Oh pants I messed up BIG!!!

Broke_Bear

Well I got another letter from one of the creditors today freezing interest for 30 days so that is now 2 out of 5 that have acknowledged the letters I sent out last month. This week will see the first missed payments to them all but they have been informed and token payments made so it is what it is.

In other news I have done some pottering in the garden over the weekend, the broccoli and kale are doing well, the lettuces are coming along and I got the chard planted in the rest of the raised bed. Harvested the last of the rhubarb for this year and picked some strawberries and the first of the blackcurrants, these will be added to porridge/overnight oats for breakfasts (if the strawberries last that long!). We harvested the first tub of new potatoes and had these as a lovely potato salad for Saturday night dinner On the pretty garden side, the roses are in desperate need of deadheading and I was planning to do a little of this tonight but it is raining out there so will have to wait! I have foxglove and lupin seedlings to pot on ready for next year and some wall flower seedlings that need rescuing as they accidentally dried out a bit in the dry weather.

Oh well, off to do some quick tidying round of the house

Hope everyone had a good start to their week. xx

Broke_Bear

Have been lurking on the Old Style Boards and read about tackling the housework in 10 minute bursts, well I took this idea and changed it to 3x10 min bursts for both me and OH which means pretty much the whole house gets looked over in just 1/2 hour. Taking 1 room each for 10 mins and doing as much as we can to get it ship shape, we have made such a difference in just half an hour and OH is on board with it as 'it seems like a winner'. If we can do the same every weeknight I think we can get almost all the housework done during the week so we can both relax and enjoy the weekend together instead of doing it all then and not having time to ourselves/together.

Fingers crossed we have just found a routine that may work for us (has only taken 7 years so far!!:rotfl:)

Broke_Bear

Well my birthday present off my OH arrived today, it is a seed planting kit which will let me make plant pots out of newspaper for all my seedlings and since I can scrounge at least 2 weekly newspapers from family this will make the pots practically free... very :money:

in money terms I have resisted spending on just about everything so far and have most of my months pennies (apart from bills) intact. I want to see how much I can have left at the end of the month without feeling deprived. I plan on adding whatever is left over from my spending monies to my EF savings account on the last day of each month so that I start each month fresh with a set budget. If I can do this for the rest of this year I should have a comfortable EF in place even accounting for DMP payments starting in October. I am kind of impatient to start paying as soon as possible but I do understand the need for me to build up an EF first as I no longer have access (nor do I want to have any access) to credit.

The only downside to this is I am now in Birthday season with 4 birthdays (one is an 18th) and mine and OH's anniversary all coming up between now and the 10th August :eek: plus the car insurance is due at the end of this month and I cannot decide if it would be better to take the hit on the EF and pay annually this time and allocate monies to save up for next year in my budget or just pay monthly. I am leaning towards taking the hit on the EF. :huh:

Broke_Bear

The weekend is here again :T:j

Finished with a half day holiday today to come home and set to with OH on the hall stairs and landing. We cannot afford to get it re-plastered which it desperately needs but we can afford to throw some pollyfilla at it and cover it with paint....as my Mum always says with these things "A blind man on a galloping horse won't notice" and I am going to work on that principle and make do with it being passable. (This will still be a massive improvement!!)

So got home from work and off we went to B&Q for supplies, exit 1/2 hour later and £100.00 lighter :eek:
Had to do a bit of a shuffle with the pennies pots in YNAB to allow for my half of this bill but all adjusted and accounted for.

Started scraping the walls when we got back, not so much to remove wallpaper but to smooth them down and chip off the very rough bits of plaster left by the electrician from when it was re-wired a few years ago we can then sand the walls, pollyfiller and smooth over, sand again and attack the walls with lashings of magnolia. Oh well a busy weekend in store for us but hopefully the place will be looking a little better by the end of it

I hope to squeeze in some gardening time to pot on my seedlings with the newspaper potting kit, looking forward to giving it a whirl and hopefully this will give me free seed pots in the future (the newspapers will be provided free from MIL and my Mum) and get rid of the horrid plastic trays.

Slightly worried about kitten as she seems to be being sick regularly, she was sick on the couch this evening and there was a large hairball in it so I am hoping it was just to get rid of that. She isn't at all unwell in herself and is happy to play and chase moths and flies as normal so I think I will just keep an eye on her for a few days before rushing out to the vet.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

DIY stores are deceptively expensive! If you haven't already bought magnolia. get a tester pot for natural calico... was recommended to me a few years ago and is now my go to colour

Broke_Bear

Thanks OSH, I have that in our bedroom which was the first one I decorated when I bought the place, it is a much nicer colour I agree. The reason for magnolia is that the walls are in such poor condition it is going to need several coats and a large bucket of magnolia was only £16. Once we have it looking in reasonable order I will probably look to do a top coat of a proper colour but for now magnolia will do at that price!

Got loads done yesterday, all the areas of rough plaster from the re-wire have been smoothed over with polyfiller and will be duly sanded and then painted today.

I can’t wait to have an entrance way that is all one colour as this hasn’t been the case since about 2013!!!

Hope everyone having a good weekend xx

Broke_Bear

Well, that is the decorating finished for the weekend. Did not get through it all but starting to look much better and a lot less depressing! OH will continue with the landing during the week while I am in work and we will tackle the anoying/scary high bits next weekend to get it all prepped and undercoated.
Will make both me and OH feel better about the place and a step closer to having a house that ‘normal’ people live in:rotfl:

Now it is showers for us both to clean up and off out to the local pub for a well deserved tea out . (This may involve a pint or two of the good stuff in the local micro pub on the way home :beer:

Hope everyone has had a good/productive weekend xx

Broke_Bear

Well Monday is out of the way, Day 2 of the hostage situation (also known as work!) is here.
Only 3 more after today until the weekend.

Not much to report really, just pottering on, budget seems to be lasting well at the halfway point, fingers crossed we get to the end of the month without incident

I think I have decided to use the emergency fund to pay car insurance in one go so I can just budget and save for next years, this means that when I start my Dmp in October I will only have £300 as an emergency fund but should be able to add at least £50 per month to this as we go along. Does this seem reasonable?

Happy Tuesday everyone xx

enthusiasticsaver

Broke_Bear wrote: »

Well Monday is out of the way, Day 2 of the hostage situation (also known as work!) is here.
Only 3 more after today until the weekend.

Not much to report really, just pottering on, budget seems to be lasting well at the halfway point, fingers crossed we get to the end of the month without incident

I think I have decided to use the emergency fund to pay car insurance in one go so I can just budget and save for next years, this means that when I start my Dmp in October I will only have £300 as an emergency fund but should be able to add at least £50 per month to this as we go along. Does this seem reasonable?

Happy Tuesday everyone xx

I think the savings on paying the car insurance annually is worth using the EF this year and £300 is a good starting point but make sure you build it up again ASAP and start saving in a car fund for next years insurance. Presumably if you are not starting the DMP until October though you have another two or three months of debt repayments you can put aside? You need to default ASAP and save as much as you can in the meantime.

Broke_Bear

Thanks ES I have half of the insurance saved already, the other half will be from end of July pay using up the EF bar about 50 quid. Then £300 will come from end of August pay for my EF and end of September pay will make first payment to DMP in October with a top up amount of between £50 to £100 for the EF