Courgette resets her sights

Courgette

Hi all,

I've started my new job now. School is ace, job is ace, kids are ace, commute is awful I'm using the time well listening to an audio book about money mindset and enjoying having that time to think and process stuff. However, it does feel like a big chunk out of the day and makes me feel somewhat guilty. With a car the commute wouldn't be anything like so long but then I also wouldn't be earning anything!

A load of invoices have come in this week - have been paid over £1000 this financial year already which is great.

We've also decided on our kitchen and put the deposit down. We still need £3000 to finish the job but we have a few more weeks to bring this in. I only managed to knock £200 off the price they quoted but it was already over £1000 cheaper than iKkeaa so that still counts as a win in my book.

The boys want to camp in the garden tonight so need to dig out the tent etc so we can actually do this!

Spent £2.99 of my £100 half term allowance (half term being the school half term, ie 6 weeks)

Jobs this half term:
1. New website up and running need to chase this. A friend of mine is foing this (will also be paid once she quotes for it) but it's taking so long I might need to get someone else to do this
2. ebook finished and published nope. Still around the 5000 word mark. Not done any of this for a couple of weeks
3. settle in and become great at new daytime job. Also find a way to use the bus journey productively. lessons for first week planned. Will download an audio book onto my kindle to listen to on bus Met all my classes, no alarm bells ringing with any of it, looks to be a very straightforward job. Been listening to an audio book on the bus
4. train for C25K ran a whole 1.3km in 11 minutes. Was painful :rotfl:

beanielou

Glad that job is good apart from commute.

Courgette

Sigh. Just lost a big post. Must remember to refresh before posting on my phone

Courgette

Morning all,

Had a lovely weekend with the family. We camped in the garden on Saturday night and DS2 said, as he was falling asleep, that he was so happy he could cry :happyhear A massive storm passed right overhead not long after the boys had fallen asleep which was extremely dramatic and I'm delighted to report that the tent is entirely waterproof! Yay!

Money mindset is continuing to percolate at the back of my brain and it's occurred to me that I have been saying no quite often in anticipation that things will cost money that I don't want to spend without even thinking it through. Camping in the garden is a good example of this. Only a few weeks ago I would automatically talked the boys out of it, not unkindly, but nevertheless it wouldn't have happened. It's a definite downside of extreme frugality, that if you allow it to it can really close you down.

I also realised this week that one thing I love to spend money on is fresh, good quality fruit and veg for the family. On my way home from the school last week I stopped off at Lidl and spent £25 on absolutely loads of fresh goodies. Yes, I know frozen raspberries are cheaper but seeing the boys put a raspberry on the end of each finger and eat them one at a time is just completely harmless fun and makes everyone - me included - very happy. I also bought myself two bunches of tulips as a change from daffs. More expensive than daffs (£1.89 a bunch and I bought - shocker - two!) but they're so beautiful and really lift the room they're in so no regrets. I'm unsure whether to class them as personal spends or not though. I definitely bought them cos I wanted them but they're in the kitchen and in some small way making everyone's life a bit more lovely. Opinions? Overthinking?

The miles away school have asked me to work an additional hour this week which is great and exactly what I hoped would happen. Also realised that no one has taken my banking details so I've chased that one up.

Outstanding invoice was paid last week. Apparently when this happens, you can calmly, carefully check your receipts from the company then reissue the invoice with a note explaining it hasn't been paid. When, after a few days, the company send you payment, you can just transfer that to the correct account as normal and carry on with life. What you don't need to do is feel sick and lightheaded, send ranty texts to your husband, doubt yourself, check check and check again but in such an emotional state that you reach different numbers every time, attempt to convince yourself that you don't deserve that money even though you did the work, insult yourself mentally for several hours for missing an invoice before finally doing the first group of steps which takes you several tense hours because it's all such a huge deal. Just saying. Y'know, if anyone else fancied the second approach. Just me?

Very busy with work at the moment. Great because it obviously means more income but it has reminded me really that there's a limit to the number of hours I can spend each week directly speaking to other people. I used to think this was some weird weak freakery and obviously berated myself accordingly. What I have since realised as I've got older is that I'm just an introvert and I manage best when I have lots of time to recharge. This has reminded me how important it is for me to put some passive income in place. I've got rent from the BTL and also a tiny bit from my S&S ISA although I'm not using either of these for personal spends, they're there purely for long-term investment purposes. eBook writing seems to have ground to a halt. This week I will write 100 words a day. This is a tiny amount but will mean that my book will eventually get finished. It's exactly the same strategy I used when I wrote up my MA dissertation which I didn't think was ever gonna end.

Right, need to crack on. These are my only child-free hours of the week and I've got them until 1.00 when I need to set off on the nursery run. Just over 2.5 hours to play with:
more coffee
plan the week's lessons
check banking
100 words of my ebook and make sure I know what tomorrow's 100 will be about

edinburgher

I think that I would be a mess (and a total !!!!!!!) if I was invoicing folk!

Camping in the garden sounds delightful I would love to do similar, but unfortunately the air in our neighbourhood was full of the sounds of loud music and youths who had perhaps had one two many shandies as they let off steam during the unexpected sunshine.

I'm with you on the fresh fruit versus frozen. DD can eat a full punnet of raspberries if you let her, although she is usually happy to eat frozen unless it's a fussy day.

I'd count flowers as a personal spend, sorry! I suspect that you may be deriving far more joy from them than anyone else if you're in a house full of boys....

Courgette

In that case Ed (and I think you're quite right) personal spend so far are £6.77.

Just written 600 words of my ebook. I blummin love writing I do! Had misremembered the current total so with what I've just done I'm now at around 5000 (some on computer, some by hand hence not knowing exact figure).

Banking attempted but TSB still offline, booooo

edinburgher

I did think 100 words was setting the bar a little low! Well done you

Courgette

Definitely very low but with the intention that I can always write this regardless of how pushed for time or knackered I am. Most days I will hopefully write a lot more but even if I do only manage 100 it's still 500 a week.

Just found out we have finally cleared the arrears for DS3's nursery lunches and paid in full until the end of summer. I've now taken that £15 pw we were paying and set up a weekly payment to the mortgage instead. I'm not sure what that takes our monthly OP to but it's probably around £100 which is something. I'm not sure the £15 will stay OPing longer term but for now it can tick over until we come up with another plan for it

beanielou

TSB have not come out of this well.

Glad the camping went well.

Treadingonplaymobil

Courgette, you really are me! One of the reasons I have turned to considering ebooks/downloads is because my introversion means there is an upper limit to how many client facing hours I can manage in a week without it having a negative impact on everything else. Passive income is definitely where it's at for me too.

Well done on the camping. I love our tent and we get so much use from it (when the weather is warmer. You wouldn't catch me out in it at this time of year!).