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Chrystal

Sending Love and Healing thoughts to you and yours... (((((hugs))))) XX

Drawingaline

So sorry to hear this. Hope your mum is recovering. Remember to look after yourself.

Pink_Butterfly

Sending you so much love hun. I’m so sorry that you & your family are going through this xxxxxxxxx

MeandO

Thank you all. Unfortunately Mum had another episode of the same a couple of days ago after we'd left and driven home. She's been sent home again with the promise of an outpatient appointment for the cardiac team - not good enough in our opinion, but that's the current state of the NHS I guess.
We're now all living in fear of it happening again and the consequences of such.

MeandO

In money news, my sister and my parents very kindly gave me some money for Christmas amongst other gifts, and the tax credits and CB has been paid, so I've updated YNAB today.

Another £66.79 has gone to the credit card, making the outstanding balance now £250 and I've sent £20 to the mortgage to round it down to the next £100. That's now at £101,900.

I've sent another £100 to the gifts pot as I have two big birthdays to cover in February, so there's £200 in there now.

I don't need to buy anything, groceries or otherwise for a while now, so I don't anticipate any big spends in the next week or so. I am taking DS away somewhere this weekend as part of his Christmas present, but that is all paid for. The petrol money has been allocated for it and breakfast is included both days, so it will just be food to pay for for a couple of days which will be done cheaply.
Hopefully it will be a cheap month so I can start building some savings pots back up again.

I am feeling rough again - another cough/cold/chesty virus. I've had one day of feeling 'ok' in the past three weeks and I seem to be getting one cold after another. It's not too bad, but it is affecting sleep which I could really do without as I'm exhausted. Fingers crossed it goes soon.

I almost forgot it's New year's Eve - probably because I'm working today. I am not a fan of New year so we will not be going out or doing anything special - probably watching TV, perhaps a DVD, cooking something from the freezer to make some space and use things up and will hopefully have an early, restful night.
Happy New Year to everyone, I hope it brings you all good health and happiness. xx

crazy_cat_lady

Hope that appointment comes through quickly for your mum.
And I really hope the new decade is brighter and less stressful for you than the past few years have been. Lots of love

MeandO

Thank you CCL, sending the same positive vibe right back at ya!
Hopefully life will start to improve for everyone this decade xx

Chrystal

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Hope that appointment comes through quickly for your mum.
And I really hope the new decade is brighter and less stressful for you than the past few years have been. Lots of love

Ditto from me. ((((hugs)))) and Hope wending your way, XX

MeandO

I know I’m a bit late to it, but happy new year all.

We have been away for a couple of nights to an attraction in London as a Christmas present to DS. It was enjoyable, but I must admit I was a bit disappointed, I expected more for the extortionate cost of the tickets. OH paid for the petrol and a meal/drinks while we were away and I spent around £35 on food and drinks for us the second day, so not too bad. We are now home and DS is back with his Dad , OH has developed ‘man flu’ and is feeling very sorry for himself, so I am home alone now.
I’ve done one load of washing and it’s currently in the tumble dryer. Food has been taken out of the freezer to use for tomorrow and I’m debating what to make myself tonight. I hate cooking for one.

As I have a bit of time to myself, I’ve managed to do a bit of a financial stock check for the new year.
My aim for the year is to try and regularly save more every month towards Christmas and birthdays and allocate a set amount to emergency savings monthly and a regular mortgage overpayment.

The new monthly savings pots will look like this:

Maintenance fee (payable on this estate) £13pm
DS’s ISA: £25pm
Help to Save: £50pm
Emergency fund: £50pm
Christmas/birthdays pot: £100pm
Car & house maintenance: £100pm.

Mortgage overpayment: £50pm.

I will play the same little game with myself every month as I have done this past year and try and increase the monthly mortgage overpayments by another £50 to make it up to £100 a month. I managed more this past year, but that is unlikely to be sustainable from now on. At least this way I will be putting money away into the EF as well as making mortgage overpayments.

I also need to save towards materials to make my garden more useable this summer. I anticipate it costing around £600 if I do the work myself (I’ll have to ,) so any money that I can save monthly by reducing the grocery budget or other spends will go into that pot.

I don’t have a holidays savings pot, I don’t anticipate going on any of those this next year, and DS would also rather just go and stay with our family so I need to not book anything, unless they’re giving it away!

I’m quite pleased with this plan. It’s not stretching myself too far and allowing for treats here and there, so should be perfectly achievable.

MeandO

I had a good sleep last night which was much needed, but have woken up in a really strange mood - I just feel really low and, without wanting to sound over dramatic, a bit hopeless, like 'what's the point' in everything. I can't put my finger on a reason for feeling this way, I went to bed feeling fine.

It's an inset day today and DS is back with me this morning (his dad presumed I would be looking after DS today as he had no intention of taking the day off - surprise surprise). DS and I are currently watching a netflix movie and then are going to take get his haircut and pick up some shopping this afternoon. His presence already makes me feel slightly better, but hopefully I'll snap out of the doldrums soon.