A new royal start

QueenJess

Been really tired all day and so not achieved a huge deal.  Did manage to change the beds, do a load of washing and put the clean clothes away though.  Glad it's the weekend again!

Dinner was spaghetti bolognese from the freezer and puddings are from the freezer too - fruit and yogurt, chocolate chip muffins or raspberry muffins.

Had a load of payments through for surveys etc, which were much quicker than I had expected!  Means I smashed through the next target and the one after that!  It's a bit of a one off as I had two large payments together and it takes months to get them usually.  It means though that my current mortgage is £86,266.67.  Next target is below £86,250, which isn't too far away.

QueenJess

Today has been relatively relaxing.  I did one load of washing and got most the clean clothes away.  We also went for a walk at another National Trust place for a bit after lunch (making good use of the National Trust card).  DS loved it, although wasn't sure about walking through the field that had cows in it (the cows were very, very far away!).

Had my weekend treat of a croissant for breakfast and no one else wanted one (strange people).  They'll last forever at this rate  Dinner was fish and chips and for pudding I've made scones and we have jam and clotted cream to go with them.  I'm really looking forward to eating those later.  Can't believe I've never made them before!  They were really easy to make and look like they've turned out really well.  Got lots of extra for the freezer (if I can actually get them in there!).

Received a returns request on eBay saying my description was incorrect (it wasn't), but as this is eBay I presume I immediately lose as the seller.  I just remembered why I stopped selling on there as it is too stressful.  When it works it is fine, but when it doesn't it is just a waste of time and money.  Trouble is, half the reason I use it is because I want someone to use the things I have and I don't want them to end up in a bin somewhere.  Maybe I have to go back to just giving them all to charity (although I assume they are probably overrun with stuff at the moment and most the ones round here only accept very specific things anyway).  *sigh* it shouldn't be this hard!

Not feeling particularly money making today, so think I will take the day off that.  I think I spend too much time thinking about money and stressing myself out about it.  I definitely need to chill out a bit!  There just seems to be a constant expenditure requirement for things at the moment and I have a big list of things to save for.  Maybe I should set myself a daily or weekly target and then I can just stop when I meet it.  Otherwise I never know when to switch off.  One to think about.

debtfreeoneday

fleabay can be a total pain at times but I do persevere as every penny helps.  I haven’t read through all your diary but well done for progress made so far. 

QueenJess

Oh and to demonstrate how exciting my life is, I had a dream last night that I got a much bigger freezer to replace mine in the garage.  I was excited that I could fit loads in there and was already planning lots of batch cooking 

coldcazzie

QueenJess said:

Oh and to demonstrate how exciting my life is, I had a dream last night that I got a much bigger freezer to replace mine in the garage.  I was excited that I could fit loads in there and was already planning lots of batch cooking 

Sounds like a wonderful dream!!

QueenJess

Relaxing day today.  Just mooching around the house and playing with DS. 

Clean clothes all put away and shopping list written for tomorrow.  List looks quite short, but then it should be after my massive £90 stock up shop!  Trying to have cheaper meals next week, but also can't batch cook anything as the freezer is rammed.  I have sneaked a few treats into the shopping list though, so probably not quite as low as I would like! 

Dinner was roast beef with veg, roasted potatoes and yorkshire puddings.  Pudding was ice cream for DS and will be scones with jam and cream for DH and I when we can fit it in a bit later.

Not looking forward to a working week again next week.  Bring on February!!!  In a weird way I'll be more relaxed when I'm not earning a salary as I feel under pressure at the moment to save as much as possible in the last few months I'll have a salary.

More expenses coming up next week.  Car MoT & service and I have a voucher I need to use for money off somewhere.  I will be using it to stock up for months worth of stuff as it'll be cheaper this way.  Bring on payday in a couple of weeks!

QueenJess

I've decided that it is impossible to work full time, do childcare outside of school hours, cook all the dinners and do all the cleaning (plus going to bed early as pregnancy is making me tired).  So I am planning to just do a little bit of cleaning everyday (in the week) and hopefully that will all turn out fine.  Won't be perfect, but good enough for now.

So today I did a load of washing, tidied various rooms and thoroughly cleaned the living room.  I am just waiting for some cash to come into my account and then I will also be into the next target OP bracket.

Shopping done for this week, which was £60.  Too expensive really considering I stocked up on quite a lot of things... I think I ordered a few too many treats  Hopefully it'll all work out over the next few months as I have much more than a month's worth of stocking up.

Planned to make DH's lunches this week.  Usually I leave him to his own devices, but he has a tendency to gravitate towards expensive snacks and he is in all day training most the week (remotely from home).  So today's lunch was homemade pot noodle with chicken and veg.  Dinner was leftover roast beef with broccoli and rice.  Pudding for DS was half a chocolate eclair, for DH and I it will be more scones with cream and jam.

MagicCat

Definitely a good idea to spread out the cleaning, pregnancy is exhausting and you can't do it all. 

I agree about eBay, it's so frustrating. I've been freecycling a lot of stuff lately as I'm decluttering and just can't face the hassle of selling although I really should!

Scones sound yummy, enjoy!

QueenJess

Today I have the Tuesday blues - delayed a day from Monday!  I feel so over work at the moment and am back looking at my app that counts the days down until end of Jan when I stop working.   At least this bit of the business I am in is much better than the other bit when I was bullied relentlessly for about 2 years (and obviously no one ever did anything about it since it is endemic in the organisation).  I'm a very strong person mentally, but it was wearing thin and there is only so much one person can feasibly take.  No bullying in this new bit, just the usual work frustrations I'm sure most people experience 

For some reason I feel a need to clarify the cleaning thing...  I'm very much an equal opportunities person and given both myself and DH work full time, we should be sharing the cleaning 50:50.  However, he doesn't clean properly and on a very ad hoc basis.  Plus he doesn't ever "see" dust so no dusting would ever get done.  We agreed we both disliked cleaning and we couldn't do it with more than full time jobs and so got a cleaner. 

Unfortunately that's out the window with Covid and I refused to have one whilst pregnant as I want to be careful, which means it is back down to me again for the short term.  Plus I feel more obliged since DH needs to keep his job!  DH does do the hoovering as he enjoys it (strange man..) and to be fair, he has been doing all the washing up too (just as well since I am short and it hurts my back to bend over the sink for too long, which is getting worse as I have to stand further and further away!).  Just need to keep things reasonable right now and get into some sort of daily routine.

rugbymadfamily

With you on the cleaning thing, definitely should be split 50:50, but my DH also just doesn't "see" things...even simple things that are on the stairs waiting to go upstairs....he just walks past and doesn't see them . At least it sounds like he owns some jobs like hoovering, we've reached a similar point that DH now has jobs he owns so I can at least ignore them. His main one is ironing, the man enjoys ironing - weirdo! Works for me though as it is my LEAST favourite chore!

Glad to hear things are better in this part of the business, thats so terrible about the bullying in the other part. Its so hard when that is the culture of a place, as people just don't see it as  as issue, its "just the way things are" which isn't right at all.