Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

in_need_of_direction

No suggestions on the bigger questions but is it worth contacting the garage before travelling to see if they are willing to facilitate the aa inspection? It may save you a trip

Elisheba

Evening, all,

Thanks for all your comments. The Scotland plan is too far away to really do more than put some figures together for it right now. So much can happen between now and then, and best laid plans and all that.

That's a good idea @SuzeQStan. I'll definitely bare it in mind going forward. Silly dog has some behavioural issues which centre around new people and places. Kennels are generally fine though, so a doggy daycare that wasn't in someone house might work. 

So with the car viewing, I called yesterday and they were fine if I wanted to organise an AA inspection. They didn't want to do an exchange with my current car which was a bit odd, as it's very saleable, but it could have been because they would have to hand me a fair wad of cash and they were a pretty small affair. Anyway I drove down today and had a good rummage around in the potential new car, drove it a bit, and decided it wasn't for me. Quite a few issues with it, and even if they got them all fixed before sale I just wasn't confident about it. 

So back to the drawing board. I'm already bored of trawling through Autotrader. There is one possibility in a town called Cwmbran. Looks like a very reputable garage with good reviews and the car comes with a warranty, but it's about £2k more than I ideally want to pay. The car has less miles on it than my current one, although I'm not sure if that's actually that good a thing in a diesel. Driving keeps a diesel engine in good order. Anyway, not making any bookings tonight. I'll see what I think on Monday. I want to get it all sorted before the new financial year, but that still gives me a bit of time to see what shows up.

Oh and a warning light came on on my current car during the week 🙄. It's for tyre pressure, but I blew them up today and it didn't disappear, so I'll need to take it to the garage for them to turn it off. It has happened before and was only £17 to get sorted so won't break the bank.

While I was down in Cardiff I managed to fill up on diesel at about 6p a litre cheaper than I can get where I live so that was good, and I have loads of driving I need to do this month so it was very much needed. Bought a coffee and crisps in an Asda cafe, and then little cakes to eat on the drive back 😳 so I'm all filled up on absolute junk this evening.

Plan tomorrow is church, dog walk, house work and watching Scotland in the rugby. Unlikely we'll win against Ireland but hope springs eternal. I have Twiglets to snack on and might indulge in one or two of the cans of very nice IPA I have in the cupboard. I also have to do some Scouting training which I have been putting off, but I just need to bite the bullet and do it.

Oh and I gave myself a haircut this morning. Having fairly curly hair and a layered hairstyle it's very easy to cut myself following a video I found years ago on You Tube. I'm growing out my hairdye, and have a white streak at the front where my fringe is so it's looking very odd colour wise at the moment. Very much looking forward to the time when all the blooming dye is gone.

Right, off to read for a bit. Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.

missymoo81

Hey I’m loving your plans, best to have plans to see what is possible.  You definitely have a lot to think about and plan, but all positive. 

Oooh please may you share the YouTube video for cutting layered curly hair! Mine is the same.  As I’m in desperate need of a cut and don’t want to pay the £100 it normally costs for a cut and dye. I’ve been dying it myself anyway. Thank you!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hey Elshiba,

Love the plans to move to Scotland, wouldn't mind doing something similar. Am currently living in a terrace house that needs a facelift on the East Yorkshire Coast having moved from London last year. I do go back there pretty much every two weeks but stay in budget hotels and take the train. Its costing me a lot of £££ though, but don't have the choice atm due to personal circumstances.

I don't know the offers system but assume as you are from Scotland you have this captured in your forcasting. I recall watching a very old episode of Loca x 3 and the couple on the hunt had totally got the offers system wrong and were very dissapointed with what was realstically in their budget.

Having lived a bit of the middle age woman "modern nomad" in my trips to London, I know if you want something to work you'll find a way to make it work. Good luck and best wishes. Exciting times ahead!

Slowdown

Hi Elisheba,
Hows everything going? Long time, no hear. Hope all is well. 

Looking forward to hearing the latest news on life. 😊

Elisheba

Hi, all,

Sorry about the lack of updates recently. Life was just a bit busy, and then I got ill, and stopped tracking my spending for a few weeks. However, I had time this evening after Beavers so got all my spending trackers and s/s up to date and am back in frugal mode.

A few little indulgences last month - I bought a beginners keyboard (from pocket money budget) so I can start playing again. I had lessons as a child but can barely remember anything so I'm trying to allow at least an hour a week to practise. A few Vinted purchases (from annual clothes budget) which was very naughty as I didn't really need anything. One of these bullet style blenders(from annual household budget) (which I accidently got delivered to my Mum's and won't be able to collect until the end of March 🙄🙄🙄). Oh and I went over budget on food because I got lazy and didn't want to cook from scratch 🙄. Oh well, just got to keep trying.

I've still not sold my car or bought a new one. I've seen two and neither were for me. Hopefully going to view another one this weekend if it's still available. The problem is if I do decide I want it I basically need them to hold it for me for at least a week and a half, as the next weekend I need to drive up to Scotland for my Mum's big birthday so won't be in a position to buy it sell cars that weekend. So I'm not counting any chickens.

The problem is if I don't like or can't arrange the purchase of this car before the start of April I won't have this year's money to put into my LISA to get the £1k extra from the government - which was the reason I had a deadline. So I had a think, and if I can't sort it all out on time (which is looking increasingly likely) then what I will do is get an interest free cash balance transfer from one of my credit cards and use that, and the cash I have to hand (about £500 after paying off a credit card last month) for the LISA. The transfer fee will be 3.5% on £3500, which is £122.50. So it's not ideal, but it's either that or lose the £1000. Basically it will be like an £877.50 bonus rather than a £1k one. Then I can pay the credit card balance off in full when I have found a new car I want and sold the old one.

Apart from that, it's just life going on as normal. The weather has been so nice I've been able to dry most loads of washing on the line for the last 2 or 3 weeks, so that's been good. I've had the heating or the fire lit a few evening, but not many.

I got some gardening done last weekend. In my ongoing quest to be the worst gardener ever I managed to slice the cable on the hedge trimmers a friend gave me last year on their very first outing 🙄. So I'll need to watch some YT videos on how to fix it, but I suspect I'll need to buy a wire stripping tool, a soldering iron and some insulating tape at the very least.

This week will be busy as I had Beavers this evening, I've got church house group tomorrow,  some keyboard practice on Wednesday, and a WI dinner (pocket money pot)on Thursday. Friday night is flop night with pizza and a film or a book, Saturday I am hoping to view a car and fit in some more gardening, and Sunday I am out for the day with 3 friends in a town 2/3 hours away (pocket money pot). And on top of that is my actual paid job, as well trying to keep the house vaguely presentable and keeping silly dog walked and entertained.

The better weather has been so nice. Everywhere around me is beautiful in good weather and now the daffs and primroses and lesser celandines are out, it's just so cheerful. I do like curling up by the fire with a book, but it gets a bit old after so many months. On Sunday I was outside in a T-shirt having a coffee - delightful ☺️.

I'm up early tomorrow to go and get some bloods taken as part of a starting HRT process. I'm quite looking forward to starting HRT as they are so many things I've written off as just getting older that could well be hormonal, so I'm really looking forward to seeing the results. It's fairly young as I am still technically in my early 40s (just) but I wasn't hugely surprised as my Mum what through the menopause in her 40s and it tends to run in families. I just need to do a bit more research before another appointment next week as to what types of HRT I want to use. Patches are a no go as I'm allergic to nicotine ones so imagine I will be to these ones as well (not sure if it's the plastic or the glue), and I can't use a Mirena coil as I had a horrendous reaction to one in the past - think that was another allergic reaction to the plastic rather than the hormone though. Other than that I don't think I'm too bothered. If anyone here has any thought or advice on what types have worked for them, please do let me know.

Right, I am off to bed now to read for a bit before I call it a night. I need to catch up on people diaries, and I know I have some comments above I haven't responded to, but I've run out of time today so will try and respond later in the week.

Sleep tight, lovely people ☺️

fionaandphil

Glad to hear you are okay and feeling better.  LIfe just gets in the way sometimes and writing a blog is probably way down the list!  I also sat outside with a coffee at the weekend while doing the garden and got loads of washing dry.  You forget how much it lifts your spirits to be outside on warm spring days after the winter months.

I think the key to the hedge cutting is that you have the cable over your shoulder so it doesn't get caught by the blade.

Maybe you're not meant to sell your car and the reason you can't find one is that you're not meant to.  I know you've budgeted it in but maybe something better is round the corner and you need the car you already have?!  Anyway, enjoy the rest of your busy week and lets hope this forecast cold weather is over quickly.

KajiKita

I got put into tablet HRT straight off and they seem to work fine. 

Eeek! 😦 to the cable cutting! I assume you had an RCD at the other end of the cable …? 

Good luck with the car / funds juggling to net that £1K - it’s a bit of work but sounds very worth it 😊

KK

Slowdown

Hello again Elisheba,

I’ve been on HRT for the last few years. I use the oestrogen gel and progesterone tablets which are the most biologically compatible to our own hormones and combine it with Sertraline. I had terrible anxiety for a while as well as hot flushes, night sweats and aching joints. Not to mention the loss of marbles. 

I’m a lot better now though still have some night sweats. I’m 60 next year and don't intend giving it up anytime soon. 

Nice to hear all things are jogging along nicely. So delightful to feel a promise of spring and warmer weather. Love to feel the sun on my face. 

Enjoy all your socials this week. ☺️

Elisheba

Evening, all,

Thanks for all your advice regarding HRT. I think I'll ask for the body identical tablets, and see how I get on.

Well, this week has very much been proof of the Burns saying 'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-glay'. The routine blood tests I did for starting the HRT came back with a problem. The first I knew of it was a doctor's receptionist telling me I needed to make an appointment to redo it urgently, and would also need to be retested in 6 weeks. And no, she couldn't tell me what the problem was or give me any more information 😳. 

So, as you can imagine I was worried silly. Then the next day, I had another call from the doctor's receptionist telling me I needed to book an appointment for the prediabetic clinic, and the soonest they could book me in is in one month 🙄.

So that's the situation as it stands. I'm presuming the blood tests came back high in glucose and that means I'm prediabetic - a word I hadn't even heard of when I got the call, but you can bet I've done a lot of research on it now! No-one has called me to explain anything, and I don't know what levels the blood test showed. I have put in a request form for them to email me my results, but I haven't had that back yet either.

So the last couple of days have been me trying to gen up on prediabetes and type 2 diabetes as much as possible, whilst fitting in work and life in general. I wasn't in the mood to go out for my dinner last night, and stayed in researching, with the wood stove lit, instead.

The thing I'm finding most difficult is that there is a lot of conflicting advice. I *think* that's because research in the area has come on leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, so some advice hasn't quite caught up with itself yet, but it's not very satisfactory when you are attempting to work out what you need to do.

For example, the NHS website says fasting can be dangerous if diabetic. However, there is a lot of literature out there saying fasting can be very helpful for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. I *think* this conflict might be because the NHS website, like all government websites, has dumbed down, and thus has missed out some crucial information - that fasting can be dangerous if you are insulin dependant, but if managing type 2 diabetes or prediabetes with diet only, there is research to suggest it can be beneficial. But who knows? I'm only guessing.

However, all the research agrees that significant weight loss and lifestyle changes are necessary when prediabetic, or type 2 diabetic, if you want to manage it without medication, or stand any chance of it going into remission. Again, there seems to be some conflict in how quickly that weight should be lost. Some places say as quickly as humanly possible - there was a small scale study at Newcastle University done on a near starvation diet, 800 calories a day, for 8 weeks, which apparently had exeptional results for remission. Other literature isn't so specific, or again might just be refering to insulin dependant diabetes where a near starvation diet would likely kill you.

So yeah, it all feels like a bit of a minefield. I'm not holding out much hope for the prediabetes clinic next month either as it's with an HCA, who I'm sure will be very well informed, but obviously isn't qualified to give out more than standard NHS advice which I can see for myself on the website.

I'm going to have to make some decisions about weigh loss though. Do I join SW? Do I try it on my own?  How extreme do I want to be? I'm historically absolutely rubbish at losing weight, either on my own or with a slimming group. I get bored of it all very quickly, and it has never been that important to me really. But the health outcomes with prediabetes if I don't are pretty dire, so I don't really have a choice anymore.

Another thing that concerns me is that for the last 6 months I have moved most of the carbs I eat over to wholegrain, whichnisnonenof the lifestyle changes suggested. I haven't limited carbs in anyway, and there have been sweet treats, but there has certainly been a massive amount less of processed carbs than there was before. Also, with walking silly dog, I do more than the suggested amount of exercise the NHS says I need to do. If my blood work is dodgy even after that, I feel like it doesn't bode well for staying off medication in the long run.

Anyway, I can but try and only time will tell. I'm trying to look at it as a blessing in some ways. A wake up call without anything being very serious yet.

I am loathe to waste food, even if it doesn't fit in with losing weight, so I'm going finish all the full fat milk, cheese and yogurt in the fridge before I move to reduced fat. Obviously loads of things advertised as low fat have a shed load of sugar added to them, but as I'm only talking about unflavoured greek yogurt, cheddar and milk, I think it should be okay. I guess I'm going to have to start looking at carbs and sugar on food labels.

I've dug out all the jars of marmalade, jam and honey in the cupboard to give away. Not sure what I'll do about the frozen pies and other pastry based things in the freezer yet. Some of them might be okay with a low carb diet, but I doubt they will be any good for weight loss.

Other than that, everything plods along. The brain fog has lifted for a while, hallelujah, and I have been really busy with work. I think I'll need to do some work this weekend as there is a report I have been promising my boss for weeks, but it just gets more and more complicated and is taking forever. I would really like to see the back of it as well, so I'll see if I can manage to put some time aside. I can add the hours to my flexi working sheet, so it's not like it's unpaid.

I was going to view a car this weekend but it has been sold, and I don't see any other ones I want to view. So that means I definitely won't have sold my car before the new financial year and will need to sort out all the money transfer gubbins I mentioned in my previous post.

I'm off to see friends in Sunday, so that should be good fun and will break up the weekend. Other than that I have no definite plans. Might see if I can get a bit more done in the garden, and take silly dog a nice walk somewhere. I gave him a rawhide bone to chew on earlier, and he's just gone out into the garden to bury it. He'll remember it again in 10 minutes and go out to hunt for it again. He's such a twit.

Hope you all have lovely weekend, and thanks for 'listening' to what is basically one long moan 😂.