*sigh* this may take a while

savingholmes

Glad things re going well. Hope the exams went/go okay too.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks SH, exams finished on Friday.  Think they went ok, but we'll see.  4 x 3 hour exams over 4 days, it was not overly pleasant! Because it's the school hols and OH is working, I had to just sit them when I could.  I had my youngest on my lap during one of them and he kept trying to touch the keyboard, I was like 'noooooooo'... they were strictly timed and monitored, so although I was doing it from home, I'd have been better off in an exam hall I think!
Apart from those, all is ok.  Finances are where they should be for this time of the month.  Got my refund from cancelled holiday, but we;ve booked a short break in Oct half term, so the refunded deposit is paying that outright.  At least it gives us a break to look forward to

ohdearhowdidthathappen

In other news (not overly exciting, I'll admit), I did my last shift at my retail job yesterday. 
I was really sad to leave, but it's time to get our weekends back and now that my income comfortably covers weekday childcare (3 days per week) as there are only 2 children now needing after school childcare, it was the right time. 

Mummy_bear

Finally caught up reading your diary from Feb 🙈

I did wonder if I'd lost the plot though as I was certain you had a different user name! Then I saw the post about the name change. Honestly, how ridiculous. Loved the original. 

Also congrats on getting rid of all that debt by June!

MB

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks MB.  I was sad about the name change, but at least I didn't lose my whole account I guess
Well done on getting through 6 months of diary

Mummy_bear

Haha thankfully it wasn't a boring read 🤣

I'm actually surprised at how many diaries I'd subscribed to have not had any updates for months. I guess a lot of people just couldn't get used to the new forum set up. 🤷‍♀️

savingholmes

Congrats on being able to ditch the retail job. Having weekends back sounds a really good trade.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Mummy_bear said:

Haha thankfully it wasn't a boring read 🤣

I'm actually surprised at how many diaries I'd subscribed to have not had any updates for months. I guess a lot of people just couldn't get used to the new forum set up. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, I've found that too.  I subscribed to about 25 and at least half of those haven't been updated for months now.  I wonder if some came back under a different name as I think at one point if you didn't log in within a certain time frame you lost your account.  Or maybe I imagined that as it was a while back now

ohdearhowdidthathappen

savingholmes said:

Congrats on being able to ditch the retail job. Having weekends back sounds a really good trade.

Thanks SH... I think I was using it as a bit of a comfort blanket.  Once I worked out the sums, it was a relatively easy decision.  I'll miss my colleagues, but getting weekend time back will be priceless.  They did say I could do some evening hours instead, which was nice of them.  But to be honest, I like my evenings off too  

ohdearhowdidthathappen

I'm in the process of shifting all my banking to Monzo.  Now that we're not living one month behind with the credit card, we've had everything going in and out of one current account.  It's been good, but I find YNAB a bit tedious and I'm not very good at regularly updating, so it's still easy to fritter and as long as we're staying in the black I don't pay too much attention.  I'm hoping by having it all organised via the Monzo app, I'll find it easier to track where our money is going (the little transactions that add up).  I like the idea of pots for Christmas and holidays, as well as the rounding up function.
Hopefully it'll be a good move, I found it strangely odd moving from one of the big banks as I've banked there for 30 years. Any tips gratefully received!