Our forever home

bellevie

5 weeks until my 3rd year at uni restarts
7 weeks until work officially restarts. 
I used AL to give me a bit of leeway with returning to study. 

I'm seriously praying ds resumes to 7am wake ups, he slept perfectly until some sort of regression, now wakes anywhere between 5-7am. It makes for a long day if he doesn't go back to sleep at 5! 

No huge progress reports for the past month, still ticking over small repayments £5pm for the minute. 

Dropped to minimal pay and despite careful budgeting we still wind up overdrawn purely due to groceries. We haven't got on an even keel since all our visitors before and after the christening, and definitely not helped by having more visitors since.

Trying not to stress about it too much, but it's niggling at me a little.
Just seen asda have a blue light discount so going to try to work out if it'll be worth the 20 ish minute drive there. We did order online last week but not sure the discount works online.

bellevie

Uni has restarted 2 weeks done, work restarts in just over a week.

I'll have 3 months at work then off for a 2.5 month placement. A little nervous about handling placement and childcare but hopefully I'm worrying about nothing.

Dd has started her options, has had a good start to the school year. She's counting down the days to her December birthday already! I'm not at all organised, partially because Christmas & birthday savings are locked into an account until beginning of October. When the interest is paid, I'll start shopping.

DS is about to start nursery we have his settling in sessions last week. He's just started crawling and is everywhere at the minute.

DH has been on a gas course the past few months that his employer covered, and has done really well. He needs to build up his portfolio and hopefully when signed off that'll increase the variety in work, he's enjoying the variety of work.

Savings wise have put the vast majority of my savings into tax free childcare to make the first months payment. Quite gutting to see close to empty accounts aside from my birthday / Christmas account.

I'll be saving very minimal amounts for a while but hoping when the childcare changes kick in things get easier 🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏

bellevie

What a month its been.

Managed a grand total of 2 days at work before a sick bug took hold spreading to us all. We recovered quickly but ds I think was fighting off a couple of viral at once, he wound up off nursery for 8 working days.

My anxiety rocketed, remembering how difficult it was with dd off sick so often time unpaid etc.

Managed what would have been 3rd week, and he fell ill 4th week again. 4th week coincided with half term and I'd built some admin tasks up so we muddles through 3 days, DH had Thursday as AL, I had Friday.

Touch wood, better now so will be back at nursery tomorrow, hopefully he manages more than a week.

I've been thinking of so many things. If he follows the same pattern as dd, my annual leave will be used up by Christmas.
DH leave restarts in January, mine in May. 
I won't be able to take much time on placement, it might either cause it to be extended or worst case fail altogether.

I then started thinking if I have to abandon my degree, would I be happy doing the same thing for the foreseeable? 
Working evenings would remove childcare needs, but would force me to change career and take a large paycut. Its a last resort, but would keep us afloat if we reach the point of taking time unpaid.

Well, I've swung between plough on and hope for the best, to cut my losses and find some evening work before things fall apart.

On other news our car developed an electrical fault that can only be resolved by main dealer. Close to £800 to pay out this week. That caused plans for my 40th - travelling to see family to be abandoned.


All in all its been a crap month, has had me questioning myself more than once, what an earth am I doing!!

Jessy103

Sorry to hear you're having a tough time. Fingers crossed for a better month and hope DS makes a speedy recovery 🙂

bellevie

Thank you, everything crossed for this month!

bellevie

Made it through last week at nursery, although he still has a lingering cold touch wood still well enough for nursery tomorrow 🤞

That's a good start to the month, one step ahead of last month!

Car works paid for on cc, so will start chipping away at that.

Had good news the payrise has been agreed. It'll be paid end of month, I think with maternity it'll only be backdated to September for me rather than April but still a very helpful sum to go towards car works.

Dds birthday in 4 weeks, Christmas in 6 ish, ds 1st birthday a few days after Christmas.

First assignment of the year due end of November. I've been really struggling with it and in my already pessimistic mood had started to question my ability to go much further. I happened to be nominated for a presentation next week and got speaking to someone in the same role for the nhs, he had recently qualified. He recalled this assignment as the first he truly only just a passed in despite qyalifying with a 1st, lots of his cohort had their first resit at this stage he informed me.
That reassured me that it is just a difficult assignment and if I do have to resit I won't be the only one.

I've booked to attend a writing support group tomorrow and might book a 121 if I don't feel much clearer. Although I'm now not feeling as low about my ability I'd still rather not face a resit in December it's a busy enough month.

bellevie

Last in person uni lesson today, now at home on study days until my assignment date. 

Realised if I do have to resit it would be later on not December, but as placement starts in January I'm still aiming to pass.

Read over past feedback, have a few more resources after attending the writing course which helped a bit with structure really need to nail this.

Placement starts in january but really looking forward to it! 

I've always thought I'd stay in my setting post qualifying but every now and then hearing my cohort talk about their settings I do wonder what the future may hold.

Money wise, dds bus pass had gone up £4.5, pet insurance up just over £5 and contents insurance up around £5. £15 increase in one month!  Aside from pet insurance I really wasn't overly proactive in looking for cheaper deals really. Just had so much on my feet rarely hit the ground.

Due to find out if nursery bill will go up again in next few weeks - last year it went up around £100 a month, I pray it doesn't go up like that again. 

3 days off nursery this week, hopefully ds will be well enough to go in tomorrow. He's had a really tough start and we are only approaching 2 months in!

LadyWithAPlan

Very impressed that you are battling to do a uni course alongside work and a new baby! No wonder you have moments of ahhh! 
I am sure the degree will be worth it once you get it done..

bellevie

Thank you! It will be worth it, just got to keep ploughing on!

bellevie

To my surprise DS has been to nursery for an uninterrupted 7 days (weekend aside), the best to date! Hopefully a sign he is building immunity.

I on the other hand have caught something else, luckily I'd booked this week to work on my assignment, but honestly this sickness lark is relentless. We have vitamins, are eating healthily, cleaning inc boil washes or anti bac in wash, smudging trying anything and everything for us all! I'm hoping all together it starts to make a difference ASAP.

Still feel with it mentally just tired, so will work on my assignment with breaks as needed, hopefully as the week goes on I'll progress as planned.

I think we are mostly done Christmas gift wise.

New year will be focused on clearing credit card and rebuilding emergency savings pot. Savings are growing but slowly. Nsi ticking along only the minimum each month, plus a 7% interest account locked for 12 months. I have a small amount going into 7% though its my main saving right now, then at the end of each month I transfer more if I can afford it.

Week in week out though the food budget mostly over by 10- 30% that doesn't include nappies or formula, which I try to order in bulk monthly. 
I think I have to face food budget will have to increase for the foreseeable, but we've only got space to do this by continuing to limit savings.

3 year anniversary in our home this month, 2 years left on our fixed deal.