Returning to MFW, my elusive unicorn!

coldcazzie

South_coast said:

How awful about the chickens - the world truly has gone mad 😦

Absolutely has. Various outdoors touristy spots near us were heaving today. Friends and neighbours having house parties and friends having other friends round for movie marathons etc, like this is some kinda of public holiday... I can't even. I saw a survey this morning that said that only 23% of people are observing the social distancing recommendations

Had omelettes for tea, made with our home grown eggs, and then played Catan - both were good Big Small won the game - she has rather a knack for board and card games tbh. We have yet to play a game of Munchkin that she hasn't won!

FIL sent us about £180 as a RAOK. We split it £40 each for our personal accounts, plus £100 for the joint account. This will makes up some of the shortfall from his wage, and also for the slight splurge on boardgames haha.

Alternative box located for the duplo, shipping purchased and label printed, and I splurged an extra 60p to have a driver come and collect it from the house so I don't have to go to a dropoff point. The remaining funds have been added to the OP pot. I intend to keep on adding everything I can to the OP pot, and if the SHTF then it will be one of our sources of emergency money, and if not I'll OP it later on in the year.

OP Account currently stands at £139.71

Had an Etsy order, which rather surprised me (I am in the process of closing the shop, and indeed the whole business). I am unsure whether I can reasonably get away with putting it straight in the post box rather than taking it to a PO, but I suspect that the answer is no as I think it'll be too heavy for a bog standard large letter stamp. However, I (or he) will take it to the smaller of our local ones next time a shopping run happens and wait until nobody else is in there.

Grogged

Can't believe how stupid people are at times...
Saw on the BBC CV stream an Australian graphic showing that without following measures 1 person can infect 400, following them can be fewer than 15.

Nice of FIL, my OP pot is also now a SHTF one...
Especially now McD has closed, that will be a wake up call to many!

Glad you had a good weekend, just don't teach Big Small any card games, that could bankrupt you! 😆

coldcazzie

Ha! Well we are pretty invested in their education.... not sure how the LA would view it  

• Payday today. Checked the banking apps. First payday from my new business account, which has gone smoothly. 13/14 savings pots have been paid into (excluding holiday for the time being!). Kids have had their pocket money; first SO to Medium Small's acc so need to check that's landed okay. Small Small currently doing her learning stuff so will hop on the laptop later on to do a proper check and update my spreadsheet.

• Council tax bill for 2020-2021 arrived this morning, and is going up by £5pcm  

• Shopping not needed until tomorrow or Wednesday.

• Still snuffly, slight sore throat during the night but I think that's because my nose is blocked. Still no temperature though.

• Going to ring the garage today and cancel the appt I had for Wednesday; it's nothing that can't wait until later on in the year. Also going to ring the company who are booked to do the front door and ask what their plans are. I hate making phone calls

• Eating from the freezer tonight.

coldcazzie

Cashed out £8.02 from Prolific. Cancelled car appt. Door company have said that they'll pause the clock with regards to the timescales on installs. Manwife™ cooked dinner because I got struck down with a migraine (this is definitely the fault of my uterus). It is time for drugs and bed; finances will wait until tomorrow.

coldcazzie

Slightly disturbed night with the migraine, but feel much perkier this morning. I do have the post-migraine-brain-sluggishness, which is never fun - I keep forgetting things. Hoping that's it done for this month and it doesn't return (sometimes they last for 3-4 days on and off). Rabbits are playing out today, and I spent a couple of hours chatting on the phone with my sister this morning.

• Spreadsheet has been updated with recent transactions, some adjustments done to next month's budget based on how the next few weeks will probably pan out (very little petrol usage!).

• Why do you get a rush of prolific studies being approved right after you hit the cash out button?! 😂

• Still snuffly, but no temp. No sore throat last night, so hopefully coming out of it!

• Meat is defrosting for tea tonight. Don't need to shop today but will need to tomorrow.

South_coast

Ooh, I like it when they get approved after I cash out - less time to wait until the next one then! I always cash out at the bare minimum, so I get annoyed if I don't see the approval quickly enough and the money I've mentally got parked towards the next payout gets included, so much longer to wait 😠!

coldcazzie

Lol, I am waiting until the evening before, so Thursday evening and Monday evening, and doing it then.

Payment has landed in my pp acc, moved to FD acc, and then into savings.

OP/SHTF pot = £147.73

South_coast

I'm on instant payments these days 😍 Immediate gratification! 

coldcazzie

South_coast said:

I'm on instant payments these days 😍 Immediate gratification! 

From Prolific? How many surveys do you have to do to get that little perk?

• Shopping today. Wrote out a couple of weeks of meal planning yesterday and a shopping list for what we need. Aiming to go to Aldi in about an hour I think, and then go to Morrisons after to plug gaps. Assuming it's not bedlam but it does seem to have calmed down here somewhat.

• Posting my Etsy parcel today.

• Returning my client's money means I now don't have enough to pay myself in April. Hoping the govt have sorted some kind of support for SE folks by then that isn't "just apply for UC" because that would leave me worse off in the long run. Going to have a sit down with the budget today and see what's what.

• The maths subs that the kids use is going to go up in price by £34 per child per year next month. As long standing subscribers they offered us a special deal of 2 years renewal at the old price, if renewed by the end of this month. It would be tacked on to the end of our current sub and would take us to mid April 2022. We've taken them up on it, because the kids really like the resource and I'm hoping that will get the older 2 through their GCSE/IGCSE, but it does mean that we have to find an extra £120+ this next month - usually our CC cashback pays for the maths subs.

Feeling a bit more balanced today. Still avoiding socmed more than I usually would. Gonna sit outside for a bit and read a book later ☀️📗😊

coldcazzie

• Aldi and Morri's were calm. Most food available and on the shelves; a few gaps but nothing like a week or so ago. Morri's had a one-out-one-in system in place with a queue outside to get in and big gaps for queuing for checkouts. Wish they'd implemented that about 2 weeks ago.

• Had a client enquire about working together later on in the year, which is both lovely, and also feels weird. Kinda feels like the world doesn't even exist beyond the next couple of weeks right now. 

• Got a bit impatient and cashed out another £8+ from Prolific.

• Pushed the coffee table back and did some pilates in the living room last night, while being on a Zoom call with the teacher and the rest of the class. Felt good.

ETA: THIS IS MY 1000TH FORUM POST!! 🤪🤩😁