Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

badmemory

Even if you don't "need" the chair for work it is still worth finding one that suits YOU.   A friend bought mine for me with the shortest upper leg that we could find.  (over £200 later).  I have a typing chair that I still have a pillow (not a cushion) on the back held in place with a black pillowcase to match the chair.  I find it more comfortable than settee, armchair, definitely dining chair.  Well worth every penny of his money, I am so pleased with it I actually offered to pay!

XSpender

5 parcels delivered in the space of 10 minutes today!  4 for us and one for next door.  The doggo is now Doggy-Two-Beds and his new one is installed in my office and he is installed in it .  I haven't made any progress on a new chair and am using a dining chair (with an extra tie on seat pad designed for a garden chair) that originally belonged to my great grandma with a 1950s teachers desk we picked up at a reclamation yard about 4 years ago.  It's a bit of a hodge podge this room as it also has 3 different types of IKEA furniture in it!

Our friends had a baby girl today so I am hoping we may get to see her in the not too distant future.

Today is my last day of furlough and I have had 2 online meetings, some bits and pieces to do and 3 big reports to read before another meeting at 9 am tomorrow so it feels like I am back to work already.  I am really not sure how I am going to manage DS learning and other activities when my initial work load is going to be so high.  I may have to start work really early to free up some time during the day to spend some quality time with DS.  

I got paid today but nothing much to report on the debt busting front.  Savings and sinking funds funded but no further debt repayments have been made.  I haven't budgeted for any debt OPs this month due to repaying the CC.  Will double check balances and payments tomorrow when most of the DDs come out for bills.  I have been scooping up the £2/day as per my savings challenge and putting it in a virtual pot to either OP or add to savings at the end of the month.  I am leaning towards OPing it as with only £1030 left on the Ll0yds card to clear it will be good to see it come down quickly.  I will also pay any other income from sales (£77 due so far) or from being under budget in my spending pots to the card.  I would like the balance to be in the low 800s by the end of the month if poss.

I'm planning a fair few NSDs this week (on 2 so far).  DH will need fuel one day, we will run out of milk before the weekend and the handle snapped off our water filter jug (just after I ordered a year's supply of filters ) and will need to be replaced so I will aim to keep all spends to the same day.  The jug is from Wilkos and I have a couple of other bits I need from there but I will order online as we went into the town where the nearest one is on Saturday for something else and I don't want to visit there again if I have to .  DS has a voucher left from Christmas that is for the shopping centres that have gone into administration so we will be aiming to spend that at the weekend.  He does have an electronic item that he has wanted since before lock down that we were going to purchase 2nd hand but couldn't when the shops were shut.

apple_muncher

To be honest, if ds was still physically in school, he would not be doing any intense learning at this stage of the year. Plays. Sports day practice + the day itself. Assemblies. Creative things.

So please don't make a rod for your own back and try to do it all like you were doing before x

f0xh0les

I was thinking the same thing, they barely seemed to do anything except watch films, sing, and prep for sports day from the start of June.  Even the year 6's get involved in the school Teddy Bear's Picnic, and they just seem to play with the younger ones from nursery and year 1 under the guise of ' responsibility'  and 'school collegiality'. Plus 'insert-name-of-school's Got Talent'  and end of term parties.   It does give a bit of structure to the day though. 

I would suggest introducing him to a style of painting, show him a few pictures, and get him to create his own artwork (preferably in the garden on the back of an end roll of wallpaper. Size matters to boys).  That and putting up a tent and filling a paddling pool and putting out a lounger.  He can pretend to be Robinson Crusoe exploring his island with Dog Friday - it is one way to get them to read! A cheap dome tent can keep my kids amused for days.  It has been a Mars explorer, a cave, a parallel dimension, inside an alien's stomach,  and many other things.  Imaginative play is really important too.

As is the ability to knock up a round of scones and fairy cakes for busy working mums and dads.

Or home made dog biscuits  shaped like bones - makes them feel needed and important, feeding the family hound.

Bizzywizard

My son has learned to draw the fortnight characters on Youtube - The marvel ones are on there too. It kept him entertained for hours! So its art homework/Schoolwork! Hope this might help you.
Bizzy

brizzlegirl

Nice ideas for crafts.
I like  the intensity and the commitment to debt busting from your OH!! Great to see x

apple_muncher

Hope you are all having a good weekend x

Suffolk_lass

Hope all is well with you and the working from home/children's teacher/entertainer role. I'm assuming you are a bit busy now.

XSpender

Thanks for your ideas for activities to do with DS.  

My return to work has been crazy, same amount of work with 50% reduction in the team has meant a massive increase in workload.  I don’t get time to do much more than have breakfast and lunch with DS! My housework routine has gone out of the window.  I was so exhausted by Thursday, not helped by getting up with DH at 5.30am for the last three mornings as he had to be at work for 7am 40 minutes away, that I slept for 10 hours!

I started SW on Monday, using my previous knowledge and what’s from blogs on line, not joining a class or signing up to their official programme. I can’t say I have been perfectly on plan but I have definitely eaten better and cut down a lot.  Not having time to snack has certainly helped!! I want to lose the 20lb I have wanted to lose since the beginning of the year as I have now tipped into overweight on the NHS charts.  I am hoping for 2lb this week 🙂. I’m also getting the urge to exercise again 😱. I don’t feel so bad about not feeling comfortable exercising outside during lockdown (apart from walking the dog) as I was speaking to a long distance/ultra runner yesterday who races all over and they had felt the same and hadn’t run for weeks!  Our gym will be reopening later in the month but the council is not opening the 2 swimming pools minutes from our house 🙁

I finally got my hair cut and coloured yesterday.  It had grown about 5 inches since February so I now have a new style and have grown my fringe out.  The salon were following guidelines very closely and even had the clients wearing masks which isn’t essential but I was happy to oblige.  DS and DH had home haircuts as we bought a hair clipper which has done a much better job than the beard trimmers we have used for the last few months.  £99 but will have paid us back by DH first hair cut in September.

We have used some of our savings to purchase a big birthday/Christmas gift for me.  DH I insisted that he was not going to let the milestone pass without a suitable gift. I had started a sinking fund for Christmas so used my portion of that towards it too. It felt good to pay for the gift with a debit card, probably the second time ever we have ever purchased a high value item with cash, the first being February when I bought DH’s 50th gift.

I haven’t enjoyed seeing the savings balance drop so we will be focussing on still hitting our savings target by the end of the year.  We will be keeping the regular saver DD going and continuing to build our sinking funds.  Money saved from being under budget, my monthly savings challenges and anything else we can lay our hands on will be put to the ISA with some smaller sums going to the target CC.  The smallest debt is due to finish at the end of Jan so only requires 1 extra payment of £70 to finish by the end of the year.  The CC needs an extra £800 of OPs.

I keep thinking our debt payoff progress is slow this month but we have actually paid off over £2100 since payday 😂. We will be just under £7000 paid off YTD by the end of the month.  I think we are likely to come in around the £10k debt pay off target I originally set, £11k ish if we clear the 2 smallest debts, as we have changed our focus to building a bigger emergency fund due to the ongoing instability around my job.  This instability is never going to change, it’s the joy of being a subcontractor and it’s worse in the current climate, and we both want the security of a decent sized EF.  

Our mortgage payment, following the 3 month payment break, has gone up £32 and we will have 4 months of payments before we have a new mortgage rate/payment in December which should help our ability to get a decent 5 year fixed rate.  

Must get a move on, I have housework to catch up with, food prep to do and a dog to walk.  DH is off to a friend’s house today to help him tame his overgrown garden as he is a complete novice and bought a house that had not been lived in for 2 years.

ETA: We haven’t used a credit card for 201 days 😁

Honeysucklelou2

That’s an amazing achievement to have cleared £7k by the end of this month - a huge well done😀