First Steps to Solvency

alt80

Day 59.

 

Been a very odd one. No Greece hol booked and read a news article that wasn’t optimistic about international travel for summer. October hardly ‘summer’ but bit concerned going to be wasting my money on this now with the Europe covid situation getting worse. Greek cooking been good, no time to think about the bad stuff when you’re in and out of the kitchen all day haha.

 

Up most of the night last night with my wife bit of a nightmare tbh she was really upset and we sat up until 5am talking so between cooking we’ve both been sleeping on and off all day so why I'm up now, will be bed by 1am need to be haha. Didn’t get a decent walk had the rugby on but didn’t really watch much. Scotland absolutely crushed Italy though lol. 

Both wife and I have decided to effectively ditch out icloud accounts on our devices and reset the lot it’s a bit of a long story and why rugby was on but we were both somewhat distracted between cooking. Something we both need to do to get away from a lot of the stuff on our devices. We’ve both managed to set up new accounts and take off the info we need can still log into old from a web browser so no need to back up photos etc though I’ve thrown my 16,000 FML onto a external hard drive. Not managed to reset all devices as we want to make sure we’ve got all data to set up our banking apps/ nectar points or whatever but we’ve both completely reset our ipads and not seeing a very cluttered screen full of apps we either don’t use or aren’t good for us is great. Contacts all in my outlook and I’ve deleted a lot of old ones / ones I probably should have not had easy access to. Need to get the ones I do actually phone duplicated from outlook and onto the icloud account but my phone is currently running on the old account anyway. That's going to take a bit longer. Wife did her ipad too also found it easier to make a start on. Possibly makes no sense to anyone else re icloud but does to us. If we’re going to move forwards she needs temptations lower and so do I.

 

@warby68 she’s a different woman when we’re doing the family stuff or gym/ fitness/ sports. I am obsessive about stuff in general always have been. Need to be really on top of the planning and busy not to go down the wrong roads tbh. Lot easier said than done to stay on the planning sometimes as easy to fall into old habits for me.

 

Brilliant news re your son and thank you.

 

@RelievedSheff / @warby68 lol it’s been good so far. Another day of Greek kitchen tomorrow.

 

@CRANKY40 I’d not thought about that tbh but I hope so now you’ve said that gives me an extra bit of motivation to carry on carrying on thank you.

 

@ladyholly lol don’t get me started on Zoom/ Teams I !!!!!! hate the virtual meetings.

 

@getmore4less yeah I don’t stay on top of the planning, I tend to say !!!!!! it tbh. Think you’re right re it being routine and falling back into familiarity. Fall back into old habits and the cravings for the stuff are mad so another reason to stay with the planning.

Me too and wife actually re the stories of those older and a lot wiser.

 

Might be good to watch a long running series. My issue is getting into it and staying up all night binge watch the lot haha.

 

Can remember watching episodes of a lot of those comedies growing up mate lot of memories there could be worth a rewatch / go from start. I’m not that young at 40 ha but most were repeats.

 

Will have a look at the crime ones too.

 

Thanks again mate.

 

@Sun_Addict thank you ha !!!!!! loads of them at son’s school. I don’t have the interaction with other parents but in normal times wife does.

 

You ought to treat Mr SA to the kleftiko might make him more amenable to you getting those bird cowls fitted ha.

 

@Onebrokelady / @RelievedSheff sorry I think I have confused over this show lol.

RelievedSheff

I think a big reset could be what you both needed.

Fingers crossed for a good day for you both today.

Greek cooking again sounds good.

We read the summer holidays news articles as well yesterday and funnily enough my first thoughts were your Greece family holiday. I think you will be fine to go by October. We will all be vaccinated by then and the EU should have hopefully caught up with their vaccination programme by then.

Won't really bother our travel plans for this year but it will push us ever closer to buying a brand new van instead if no used ones come onto the market this summer 🤔

getmore4less

That was one busy day if it started the day before using most of the night.

The Apples, the googles and the Amazons really trap you with their one stop shop we own you approach.

Somethings are handy when they sync up everything .but you loose control fast..
there is a good one on Amazon at the moment , get £7 on your account if you upload a photo using the App, but that photo will start turning up on  Amazon devices that display pics and it will grab everything off your phone..

Good luck finishing that tidy up job, 
Upgraded my PC last April clean install,  still not finished sorting out all the rubbish that I had on the machine sitting on the old disk

With you on the falling asleep, managed the first 2 games which were a bit one sided got the steak dinner sorted and started the Wales game a bit late,  woke up right at the end to see the final score, went to bed.
Will be watching properly today.
(2pm start and 8 beers was my downfall)

Good to hear your lad has been doing well, part of what being a great dad is all about.
If he wants to take up rugby he will need start eating properly chicken salad won't do it.

The cooking together is another thing that works for both of you, maybe build more of that into your week, the experimental fun stuff with the Son is also worth looking at doing more.

With the longer series remember these are for both of you so any binge is together which might be ok for a long session Friday or Sat  but the rest of the week is a School/work day so needs to be limited

Was looking at the BBC films and there are a few good ones in the list that are available for next week I pick 3 for you..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p02q33vd
This beautiful fantastic   (romance)
Source code  (action and a bit scifi)
Ab Fab the movie (you like it or not, another old series that has legs for a re watch)


It is tough when you build yourself up for something and then have a Duh moment should I be doing this.

I love the planning phase of holidays but my spend freeze demon means I struggle to pull the trigger, which is fine for me at the moments as I feel there is still too much uncertainty, I am fairly happy we will be covered as best it can by the AZ Jab for us that's end of May before anything starts anyway.
.
What we don't know yet is the potential impact for everyone else if travel opens up and  then a variant  escapes and we go backwards.

Oct to Dec is my primary time frame for looking  and feel there is plenty of time, we are a bit more flexible that you which makes it easier not to have to worry about the costings if prices are too high we don't go.
You don't have that choice if Greece can happen it should happen.

If not comfortable you may lose money then hold off a bit or only look for options that are refundable or protected if you can't go because there is a travel ban still in place.

For you that means parking it for a week while you work  but maybe leave the wife on the case to keep an eye on things.

Have a good day today when you finally get up, must be totalled after a yesterday.  

enthusiasticsaver

If resetting all your devices means getting rid of the temptations I think it was a useful thing to do for you both although 5am 😱!!! We had a steak dinner and watched Grand designs and Unforgotten on catch up. Thankfully my DH is not into watching sport on TV so no rugby for us as I can't stand it either and I did a 5 mile short  hike and a 10 mile bike ride during the day  as it stayed dry. 

We have come to the conclusion after reading reading about the 3rd wave in Europe yesterday that we would do better to postpone our Canada trip booked for September to September 2022. We have two UK holidays booked in June and August and are hoping those can go ahead but would rather see more certainty about overseas travel before paying the balance of our Canada trip. It is a month and expensive so would rather see a bit more normality before paying out thousands only to wait for months for refunds or god forbid if travel agent goes under. I think maybe considering postponing Greece a year might be worth considering for you too. Tricky though if you planned to go with your sister and she has already booked. 

Have a a nice day. Greek food sounds great. 

Willowtree222

I think it makes perfect sense. If it is a distraction and a temptation then the best thing is to remove it. 
I removed some social media that was causing me anxiety and have reduced everything else. It was one of the best things I ever did as it prevented me from having the same reaction. 
Have a lovely Sunday 

foxgloves

Alt80 - I have been slowly reading through your diary. Another ex-spender here, although admittedly not on your scale, but still enough to land us with way more debt than was responsible, seeing as we had no savings & both worked in a public sector permanently threatened by job cuts. No debts now & no mortgage - our old bad habits feel like a lifetime away, though Mr F still loves tech. Anyway, I haven't commented as yet, but I have just got to the bit where you mentioned "Shitcliffe-on-Trent" & honestly, I nearly had to invoice you for a new laptop as I laughed so much I spat tea over my keyboard. I think I probably live not very far away from you, a bit further out from the city than I used to, when I was younger. Oh my days, I did some spending there, I can tell you! 
I haven't got up to date with your progress yet (I am up to the bit where you were trying to explain that a new VW jeep is a bit on the pricey side for a birthday gift) but I can definitely discern a really significant change of attitude, & determination to do things differently. So I have just stopped by to say thanks for the NG-related laugh & to wish you well with your continued progress.
F

alt80

How the !!!!!! I'm getting through today I don't know. No trouble with wife or anything else but so much for the move away from the old apple account that 'brainwave' now landed my personal and business debit cards and spends credit cards being blocked by the fraud team ha FML so much for booking our hol. 😆 Setting up has been a nightmare generally and I'm not sure I'd actually recommend the full tech reset having had this happen. Haven't managed to do weekly personal spends yet but we've generally been quite good not spent a lot. 

@RelievedSheff ha yeah we need it but clearly everything we actually need to set up has other ideas. Wife has done her phone/ laptop - I haven't yet just the iPad but the lack of clutter on the iPad is brilliant tbh. 

I'm going to book when I can access some money and wife has checked refundable etc. Tbf the credit cards have been resolved but nothing resolved on bank accounts - they are !!!!!! useless sometimes.

@getmore4less haha had a long sleep mate didn't get up until 9am. 100% re the apples / amazons / googles. As we've found we have lost all control over apple lol. Another thing we've found just by starting afresh with the tech are the amount of duplicated apps for different things we had eg messaging services: iMessage, WhatsApp, messenger, IG, MS Teams etc etc etc goes on forever. I've said I'm working on messenger, WhatsApp and teams and that's it. The amount of notifications my wife used to get in a day was unreal. I'm less sociable so not quite so bad ha. Totally !!!!!! off with it tbt mate. 

Hope you got caught up with the rugby and not at all surprised re going through the stuff on the old PC. Kind of nice to have a fresh install though tbh. I've backed all the old stuff up but whether I'll ever properly go through it who knows ha. No work stuff that's all digital through MS 365.

Thanks re son it's good to see him doing well and yeah chicken salad def not going to fuel rugby ha.

Quite enjoyed the Greece planning phase too and it's kept wife relatively busy still be busy with it tomorrow finding out what's refundable and want isn't etc before we book. My parents both been jabbed in Greece but only first dose. Tbh I reckon the EU just making a bit fuss out of nothing about the AZ vaccine - all political point scoring post-brexit imo and nothing else. You def have more flexibility I didn't even used to think about it but looking at deals on the weeks were son is off but vast majority of state schools aren't- def better prices. 

Going to have a go at planning a bit of TV this evening for the coming week I think. You're right re not binging though.

@enthusiasticsaver getting out for a walk / bike ride in Cornwall must be nice. We've been there a few times and like it. Would go again in the future. 

I'd do what you're doing re Canada. Greece a bit different for us as not 100% holiday I don't suppose don't want to be a let down again with family tbh.  

@Nicnak I agree I needed some of the stuff on my apple devices off. I've got a separate MS laptop for work (there is a reason not just complete greed) find I'm not distracted when I'm using that but fire the MacBook up with all the stupid stuff/ messages from people I'd be better not hearing from etc sounds ridiculous but actually affecting my mental health. Wife likewise possibly worse for her tbh.

@foxgloves FML I can't believe you've sat and read all my drivel ha, there's a few local people on here lol. Sheff doesn't want to be associated with the Nottingham scum but lives in Notts lol and a few others too. Lot on here seem to be London or NG based. Thanks for popping by though.

Not about to give you my address lol but yeah I live pretty close to the city Mapperley Park area so you probably get why I'm dreading everything opening up again too much temptation and I don't blame you in some ways getting a bit further out I def consider it from time to time tbh. Probably would end up Rushcliffe way if we do ever move but not even sure about it tbh will only go if the right place came up. Parked until mortgage deal expires anyway and I'll be giving Shitcliffe a wide berth can tell you that 100%.

Willowtree222

I know what you mean. Half of mine was about seeing things from people and had nothing to do with spending.
Hope the banking gets sorted soon. Fraud squad sometimes take some convincing! 

alt80

@Nicnak both credit cards sorted. Bank accounts I’m waiting on a call back tbh did lose it with them on the phone.

Def the case for wife re seeing things from people. I’d agree to an extent too. Wife did make me laugh just saying she doesn’t know what she’ll do without IG might go back to uni or something haha FML. 

warby68

How was the kleftiko?
We had Chinese but all I wanted was Greek lamb