A new royal start

QueenJess

Thanks everyone for your good wishes and advice on pots and pans.  I shall have to walk around the shops trying them all out!

Feel totally unprepared for the long weekend as work is silly busy and I've tons to do.  No room yet in my head for weekend plans, although there is a draft version for Monday at least.  I very much enjoyed getting paid today before most of it goes out to the joint account next week for bills   Some I shall scrape into the start of my mortgage savings though.  I've made around £35 profit selling a couple of things on eBay, so that's gone into the joint account as well to try and scrape some money into there.  Hoping the electricity bill should start dropping as it gets warmer so I can get it back to full again, although I suspect it will end up just offsetting the holiday bill.

Otherwise a normal Friday over here.. sat inside looking at endless spreadsheets whilst wistfully looking out the window wanted to catch up on gardening I have changed the beds, done the washing and just took an apple and blackberry cake out of the oven for pudding later.  I have too much apple and a bit of other fruit from messing up veg box orders whilst I was a zombie on no sleep, so am trying to use it all up.  I suspect I need to stew a load of them for the freezer as well.

Ah - need to go.... work call!

Edit: Well the call was useful as I've been told work will support my move to 4 days a week!  Just need to start filling in the forms to jump through all the hoops.

themadvix

Woohoo!! 🥳 I am so pleased for you Jess! That’s wonderful news!

TallGirl

Excellent news hope it goes smoothly from now on  

Mrs_Money_Penny

Great news x

QueenJess

Well that’s it. I’ve done it now and put some sourdough starter in a jar. It’s insanity as I am crazy busy at work for the next two weeks, but I was sick of seeing the extra flour in the cupboard and the jar on the side. It’s only been on my to do list for a year or so 😂

Now just to get round to making that yogurt… that’s been on the list years and years!

Jessy103

Happy to hear you're getting your 4 day week! x

QueenJess

Completely drowning in this work project at the moment. Since I had some really good feedback about a presentation and also fixed something for someone else, I used the opportunity to joke about it not being in my job description so I should be remunerated for it. Hopefully sows a small seed that they need to pay me more! In the meantime, I did put in my paperwork to move to 4 days a week and just have to wait for that to go through the system.

Not time for much this week, but I did drain off my sourdough starter today and made some pancakes with it. Some of them made it to the freezer… the rest went into the kids tummies post school/nursery! Apparently they were yummy! Better than throwing it away. I also used up some excess apples by making an apple and blackberry crumble.

Nursery were inept today and I’m pretty irritated. They rang to pick DD up early as they said she was sad and crying all the time. When we picked her up it was clear that she was completely exhausted and hadn’t had a proper nap and she was also hungry as they have sandwiches on a Friday and she hates sandwiches and won’t eat them. It feels pretty basic to let kids sleep and ensure they have enough to eat. Will have to talk to them next week when I calm down. Can’t wait to visit the other nursery as our one used to be good, but is definitely going downhill.

Too tired today, so dinner was duck from Waitrose which we had with pots and veg. Pudding was the crumble with a tub of my hm ice cream.

No money saving activities as I splashed out on a very expensive cast iron frying pan that I hope will last forever. Obviously I shopped for the best price and used a cash back site and CC. This is mse after all! Just a wok to search for now and I am on the case looking for replacement underwear.  Otherwise, little is being spent over here and I am still trying to dig right to the bottom of the freezer. However, I realised I can’t pre plan meals and buy food on that basis anymore as I am so practised in determining meals from what we already have in. I can’t go back the other way anymore!

QueenJess

More silly work hours this week (it's starting to really irritate me).  HR have confirmed the receipt of my request to drop to 4 days... it took them a week to confirm they received it so I guess I'm not going to hear anything else for a while!  No time for much this week, but I did do a few mse things:

• Needed some PJs for DD, but found some nice ones second hand online
• Changed my energy tariff to a cheaper one
• Added a bonus onto one of my savings accounts
• Received a payment from Viewsbank

Lunch today was poached egg, toast, asparagus, tomatoes and mushrooms.  Used up a whole bunch of things.  Dinner was veggie sausages, mash, leeks and cauliflower.  Dessert was hm chocolate chip ice cream.  Trying to get through some veg before the next veg box delivery is due!

Nothing else to report... just work, work, work this week

QueenJess

Talked to the boss this morning and he is setting up a call next week to talk about how we make sure I really only have 4 days of work rather than ending up doing 5 days in 4.  So it is progressing!

Other than that I spent money on a larger size reuseable nappy as DD's ones are a bit tight (they should have lasted longer, but she's obviously a bit chubbier than average!).  I am just trialling one in case they aren't right or DD refuses to wear it.  I did the maths and it's still cheaper to buy a few reuseable ones than disposables.  Then I'll have to figure out how to sell the old ones

QueenJess

I don’t even know where to start with this week, it’s been so mixed. Health wise it’s been utterly rubbish for friends and family. Started on Monday when DD was at nursery for all of 2 hours before being sent home. She was completely fine, but came down with something in that time! She recovered enough by Weds to go back and now is ill again with something she caught from DS. She gets out of control fevers very fast when she’s ill, so needs careful monitoring day and night. No sleep for me since DH seems to be inept in knowing if she has a fever or not and declares she’s fine when she’s dangerously hot 🙄. Even DS had to have medicine for a fever before bed, which is unheard of.. the last time he had a fever was when he was 1! Been monitoring both of them hourly through the night (better than the 30 mins I needed last time with DD - she’s not quite as bad as last time) and they’ve managed so far without needing a medicine top up. I think this weekend might be a write off though as I also have a sore throat/cold from DS and feel rubbish.

Other than that, just lots of bad news from family and friends. Been a bit of a mental rollercoaster. We also went for a private consultation for DS (£200 for 15 mins 😬) as the NHS are overwhelmed and only refer you for allergies if you’ve had an anaphylactic shock. DS didn’t have that, but it was sufficiently serious that we are quite worried and need to get him properly tested and to see if he needs an epi pen. I got some advice from a charity and a friend with the same allergies. Waiting for dates on the tests and a follow up consultation. I dread to think what it’ll cost, but I didn’t feel like I had any choice on that. I love the NHS and it’s so sad that not everything is working. Everything is horribly underfunded at the moment.

On a positive note, I started doing yoga first thing every morning at home. I need to do some stuff anyway to progress at gymnastics as once a week isn’t really enough, but can’t get there for another day a week. It’s interesting though that I’ve got up (and wanted to get up) earlier to do it (which as I am an evening person is a miracle in itself) and I’ve felt so much better mentally all week despite all the challenges. Just need to try and keep it up now! Luckily today is my designated day off yoga as I’ve been awake most the night 😬.

More spending this week on an Aldi order as we were going to run out of weetabix. I bought 8x 36 boxes (we use at least 7 a day) and a huge stock up order. I can’t believe it cost £150! Freezer is groaning though, so we will be making that last as long as possible. Also did another order to stock up on stuff like toothpaste, medicines and some essentials (another £80). Definitely been very spendy this week.

Other positives this week is that work’s been ok. Had good feedback from ultimate boss on a presentation, manager has picked up some of the pain on the project I’m on and had my meeting on going to 4 days a week. That is going ahead for 1 June. Will wait for written confirmation before I take DD out of nursery. They need 1 months notice, but I really need some time to deal with unexciting health stuff for myself like getting my contact lens appointment and this X-ray for the tooth I need to have out. I can do that first before DD comes out of nursery.

As part of my meeting with the manager, he started waffling on. He was talking about changing job titles to make them all consistent and more generic. I could not care less about that since it changes nothing about what I do or am paid, but given he started digging himself some sort of hole, I thought I’d let him continue to see where it went 😂. Apparently he is looking into seeing if I could get a promotion this year and we should discuss it “at some point”. Not sure where that came from, but if it happens it would be brilliant - I would probably do exactly the same work as I’m specialised, but get more money. We’ll see what happens there. I won’t get my hopes up.

So a mixed bag this week and definitely not much money saving, although nothing non essential purchased. I let DH make dinner as I knew I’d be up most the night, so we had mushrooms, tomatoes, poached eggs, crumpets and baked beans. DH has no imagination so only cooks very few dishes. This is one of his current infatuations as I taught him to make it recently (I usually do it as a lunch at a weekend). I threw together a pear and red currant crumble for dessert as I really wanted a treat after a long week. I ate mine in bed with some vegan cream.

Time to check on the kids again. Fingers crossed it doesn’t wake up DD and she decides to get up. I tried to describe to DS how a fever feels compared to a temperature and when I went in earlier he was panicking and said he needed medicine when he was absolutely fine. He’s such a hypochondriac sometimes 🙄. Takes after DH…