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

reality_check

I have been reading your diary over the past few days and just wanted to say you are doing great!! I think the front of the house face lift is a good idea as like you said it is needed for business and parking up outside your home every day and seeing a nice front garden will put a smile on your face. Painting the outside of my house is something I would like to do, but would need to do it myself too as the quotes I had about a year ago were eye watering! I would love to know where you get the paint from/how you get on with it. I also bought some cheap(ish) artificial hanging baskets and plants from Sainsburys recently to go along with my artificial grass because I am hopeless with anything garden related and was fed up spending a good few hundred every year on hanging baskets/potted plants for them to die in a few months, not sure if these would interest you or you are probably more green fingered than me anyway!!

Good luck with your journey and def plan in some date nights with your husband if you can xx

enthusiasticsaver

I think you need to make sure you don't get carried away with the home improvements as from experience costs can easily escalate, you don't have an emergency fund and the 0% deals seem to have dried up. Taking it from your business account though should not impact on your debt repayments.

I agree you need a budget which is sustainable as this will be a long journey in view of the high level of debt but £135 entertainment was budgeted in your soa so are you exceeding that or keeping within it?

armchairexpert

I'm also taking comfort from all the people chiming in with tales of how hard things are when the children are young! I sometimes feel like this is the easy bit, because the children only get more expensive when they're teenagers. But the lack of available time is a huge counter balance to that. It's nice to hear from people who are out the other side.

TOPM I have a brilliant suggestion re the ironing, which is a foolproof strategy for making ironing your DH's shirts much easier and quicker. Are you ready? Here it is:

DH can iron his own shirts.

On_a_Shoestring

armchairexpert wrote: »

TOPM I have a brilliant suggestion re the ironing, which is a foolproof strategy for making ironing your DH's shirts much easier and quicker. Are you ready? Here it is:

DH can iron his own shirts.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Bobarella

Hope your MIL can help you out with the childcare gap.

Glad you have that money to do the garden too.

Treadingonplaymobil

armchairexpert wrote: »

I'm also taking comfort from all the people chiming in with tales of how hard things are when the children are young! I sometimes feel like this is the easy bit, because the children only get more expensive when they're teenagers. But the lack of available time is a huge counter balance to that. It's nice to hear from people who are out the other side.

TOPM I have a brilliant suggestion re the ironing, which is a foolproof strategy for making ironing your DH's shirts much easier and quicker. Are you ready? Here it is:

DH can iron his own shirts.

:rotfl: He would MORE than happily iron his own shirts, but he is soooooo painfully slow at it that I can't bear to see it - he is more efficiently put to use elsewhere!

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I think you need to make sure you don't get carried away with the home improvements as from experience costs can easily escalate, you don't have an emergency fund and the 0% deals seem to have dried up. Taking it from your business account though should not impact on your debt repayments.

I agree you need a budget which is sustainable as this will be a long journey in view of the high level of debt but £135 entertainment was budgeted in your soa so are you exceeding that or keeping within it?

I need to go back to the SOA again in the light of recent decisions, but generally we have been exceeding it by varying degree since LBM. Some months it's been fine as I've brought in lots of extra money, but at least once it's been a problem.

reality_check wrote: »

I have been reading your diary over the past few days and just wanted to say you are doing great!! I think the front of the house face lift is a good idea as like you said it is needed for business and parking up outside your home every day and seeing a nice front garden will put a smile on your face. Painting the outside of my house is something I would like to do, but would need to do it myself too as the quotes I had about a year ago were eye watering! I would love to know where you get the paint from/how you get on with it. I also bought some cheap(ish) artificial hanging baskets and plants from Sainsburys recently to go along with my artificial grass because I am hopeless with anything garden related and was fed up spending a good few hundred every year on hanging baskets/potted plants for them to die in a few months, not sure if these would interest you or you are probably more green fingered than me anyway!!

Good luck with your journey and def plan in some date nights with your husband if you can xx

I'll let you know how we get on with it! Our house is a dormer bungalow so we can reach everything except the dormer windows ourselves (and we will leave those until we can afford to hire scaffolding/roof ladders). It is shaping up really well, I'm feeling optimistic that it will be worth it.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 14: Day 3

I did not stop yesterday. Yoga and batch cooking before the children got up, delivered various children to school/precshool, worked solidly for the two hours DC3 has at preschool, picked her up and dashed to the garden centre for plants (pretty cheap - £40 for loads of random things. Now I have to keep them alive), came home and put her to bed, worked solidly for 90 mins while she slept, picked up the older DC from school, worked on the garden for an hour in between getting snacks/refereeing arguments, took DC2 to beavers with other two in tow, handed them over to DH when he got back, worked for another hour then spent two hours at a preschool trustee meeting (I'm on the board of trustees). Was a bit tired by the time I got home at 9pm!

My main business has been very quiet in terms of new bookings for the last fortnight, which is a bit depressing, but does give me some time to focus on my smaller business, which it badly needs. We have somehow booked to be away for the next two weekends visiting family though, so I'm not going to have acres of free time.

to do today:
1. Ask MIL if she will step in and help out with a one day childcare gap I am trying to resolve (still haven't done this!).
2. Go through calendar for next couple of months and check we haven't inadvertently booked weekends away on ones when I'm pencilled in to work - I have a vague feeling we've done this so need to rejig my working days if necessary.
3. clear the remaining ironing
4. sew in the loose ends of the wrist warmers I am knitting for friend - all the knitting is done!
5. get DH to submit meter readings, check into online accounts for utilities and check everything is as it should be.
6. bake some flatbreads.
7. get a laundry hung out on airers - we have a big backlog and it's forecast to rain for the rest of the week!
8. call to chase one last refund which hasn't come through
9. make dinner during the day so it's ready in time for DC1 to eat before cubs.

to do this week:
1. lose another 0.5kg.
2. Make my work time more focused - I was very inefficient last week.

Kantankrus_Mare

Wowsers!! You just made me feel very lazy and worn out on your behalf! Not surprised you were feeling sleepy by the end of the day.
:eek:

Treadingonplaymobil

Kantankrus_Mare wrote: »

Wowsers!! You just made me feel very lazy and worn out on your behalf! Not surprised you were feeling sleepy by the end of the day.
:eek:

The alarming thing is that this is not an unusual day at the moment!

Bobarella

I had two very quiet weeks in April. It is scary when the lines go dead so to speak.

Are there any new platforms you could add your services to? I have just canned one completely but one of mine is a real life line, guaranteed enquiry per day usually. Do you look on local forums for work? Could you put some flyers up somewhere useful? I dont know what is relevant for your world so forgive the random dump of suggestions