£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Silver_Queen

This is the second year for me of buying for so many people, prior to this I’ve only ever bought for 4 people and then a few bits and pieces here and there for friends. Unfortunately OH has 5 siblings, 2 parents and a grandma to buy for, and a close knit family :eek:

Armchair expert, I love that quote. Anne of green gables was one of my favourite books growing up

TOPM, I love the 10 minute chunks thing, what a good idea! I’m always impressed at how organised you are. One of the reasons I don’t think I could ever go self employed.

Treadingonplaymobil

Slightly less productive today, but not too bad. Had a lovely afternoon with the DC after school, so nice not to be dashing off to a club. Then remembered I was supposed to be dashing one of them off to a club, that we had completely forgotten about (new swim club). Whoops! We all needed the downtime though.

to do today
1. Finish remaining 40% or so of contract work. Done, hurrah!
2. More Christmas knitting. Bit more done.
3. Continue to practise nativity lines with DC2. Done.
4. Tidy our bedroom - such a dumping ground! Done, although it is so full of presents it still looks pretty bad.
5. Finish tidying the dining room. Done.
6. Make something for pudding (preferably involving tinned pears, since I have a tin in the cupboard). Well 'make' might be pushing it - leftover scrapings of ice cream, whipped cream and tinned pears. I put sprinkles on top and the DC were thrilled though.
7. Check mortgage paperwork - I'm sure we're supposed to get a text or something when they receive the latest bit of paperwork, and nothing yet (I posted it on Monday). Actually got a text this morning as expected to say the paperwork had been received, so hopefully all will move forwards now.
8. Defeat the ironing basket before it expands to become an ironing mountain. Done, although not put away.

To do this week
1. finish Christmas shopping.
2. finish DH Christmas knitting.
3. get ahead on contract work.
4. buy Christmas cards. Done.

To do in December
1. finish Christmas shopping!
2. buy DH's birthday present while I'm doing the Christmas shopping.
3. make some more candles.
4. don't try to do too much! I already have a few client bookings and lots of work I want to do, alongside the Christmas stuff. I need to make sure I don't get overwhelmed again. Yeah, this is going abysmally, as always.
5. update debt totals at the end of the month, to ensure we know where we are as we start 2018.

EscapingTheAlarm

Keep going TOPM! It must be so stressful keeping up with everything but you’ve managed to make so much work up until now that I reckon you’ll have found a solution for how busy you feel in no time!
ETA x

armchairexpert

Sprinkles on top solves everything!

This time of year really is busier though. Mr E and I were looking at one another despairingly yesterday after we got the kids into bed at 9.15pm because of a festive dinner out with friends, when we realised that we still needed to make their birthday cake for Saturday as well as a picnic for tonight (school concert) and also I promised to pick up the alcohol for the school concert's bar and then the vet rang reminding me that the cats need booster shots and I had to cancel my hairdresser's appointment despite terrifying roots and I'm working until midnight tonight because of the aforementioned concert and it just.doesn't.stop.

Hang in there, is what I'm saying here.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 43: Day 6

Keeping the budgets balanced is, um, a little challenging this month. We are taking the DC to the cinema on the weekend as they have been desperate to see Paddington 2, but the cinema for the five of us comes to a ridiculous £41, a third of our entertainment budget for the month (with dinner at the Christmas market wiping out the other third). At least we don't do any panto/visit to Santa type stuff, but things are squeakily tight!

Working away from home today, DH is in charge of the DC. The best thing about this is (caution: hugely unsupportive wife comment coming up), for the first year since the DC started school, DH can't volunteer to help out at the Christmas fair and actually has to take the DC. Normally I end up stressed and harried and irritated having to manage three over-excited children all by myself while he helps out and has a lovely time chatting to everyone. This year the tables have turned and he will see what it's like for me! <evil laugh>

Seriously, he does a lot and is lovely etc etc, but he is on PTA and gives them quite a lot of time (we were talking about it the other night, I reckon it's a good hour a week on average, maybe more - he is treasurer, quite often organises events single handed, is always the one to arrange floats etc for stalls). I try to be all zen about it, but I do find it tiresome when we are already so tight for time. I am a trustee for a local charity, so we each have one community spirited thing we do, but mine is only three meetings a year, with very little work beyond that, maybe reading the odd policy. We have agreed to review the PTA situation at the end of the year.

Ooh, must remember to take a packed lunch with me today, after telling DH off for buying lunch too many times recently (he only gets something from Lidl, about £2.75 a time, but after a week that's almost 20% of our food budget gone!). He did it almost every day when I was working away last week, and the odd time before. I didn't want to make a big issue as I was away, but when he did it again this week I had to get cross. I hate that I have to be the sensible one about these things, he knew full well he shouldn't be doing it.

to do today
1. MAKE PACKED LUNCH.
2. More Christmas knitting.
3. Remind DH to practise nativity lines with DC2.
4. Ask DH to tidy the DCs' bedroom.
5. Remind DH to use up leftovers for dinner (s basically my to do list today is about managing DH).
6. Put on a laundry before I go out.
7. Check a map to see whether I can make a detour to see a friend who is struggling a bit after I finish work today.
8. Activate new partnership card so I can finish the Christmas shopping. I really want to get it all finished this week. :eek:

To do this week
1. finish Christmas shopping.
2. finish DH Christmas knitting.
3. get ahead on contract work.
4. buy Christmas cards. Done.

To do in December
1. finish Christmas shopping!
2. buy DH's birthday present while I'm doing the Christmas shopping.
3. make some more candles.
4. don't try to do too much! I already have a few client bookings and lots of work I want to do, alongside the Christmas stuff. I need to make sure I don't get overwhelmed again. Yeah, this is going abysmally, as always.
5. update debt totals at the end of the month, to ensure we know where we are as we start 2018.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Do you have tesco or nectar points you can use for the cinema?

Silver_Queen

Can you take the DC to the cinema on a Tuesday or wednesday and make use of meerkat movies? I don’t remember what it is that my sister always buys, but she buys a cheap insurance policy through them (less than £5) and then gets access to 2 for 1 movies.

KxMx

It's a one day Travel insurance policy, cost is usually £1-£2.50.

Then you have Meerkat Movies (2for1 each Tuesday of Wednesday) for a year.

Suffolk_lass

I might have to make that my motto for the month - everything seems better with sprinkles on top! Well done TOPM, I see real changes in you

Treadingonplaymobil

Argh, there's not that much change! :eek: :eek: :eek:

1. Film has to be tomorrow, as it's the only day we can all do, so full price unfortunately.

2. DH has just been to the school fair with the DC and spent something in the region of £30 I think, certainly more than £20.

Between the cinema, the not-worth-it money on food at the Christmas market and the school fair, we've spent a cool £117-ish on random stuff this week that was in no way budgeted. ARGH.

I should go through this year's diary with a notepad and make a note of all the unexpected expenses that cropped up through the year, as I'm sure 99% of them could have been anticipated, if not avoided.