Sashybo - Back Again

sashybo

Not much to report, no parking drama at work yesterday which was good.

Trying to do a few surveys a day which is going OK at the moment.

No real plans before work, just cuddled up on the couch with the cats & chilling out for a bit. Feeling tired today & could see work far enough.

Will need to get something for my dinner at work, maybe a wee pizza since it's Saturday so will jump into the shops beforehand, better than buying a takeaway. Taking my minestrone soup for lunch at work & will take some fruit & a yoghurt so only the main part of my dinner to get.

sashybo

Have managed to iron the uniform shirts before work today (mine & DH's so 8 in total) and have hung them up. DH is doing the hoovering & cat litter as he has the day off.

Will try and go to the £ shop before work to get a couple of things for work like teabags & juice that I keep in my locker. Having homemade soup again for lunch.

My brother borrowed our carpet cleaner months ago & is meant to be dropping it off to us again today. Hooray we can finally clean our carpets again. :j They are cream/oatmeal so really need it. :eek:

sashybo

Have made a PAD today of £1.22 to round loan no 1 down so it's a nice even whole number at the end. Payday on Friday. :j

A bit annoyed as bought a fitted sheet & pillowcases to match on eb@y & the colour the seller has sent is completely different to the one I ordered. :mad: I ordered aqua & what arrived was just plain blue. :cool: I'll keep them as it's not an offensive colour, just not what the picture showed (at all). I can't be bothered faffing about to return them & having to pay postage etc. Only bought online as need an extra deep fitted sheet as my mattress is pretty thick. It's hard to find extra deep fitted sheets in the shops & when I do they're expensive & usually not a great range of colours beyond white or cream.

Will try & do the rest of my ironing before heading to work today, only 2 more shifts then 2 days off. :j

Managed to get to the £ shop and get my work supplies yesterday, also bought some shower cleaning spray & toothpaste from Semichem.

Might buy some birthday cards today depending on time, as have a few birthdays coming up in March & May and want to be organised before the baby arrives. Have written a list of all the birthday & occasion cards needed for the year & checked my card stash in the house. Managed to score 3 cards off the list as already had them at home. :beer:

sashybo

Argh it's starting to snow here Hate the snow & ice that comes after it, hoping it won't lie as the ground is wet.

Got some survey money through so have made a slightly bigger pad than my usual £1 today. Have done a couple of surveys, as well as 0nepoll today so getting there & have requested £15 from one of my survey sites and still waiting on my 0nepoll payout. :T

Managed to get some of the birthday cards from my list before work yesterday so at least sorted for March & May birthdays, cost about £4 for 6 cards which is pretty good. Will try & get more as & when.

Going to clean the bathrooms shortly so I have less to do on my days off. Got a chiropractor appointment tomorrow & hoping she can help me with a sore spot in my lower back which feels like a sciatic pain.

May try & get my hair cut as well as it's getting very thick & long - needs tidied up and thinned a bit.

Still hating my maternity work uniform, it hangs on me like a sack & makes me look much more pregnant than I actually am. The blouses are about 40 years out of date - puffed sleeves & a smock style anyone??:eek: The trousers aren't great, although too long but they're not as bad as the blouses. :cool:

sashybo

Went to the chiropractor & my back feels so much better. Was really bad last night as took a step & pain was shooting down my back, felt like I'd been dropped from a height onto my feet on a hard surface.

Chiro said my pelvis was out again which was causing the back pain. Still a bit sore but hopefully will feel even better tomorrow. She wants me to start doing more exercise to build my stamina - 15 mins on the cross trainer 3-4 times a week. It's manageable, I just need to make myself do it but am basically a bit lazy. :whistle:

Back in another 4 weeks for more readjustment. Thankfully the health plan through my work will pay for another couple of sessions.

Other than that have had a lazy day. Went for a late lunch with DH - we were both so stuffed we didn't need any dinner.

Got my survey money through so going to divide it between loan no 1 & baby fund. I think £30 to the loan & £25 to the baby fund.

Bad news is that our council tax is going up by at least 12.5% because the government have decided to change the legislation affecting our council tax band. This 12.5% is on top of whatever our council also decide to raise the payment by & we don't know yet as they haven't released the info. We already pay a lot of council tax & not as if we live in a mansion. So hacked off.:mad:

DH has been going through our outgoings to see what we can cut & has found a few small things we can cancel or reduce. Our fixed rate deal for energy ends next month so we can shop around & hopefully get a better deal for that. We also have a small balance left on a CC which will be paid off this month so that's one less payment a month as well. DH also looking to lower his monthly payments for his car but again it's on PCP & negative equity is a big problem so may not be any way to do that.

Just don't need this with a baby on the way & the consequent drop in income.:(

Bobarella

You poor thing Sashybo that sounds so painful. I had sciatica once around 15 years ago and it was the most hideous thing ever. It took 10 weeks of physio to fix it and I still live in fear it will be retriggered.

Sorry about the council tax going up too. That's not good.

boxofpaws

12.5% is huge, that seems extremely unfair. I hope your back does feel better tomorrow

Bop

sashybo

Thanks Bob & Bop. My back is definitely feeling better today, just hope I don't do something to set it off again.

Did 15 mins on the cross trainer & 20 mins of yoga today. Was knackered after the cross trainer & had to take some breaks throughout. Could feel a tightness in my right side (hip & back) where I'm getting the sciatic pain when I was doing some of the yoga stretches so hopefully it will help rather than make it worse. :cool: Feeling a bit achey there at the moment so will get my heat pad on as that will help.

Yes the council tax rise is horrendous, we'll just have to cope somehow.:( Just feel as middle earners we're getting punished.

Just doing some OP surveys (they had a £1 one today :T) & will have a lazy rest of the day.

sashybo

Payday today. :j Have paid the small balance of £150 remaining on my Barclaycard off so that's a debt gone. :j

Have also paid an extra £20 off my highest interest loan & good news the snowball calculator is working (:j:j) so got to have a look at the date when the loan should be paid off. Snowball calculator is saying July 2018 - the original end date was May 2019 so have cut nearly a year off by overpaying. :j:beer: Hopefully I can cut it by more than a year.

Our second highest interest loan will end in June 2019 - when you overpay this one it doesn't bring the end date closer but makes your monthly payments smaller instead. Still worth overpaying to some extent although the interest was added on at the beginning so doesn't affect that either.

These 2 loans were the debt we had to take on to sell our flat as we lost pretty much £20k on it. Will be glad to get them paid off as that means finally seeing the back of that flat (metaphorically of course). :j

That leaves the new loan of £10k - first payment doesn't come out until May which gives us a bit of breathing space to put money away for baby stuff. Can overpay on this and it will shorten the term and lessen the interest, so this may be my priority rather than loan no 2. Obviously depends how tight our budget is as well after the baby is born and I'm no longer on a full time wage.

DH is still looking at getting rid of his PCP car as it's costing £275 per month. :eek: I didn't realise how much he was paying for this but probably should have. With our income dropping & the council tax rise on the horizon he acknowledges that it's too much. If he took (another) loan out & bought second-hand he could save at least £50 per month on car payments but our unsecured debt total goes up again & obviously we'd need to factor in repairs etc. Don't know what to do for the best, feel like our debt total is just going up & up.

DH has the PCP car sitting on his credit file as a debt of £19k though which is something else we didn't realise. :eek:

Back is feeling a bit niggly again today, hope it's just temporary because that's all I need. Have asked work to exchange the horrible smock/sack-like maternity blouses for normal blouses but a size bigger. Have had to go back to my normal blouses as the maternity ones look so ridiculous (think elephant in a sack here & might come close). My bump actually isn't that big! :eek: Although one of the women in work keeps telling me how big she thinks my bump is for how far along I am! :cool: Most other people have said I'm quite neat at the moment. :think: Some days I do feel like my bump has grown overnight but could do without the commentary. :eek::rotfl:

Went to M0rrisons after work & managed to only spend £8. Again I only went in for milk & eggs :whistle: but this time I picked up a basket so couldn't carry too much. I got 2 small packs of tenderstem broccoli & green beans reduced to 19p which I thought was quite good. Can use one tonight & freeze the other. Also got the teabags I like on offer for £3 instead of £5. :T Got the milk & eggs and only 2 extra things (raspberry donoughts & rolls from the bakery :shhh:), so not too bad.

Bobarella

Sorry your back is niggling. Not nice at all. Well done for clearing the Barclaycard.Thats brilliant!

It does sound a bit complicated with all the loan stuff.

The whole thing about bump size discussion is so silly. If you are well and healthy then it's no one's business what size the bump is.