New life. Here we go.....

FtbDreaming

Oooh sounds very exciting! I read your diary from start to finish yesterday. I particularly identified with the feeling like an underachiever and disappearing for a while! I also set myself unrealistic goals then stress myself out when I’m not achieving them. But if I don’t have a goal I am bored stiff so it’s a double edged sword. 

caeler

I'm positive it counts! @Elephantchunks I get so many money saving ideas from this forum, I wouldn't be where I am without it!

Elephantchunks

Ooh visitors! Ello!
I agree really caeler, I just have a terrible habit of reading lots, dreaming, planning but not taking action.
I'm with you there FTB, we must remember though that if we didn't have the goal in the first place we'd have been in a worse position for not trying at all. I'm thinking of the reasons I give up (on here at least). Sometimes reading other diaries I feel they are perfect homemakers and always positive, I can get a lot of motivation out of this but I'm not perfect, at work I work really truly hard then at home we're both pretty chill (some might say lazy, I say 'chill'. I need to remind myself I'm not them, I'm me, I like me, I have my own dreams, my own timeline, my own successes, and my own non-successes (failure is too strong a word). I'm going to keep reminding myself of our successes whilst being honest on here and to myself.
Speaking of honesty, every month we have a monthly budget, every month we go over it, often by an amount that shocks me. I have tried many a time to record our spends and it's never lasted longer than a week. This time I'm doing it! Warts and all, if it's way over then so be it, at least I'll know why. Obviously my made up figures in my head are incorrect and we need to be realistic. We need to see why and where it all goes so that we can either work on it or revise the figures and stop feeling like we've failed at the end of every blooming month.
Must not keep repeating the same actions only to get the very same results!

So 8 days in, here we are so far...
Groceries £83/£200   £52 supermarket £11 energy drink, milk, bread, coffee £20 fish&chips
Petrol £25/£120
DH smokes £30/£80
Contingency £89/£100 £8 carwash £16 3x window wipers £65 wood

The unexpected £65 wood for the log burner is because we bought a whole lot of wet wood thinking it was a bargain. Lesson learned.

Todays wins..
Batch cooked some chilli con carne (haven't cooked properly in ages, MSE is rubbing off on me, I am on holiday with nowhere to go too though.
Cleaned the chickens out
Monitored spends for a whole week and analysed them
Thought more about the website 

Elephantchunks

Purchased a new kettle today for £30 so the contingency fund is now -22.29.
I even registered the warranty online as we got it from a local DIY store rather than a well known high street chain. I've never bothered before which is crazy when it only takes 5 minutes and we got an extra 2 years warranty on top.
When I'm back in work I can print the returns label to return the broken kettle and hope to get our £80 back by the end of the month. I don't know what we'll do with the extra £50, maybe go against monthly spends, go in the sealed pot or go towards a second under counter freezer. We currently share our under counter freezer with the lodger and I believe that it would be far less tempting to get take away if we have more choice already in stock.
 Also, the sausage man has been today, 80 sausages taking up an entire freezer drawer! 

savingholmes

Well done for getting stuck back into MSE. Doing a freezer audit can be eye opening (and tin cupboard).

Elephantchunks

Hi Savingholmes, thank you. It can be, luckily I'm top of the tins, Im good at stock rotation. But I did have to throw out some turkey dinosaurs (I'm 35 he's 43) from the freezer and condense it to fit the 80 sausages in.

It's the second time Sausage Man has been and we werent expecting him. Not like last time, I was on my own in the middle of the country and this huge 4x4 is sat on my drive honking it's horn, I thought someone had collapsed onto it. I walked up to the window (armed) to see an enormous beardy guy with a bag the size of a builders bucket full of white meat and blood at the bottom. Turns out DH had agreed to buy sausages from this gentleman without me or dh knowing (DH is half deaf and has an annoying habit of just agreeing with people). But hey £31 for 80 sausages from piggies I see roaming around his land ain't arf bad. We've got the money ready for when he comes back because we wouldn't mess with Sausage Man. 

savingholmes

Now there's a picture.... I wouldn't be messing with Sausage Man either!!

Elephantchunks

Oh my what a productive day! 
Bagged 10 rubbish bags from the house and garden and did a tip run.
Put all recycling out and tidied kitchen up.
Borrowed taller step ladders to do bedroom ceiling
Tidied and cleaned the lounge from top to bottom
5x loads of washing
Boxed broken kettle ready to post tomorrow
Cooked sausage, mash, pea, carrot & onion gravy with fried onions. Man those sausages are the best! 
Listed 5x items on ebsy
Purchased lodgers left over joblot that he can't be bothered to sell on ebsy any more. It was a bargain even after paying more than he asked for. I have a plan to make and sell some awesome things with them.
Ticked off all of today's to do list & more  

Elephantchunks

Oh also, I need to report that today is officially the longest we've gone without take-away or eating out in probably years! New years day was our last so we've gone over a week and I only just realised this enormous success! Seriously though, this is huge! We usually have about 3x a week which is clearly where our money goes and last month we ate out once a week (extending the eat out to help out excuse) 
I'm officially recording 9/10 NTAD (no take-away days). 

Elephantchunks

Today's wins

• £10 won on the PPostc@de lottery, must remember to get that out of the bank tomorrow and into the sealed pot - reminder is now set on my phone alarm.
• Posted the broken kettle, hope for the refund soon
• Received 10x plant seeds in the post that I forgot I had purchased. £2.49 which hopefully in a few years time will be worth £50 each. I'm not green fingered though so I may have just purchased magic beans.
• Designed a homeware that I am going to make and sell with the stock I purchased from the lodger.
• Did some rough estimates/budget for the homewares
• e-mailed a guy I found on ebay to cut part of the homeware out of mdf for me as its really fiddly and needs cnc cutting (there look, I learnt a new thing). I explained it and sent him a terrible example I did in paint. He replied with a super professional image and put my little drawing to shame but that's his job not mine. 
• Ordered 1x for now to check the size etc looks aesthetically pleasing before I order more at a much lower price.
• 10/11 NTAD

Back to work tomorrow, I have thoroughly enjoyed this break off work with DH working and me relaxing, reading mse, plotting and planning my next move(s). In priority order....

• Make & sell an expensive homeware (maybe look into cheaper/smaller ones too)
• Seriously consider doing ACCA. You are confident enough now!
• Start planting fruit for us and seeds to sell for future returns
• At Christmas, make hampers to sell. Did the same one for both brothers families this year and both said it was 'awesome' separately.
• Make an information website and sell a workbook and an information book off of it, possibly youtube too.

DH has been a diamond having to listen to my millions of ideas this week!
A plan is afoot