Our £20,000 Life

FootyFanDan

Hey, Happy new Diary,

Just wanted to pop in to wish you luck. Well done on the little subscription cancellations as crap as it can feel the little amounts do add up.

Good luck and I have subscribed to cheer you on

Cinny91

Hi everyone! 😊

Ratrace - I totally get where you’re coming from and don’t mind at all! The only issue with DH’s car, and I know this is going to sound weird because I know it sounded fishy to me when I was first told, is he needs a certain spec of car for work and part of his salary is an allowance towards it. If that makes sense? So selling up isn’t currently an option, unless something dreadful happens with his work scenario.

Looked up DIY window fixes, thanks for the tip Mnd. Some things definitely seem to be within our DIY range but others seem a little bold of a leap for us to try out!

Cancelled Sky TV yesterday. We’ve been with them almost 9 years. Huuuuuge song and dance made over that, and over doing everything they could to keep us. Offered £5 a month discount.. and a £20 admin charge for the privilege despite not being in contract :rotfl: I do understand I sound about 12 on the phone but I definitely wasn’t born yesterday!

Both parts I bought on Tuesday are being returned so that’ll be some money back to us. Quiet day today, with the weather as it is I’ve cancelled plans to meet friends, so we’ll be keeping ourselves to ourselves. Just about to put some bread on the go and crack on with some housework before LO wakes up!

Mnd

Glad to hear you looked at the glazing tip. If you are prepared to have a go, then painting, wallpapering etc aren't impossible to do. Putting up shelves etc is also straightforward. Buy the kit you need (hammer drill for instance) then enjoy yourself and don't rush.

I surprised myself when we had a tiler in to do our bathroom and he made an absolute pigs ear of it, I threw him out, took all the tiles off and tiled the bathroom fully and the floors myself. That was 15 years ago, they are still there and only a couple of months ago someone asked for the name of who tiled the bathroom as they wanted to use them.

Mind you it took ages! and to this day I know where there is a misplaced one in the pattern, but that's a secret between you and me

zigmeister

Hello you! Good to see you back posting, not that I've been on here much tbh. Life has been crazy.

I thought about you on our birthday and meant to message you - hope it was a good one! :beer: Look forward to following this new diary, you'll smash it x

Cinny91

Hi Zig!! Hope you’re doing well so lovely to hear from you!

Will keep all that in mind thank you, Mnd! We are pretty good at trying things ourselves before we do something out of pocket and are very lucky to have family who are plumbers/builders/decorators/electricians/engineers so we never have to pay the full whack. That’s amazing about your tiling work though, you must be so pleased!

Thought I’d quickly pop my head out of the hole to say hi. My plan is to update Monday - Wednesday when I’m at work so at a proper computer. However LO isn’t well, and as we’ve paid for a family day out tomorrow (taking a picnic to save costs) I thought it was best to stay home and make sure he’s in tip top form. So we’ve practised his writing, watched a few dinosaur shows and had a quick trip to the shop for calpol. Bonus of no big holidays is I can use my holiday days to make up for having the odd day off work.

I did manage to get my coat too without paying anything so I’m pleased with that. I do get most of my clothes quite happily from charity shops but I always feel a bit weird around coats. I normally wear mine to death (had my last one 3 years before I lost it) so I expect everyone else does too!

Sent an email to my favourite author last week and had a lovely email back over the weekend to say she wanted to send me and my grandma signed books in the post. So that’s quite exciting!

Cinny91

Oh! And we have £349.14 to one side now to overpay on the loan we had a letter full with the full balance/payment amount so I’ll get all that posted all being well on Wednesday.

Tiny brag that I made 2.25ltrs of raspberry and strawberry cordial over the weekend, will be sad when raspberry season is through but I’ll be ready to move on to blackberries. I’ve been saving up jars to make lots of jam!

shrimpy_80

Subscribed :-) I don't get on here a lot but have also had the debt creep back up, just under £11k to clear so really need to get myself back on these boards for some inspiration!

Cinny91

Hi Anyone! Sorry for the long pause in posting. Finally back to normal today

And hey Shrimpy! It's lovely in a twisted way to have almost everyone back, do think of everyone from time to time and wonder how we're all getting on!

Not a great deal to report, we are ticking over. Had a lovely tea last night using bits and bobs from the fridge/freezer to make a hash. It's such a lovely and healthy tea packed with veggies I think we need to bring it into our normal food rotation - it's really cheap too! Just boil some new potatoes, then fry with onion/chopped veggies (julienne carrots, peas, sweetcorn, pepper etc) and whatever seasonings you fancy. Served up with some protein and soured cream - I feel like it ticks most of the food groups.

We now have £754.41 to one side for debt repayments at the end of the month, I'm confident we can get this over £1000 before payday.

Lastly we had a huuuge clear out of LO's bedroom yesterday as his walk in wardrobe had become a bit of a dumping ground. I saved the slotted base of his old bed (toddler sized) to re purpose as a pulley maid. What could went to the kindling pile, the rest to be recycled. LO has a few nights away in October with my Parents so we're planning on redecorating his room as it hasn't moved on from the pale blue we painted it when we moved in to cover the pink of the little girl who's room it was before him. We've decided what we want to do, so just need to work putting a little to one side the next few paydays to cover the cost. I'm confident we can do it for less than £100, we also have some vouchers we can use towards some of the things to buy.

Cinny91

The great day of demolition is looming. Our plan to paint LO's room has ran away with us to knocking down some walls to make his room bigger. His room is currently one of two box rooms, made up from the former front bedroom. The man we bought the house from had separated it for his daughters but the rooms aren't functional, barely fitting in a single bed in either, so this makes more sense. We got a good deal on his wallpaper, £7.65 a roll down from £18.99 and I can whip up some rag rugs to cover any gaps in the carpet until we've saved up to have the carpet replaced properly (we also have some carpet samples I'm not above patchworking to fill the void) We're lucky in that my family is a mash of builders and plumbers (relocating a radiator but we have the pipes/fittings we need in the store shed) and my BIL is an electrician who is happy to help us to rewire the light switches.

Having a bally rotten time with our internet switch. It keeps getting cancelled, we keep not being told, and we're now on day 8 with no broadband. It's been quite nice really, no internet or nagging from LO to watch things on demand. We did buy a DVD player so we can still watch his movies, and as we have freeview we've taken to watching Poirot in the evenings. I'm quite good at guessing the killer, terrible at figuring out the reason why. We've opened a complaint and apparently when we finally do have internet we'll be given "recompense" for the inconvenience, and it's since become my word of the week as I've not heard it be used in ages.

As for the debt, we've now got £869.63 to one side. My goal of £1000 by payday might be a near miss, as I was working on dates not days. My wages would have tidied us up nicely to 1k but as DH's payday falls on a Sunday - payday this month is the 23rd not the 25th. I'd still like to think it counts.

I've also cancelled my ancestry subscription, so there's £13.99 pm saved. And when I've been able I've been paying for things on our Amazon CC, then moving the money from our bank account to a side account - this is obviously the crucial part! - which is helping towards LO's dream bike for Christmas. We've currently got £17.42 in points, and £25.85 in the pot.

clearmydebts

Cinny91 wrote: »

Thanks CMD, off to find your diary now too

I don't have one Cinnny! Need to rectify that!