Learning to walk before I run

Suffolk_lass

I do love reading your diary ed. It's always the first one I look for when I get back from my trips away. Good to hear you are back in and you sound very happy with the end product, stairs excepted. Even with good and capable builders, stuff goes wrong. At our son's suggestion we asked for small LED lights to be fitted in the kick-plates of our island unit, at our old place. At the time the sucking in of breath, hissing noise and shaking of head was intended to put us off but we insisted. This was back in 2002 and nobody else had done it. Our son got the idea from a sci-fi film. Now everyone does it! Very frustrating but a good builder, none the less. 

Here, we are waiting for the boilerman to come and work his magic. No pressure, no way of re-pressurising after I snapped the lug off the valve, and a service to come. Looking forward to s shower later today...

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - I hope you got your shower?

We had our delivery of Ik3a furniture today. Not only did the buggers refuse to take it to the room of my choice (wouldn't go past the first floor landing) but the silly !!!!!! carried the boxes upstairs over their heads so that they had no idea where they were going. This led to them scratching the paint with green scuffs in 8 or more places! 

So distracted was I by this that I went to Screwfix on my lunchbreak to get matching trade emulsion to that used by the painter. I was raging! 10l of paint and I must have used 50ml! Still, I've fixed what they damaged and I guess DD2's new room is getting a coat of paint

I've asked them to refund the cost of delivery, won't use it again.

Today was a bumper day for surveys (£15+).

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear Ed, that is vexing indeed! 

Excellent surveying though 😁

LadyWithAPlan

edinburgher said:

@savingholmes - they definitely have value. If I buy them off myself I would pay the full market value for the bottles from my personal spends account, so the household finances would still benefit.

Loving your MSE justifications on buying from  yourself something you already have bought!
Great news that your home is now done and looking fabulous.

savingholmes

Eeek at the delivery guys. At least you have the stuff now which is progress (the delivery and top up paint!).

the_end_of_the_rainbow

So glad you’re finally back in.

edinburgher

Mrs E has been paid - yay! Mrs E has been paid roughly 1/2 wages because of maternity leave - nay!

I have subtracted £500 of the £700 or so lost from the "Baby" line of the budget and will need to aggressively trim the October budget. £78.64 paid off CC1 (1% of the total) and what limited virement I could accomplish has been viremented.

Surveys a lot slower today (less than £1 so far), but I'm doing more actual work, which is right and proper

savingholmes

Ouch to half pay. Are you saying you had budgeted for it but hoped it wouldn't be as bad or what? I don't quite get it? How much longer is Mrs E off for? Have you got her doing surveys too? - that's the real question.

edinburgher

Yes, in theory we budgeted for and set aside money from our second mortgage to cover Mrs E's lost earnings during maternity leave, it's just painful to see!

Mrs E off 'til March and I can't see her doing studies - they usually require sitting in front of a laptop and DD2 is a full-time job who doesn't nap for more than an hour

Meter readings submitted and a few more surveys completed

savingholmes

Ah - I see. Well looking after two littlies is pretty full on - and one who rarely sleeps is extra challenging.