I’m taking control of my life, now.

sashybo

Well done on the new job. 🎉 

We have a cat fountain and my Old Cat took to it straight away, we've had it around 3 years so he was probably about 10 when we got it. I thought he would be scared or not use it but he loves it. In my defence this is the cat who was scared of stairs when we moved house and just COULD NOT figure them out. 😂 Had to carry him up and down for about a week. 🤷‍♀️ 

I definitely think they both drink more with the fountain, the only pain is cleaning it and replacing the filter. I would like to get a stainless steel or ceramic one but not sure if I'd trust Big Cat not to knock it off the worktop just because. 😂 

boxofpaws

Thanks everyone for the congrats! 

And for the cat fountain recommendations 

In MSE news, there’s not much to share, everything is pretty static. There is no progress on the consolidation part of the mortgage because I’m tracking where my mortgage payments would have been without it, so every month, I fall a bit behind really. Will take some time to catch back up.

savingholmes

Perhaps stop beating yourself up re consolidation mortgage and just start tracking from now. Be kinder to you like you are to others. Life happens. You have been dealt a rough hand and are dealing with it like a champion

boxofpaws

Thank you @savingholmes. In fact, I have been inspired by your diary and I am going to adopt your approach and aim for debt neutrality for now. So offsetting the consolidation part of the loan again my shares. This would make me feel like I am making progress. Right now, that would be £22k -£11k. By the time that’s cracked (September)  I should have caught up on the rest, and hopefully have the remaining £11k gone by summer next year.

savingholmes

That sounds a positive way forward. Have a fun weekend

boxofpaws

Thank you SG, we did.

I think I’m going to start to try and log what we have eaten for dinner for the week. There would be no point in putting a meal plan here because I tend to do a mixture of meal planning and reverse meal planning.

Last week we had
Monday – salmon Thai curry (I didn’t enjoy it, I’d added too much coconut milk)
Tuesday - chicken sag rice and daal. Was brill if I say so myself
Wednesday - Quorn nuggets chips (quick and easy after a busy day)
Thursday - the rest of the chicken sag, rice and daal
Friday - Baked potatoes and tuna and salad.
Saturday- spag Bol
Sunday roast duck breast, wedges and broccoletti

Tonight I’m doing macaroni cheese, ham and salad

Suffolk_lass

My kind of Valentine's meal! Logging what you eat is a good insightful thing to do. I might copy and log things throughout March. I certainly need to be more conscious about things we eat. DH's belly looks bigger and my clothes feel tight and I believe we have put on weight. I need to ... ooh, that's my diary

EssexHebridean

Yes - I'm with you on the reverse meal planning/planning ahead thing - that balance works for us too. I mostly plan for the week but several of the meals will be planned based on things we already have in that I want to use. One thing I find useful about the planning is that I have books I can glance back at to pick up where there are meals we've not had for a while for one reason or another - that helps with making sure we mix things up a bit from time to time. 

You've reminded me I want to make daal at some stage - not done it for ages and it's SO delicious! 

savingholmes

Good luck with meal planning

MissRikkiC

Enjoy your meal planning, I really enjoy it!