Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

August has started with £19.60 OP.

I have had a payrise. It's actually last years payrise that we couldn't be given due to dire financial constraints. It can only be held back for a year so we had to have it now. Obviously we have not had this years payrise, I'm not even sure we've had an email confirming what miniscule percentage we'll get. It's about £20 a month extra after tax etc. Unfortunately the nursery fees go up next month by around £40 a month so I will not be better off. But at least we only have one more year of nursery fees (and then I can pay for breakfast club and extracurriculars instead 😅) and the 30 free hours we get has already cut down the cost significantly.

The pack of cornish pasties I buy for Mr VH to have for work lunches has jumped up in price so it's now over £4. I haven't told him yet but that means that Operation Pasta Lunches will now be coming into effect. He does like his pasties so I'll just alternate weeks for the time being.

On the other hand I did my car insurance yesterday and it came out much cheaper than expected. £130 for a provider that had a 4 star Defaqto rating. I did it through TCB (hasn't tracked yet so this is my note to remind myself to raise a claim next Saturday if it's still not showing) so that should be £45 cashback coming through before Christmas.

The road tax demand also came through yesterday so that was another £225. I have the money for both the insurance and tax sitting in the car and holiday account (I have the two together just to stop me having too many accounts) but I'm going to try to do without dipping into it. I will need new tyres in the autumn and I have an advisory from my MOT that needs dealing with (was told it would be around £400). If I can hang on to the £335 then that will cover the tyres and some of the advisory issue. When the £45 comes through that will go to the new car fund. So I've paid for it all from the regular current account for now and will hope I don't need to buy too much else this month.

And speaking of TCB I cashed out £29.63 a few days ago. The bulk of it was from getting breakdown cover through them so that's gone to the new car, the small remainder has gone to the mortgage.

I have photographed a bunch of DS's outgrown winter things (coat, hoodies and jumpers) to circulate at work next week, along with a bunch of his outgrown 2 - 3 clothing, and his baby bath and the stand. Tried emailing about the baby bath this week and got no takers so I might have to brave FBM to get it sold. I don't want a huge amount for it but I also don't want to just give it away. Now that I have the label printer I might start listing his unsold clothing on Vinted to get a few more Disney pennies.

I got a pack of stewing beef and a pack of beef mince yellowstickered from Waitrose on Wednesday and had to do some jiggery pokery to get them to fit in the freezer. A small amount of room has now been made by taking out ratatouille for DS and Mr VH to have tonight. But I desperately need to do an inventory and start making some space before September and the advent of stews and other batch cooks. There is also no room for Yorkshire puddings at the moment, which is a travesty.

Dinner tonight is toad in the hole and crispy cubed spuds for me and Mr VH, he'll have his ratatouille as the vegetable. DS is having his ratatouille with rice and a piece of garlic bread (I'm generally having to bribe him into rice-based meals with a garlic bread slice as he's very firm that pasta is his carb of choice right now).

Have a good weekend everyone!

VintageHistorian

Sent an OP of £3.60 just now. That includes £2.12 from Music Magpie. They'd originally quoted me £5 but whatever. I still haven't posted out the stuff for WeBuyBooks as I chose an RM locker drop-off and it turns out the closest one to us isn't switched on yet, and the 2nd closest one only has 2 slots big enough for the box and they're never available. They've emailed me saying if I don't send it out this week I'll need to input the barcodes all over again 🤦‍♀️ So will try to send it on Monday. They've quoted me just over £10 for it all so I really want to get it out of the boot of my car.

Probably won't bother with these selling sites again as it's been quite the faff. If I can't offload them at work or on eBay they can go to the charity shops and they can try their luck.

I have managed to sell the bag of 2-3 year old clothes, just need to meet up and exchange for cash. This was not the week to do it as everyone was occupied and busy (IYKYK). Hopefully we can find each other next week.

We had good news at nursery as DS has now caught up with his speech and language and is in the appropriate age range! I was absolutely delighted when they confirmed it, we've been saying for ages that he says so much more and also sings to himself, chatters to his toys etc. This was then tempered by them telling me he'd hurt one of his friends so there was a bit of a scolding when we got back to the car. He was much nicer the next day.

Mr VH is working today so I took DS to M&S. Had breakfast in the cafe, DS tried a croissant but wasn't keen (strange child) so I ate my bacon roll and he enjoyed looking for trucks and cars out the window. Bought him some new socks and some long sleeved tops ready for the cooler weather, then popped to the Food Hall and got some pizzas for tomorrow's dinner and other bits. I had a few offers on the Sparks app (which I don't think is as good since it changed) that will give me £10 in vouchers on the app. One is confirmed and the others will be next week. The one that's confirmed says it expires in 2027 so assuming the others are the same I think I'll save them for some Christmas bits.

We then popped over to Sainsbury's and bought some more clothes for DS and some very discounted notebooks which I have put in the Christmas charity donation pile. We came home with DS dozing in the car, his sleep is still very variable so car snoozes are a risk at the moment. Not sure what we'll do this afternoon. Part of me wants to get him out of the house again, but I have a headache and it's quite muggy outside. If he'd let me put on a movie for us I'd stay indoors but he's back on Mr Tumble at the moment and I don't think I can face that in the run-up to dinner.

Mr VH is going out with friends after work so I've told DS me and him will have dinner together. I'm going to do gammon, chunky chips and beans for us, with a fried egg for me (DS doesn't like egg). We had dinner together on Tuesday as well and it was quite funny seeing DS try to mimic the way I was holding my fork, although not quite right for him because I had risotto and he had a roast dinner 🤣

Have a good weekend everyone!

South_coast

It might be worth trying World of Books before you give up on the selling sites altogether. You can drop them at InPost lockers (which are everywhere here, so I'm assuming the same where you are!) and you only have to have 10 items (no minimum value) to complete the trade. I find the amounts they offer are better than We Buy Books, though obviously you're still not going to get rich from it 😅

VintageHistorian

Thank you @South_coast I think I'll give them a try instead. Didn't get round to trying a locker on Monday and it's too late in the week now, I don't want the box to be delayed or "lost" because it showed up after their deadline. I'll bring it indoors and next time I have a week off I can sit down and try again with WoB.

VintageHistorian

The bird in our loft is making a stupid amount of noise during DS's nap time. I was worried that it might be a squirrel after seeing one on our fence the other day but Googling it suggests that the noise pattern is similar to a bird, and the timing of the noise is similar to previous years when we know it's been a bird so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's definitely avian.

I like birds but the sound of an unseen creature in the loft always freaks me out and I have to remind myself that we've built over their outdoor homes more than enough so they can take a bit of loft space back from me.

I have purchased two Christmas presents, both for DS and both off Vinted. One is a memory game using Thomas the Tank Engine (since we all know the names of the trains), and a 4-in-1 box of jigsaw puzzles featuring Pixar's Cars.

I have also started selling DS's outgrown clothes on Vinted. I was a big apprehensive but the app actually makes it very easy, lots of selecting pre-set things from various lists, add one photo, and done. I posted out the first purchase this morning as it just needed an InPost locker. Two more are via Evri so I'll print out the labels tonight and take them to the shop after work tomorrow. £11 is currently pending, it will all go to Disney.

I have also sold one of my maternity dresses on eBay but I'm worried that their pre-paid postage label isn't actually enough as I may have set it up wrong (never done it before, normally just go to the post office direct and weight and pay there) 🤔 I'll post it out but have resigned myself to a large apologetic refund if something goes wrong. It'll be a learning curve. If it does complete fine then that money will probably also go to Disney, or maybe the house move fund (but I don't want to fund a chunk of Disney just from DS's things 😅)

Not much else going on in the world of money at the moment. Currently under budget for food this month, unless I see a huge pile of yellowstickers in Waitrose in a few hours. I finally did the freezer inventory on Monday afternoon (half day off work) so I know what we have. Mostly we have the makings of another picky tea so I'll probably do that on Sunday to clear some space. We had chili last night as I'd forgotten that was in there. I feel like there's not a lot in there and yet some how all the space is taken. I think it's the bags of frozen vegetables, they take up a lot of room until you finish them and then you buy more to take up more room…

Anyway, I want to try a little batch cook day in September so I can go into autumn with the freezer in good standing so we'll see if I can actually clear enough space for stew, casserole and pasta sauces over the next few weeks. To that end tonight's dinner is spaghetti and meatballs. It was going to be dinner last night but I've somehow run out of passata! No idea how that happened but there will be a definite restock this afternoon.

Have a good weekend everyone!

VintageHistorian

Total OPs for August - £44.75

The noises in the loft so indeed appear to be a squirrel. On Friday night some neighbours from 2 doors down knocked to tell us they had spotted one on our roof several times recently. Once they saw the birds fight it off and it ended up running along the gutter to get away, but another time they unfortunately saw it slip under a gap between the tiles and the fascia/soffit, so it's definitely been in there. They were very apologetic about it but we assured them we were grateful they'd told us.

Tried 4 different pest control people. One I emailed said it was £155 for an inspection and then more for a solution, 2 whom I phoned and left messages with never called back. Lucky number four not only answered the phone promptly but was already going to be at a house round the corner yesterday morning so once he was done with them he came to us and put 2 traps in the loft. A fee of £225 also covers 2 more visits, one next week to see if there's been any luck, and the other I presume the week after that. If nothing has been caught after 3 weeks then hopefully the squirrel has decided our food-free loft isn't worth the effort. We'll also pay my brother a generous sum to clamber up a ladder with some cement and seal the hole.

I was only £3 under the food budget so didn't hit my £10 target, but that does involve one treat pizza meal deal from M&S, and several picnics with DS. So coming under budget at all in a month with multiple treats is a win. I'm going to try again this month as it's definitely making me think more carefully about what I buy and when.

Last month was also a good month for side hustles, especially now I've started on Vinted. Sales there have slowed now that I can't list 5 items a day, but Mr VH would like me to clear a few more things before he starts retrieving clothes boxes from the loft. Understandable because frankly we do have a lot of stuff down here and I do need the motivation to sell more.

This month I have one WI talk, I need to sort out the box of books that never got sent off, and I'm trying to be a bit more active on Instagram for my shop so that might get me another sale or two. There's also some money sitting in TCB that I've just withdrawn, and we have a pending Delay Repay claim for Mr VH which will come off the mortgage once it arrives.

Lastly, Disney books for next year have now opened so I had a quick play with prices while DS had a play. Nearly £2200 for the week we'd want in the hotel I like, so still within the realms of possibility. Eurostar prices are another £200-odd, TGV can't be booked yet but doesn't look like it'd be a huge amount more. So it might be do-able, I just need to talk about it with Mr VH. Currently I have £500 from the maternity fund and £174 from side hustles, and a bit more pending on Vinted. So nearly 1/3 of the money already set aside.

Going to go have a quick cup of tea, a piece of cake, and a shower before I get DS up. Dinner tonight is tortellini (free from Tesco recently thanks to a Clubcard offer) with tomato and mascarpone sauce and some garlic bread.

Have a good week everyone!

VintageHistorian

Me and DS have had a very busy morning while Mr VH is working. Popped to the car boot sale this morning, managed to keep my purse shut despite several temptations. Stopped at M&S on the way home and got a few food bits including some ys cocktail sausages. Came home to have my breakfast, with DS taking several large bites of my toast, assembled a small picnic (including the sausages) and then went back out as our town is doing "family day" in the big playing field.

We got there quite early so we found a nice spot under a tree. DS left most of his sandwich, took multiple bites of my roll and enjoyed a share of my crisps, devoured his strawberries, ate some cucumber slices, polished off a bag of mini cheddars and had some mini jaffa cakes as a treat. We then had a walk around looking at the various stalls. I got some details from the local scout group about their first stage group, which DS will be able to join after he's 4. I'm going to put him down on the waiting list as it's on Wednesdays afternoons, when I'm off anyway, and I think it'll be good for him to make a few more local friends before starting school. We also purchased yet another Thomas the Tank Engine book, for a mere 50p I was happy to indulge him. He was brilliant at walking nicely around the car boot, the shop and the field, held my hand nicely and didn't pull away or try to run off.

No news on the squirrel front. We'll see what Tuesday brings.

Now the most important bit - Disney 🤣

Prices got released on Wednesday so poor DH was getting screenshots from the app sent to him throughout the day. For the hotel I'd like us to stay in, in the week of our 10th wedding anniversary, it'll be £2184, plus almost £300 for the Eurostar and however much the TGV would be from Lille, so definitely not hitting the £2600 ceiling I'd mentally set myself.

However, if we got the following year just before DS's 5th birthday, which is the last point we can take him out of school during term time without being fined, it will be £1558 for the exact same hotel. Which is a very hefty saving.

I haven't booked anything yet but I'm leaning towards the cheaper option. £600 is a huge chunk to save just by pushing the holiday back by 11 months. It would give me much more time to sell bits to cover more of the cost, especially as I can pay a deposit and then make another 4 or 5 payments so I'd have some targets each time. The only thing that's making me hesitate is that it's much longer to wait and so many rides and areas get put out of action for weeks for repairs, upgrades etc that I don't want to risk missing something we haven't done before, a big section of the park has been updated since we last went. I also don't entirely trust the government to not change the holiday rules so you get fined close to 5th birthdays anyway.

To balance it out I'm looking at a few alternatives for our 10th wedding anniversary so we can still do something special for that. Current options are a week in a different Centre Parcs (perhaps Woburn or Sherwood), a long week along the south coast, or a week in Norfolk. Having National Trust membership does mean the UK is our oyster as a well-placed accommodation can give us multiple options in a 45 minute radius. I'm going to look up the various hotels and cottages we could stay at, as well as various heritage sites, and then show Mr VH, who is completely ambivalent about the idea of Disney but I do want him to contribute some kind of decision making to the alternative.

Right, time to get DS up from his short nap. Dinner tonight will be baked ciabattas.

Have a good weekend everyone!

South_coast

Option 2 does sound like a better deal, and the cost saving would go a long way towards the anniversary trip? DS would be more likely to remember it if he's a bit older too. I have no idea about the school thing, but I'd like to think you'd have grounds for an appeal against a fine if the rules did change but you could demonstrate you'd booked the trip way, way in advance of the change?

beanielou

Funnily enough are the wee cubs not called squirrels?

VintageHistorian

I think you're right @South_coast and TBH the saving of £600 would cover almost all of a Centre Parcs trip. Mr VH has had options presented to him so I'll see what he thinks over the weekend.

@beanielou You are correct and the irony was no lost on me 😅 He is now officially on the waiting list, it's £50 per term paid in half termly installments, worth it for a chance for him to run around and make new friends.