A new chapter, An empty nest, Drama school & Last year of Uni

Spendless

Chicken used up in by buying an enchilada sauce and using the wraps I had in and the end of a block of cheese. It was more spicy than I'd anticipated and with no yogurt in had to have a blob of mayo to mix in to cool it. Still have prawns, meatballs and diced beef to use. Going to go grocery shopping later as friends coming round and can't do what was originally planned as forgot to take into account some medical /health issues (oops!)   for one of our guests, so need to buy something else instead. I think the items left in the freezer will see me through till next weekend and DH's payday. I really dislike it when there seems to be plenty of money left in the bank acc with a week to  go till there's more money in the account then there's last minute things to pay out and you're looking at an ever dwindling account limping on until the next cash injection! 

However we have bought father's day and my parents WA gifts (joint present) of theatre tickets, which at £48 (total) cost less than our original  plan was going to. Also have bought tickets for me, Mum and DD to go and watch my friend's son who is at The Royal Ballet school . He's on the brink of graduating and joining a professional company and then tickets to watch him will be in 3 figures , so going now whilst he's still a student and prices cheaper -lol. Mum paid for her own ticket, we paid for DD's cos though it's cheaper it's still too expensive to her as a student.  

I took the weirdest phone call from an agency about a job last week. They wanted to put me forward for a temp job that  had that come up, as they talked I realised this was the job I'd had an interview for and hadn't been successful, but that wasn't a temp job and I'd interviewed as a direct candidate, so why is it now a temp job via an agency??!. I told agency person all this and he revealed he'd sent over more than a dozen CVs for this vacancy to no avail. I've always thought my area is poor for jobs, not an highly paid area (in my 20s I went and worked at neighbouring city instead for this reason) not allocating the correct amt of people to the manhours needed to get through the work. As I wasn't able to interview that day then it's been left as not quite a no but not a yes either - will see what happens! 

Bookcase has been sorted. It looks so much better. Large tub of unwanted books to find a new home for now. Conservatory is looking so much better as a result. My aim is for me to have a 'cosy corner' in there with soft blankets and nice cushions and it'll be my reading nook. There was a number of fiction books that  I've never read and I've no idea  where they originated from and will start working my way through them. If I find I love it, it'll return to my bookcase, if I don't I'll get rid.  

Spendless

DD's rent paid today and I can see that we have another 3 week's rent saved and tomorrow a further 3 weeks will get added to the pot from DH's wages. I am so thankful that I thought to tackle this as soon as I lost my job and relieved that a relaxing swim around the pool last month had me realising that my iniital calculations were incorrect and I was able to rectify!

Also pending for tomorrow is my job seekers money. This will make things a little easier. Little to report on the job front. Another weird scenario where a job I applied for and thought I had relevant experience to warrant at least an interview decided 'not to take my application further' one day last week. This week I've seen the same job at the same company advertised again just on a different job site with a different closing date??!! Someone tell me what's going on cos I can't make head nor tail of it. I'm going to apply again but I'm also going to take screenshots for the JC to let them know I'm applying but getting nowhere.  

The £100 I invested at the end of last month has lost 34p so far with another couple of days to go, it initially lost more than that around 67p I think so has gone a little  back up. This is why I don't mess with the stock market, I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I put the £100 in purely to get a £25 reward offered. I had intended to withdraw the whole lot but son looking at it and said I could have invested in gold instead traditionally seen as safer when world events affect the stock market negatively so am going to let him decide where to put my £100 for the following month and see if he beats my current 34p loss. I'm a lot happier with watching my Cash Isa and watching the interest grow daily -lol

On the subject of world events - At the weekend Mr S went to visit DD, she finished yr2 of her degree last week, he went to drop items off and pick others up as it's currently unknown as to whether she's staying where she is this summer or coming home (it's summer job dependant) and he completed the application for her to study abroad (we had to prove we had the funds to support her) submitted it and got a couple of emails back confirming receipt with a suggested timeline of a couple of weeks till her interview for a student visa. Then hours later came the news that Trump has halted student visa applications to the US. I am only thankful that she was 'in the system' before this news broke. Thankfully the USA had a Bank (public) hol   on Monday same as we did otherwise this news would have been out earlier and goodness knows what will happen next. As for vetting student's SM. Okayyyy then ever asked a teen/young adult to hand over their phone so you can check it, they have fake names, fake profiles and can hide stuff  better than Nazi gold.  Our 2  even when younger used to run rings round Mr S  and he worked in IT!  Since I've been typing this,  Son has also let me know that one of the papers is reporting on the Turin scheme being pulled - Urgghhh this is so up in the air. DD's flight is already booked but we're now stuck on getting her accommodation cos we don't know what's going to happen! I had already said to Mr S once his time is up with the American company he does voluntary work for (this time next year) I'm quite happy to say bye to visiting the States for a few years.

I really never thought I'd be typing about the dentist as a preferable story instead! Had a visit this morning. I need a hygienist visit as I have some pockets of gum disease that needs keeping an eye on. Going tomorrow as they have a cancellation.  I still have a £20 love2shop voucher to spend, so have decided to see what hygienist suggests in way of dental products and use it towards that.

Grocery shop tomorrow too. As Mr S has barely been here and due to dietary restrictions we ended up ringing a pizza in when our friends came, so I still have mince, meatballs and diced beef left to use up. The co op £6 deal changed yesterday but again it's got 2 x ice creams in, maybe due to it being half term  as this  doesn't really fill my freezer up with meal items, I've passed. Unfortunately I may have to also pass next time I'm invited to eat with my parents. I went last night and Mum had done meatballs in a tomato sauce along with spaghetti, chips and garlic bread (yep 3 lots of carbs) there was also cheese on top of the garlic bread and more cheese to sprinkle on your plate. Not a veg in sight, other than in the (shop bought)  sauce.  I couldn't finish it, it was far too stodgy and this is the 2nd time this has happened with the same meal. Mum normally puts veg or salad with all her meals but just not this one so next time I'm invited I need to find a way of asking what's on the menu first and tactfully declining if it's meatballs - wonder if I should  blame the meds I'm on to her and claim I feel bloated with pasta on them so need to avoid. 

Right next thing on list is to get ready for a walk with a friend and put some more washing out to dry.

Spendless

We went through the CCs yesterday. They were higher than usual due to US hol spends on them plus we have had to go down the private route over a healthcare issue and it wasn't all covered by DH's private healthcare. We'd also bought DD an electrical item for her coursework. All this meant  getting towards £700 had been put on the CCs and there'd only been £450 of leftover wages this month to go towards it. This was making me very (internally) stressed as I didn't feel there would be enough money from this month's wages from DH to cover the extra on top of all the other expenditure and was also reminding me that if we'd had a mortgage or were still paying off debt this would be the month that had us digging into savings or going into an overdraft and was a place I didn't wish to return to. Then came the lightbulb moment and don't know how we'd forgotten as I'm sure I mentioned it on here a few posts ago. DH had only realised recently that an interest payment had paid out at the end of March on an ISA he had. He transferred the money over to a better rate Isa before the new tax year forgetting that interest hadn't been paid out. It came as a welcome relief as this money has been used to pay the CCs. 

DD went on a date recently with someone who is a nepo baby. The connection is to the sporting world not the acting one and is low-key (ish), so it's not a Beckham boy hahahaha. He turned up in an expensive car with a personalised plate and DD fetched him back down to earth by having him watch a Disney film with her and eat out at a student haunt -lol. Unfortunately their date got cut short by circs beyond either of their control. I came across a letter she'd written at age 17 to her 5 years older self, and told her about it (I could only see the top line so didn't pry further) and when she came home recently she wrote a reply  on the train journey back in anticipation of what it said and started it saying that what she'd like to now have that her 17 yo had, whereas the 17yo would have probably wished for her life where she was at drama school and hung around with Z - listers - hahhaha.

Did a grocery shop yesterday ,came in at under £100 amazingly considering how low some items had got but still working my way though the frozen meat.

A 4 week temp job had been withdrawn before I even had chance to apply. I had 2 consecutive days of dental appts so had slipped my mind about it. I'm going to do a major clear up of my inbox tomorrow so that doesn't happen again and apply for everything as soon as advertised. The job market seems crazy though.

I received my £25 reward for investing £100 (ended the month with a 28p loss) and also because I have a healthcare plan I can claim a chunk of the dental costs back which will also help.

Spendless

DD's rent has been paid today. We have 5 weeks of her rent saved already taking us up to 10th July and then need another 6 weeks rent after that to take us to the end of her tenancy. Everything is so much in limbo though. If she's not going anywhere then she needs a place to stay starting at the beg of  the next academic year but if we find somewhere and then at the last minute things sort themselves out then we are stuck paying double rent, which with the loss of my job will be difficult. I'm keeping a close eye on the news but have woken this morning to find that Harvard have been banned from having International students for at least 6 months (despite a court ruling in their favour only days ago) and that separately citizens of 19 other countries have been banned or restricted from entering the States. What a mess!

Though the countries mentioned don't apply to us, Mr S travels to the US with his work and there is already 3  different work trips in the planning, 2 I would accompany him to, the 3rd he is due to go to the same place DD had a place to study, we were also making plans for a 4th trip as a family to visit DD and to make up for the kids 21st and 18th birthdays which happened during the pandemic and the  'special hol' we'd always thought we'd do for it wasn't able to take place. Years ago on my and DH's first hol to France we were really enjoying it and not looking forward to returning home, then on the last day a swarm of beetles (or similar) came and we couldn't comfortably do the things we had previously done and were then happy to return home. Since then we've often referred back to that time and how it's happened again and it's a signal that it's time to leave. I had spoken to DH already that when his work association stopped in around a years time  I was quite happy to leave it due to uncertainties, I just never foresaw  that anything might affect DD too.

Yesterday I attended a job fayre in a neighbouring town. I wanted to know if the job market was better there than where I am (it's smaller and more affluent) a couple more vacancies but not much, however I did have a good chat with a lady who runs her own recruitment agency, who looked over my CV told me it was fine (feedback I'd had from someone else too) raised her eyebrows at the  story about the dozen CVs sent over for the temp lowest grade job that had prev been advertised as permanent but did give me some pointers about who else to approach, which I'll take on board. I got home to a letter from the pension provider from my last employer asking what I wanted to do with the money in there. There's not quite £1200 in it, which tells me any job I find is going to be similar wages, similar contributions and do I need to rethink the rest of my working life taking all this into account, or is it time to look for something different and not full time? It's frustrating because just as I lost my job I was on the brink of starting to pay back some of the expenses we've had over the last decade. We can still do this but with DH's salary providing most of the household income it's going to take a lot longer to recoup.   

The £25 cash reward for opening an Investment account paid out but the investment that went as low as a 19p loss is now back up to over £1 loss, I think I will just keep an eye on it and  (hopefully) when it's back to my £100 deposit I will withdraw the lot, be grateful for my £25 bonus and thankful that it's confirmed that I have no interest or expertise in investing. 

I ate at my parents again last night. When invited I asked what was on the menu and blamed my meds for being unable to eat last week's serving (DD had suggested I present it as a 'me' problem rather than a 'Mum' problem - actor training can be useful when thinking on your feet for what excuse to give -lol). It was a lot lighter meal of Quiche, salad and at my request just half a dozen chips. Still a double up on the carbs though (excluding the pastry which I left some of) cos I mistakenly thought Mum had put coleslaw on the table, it was potato salad! With chips??! I shall look properly next time before putting on my plate! I don't think Mum would recognise a carb if it stood up and introduced itself. They are still running round after Nan though. They had gone on a 2 hr shopping trip purely to find an exercise book in the exact size for Nan to write her shopping list on??! When I said I have a grocery shopping list, with a hardback  and tear off pages that she could have had, I was told that Nan only wanted a certain size and style! Lol, is this how you entertain yourself when you're 99. 

DD sold a jacket on Vintd, so I have parcelled it up for her as it was here and she's not. Going to meet up with a friend later and get it posted for her. 

Spendless

Yesterday we had to make the decision to keep DD in her same accommodation for the next academic year. It's not ideal but we feel we didn't have a choice. The initial plan was for her tenancy to end at the end of Aug,  she studies in the US for rest of year (I have money put aside for this) , then find her a 6 month accommodation back in the UK  from Jan -June 2026. With student visa applications still on pause and no indication of when or if that will be lifted, it potentially left DD with nowhere for the start of the next term. The school she is due to study at sent an email saying that they are gearing themselves up for the possibility of later enrolment in the Autumn. If that happens I suspect her college here won't give them an extended summer break, they will have them back in class and therefore DD needs accommodation. We live 3.5 hrs away, it's not possible for her to commute from home.    

It means paying double rent for any duration that DD is away, but felt too chancy to do anything else. As and when student Visa applications open back up there is going to be a backlog. If they see people in chronological order, DD's application was submitted only hours before the pause was announced. It's frustrating because I feel we go 3 steps forward and 4 steps back constantly. My plan had been for DH's wages to pay for DD's rent up until 3rd week of August (wasn't counting 4th week cos I believe tenancy finished then). The idea was then to take slightly less between Aug-Dec paypacket but put that aside for a Jan-June tenancy. Changing things means it's going to cost us an additional £3K.

My thoughts at present are to continue to take the 3 weeks rent out of DH's wages for each month but the 4th week's money I will make savings during the month to come up with it so we don't have to dig into savings (yet again!). In a 4 week month this means finding £185 and a more challenging £370 in a 5 week month, which I can only see happens in October. I will adopt this strategy for the remainder of the calendar year and review next year when hopefully I'll have found work.  I have seen the job market pick ever so slightly up this week, but I do mean ever so slightly, 2 potential leads rather than the zero it has been. 

Initially DH was against the plan of the double rent plan as he didn't want pressure on me, but when I explained we've got to cover all angles he agreed. 

So with that in mind, my next challenge is to find the first £185 (I'm hoping LL isn't increasing rent, I've asked DD to find out) to pay the last week in August's rent. I did do a grocery shop yesterday that came in at £43. I am very feast or famine with the grocery shop. I keep a well stocked cupboard and have a 2nd fridge which is good for back up longlife fridge items but beyond that I tend to run down then build up. I think I need to change that around a bit, have a weekly budget instead. Make sure we are eating things in date order so nothing is wasted. I had 2 salmon fishcakes that needed eating yesterday, I'd bought for me to have when DH was away and then not had them, I knew if I mentioned the word salmon to DH he'd ask if we had anything else, so I didn't (I used to have to use food word psychology with the kids too!) told him it was fishcakes, served with some waffle fries (from freezer bought last time DD was home) salady-bits and coleslaw. He cleaned his plate! 

Right challenge is on - first £185 to be looked for starting NOW..... tbc

dawnybabes

I had to look up Nepo baby 🤣🤣🤣. Will there be a 2nd date ?

Spendless

dawnybabes said:

I had to look up Nepo baby 🤣🤣🤣. Will there be a 2nd date ?

Hahaha, I can imagine how confusing that term would be to someone unfamiliar with it -lol. No 2nd date planned as far as I know but one of the reasons she was upset it got cut short was because they had both struggled to find a date in their diaries that aligned with each's availability.

Mr S got the same offer I did if he invested £100 for a month he'd get a bonus, his is for £30 though! Mine was £25! He has said I can have that towards finding the xtra £185 for DD's rent each month, so another £155 to find

Spendless

DD's rent paid again yesterday. DH despite setting up the new account, the money didnt transfer over in time for him to be able to do the deal. He wanted to keep the money in as another deal will come along. I said the criteria was open an investment account and invest £100 and keep it there till the said date and gain £30 so no future deal will come along as he has now done the first bit so Id like the £100 returning to family funds to put towards daughter's rent.

No further news on job front, despite a company messaging me this week to arrange a chat on a certain day and time, I agreed then they didnt ring, I chased them.up, they still haven't rung! I have to go to the JC next week, slightly worried they'll think Ive not done enough to secure work. I have attended job and volunteer fayres, spoke to recruitment agencies and applied for vacancies and kept evidence. 

Tonight me, Mr S and my parents are all out for both our anniversaries which are only a day apart. It was parents idea so am unsure if theyre paying the whole bill or its to be split.


I have a grocery shop to do today with an idea in my head of a £50 budget. As I keep a well stocked store cupboard and have an additional fridge I do usually have stuff in but then I run it down and get a large shopping bill every few weeks so am wondering if to try and keep it more evenly spread out to help with budgeting. 
I need to take into account DD is returning home tomorrow but thats negated by Mr S travelling abroad for work between Sunday - Tuesday and then working away again in the UK at the end of the week. I put my foot down about his idea to work away on Wed too as that's our WA. 

Spendless

Shopping came to £57 so over my budget. I find it so hard to meal plan for a household that can vary between having 1 - 3 people in it. 

Interest on everday accounts been paid today. Its only a few £s nowadays as the bulk has been paid into higher interest accounts.

Mr S received an email saying he will qualify for the £30 bonus at the end of the month, so I have that towards DDs extra weeks rent that I find savings during the week for. Just another £155 to find - gulp!

DD came home from London yesterday. She is mostly going to be based here for the summer intermingled with some trips back for rehearsals for her show.

We went to watch a musical last night. It was adapted from a  fav  childhood book of mine and has been a TV film on a few occasions. I had high hopes and was  unfortunately disappointed with it. I found it difficult to pinpoint exactly what was wrong but DD is becoming good at spotting where the direction hasnt helped and pointed out things like the audience hadnt even realised act 1 had finished until the lights went on because it hadnt 'built up' on the scene. She said she couldn't remember the last time no one stood up at the end and all  the audience remained seated clapping. Id noticed same thing. I should ask her if the actors/production team notice things like that. It wasnt totally the actors fsult, a couple of whom are household names. Id only booked the tickets because when we made the decision to continue DD in her current rent due to uncertainties over the US visit, I said we could only financially commit to things already promised we'd be doing, this was one of them. I wish Id saved the money tbh, it would have been better spent being put towards her rent. 

Today Mr S goes to Poland with work for a few days. His last day he has some free time so was going to see if he could get an earlier flight home as otherwise 'he'd have nothing to do' told him to venture out even if just for an hour or two. Said when his US work adventures are over, we've already said it will be some time before we return and meanwhile we have the rest of Europe on our doorstep and have only ever been to a handful of countries, what better than to see what you think when you get the opportunity. 
 

Spendless

That shopping budget was too low!. I've had to go back to the shops several times for top ups! Will do better next time. Energy consumption has been checked though, only a few weeks ago we were only £40ish in credit which led to a discovery that we'd had 2 consecutive quarter bills of £1000 during the period I was out of work last year. I've been more mindful since more showers instead of baths and a shallow bath when needed, not every day full tub like I was doing. The energy account is now well into 3 figures in credit. Will let that build and see where we are in the winter. Being more mindful will also help with our water bill when we switch to a meter next month, which should also save us money. Then there's the house insurance which is far too much IMO. probably as a legacy of not changing provider for a few years. This will be looked at when renewal rolls round and hopefully be low enough to pay in 1 go.


I have a super proud mummy moment to share, but I will have to keep details vague in order to protect anonymity. DD started putting some of her performance work online,  well one has pretty much gone viral and heading towards 6 figure viewing. An entrepreneur with a large SM presence has commented and followed her. Prefer not to give names (it's not Steven Bartlett - hahaha).

Mr S is on his way back from a work's trip to Poland. He said they had 6 vodka shots with a 3 course meal and then wanted to hit the town, he had to ask for a respite break inbetween - lol.

As tomorrow is our wedding anniversary we are treating ourselves to a Chinese take out for the 4 of us. We married abroad and went to a Chinese restaurant for our meal on the day so continuing that tradition.