The Hen House Chronicles

KajiKita

The idea of the university text books propping up your son’s cot made me smile! 😊 

Well done on the bashing down on the car loan and ouch to the increasing childcare costs …

How far through the midwifery training are you?

KK

savingholmes

Well done on the loan OP. 

I too smiled at the cot and the uni books.

Ouch to the nursery fees.

MerryHen

Oops, it's been a minute 🙈

Turns out I am not very good at keeping up to date with this diary business, but right now the juggle is real.

A quick life update:

This week I finished year two (of three) of my midwifery training.

I have done quite well in all practical and theory components and worked out that even if I average 50% next year I am on track to receive a distinction in my Midwifery MSc 🥳

House is in a permanent state of chaos.
The kids and Mr Merryhen are happily plodding along.
Childcare is still expensive.
I'm not sure exactly what our finances are doing right now, I will update in due course.

I hope everyone is having a good summer, I have a lot of catching up to do during my three weeks annual leave before third (and final!) year begins.

beanielou

Glad all is well.  Your last year will fly in.

KajiKita

Nice to ‘see’ you 😊
Glad all is well and good luck for your 3rd year 😊

KK

Aimingforthegoodlife

Enjoy your brief break! I am sure the 3rd year will fly by and before you know it, you will be a fully fledged midwife, how exciting!

MerryHen

Finances:

Emergency fund: £4400 (yep it has gone down).

Next car fund: £2910

S&S ISA: £1155

Sinking pots: £4069

Car loan: £-1556 (6 months left without overpayments)

I have separated out the next car fund from the regular sinking pots because hopefully we won't need to use it for many years.

We withdrew £3500 from the emergency savings to put towards a Tern GSD S10 long tail cargo electric bike. It can carry a lot of cargo, including both kids on the back! It means Mr Merry Hen can get more places with them when I have the car for work, it's also environmentally friendly and more fun than a second car! Mr Merry Hen and the children are very pleased with it (meanwhile I'm a nervous wreck anytime they go anywhere on it).

I have also altered how much we're saving for DD in her name. We were saving £100 a month into her children's savings account and even though we're hoping to teach her some fiscal responsibility the thought of her having access to about £25,000 at 16 was quite daunting. So I have reduced the monthly payment to £10 and diverted the other £90 to my ISA but mentally ring-fenced it for DD. Maybe it can go towards a car or a house deposit (if such things are still possible for young adults in 20-30 years time). When DS is 5 we'll do the same with his savings. They'll both get almost £10,000 when they're 16 which still seems like a massive amount to me.

Day to day finances: I have £250 left in my account for this month. We're heading south to visit family next week which will probably require a couple of petrol fill ups to get us there, around, and back. DS is also overdue his second chicken pox vaccine which is another £75-85. I might ask Mr Merryhen to pay for one or both of these these since I usually pay for food and activities. Thankfully there are no more bills due this month (unless I've forgotten something 😅).

Anyway, it is now late and we have early starts tomorrow ferrying children to activities (in opposite directions 😭) so I'm off to bed-fordshire, night night.

MerryHen

👧🏼👶🏼 Riding in style

KajiKita

Sounds and looks like the reduction of the EF for the electric bike was a good one 😊 Tbh, I think keeping any kind of EF going when one of you is studying is a sterling effort 😊

KK

MerryHen

KajiKita said:

Sounds and looks like the reduction of the EF for the electric bike was a good one 😊 Tbh, I think keeping any kind of EF going when one of you is studying is a sterling effort 😊

KK

Thanks KK 😊 
The bike is definitely life enhancing 🚲

I've had a lovely day with DD today. We went to an under 8's swim session where we had the learner pool to ourselves for most of the session. Judging by the number of people leaving as we arrived the family fun splash session (with floats, inflatables and water slide) just before ours was much busier. DD is happy playing imaginary games and diving for her dive sticks though and I even got to enjoy swimming a few short lengths of the pool. Swimming has gotten so expensive though, a few years ago it was £2 per person and today I paid £10 for the two of us, and the pool is definitely cooler 😢

DD then helped me treat the yarden decking. She is just at an age where her helping is actually sometimes genuinely helpful, I was able to sit back and observe 🥲 I just need some dry weather now to oil the decking.

We're heading south on Friday to visit family so are eating down the contents of the fridge. This evening I made tagliatelle with a simple vegetable sauce using a jar of of Aldi Essentials pasta sauce. I usually make my own but thought for 47p I'd give it a go, it was oddly gelatinous and I don't think I'll get it again.

Tomorrow's dinner is going to be a veggie sausage  and bean casserole using an Asda Just Essentials casserole sauce, hopefully this one fairs better. Casserole may or may not contain dumplings. I found a pack of vegetable suet lurking in the pantry with a best before of Dec 2021. Some experimental dumplings are currently in the oven cooking in a simple broth to check the suet is still palatable. Meanwhile I'm munching on toast made from homemade bread while waiting for them to cook, the bread maker remains my favourite kitchen appliance. I ❤️ bread maker.

Speaking of kitchen appliances our washing machine (do they count as kitchen appliances?!) did a loud bang on Friday and no longer spins or drains. DH made an emergency trip to the launderette in the next village over on Saturday morning (using his cargo bike!) and a washing machine man is coming to look at it tomorrow. Fingers crossed it can be saved 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

*Beep beep, beep beep* the dumplings call....