A new royal start

QueenJess

Had a bit of a surreal day today.  After a month of having little to do, I've now got two projects I'm working on as well as other ad hoc questions to deal with that came in.  Then I realised I was invited to a team call and then was announced as a new member of the team.  But I am only on this new to me team for another 32 days.  All felt very odd.

Anyway, very little done today as actually was working all day.  I did manage to sneak in a load of washing and get it hung up though.  DH got the shopping for the week and managed to spend £4 under the gift card amount, so no new spend for food this month.  It was a bit more expensive than I thought though, mainly because DS and DH are going through the tissues as though they are going out of fashion.  They both have colds.  It does mean that my previously heavily negative food category is now at -£35, which is a fantastic effort.  If I stick to £300 for October, there will be no negative and I can sweep some of the amount into the sad looking negative furniture/garden category.

Paid today (for the penultimate time!).  I swept everything I could into overpayments based on my October budget which means I am now at £87,018.13!   I am a bit annoyed I won't be able to get that to sneak into the 86's as it is so close, but there's only 2 days of September left and I don't have enough coming in for that.  I'll soon be there next week anyway when the mortgage comes out.

Dinner was jerk chicken (with the leftover roast chicken), chips and veg and pudding is more of the pear and raspberry crumble with ice cream (or chocolate chip muffins for DS who doesn't like raspberries).  I did also "accidentally" eat two iced buns earlier as a nice snack.  Haven't had them for ages and really fancied some.  They were very good

QueenJess

Not much happening today.  Did another load of washing (it seems to be endless at the moment) and worked all day.  I did dig out a tiny photo frame I've had for about 2 years and found a photo to cut to size for it.  It is now looking very nice in the living room.

My new cushions also arrived, so the living room is looking a teeny bit better now.  I have my eye on a lamp and a couple of photo frames which I'll order in October.  I'm 50:50 about an artificial orchid I saw and so will think about that for a while longer.  Will be a November purchase if I decide to get it.

Dinner was the last of the roast chicken reincarnated as a stir fry.  Looking forward to pear and raspberry crumble and ice cream in front of Bake Off later    Ironically it is biscuit week and I was completely coincidentally going to make some biscuits this week.  I can't decide between making hobnobs, iced biscuits or shortbread... decisions, decisions!

QueenJess

This feels like a very slow week.  For some reason, having more work to do at work is making me more anxious/uncertain about what is actually going to happen this month.  I have to assume I will still be redundant, but no one tells you anything in this company until the last minute.  I should probably set up another meeting with the person in charge, but I'm not sure I can face it at the moment.  Maybe next week..

Managed to do precisely nothing today.  Totally forgot to do some washing and not yet put away the clean clothes.  I'm putting it off as I need to somehow rearrange all DS's clothes as he's in two different sizes at the moment and I'm not sure I can fit it in his room.  If I put some away that'll be a trip to the loft to dig out the plastic boxes.

Last day of September already!  Need to re-check the mortgage online tomorrow to see which day in October the year is up so I can pay off my part of the 10% maximum overpayment.  Want to do it ASAP as I may as well take the interest benefit that comes with that.  Also need to get back into doing bits and pieces online for some extra October cash.  I met my initial targets in September and kinda gave up for the last week!

Dinner today was macaroni cheese with veg (with extras for lunch tomorrow of course).  Pudding for DS was chocolate chip muffins; myself and DH will be eating the last of the raspberry and pear crumble with ice cream later.

Dreading October... there's so much going on and lots of expense.  Hopefully it'll be better than I think!  I'm mostly worried I will completely forget about something (even though I put most of it in the diary).  First up is DH's brothers birthday tomorrow.  We don't do presents so DS made him a card.  I just need to remember to post it through his letter box tomorrow.  Oh - and I must remember to recharge the grocery shopping gift card tomorrow otherwise it won't be on there come Monday/Tuesday when DH does the weekly shop.

QueenJess

Seem to have hit a bit of a slump recently.  Not managing to actually achieve anything and struggling a bit.  Need to pull myself out of it.  It's difficult when I can't really go out and do something nice as there isn't anything particularly to look forward to.

Anyway, a few fails today.  I checked the mortgage and the new year starts today!  DH put his part of the max 10% overpayment in, but I forgot that the savings account where my money is takes 1 day to retrieve.  So mine won't be able to go in until tomorrow.  Second failure is that I am £1 away from my next mortgage target.  I tried to do some surveys to just get £1 out, but didn't meet the criteria on any of the surveys and eventually had to give up.  I did get DH to post his brother's card through his door for his birthday though and I did put money on the groceries gift card for the month.

So my day didn't feel completely wasted, I made raspberry muffins and shortbread.  Lunch was the leftover macaroni cheese from last night.  Dinner was freezer cottage pie and pudding was the raspberry muffins (although DS opted for the shortbread).  I know what I'll be snacking on later!

Friday already tomorrow.  Must try and achieve something more tomorrow.. I might order my lamp later as I have a gift voucher for that shop.  Trick myself I achieved a bit more!  On the plus side, I managed to earn £201 extra last month. 

QueenJess

Thank goodness.  Just got a late payment through and so dropped down into the 86's!  Now at £86,995.00 

QueenJess

Blimey.  Even got screened out of a You Gov survey... I didn't think that ever happens!  Definitely not got any luck today.

rugbymadfamily

Great work dropping down to the £86s and £201 is a great amount of extra for the month.

It's tough sometimes when you get in a slump, but I often find that once i recognise that I'm in one I can get out of it. So well done for recognising it and now to get back out....hope an evening with shortbread and tea will help you 😊

QueenJess

It'll be fine.  I just need to pull myself together!  Need to stop putting off the work stuff as well and get a meeting set up to see if there is any chance of an extension.  At least I'll know what I'm doing then!

I'm sure lots of baking will make me feel better and I know the shortbread will definitely help!

QueenJess

Still struggling today for some reason.  I feel a bit paralysed with the impending uncertainty of ending work and the money planning that goes with it and the fact it's Friday!  I also got distracted paying the 10% off the mortgage and so no more overpayments allowed until next year now.  I played the spreadsheet game for a while of "what if" to see how much it could go down by, but since I will have no income (or at least 90% certain), then it is just silly and gets depressing after a while!  Need to go back to ignoring the big numbers and targeting some tiny amounts instead as I am always surprised by how much it mounts up over time.

I did manage to do 1 load of washing today and changed all the beds.  Dinner was fish pie and I remembered to make twice as much this time, so the rest will be going into the freezer.  Pudding will be raspberry muffins (or chocolate chip muffin for DS who doesn't like raspberries).

Thank goodness it's the weekend!  Flu jab tomorrow morning for me!

QueenJess

Decided I'm just going to cheer myself up by ordering some cheap photo frames from eBay for the living room.