It's time to begin.....

greensalad

Howl's Moving Castle is a fantastic film! I definitely recommend watching it if you can.
And taking a packed lunch is one of those things I never want to do (because tasty food when you go out) but it's very much wort it.

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like a great half term. Hope you don't end up in lockdown. Figures creeping up even down here in the West Country. 

Kakiste

@greensalad
Yes we're already fans. She loves it. There's a film at the cinema currently called Away that looks beautiful and similar in animation style. And another one called Kobu and the two strings that is Japanese animation. 
She instead chose the rubbish animal film. Ah well

greensalad

Oh sorry I misread and thought they were showing HMC as I know a lot of cinemas are showing old films at the moment. I've seen the reviews for Away, it looks good. 

I haven't been to the cinema in a long while. We decided this year to "treat" ourselves to the Odeon pass as we love watching new releases. So we ended up watching a film a week up until the pandemic hit. We managed to get out in the summer lull to watch Tenet and then nothing since. At least Odeon paused the pass for a long while. 

However we think next year we'll get rid and look into supporting our local one instead (it's independent but was closed for refurb whole of this year). It looks lovely!

I do miss going out and doing things sometimes!

Kakiste

I love watching films. I think when we're debt free I'll look into a similar pass as we're all film aficionados here!  

We've got two cinemas locally and a gorgeous independent one 20 mins away, not been there since January.

Kakiste

Got a booking for the salon place I have a voucher for, booked in for next Wednesday for a hot stones back massage, Indian head massage and then a wash, and hair cut. All but £4 covered by the voucher as all were offers for November.

Kakiste

Feeling very happy today. Just agreed a project for a friend for £200 labour costs. (Its a significant amount of work - entirely handsewn; about 80 hours construction time) but it'll give me something to do in the new lockdown evenings!

It comes at great timing because my car was MOT'd on Monday and whilst it's passed it needs a new washer bottle as the current one is leaking and a new 'heater motor resistor' to make the heating work fully again (currently works but only on full blast) as well as 2 new tyres. 
I've priced up (and shopped around) and the garage is going to do me the two new parts for £154 and I get part work tyres from a great autowrecker near my house for £15 each. 

So whilst it won't be in my pocket the £200 will cover all my car repairs and leaves £16 to go into my EF. 

Also in great news lockdown 2 doesn't kick in until Thursday which means i can still make the salon booking on Wednesday which is great given the last time I had my hair cut was December! 

Kakiste

Got the tyres done yesterday (pre lockdown2) but the garage is closing for a month so the other two repairs will have to wait. Not a massive issue as neither of them were safety concerns. But I wasn't too keen on driving around on 'just' legal front tyres in December. 
Fakeaway night tonight. I've turned the remains of yesterday's chilli into nachos and bought £5 worth of kfc style chicken from Aldi. Our friend is coming round to eat with us (we're bubbled with him as he lives alone) and is bringing hot sauce, block of cheese for the nachos and a case of Pepsi. 

Total grocery spends for this week =£30 as I needed to replace some sauces/cupboard essentials as well as the 7 meals. 

Kakiste

Managed to get the car booked in for next Tuesday so need to find an alternative to get to and from work. Will ask around colleagues. 

A few new kids have started at work which has unsettled a bunch of the classes whilst they settle in. Always tricky in any school but it's emotional style issues are always magnified in our sector. One of new kids (year 9) is completely functionally illiterate (and I'm his English teacher) so that will be difficult especially as we need to run interventions and differentiate the work right down without any of the other kids picking up on it. Tricky few weeks ahead

Sarahwithlove

Just caught up on your diary and you are doing so amazingly well. But I have to say I'm felt struggling with yours and your husbands financial relationship. I understand its how you choose to do things but I think its important for you both that you both acknowledge his role in the debt as well. Although yes you were the one to physically build it up he never once stopped to consider how you would manage on SMP to pay your share of the bills and keep the household running and cover costs of your child. I understand he has helped out alot towards the loans to family but I don't think it's fair that he is left with so much to spend on himself and you have so little to cover these debts which are essentially joint. Its not like you went off and spent it all on crap for yourself. Anything that is for benefit of your child or your household in general should really be considered joint. To me only personal spends should be your own which is why often people find having joint finances with a spending allowance each works well as you both get same amount to spend for same amount of effort no matter who has the better paid job or not. Might be something to consider especially if you are going to be buying a house together because if you're gonna do it percentage based does that mean because you pay more towards mortgage you will own a bigger chunk? The answer is probably no it won't work like that.