Keeping on the Straight and Narrow...

DancingInTheRain

Lovely time with friends last night, so good to see everyone and catch up. We'd all ordered from a 3 course set menu, all delicious but we were all on the cusp of needing a nap by the time we finished :rotfl: on the plus side we were so stuffed it kept the drinks spends down to a minimum and none of us needed breakfast this morning

Hubby gigging tonight so lovely Mum treated me and the boys to soft play and lunch this afternoon, DS2 had a blast as it was the first time I've let him join in with DS1. Also meant I've burnt off a few of last night's calories running after him, I'll definitely sleep tonight!

Today was another NSD (thanks Mum ), taking me to 3/30 for this pay month.

So sitting here on my own watching Strictly I decided to give myself a treat by sending this month's CC tonight instead of Monday to give myself a treat and bring the debt total below £11,000 :j going to have a cheeky glass of vino to celebrate :beer:

Also brought most of the Christmas decorations down from the loft after putting the boys to bed, just the tree to come down tomorrow then we can start getting festive here at the DITR household.

Hope this weekend's treating everyone kindly and it's warmer where you are, temperature here was -5 last night, brrrrr.

beanielou

Great news on the debt
Was -5 here last night too & still -3 this morning :eek:

DancingInTheRain

Thanks Beanie, still cold here too but there's something about it that makes me feel all festive too

Productive day today, did a deep clean of downstairs in readiness for putting up the Xmas decorations. Cooked a lovely roast dinner, did 2 loads of laundry and a pile of ironing before getting the Xmas tree down from the loft. The tree is up and the lights are on but I'm now pooped so the rest of the decorations can wait until tomorrow.

The boys were excited to get their advent calendars (chocolate and breakfast what's not to like? :rotfl:).

While sorting through the decorations I found some cards and Xmas activity books I'd picked up in the January sales and forgotten about so that'll give me a head start on the cards and DS1 is chuffed to have stickers

Generally speaking the Xmas prep is going well, we ordered a turkey crown on Friday from our local butcher and have made decent progress on gift buying. Just need to make a list of what's left to buy (gifts and cards) and get it finished.
I'm thinking that as I work in a town centre it might be worth using some Flexi time this week to leave work 2 hours early and hit the shops. I'm at a conference on Wednesday which will be a looooonnng day so it might help to know I have an early finish pending.

DH enjoyed playing again last night and, even more pleasing, his knee has coped well too which is good news as he is due back at work in 2 weeks so it's good to see him heading in the right direction.

Haven't managed a NSD today, DS2's nappies have leaked the last 3 nights We're very lucky in that both boys are good sleepers, DS2 in particular and the nappies we're using at the moment are a different brand to our usual one but just not effective for DS2 at night time so we've switched back to our usual brand.

I was good and just bought these despite several packets of chocolate and biscuits shouting at me to buy them :rotfl:

Looking forward to tomorrow and seeing my bank account catching up on the DD's and SO's that should've gone out today, that will be another £300 off my debt total. Still debating whether or not it's worth stretching ourselves to clear the additional £700 to bring us under £10,000 by Jan 1st but we're going to take each day as it comes this month and decide after Christmas.

We will be paid again before Jan which would see £450 come off the debt total Jan 1st (could 'cheat' and transfer the CC and Family Loan payments on Dec 31st) so really it's £250 extra to find so will see how December pans out before making a firm decision but at this moment in time I'm thinking if we don't quite have enough we could always borrow from our EF... 30 days to make our minds up....

beanielou

Do it. I think!

FootyFanDan

Hey DITR,

Glad you enjoyed the get together with friends, the last few weeks seem to have been a whirlwind for you and the family so it must have felt so good to unwind and relax a little.

Great win on the debt too and the vino of course haha. We also had the advent excitement today,,,,mainly from me, little one is loving the festive things though she is defo going to be an xmas person.

Keep up the amazing work

DancingInTheRain

Thanks Beanie, I think so too and have a plan (for now anyway ) and good to 'see' you Dan, thanks for the support.

Payments gone out so signature updated. Somewhere in the last few weeks I've made an error and not accounted for £50 paid off, not surprised with everything that's been going on with all the money shuffling going on with the savings pots. Might also explain why things were a bit tight towards the end of last month at least it's in our favour eh?

For my own reference:
CC1 balance today is £6372 + Family Loan balance today £4775 = £11,147.
Regular Saver balance today £500.
£11,147-£500 = £10,647

Have checked the figures over and over and they are definitely correct now so it's £648 to hit the £9,999 target.

The next lot of regular payments will total £450 so £198 extra to find. Keep forgetting (there's a theme here isn't there?) we have £165 that has been showing as confirmed on TCB for a few weeks so if this changes to payable then that will go straight to the credit card. Will also try to squeeze extra pennies from the budget and if we receive any money for Xmas (our Mums often give us a little something ) then this will go to the CC too.
Worst case scenario we'll take what we need from the EF and pay it back when we get the TCB pay out.

So, barring any disasters we're on track!

Happy Monday all x

DancingInTheRain

Morning
In the interests of keeping myself accountable forgot to mention yesterday that I had a low spend buying some medicine for DH and DS1, both have had a harsh cough, temperature and an upset tummy so they spent the day in bed yesterday & I popped to the supermarket before work for supplies to keep them going. DS1 is looking much better today after a rough night but will stay off school, DH still looks groggy

The receipt from this spend put me over the £5 payout threshold on Receipt Hog so have requested this and will send across to the CC when it clears.

Just had a eBay refund after a couple of weeks chasing it so as this is technically from last month's money I've also sent this, along with a TT on my current account across to the CC too.

It's taken 5 months to hit the payment threshold for RH and I recently cashed out from Shoppix too. Have decided I'm going to let these build up to hit the higher pay out levels over the next few months as it uses less points but obviously takes longer. RH seems to take forever, have only cashed out twice this year but Shoppix seems to build up a lot more quickly , cashed out 5 times this year. So from both of these I've earned £35, not too bad and have got into a routine of scanning the receipts straight after putting shopping away so it doesn't feel like it takes any time.

Today should be a NSD, got a busy day at work scheduled that will keep me on my toes but have lunch and snacks with me as usual so no reason to spend anything.

Have a great day all

[Deleted User]

Hi Dancing :hello:

Sorry I've neglected your diary!

Hope your household recovers fully soon, but good news on being able to cash out from RH! You have reminded me I need to start scanning my receipts again, no reason not to really...

Well done on all of your progress xx

DancingInTheRain

Thanks SSDD23
DH & DS1 still poorly but much better, DS2 is showing signs of the bug now though MIL is coming to our house tomorrow to look after everyone as I'm attending my company's staff conference which includes a lovely 4 hour round trip :mad: so I'll be heading out at 7am tomorrow and not due back until after 6pm, at least I'll be building up flexi time I suppose.

NSD today so now at 4/30.

sashybo

Hi Dancing, you've been busy!

Sorry to hear about DH & both DS's getting a bug, fingers crossed it misses you.

Good plan to use flexi time to do some shopping.

I gave up on RH as it took sooo long to cash out and much prefer shoppix.

Leaking nappies overnight are awful - we've had a nightmare with DS for months with this. The only ones that don't leak on him now are the "P" branded ones with the accompanying price tag. :eek: I've just been trying to buy them on offer as I'm not paying £8 :eek: for a pack! Mr L pull ups seem to suit him during the day but all the other own brands just don't fit him well enough and all leaked at night.