to them as they packed up a car) but felt that it was a bit too on the nose. I'll find out eventually, in a more polite and distant way.

Need to go get DS up from his nap and see what kind of mood he's in, his cold was making him quite fractious this morning until we gave him a dose of magical Calpol. Dinner tonight is some southern fried chicken fillets in fresh baked baguettes, with baked beans.

Have a good weekend everyone!

f0xh0les

The ' other-peoples-dirty-kids-germs' will knock him all over the place but will strengthen his immune system no end.  Poor love.  
Just remind yourself that your little man loves you and enjoys being with you, but that does not mean he will not have a great time when you leave him, it just means you are doing a great job and you are his favourite person. As you should be.
 If he barely bothers to wave and runs straight in, then that means you have done a great job in raising a confident child who has no doubt you will return to pick him up at home time.
Either way, you are brilliant and he loves you.
Guilt is forbidden, but sadly it will still visit you. 
Ooh, love stalking the neighbours on Z00pla!

VintageHistorian

You're very right @f0xh0les, and he is also very ready to have friends. He's always fascinated by other children at the playground and in the shops and it'll be good for him to being around others his own age.

His 2 full days went about as well as we could have hoped. I've dropped him off on my own both days, so I've taken him in, let him start to have a look around, had a quick chat with his key worker and then done a fast goodbye before stepping out the door. Day 1 he got a little upset as I left but quickly settled and Day 2 he was already distracted. However, he was a little more reluctant to go into the room on Day 2, which is perfectly normal and he was fine once he was there.

He's back there tomorrow and then he'll have 2 days at home with Mr VH. He didn't eat anything on Day 1 and only had a bit of rice at lunchtime on Day 2, but again he'll eventually get used to it and start eating properly. We're just giving him a bigger dinner afterwards, and giving him slightly bigger snacks at home this weekend (it's been mostly fruit so we're also giving him a Vit C boost).

March OPs finished at £37.75. I finally expanded my spread sheet the other day to the full amount 20 years and 9 months left on our mortgage, and although it's not hugely accurate (I appear to be about £15 out on the spread sheet vs. what shows in online banking), we're already at a point where we'll pay the mortgage off 1 year early! A lot can happen in 20 years but it's good to see the impact there in black and white.

Need to do the money shuffle today and start off the OPs for April.

Dinner tonight is a roast chicken which is currently in the slowcooker, with enough meat leftover for 2 more dinners and at least 1 lunch.

Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

RAC breakdown cover was due to renew automatically at the end of the month. They sent me their quote for this year and it was nearly £300! I know I needed their services a few years ago but that's more than my annual insurance is!

Happily I checked the AA and not only could I get £40 cashback on TCB but they were also doing a 40% off deal at the beginning of the week, so I have the same cover for £90. I phoned the RAC to cancel the automatic renewal and got the usual "if we could match it...", no if you can match it now you could have matched it in the first place, instead you were perfectly happy to charge me £300 in the hope I'd just let it go.

DS's nursery days have continued. We had a bit of an escalation in tears at drop-off, to the point where at one point he half screamed half wailed at his keyworker as she approached us. But when I dropped him off last Thursday there was barely a fuss let alone any tears so hopefully we've hit the worst point. He does like it when he's there, they've said he settles quickly when he sees something he wants to play with, and he's been eating well, they even managed to persuade him to have a snack the other day.

In "hilarious" money news, I can't salary sacrifice all our childcare fees as apparantly this will take me under national minimum wage. I'm on nearly £33k a year and he's only in nursery 3 days a week! But just over £100 a month will now have to be paid by invoice. We could get tax-free childcare (in fact we could actually get some free hours!) if DH hadn't extended his career break, but you need both parents to be earning money. C'est la vie.

In more positive money news I used the Tesco half price Easter roast dinner offer to get a large joint of beef for just under £10, instead of just over £20! We had it for a roast dinner last night. It said it would serve 6, I've managed to get 7 portions out of it. Two for last night's dinner, two double-portions for the freezer and one single portion with the leftover gravy. I'm very happy with that.

Today we took DS to my parents house for lunch. My Mum had set up a little Easter egg hunt so DS had fun running around the garden finding 6 plastic eggs with little toys instead, and two packets of chocolate that I'll be rationing for him. We had a nice roast lamb, and Mum sent us home with a couple of homemade cupcakes.

I'm off work this week, we've got one day trip to London planned with DS which I hope he'll enjoy. We're going to stick to his normal nursery days at the end of the week, since we have to pay for them anyway, so I'm having a think about what to do while he's out the house. The office needs a sort out, but on the other hand it would be nice to have a luxurious bath, and have a thorough mooch around the charity shops without feeling rushed. I suspect I'll mostly just wander aimlessly around the house missing him terribly and then feeling annoyed with myself at pick-up time when nothing has been achieved

Should hit £30 for OPs this month, I'm over £20 at the moment and I have £7 sitting in PA. I'll see if I can bump that up a bit closer to £8 during the week and then cashout next weekend.

Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

£7.06 has just arrived from PA so I'll combine that with a final TT tonight or tomorrow and consider that to be the OPs done for April.

I've had a very nice week off work. We had a nice day trip to London. DS was fussy at various points and was less interested in the train journeys than I had hoped. But there were no tantrums so that's a win. We went to Greenwich to see the exhibition on Pirates at the maritime museum, which was very good. Took packed lunches so we just spent money on a hot drink each and an additional bottle of water in the museum cafe. DS had a run up the path to the observatory and was very happy to be released to dash about as he wished. We then had a walk about in the area, he fell asleep in his pushchair and napped for an hour, and then we headed home, he woke up just as we swapped to the Jubilee line.

In the evening I did us an afternoon tea, made up of bits from M&S. Annoyingly this cyber attack they've had appears to have stopped my spend from being tracked on Sparks. I had an offer to get £5 off a future spend if I spent £30 in the food hall. I spent £35 and the receipt acknowledges I scanned my Sparks barcode, but the app says I haven't hit the target. I'm keeping the receipt and I'm going to email them this week asking if I can send a photo so they can update manually.

DS had his 2 days in nursery. In the end I decided I didn't want to spend any more money so we stayed at home both days and got stuff done. I played computer games, had a nice bath, and tidied up the Kallax unit. The boxes we have in it now all have labels and everything is in the right place. This includes Christmas decorations, birthday and Christmas gifts for family, a box for giftbags, tags and greetings cards. The labels in particular will help as I won't need to work out which box is which when new things need to be stored away.

This week I've got to work out how much money salary sacrifice has saved us on nursery fees so Mr VH can send me his 50%. I've paid the invoice they have to send, and my payslip came through on Friday so I need to work out the difference. I think it's saved around £150 but that's off the top of my head and I'm not great with numbers.

I'm cooking two dinners today. We went to the in-laws yesterday and had a nice time, but just had a light dinner of scrambled eggs on toast since we had a large lunch at theirs. So there's currently a pork normandy in the slow cooker, as that was going to be yesterday's dinner (it will be portioned up and put in the freezer instead) and then dinner tonight will be chicken and cider pie. I bought 2 bottles of cider but the two recipes only need a total of 500ml which is one bottle, so pity poor Mr VH who now has a bottle of cider to drink

Back to work tomorrow. Not looking forward to it but nevermind. Focus on the money. I'll make my packed lunch this evening while the pie is cooking, and get my bag set up ready for the morning. Definitely much easier to sort it all out the night before.

Have a good week everyone!

sunshineli

Well done on the frugal day trip to London. Taking a packed lunch is a great idea with eating out being so expensive these days. 

That’s frustrating about m&s but hopefully they will be able to sort it for you (they tend to be pretty good with customer service from my experience).

I’m also back at work this week after a nice week off. I also find trying to get organised the night before does help. And as you said, focus on the money! 

VintageHistorian

sunshineli said:

That’s frustrating about m&s but hopefully they will be able to sort it for you (they tend to be pretty good with customer service from my experience).

I emailed, including my Sparks card number, and got a slightly confusing message back asking for my name and contact details. It didn't really answer the question just said they wanted to look into it further. So I might try phoning tomorrow instead as I'm not sure I'm happy to email my address to a recently hacked organisation.

Total OP for April was £26.48, I forgot to log in and pay the PA money over so that will count for May's OPs instead. So silly, I would have easily been over £30 for April if I'd done it. But now I can easily be over £30 for May.

I had to work yesterday but I am off tomorrow so I still get a 3 day weekend. My parents will have DS tomorrow so me and Mr VH can have a few hours pottering around the house together before we go get him. I'm going to make bacon rolls for us to have for breakfast tomorrow as a little treat. My Mum did suggest we treat ourselves to a lunch out but we're feeling rather poor after paying childcard fees this month, so I'll raid the freezer for bacon instead.

I need to sell a few more of DS's old things this month. While having the clearout we also found a few toys that he never played with that are past his age now so I'm going try getting those sold too. I've told Mr VH that his next empty coffee jar will become our Disneyland Paris savings jar, so anything of DS's that doesn't get spent on new clothes can go in that instead. Mr VH laughs at my jars, but it's nice to see the cash build up!

A few other things I need to do this month:

• Finally paste the most recent batch of torn/cut out recipes in my recipe book (I did a bunch when we were on holiday in February and then went through more magazines so I have yet another pile).
• Pick a new recipe to try from said recipe book
• Clear out my eBay box and donate unsold clothing that's been up for the past 2 years to another charity shop. Reselling is something I just dabble in and clearly I was off the mark with these items.
• Get decluttered things that I'm not selling to the charity shop. Currently there are several bags of toys and books sitting in our wardrobe and I want the space back!

This afternoon I need to change our sheets and put away dry laundry. Yesterday I used half a packet of chocolate chips and some cocoa powder to make chocolate cupcakes. You can't taste the staleness of the chocolate chips (they're months past their best before) when they're surrounded by chocolate sponge  

Dinner tonight will be baked ciabattas with mozzarella, salami and chorizo. Very salty but sooooo good. I will also use the oven being on to cook the breaded chicken I need for Tuesday's dinner.

Have a good week everyone!