MeandO's money-shuffling

MeandO

I ran out of several cleaning items so popped to home bargains last night to stock up. I bought both kitchen & bathroom cleaner, loo freshener thingies, some plug hole/drain freshener as the bicarb and lemon didn’t do much, dry shampoo, loo rolls, ibuprofen (as I used the last today), some biscuits for DS and some crisps for OH = £20.55 spent.

I was expecting the tradesmen back early doors today but had a text 10 mins before they were due to arrive to say they couldn't make it and will be here tomorrow instead. I'm a bit annoyed as I'd planned around it for today and it will now run over into the weekend and next week, but it's a small inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I have also been saved on paying out £145 for a plumber to move something as the guy currently working on the house said it wasn't necessary and he will work around it, so I was grateful for that.
With the money saved, I will pay the remainder of the CC off and the rest can stay in the reno/replace/repair pot to build up again for the next job that will need doing.
I was hoping to wallpaper and redecorate the downstairs loo as I don't like the current decor in there which was done quickly when I moved in, but it doesn't NEED it and I will save around £100 by not doing it, so have been sensible on that one (plus there's not £100 left in that pot now anyway). The wallpaper I found was lovely though. :(

Hoping for a NSD today but will need to buy some groceries tomorrow or Saturday as we're running low or have run out of several fresh items. I'll be sticking to the list though to save the pennies. I really need to keep the groceries within or under budget this month.

Have a lovely Thursday all x

vampirotoothus

Hi if you don't need lots of wallpaper keep an eye on FB as people often leave it to late to return odd rolls. V x

MeandO

Great idea vampirotoothus, thank you :)

MeandO

The floor is now drying after being spread with a damp proof agent this morning. It stinks! I also can't get to any toilets until the floor dries so I'm staying here until I need the loo and then will decamp to OH's. Will stay here for as long as I can just to leave the doors open and get the smell out and floor dried quicker. The guy is coming back tonight to lay a second coat.

A NSD yesterday and a lovely hour's catch up with a couple of friends after work. I am hoping to have time to drop the un-needed paint back to bee and queue today for a refund and possibly enjoy a free coffee in M&S with some voucher my Sister kindly gave us.

Newstartforme

Hi Meand , hope floor is finished and worth the upheaval for you . Also hope you feel better this week x

MeandO

Thank you Newstartforme. The floor is (hopefully!) on the final day or two of work, although with the amount of cigarette breaks they're having and the early hours they seem to finish every day, it is more likely to be tomorrow. It's starting to look good now though and no more damp or mould problems which is the main thing.

I've withdrawn the money from the savings pot to pay the tradesmen when they're done. There's £133 left in that pot now which I will use to clear the CC so I can start saving again.

I managed to see a doctor yesterday who wasn't much help. Firstly, she won't put me on HRT patches despite my consultant saying he was happy for me to try them as the risk was low. The GP previously said they would only put me on them if the consultant said yes, now he has, they have moved the goalposts again and said they want the opinion of a different specialist that I'm not currently under. They could have just referred me to that specialist to start with and not wasted nearly a year of me struggling.

As for my general health, I discussed linking all of my symptoms up to form a proper diagnosis instead of just dealing with the one thing that presents individually each time, but she said I would need to book a separate appointment for that discussion, 🤨 so I have another appointment next week. I also have blood tests this week, had to wait over a month for an appointment for those, so hopefully they will be able to look at the bigger picture soon. Meanwhile, I've been in agony over the past week and am really struggling to walk. Getting up and down stairs is really difficult and painful. OH and I had to pop into the City on Saturday to pick something up he'd ordered. I could hardly walk, I just burst into tears in the middle of the street as I was in so much pain, didn't know how I was going to get back to the car and just really felt defeated. 😢

Money is as tight as always. There's 10 days until payday (yes, I am counting) and I have around £60 left in the groceries pot which should be fine as we have enough in at the moment. There is nothing left in the 'everything else' pot and I am praying the petrol lasts in the car, although I have to drive DS to a health appointment about an hour away at the weekend so I will probably have to raid funds from savings to put fuel in the car.

I have been getting a bit anxious about all this 'El Nino' prepping that has been all over the place this week. What is everyone doing? I have a tiny house, small freezer space and nowhere to store things (is the loft viable?!) and I don't have the money to be buying extra really. Our grocery budget is gone every month with nothing to spare and I upped that by £50 not so long ago. We have bottled water in as DS takes it to school, the gym, his room when he's too lazy to make a drink,🙄 but he gets through that in the blink of an eye, so if I did buy extra in it would have to be stored out of sight and there is no 'out of sight' storage anywhere here, other than the attic. What to do? I hate the panic buying mentality but it seems there's some logic in it this time.

ArtyJ931

I haven’t heard anything about that? What’s happening

MeandO

It's all to do with the predicted El Nino weather conditions expected this Winter, ArtyJ931. The government are apparently telling people to have an 'emergency pack' ready and to stock up on water, tinned food etc. It was all over the news last week, seems to have gone a bit quieter the past few days, or maybe it's just I haven't watched the news!

foxgloves

I think it is to encourage households to be a bit more resilient so that they could cope for 2 or 3 days in the face of various potential disasters, particularly infrastructure problems. Being a planner, I always have a well-stocked pantry but have added a few more tins & things, some long-life milk & stashed some big 5L containers of water up in the loft. We always have plenty of candles/tea-lights, etc, & a wind-up torch. Our holidays were mostly camping while we were debt-busting so we have a single ring camping stove & a few small gas cannisters stashed in the shed. We live in a village/town on a major river which floods frequently during storm season. Fortunately our street has never flooded, but roads in & out of town do so lorries not being able to deliver to supermarkets, etc, could certainly be an issue. I just see it as making our household more resilient rather than panicking. I also think it's a good idea to have a modest amount of cash squirrelled away because banking systems do sometimes go down & we do need things like fuel for Mr F's commute to work. Last year, a local village (not ours) got entirely cut off by flood water. If that had been us, I'd have been grateful for my emergency supplies. I think it's probably a case of just thinking what we might need for a few days if there was a problem outside our control. I read somewhere (can't remember where), that in European countries, people tend to be a a little more attuned to this than we are.

One good thing about being money savers is that we are all likely to have a good supply of warm jumpers, blankets & socks!

F x

MeandO

Morning all,

The work in the house is finished and I'm so pleased with it. It looks lovely, and more importantly, no more damp and mould. :) As nice as the workmen were too, it's nice to have my house back to myself today.

I've not slept well for several days now so am really struggling today and my whole body aches. I'm still struggling to walk properly, the pain kept me awake most of the night last night. I'll re-iterate this to the GP again on Monday but she was of little help to be honest and just told me to take paracetamol/ibuprofen, as if I hadn't already been doing so. 😐️

Money is still more scarce than rocking horse 💩 here presently. We ran out of fruit, yogurt and eggs so I bought those last night. There's around £20 to last a week so I need to be so careful with spends. I'm looking forward to a weekend of doing very little and just staying in my house, if only people leave me be this weekend! I have spent an exhausting week of waiting around for people (OH and DS), picking up after everybody and generally just not having any moments of peace. DS constantly seems to be wanting something from me or wanting to pick an argument at the moment whilst not wanting me to be within a mile's radius, and OH just wants me to follow along with what he wants to do and where he wants to go, constantly moaning about his work 🙄. I feel like standing on a hill and screaming 'give me a day off to myself!' I love them both very much but they've worn me down this week. My battery is definitely at empty.

I sold an item on ebay for £12 this week but then had to spend £45 on resources for DS for school so at least it's gone a little way to covering that. A £40 item was collected from a FB sale but that belonged to DS so has gone in his bank. I need to list some more things to make some £'s but have no energy at the moment.

The washing is spinning and I'm going to risk hanging it out on the line today. DS's bed has been stripped and changed and I will do mine if I can summon the energy later. I need to hoover too but that may also have to wait.