Drawing a line under the debt. Take two.

Honeysucklelou2

Huge congratulations to your DD. What a fantastic achievement.

Drawingaline

Hubby is getting a small pay rise and a small bonus. Which will be paid this month. So have enough to get an item I have wanted for a while and to pay for a few bits that are needed. Going to try and stash about £500 of it away as we don't really have a proper emergency fund.

The girl is still in wobble mode. Hubby is very much of the, go to London it's too good an opportunity to turn down. I am more, go where you think you will be happiest. But I really think she will regret not trying the London uni. She seems to think she will end up not coping and dropping out which she sees as a failure. Which I don't, I see it as learning your limitations and what you need from life. She has always been so lucky academically and has achieved everything she has ever tried, which may be holding her back a bit in this situation?. Have really tried to get her to see that see is still super young and if she drops out and takes a longer path she will still be young, she has time. Also her creative process seems to need these mini breakdowns, she is so dramatic and it is why she needs to move out for this degree 😂

Otherwise we are still plodding along. All the 18th BD presents are here and wrapped. Have ordered some foil balloons too. Waiting on some photos to he delivered to make up a board for her, cake is ordered (one of my clients makes them) so paying and picking it up when I see her on the day. Meal out booked with in laws and my parents. So all organised. Phew!

lucielle

That's excellent news on the payrise!  It's good to have some money put by as a cushion.  Hope your DD manages to make a decision.  It is so difficult at that age to see the bigger picture.
L

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Well done to DD, excellent news

savingholmes

Glad things are going well. I think kids all wobble a lot. I think we are more aware of it in them than we are in ourselves. Hope she makes the right call for her.

Drawingaline

So we now have another adult in the house 😱 I don't feel old enough! She is still not deciding on unis. However she has had some pretty stressful weeks, but she finally decided on a them for a project so is knee deep in that but way behind her classmates. Add in mocks and she is like a pressure cooker atm. End of next week the pressure should ease so will hopefully get a decision out of her then. Also need to try and fit in a visit to the area in London the uni campus and halls are in. Hubby said he would take a day off work and take her which is helpful. I just can't spare the time right now.

 Am slowly increasing my hours. This month I have sent s decent amount. Not enough to plug the gap from losing the other job, but it isn't as bad as i thought. 

Hubbys bonus is going to disappear faster than I hoped. He broke an expensive hobby item, and it's his bonus so used some to replace that. Also the mains wired smoke alarms broke. They also had replace by 2011 on them all 😬 seemed to be ok until recently though. Anyway after a lot of faffing with stupid beeping and having to turn them off at the trip switch I contacted an electrician who came and replaced all three this week. He is a touch on the more expensive side, but he answers his emails within 24hrs and he was either not busy or prioritised us due to the nature of the query and from contact to installation was less than 48hours! He has done lots of work for us in the past, I like knowing trades who are reliable. So more of the bonus gone. 

And then one of the toilets had started to leak 🤦 I think it just needs some more sealant, so need to get to my dad's to borrow his sealant gun. I have a pot under it atm and the floor is fully tiled so not to worried about it, it's just when the toilet is flushed. Will try and seal it, if that doesn't work I may get the plumber to replace the whole toilet. It's old and if we replace it, we can keep that toilet when we get around to redoing the bathroom in the future.

This month has been shocking on the finances. Am hoping my budget looks better once hubby is paid, but the expenses keep rolling in. Have had to increase petrol and energy in my budget. Our disposable income for things like gardening and house stuff is fast disappearing. Add in uni costs and I think we are sliding back to how we were a decade ago!

Also our mortgage is fixed until Nov. What crap timing. Hope we can get a five year deal but knowing our luck the rates will keep going up before we can fix it again.

Doom and gloom, roll on spring 😁

savingholmes

Need to weight up the cost of the ERC on the mortgage versus the risk of waiting to switch... 

Sorry to hear about all the extra costs. Glad the bonus is helping with some of it and that you've been able to plug some of the gap in your earnings.

Drawingaline

The erc is 8k, not a chance we are paying that! We can wait. We had a higher fixed mortgage rate back in 2009, we should be able to look at deals with our current provider in August so hopefully we should be ok. 

Drawingaline

Overall a nice weekend. In laws visited and we went out for a meal with the girl and both sets of grandparents. Left the boys at home so it was a proper grown up meal, with hubby paying for everyone! 

Have rejigged the budget with my income become variable again. This month we have a £400 hole which can be covered with me not funding some non essential line in the budget. This month has been a killer though, I know I need to up what I put by for the boys 18th! Just all the little bits adding up. Will be carrying some debt on the credit card for a couple of months, will do some sums to see if it's worth bt it, or if the fees will be more than any interest charge. Also hubby's bonus will help

Have tried sealing the toilet. Still waiting for that to dry, my skills are not great so it went on a bit thick. But so far I am not convinced it will hold. Will give it 48hrs and if it's still dripping I will contact the plumber and ask for a quote to replace the whole toilet. It's already had two new seats since we moved in and the flush isn't great, just a shame we are not in a position to redo the whole bathroom. It is fully tiled in horrible coloured tiles and has the smallest shower for the size of the bathroom, loads of dead space and would really benefit from being re designed. But not really in the position to do that yet and our ensuite needs doing first as the shower in there is a higher priority right now. May see if the bonus will stretch to beginning that project.

I painted the last wall in our bedroom, love the colour but will need at least another two coats as it's a dark colour. I have a day off on Tuesday and hubby is in the office, am stupidly excited to be home alone (watch one of the kids get poorly now!) As it is a super rare occurrence these days. 

And finally got washing dry outside this weekend. And managed to sit outside with the cats for a bit so they are happy too 😁

boxofpaws

We had a leaking toilet and replacing the flushing mechanism fixed it. It didn’t feel like it should, but it did. I mean surely, watertight is watertight no matter what mechanics are inside, but there it was. Might be worth a try?