Taking the scenic route from chaos to calm!!!

savingholmes

As Beanie often posts - 'keep plodding' - it will come right. Borrow box sounds interesting

seahorsey

Morning.....
The seahorsey household have been hit by the lurgy and whilst myself and the OH are feeling rotten with it, DS seems to be riding it out in true energetic 4 year old style!!!

Managed to convince OH that we should get the food shopping delivered as neither of us are really up to dragging ourselves around the supermarket for an hour! It also means no impulse buys so even with the delivery charge it’s still come in £15 cheaper than our weekly average :T

Borrowbox is fab SH - I definitely recommend taking a look if you’re a member of your local library. As I mentioned it doesn’t have as much selection as audible / Amazon but I’ve borrowed a few books that I wouldn’t have otherwise paid out for and have found them very useful and enjoyable.

A friend recommended the Airtime Rewards app to me recently and I’m pleasantly suprised to have just been able to claim my first £10 off my phone bill :j it’s built up much quicker than I expected and much quicker than other cash back sites. I still have £12 pending too. A massive help is that Morri5ons have just joined the scheme and are currently offering 10% on purchases over £30. Given we spend £300ish a month in there, it’s going to come in very useful......

Half term for two weeks now, got a few cheap days out planned provided this lurgy passes. We’ll use our annual passes to the local theme park as they have lots of hallowe’en activities on and a new farm park has opened locally and is offering entry at £5, so will hopefully take advantage of that.

Right I’m going to make the most of a bit of quiet time before the rest of the house wake up! Have a good day x

jwil

I've downloaded borrow box, but never used it. I must have a look again.

savingholmes

Hope you feel better soon... Under the weather with an active 4 year old does not sound like fun to me.

seahorsey

Thanks Savingholmes- we’re pretty much back to full strength now but both still have a stubborn cough that insists on lingering on.

Not much to report money wise - payday is 5 days away, so not long now! Hoping for another quiet weekend. The weather forecast is pretty miserable here, so I’m hoping other than swimming lessons, seeing to the ponies and woofs and the food shop, we’ll be enjoying a nice quiet weekend within the confines of our own four walls.

I’m hoping to get back on the treadmill this week end and go right back to basics with c25k. Following the half marathon 4 weeks ago I haven’t run at all due to a combination of tiredness and illness. Must get back on it. Would love to lose a stone before Christmas and once half term is out the way ‘operation me’ will recommence as I’ll my two free mornings and no excuse not to fit some exercise in somewhere.......

seahorsey

Morning! It’s a very wet one here this morning and I’m not embracing the thought of leaving the house!

Paydays been and gone.OH has had his pay rise which equates to nearly £200 a month which is great.

However...... in true seahorsey household form, a bit of extra cash is promptly swallowed by the next emergency 😢. My car has started being a bit iffy the last few days (I put it down to cold weather) and then the other day the engine management light came on. It’s currently sat at the garage waiting to be looked at. Fingers crossed it’s fixable (and cheap!). If not, well let’s not even go there at the minute......
It all just goes to reinforce the desperate need to get the emergency fund in place ASAP.

So back to the small victories...
1. £10 has come off my mobile bill thanks to Airtime rewards - currently have another £23 pending. My contract finishes in 1 month and phone has been unlocked ready to go sim only. Should reduce monthly bill from £45 ish to £15-£18 😊
2. Another “free” Christmas pressie thanks to Boots points.
3. Two more eBay sales - just over £10 but every little helps
4. Two fb sales totalling £10
5. A 4 week month so no sneaky extra food shops or fuel to fund :rotfl:

Christmas shopping is getting there, I’m in the final stretch. Was hoping to finish this month however the car may have other ideas. Would love to be in a position to not have to use and end of Dec pay to fund it - we’ll see........

Have a great day x

jwil

Hope the car is nothing serious.

seahorsey

Thanks jwil - garage phoned on Friday, car is going to cost ~£300 to repair. Could do without it (obviously) but it’s a whole lot better than having to go car shopping this weekend as I had feared. I’m hoping now to get at least another year out of it, by which point we should be in a stronger financial position ��

Not a great deal else to report MSE wise. Food shop to do today will do a meal plan for the week and shopping list once I’ve logged off here.

MH took a bit of a battering at work last week. No major trigger, just a combination of events that have made be realise that a. It’s not a company the puts it’s people first (it used to be) and b. As a PT worker in my department you have no value whatsoever - it is pretty much like I am invisible. I took myself off out at lunch, had a wee bit of a cry, got my head together and cracked on with it. Spent that evening looking for local jobs, but very little about that were suitable. It did make me realise some positives in my current place 1. It’s well paid 2. Operates a flexi time system 3. Only 15 -20 minutes commute 4. It’s part time. So on paper it all allows for a good work life balance, however I need to keep polishing my skills for leaving work at work and not allowing the s**t that happens to infiltrate my home life. I’m certainly a lot better at it than I was but there’s still room for improvement.....

I’ve also become a lazy lump and have barely done any exercise since the half 6 weeks ago! My weight is still increasing (self confidence is going the other way!) Really need to get a grip on this sooner rather than later. The money I’ve been throwing away at SW I’ve now used to buy a monthly pass for the gym (there was 25% off it). This will take me til the end of November, where I’m keeping my fingers crossed they’ll run some sort of Black Friday promotion on membership and I can join up. I’ve also found a beginners yoga class so have signed up for that, as it’s something that’ll benefit my mental and physical health. Yes I realise it’s all £££s spent, but it’s coming out of personal spends so no impact on repayments. I’ve got between 2st 12 and 3st 4 to lose to get back to my happy weight. Let operation me (re)commence......

jwil

Glad the car is not too crazy expensive.

I am increasingly learning that looking after *you* is just as if not more important than getting the debt down. In that case, the exercise will be money well spent as long as you use it. Well done on getting the discounts! Good luck with it

seahorsey

Thanks jwil. I seem to live a constant battle at the moment with what needs doing in the house (never ending) v what I need to do for me. I feel guilty for prioritising me BUT I really am beginning to realise the importance of doing so every now and then.

Car all fixed thank goodness. It’s blown the emergency fund payment (payment 1 :rotfl:) and the Christmas money for the month, but so much better than the alternative.

I read an interesting blog last night on budgeting and the key was you never really crack budgeting until you know where every penny is going. Yes it may be old news but reminded me that my spending tracker was gathering dust - need to rectify this. I am refusing to let 2020 come and go and I’m still stuck in the same old financial rut with no progress.

Have a great day :j