Keeping our options open

savingholmes

Glad first day went well

becky170

We made another £25 overpayment today as our cashback for switching our energy supplier came through

DS seems to be settling in well at school. He's only slightly protesting about going at the moment, but once he's there he seems to be ok.

DD is now cruising around the furniture so we're just waiting for her to build up courage and take her first steps she's into everything so we have to have eyes in the back of our head.

Hettyhound

Ah yes those back head eyes I keep telling my son all mummies have! He’s always astonished when I know what he’s up to without looking; it’s normally the sound (or lack of it) that gives the game away. Glad you son seems to like school, it does make things a lot easier

becky170

Yep it's definitely the lack of sound that signals that mischief is afoot.

We made the most of the lovely weather on Saturday and visited a local country park. DS managed to come flying off his scooter and has gone to school today with a big bump on his head. To be fair he's already had 3 accident forms at school so hopefully they will have realised that he's slightly accident prone.

I'm currently on the way to pick up DD from nursery as she's been sent home poorly again. I'm just hoping my boss' patience doesn't wear too thin with me

I can't believe it's nearly the end of the month. I'm really looking forward to pay day and making my next overpayment I've run out of steam with noting all our spends down. It wasn't changing our behaviour so I don't think it's worth the effort for now. As long as I make my overpayment and add to the savings as planned I'll be happy.

becky170

I had a bit of backpay in this month's pay so I've made another overpayment of £51 today. The backpay is due to our annual cost of living pay increase kicking in (1.8% so nothing too exciting). I decided there was no point getting used to the extra money as next month my pension contributions go up so the pay increase will be wiped out

Anyway that brings my total overpayment for this month to £178 which is pretty good now I've just got to overpay £130 a month for the rest of the year to make my overpayment target of £1615. That seems doable as long as nothing major crops up.

becky170

I'm feeling fed up about work and my commute again. Work has been rather uninteresting recently and there don't seem to be any new projects in the pipeline to get my teeth into. I like a challenge and I don't feel particularly challenged at the moment. My commute is taking an hour and a quarter in the morning and it takes me nearly 2 hours to get home by the time I've picked DD up from nursery and DS up from after school club. It just seems like such a waste of time. I do get the bus so I am able to read the news etc so I suppose it's a bit of me time but it doesn't feel that relaxing when you're crammed on a bus.

I got my pension statement and for every year I work I gain £8.50 per week in retirement which currently doesn't seem a lot. As one of the reasons I have stayed working is to build a pension up it does seem rather depressing. All the years do add up though which is how I need to think about it. And it's more than a lot of people will be getting.

I really should look for a new job, preferably with a shorter commute. It would mean that I would need to change track career wise but i'm really not sure which direction I want to go in.

Right I better cheer up now. Rant over, sorry!

becky170

Just made an overpayment of £133

becky170

Well the heating finally kicked in this morning. Luckily I realised at the weekend that the boiler wasn't working so we managed to get it fixed before the cold weather arrived I'm going to have to look out my gloves as it was freezing this morning. We better find the ice scrapers too.... scraping the car at 6am again is not something I'm looking forward to!

We've got a MrS shop coming this evening. They had sent me a £9 off voucher which was too good to miss. I have a £12 voucher off coming up from them too so I might start stocking up on some bits for Christmas if I dare say that word. I have got £55 worth of MrM more points so that should cover most of Christmas dinner going to try not to stock up on too many goodies as you end up just eating then for the sake of eating then. I've now just got to think of a hiding place away from DH and the kids.....

savingholmes

Sounds like you are making good progress on overpayments. Yay to getting the boiler fixed before you needed it. On the pension - is it defined contribution or what? Good luck with finding a job closer to home - it does make a massive difference.

becky170

Thanks Savingholmes. I keep putting off off job hunting so I'm my own worse enemy. I always have an excuse... previously it was that I wanted to finish the project, then it was I wanted to try for another baby and now it's I'm tired and trying to get to grips with juggling two kids and school. Really it's just a lack of confidence, and since having kids it's got worse as I don't always feel like I'm functioning at 100%. I keep saying that I'll look when I am less sleep deprived (DD has been up in the night every night this week and has been taking up to an hour to go back to sleep) but I just worry I'll find another excuse. More time in bed due to having a shorter commute should be motivation enough though