Bricks Not Books

Expenses came through - £17.09 OPed. Leaves me £12 off the £60 target for this month and I should be able to find that from my account, so £60 should be do-able this month!

I had to work from home on Thursday thanks to the gale force winds. Decided to cut across country to avoid the M11 as I heard a lorry had been flipped over. It took me ages to get halfway and then the road was closed because a tree was blocking the road and had taken some electricity lines with it too! I realised I only had 30 minutes to get to the park and ride and would never get there in under an hour, so I pulled over and texted my boss. Luckily she was awake, it was only 7:30 in the morning, and she agreed I could go home and work there. But it then took me twice as long to get home as a tree had fallen and blocked one of the main roads through Colchester, and that combined with an accident on the A12 had caused total gridlock!

Needless to say I was very glad to get through the door and stay on the sofa with my work and a hot cup of tea. Got lots done so at least I still had a productive day, and then I work from home on Fridays too. The worst bit about Thursday was that I'd still got up at my very early time as I wasn't anticipating working from home! I would have appreciated the lie-in XD

Me and DH have started painting the second bedroom purple, it's going to be an office. We need to paint the ceiling (white), put a second coat on the walls, get a new carpet and new skirting board. So it might be completed by March, if we focus.

Not much else going on. Youngest sister is 18 tomorrow so I'm popping round on my way home to give her a birthday card and some cash. I spent ages last week trying to find a present for her but she's very difficult to buy for, especially when her birthday is so soon after Christmas!

Right, need to read a bit of my book before I lie down. Have a nice week everyone!

Sent a final OP of £15.96 (not extra earned, just what I could see as spare) the other day to give a final January OP total of £64.29! Tripping over the £60 target there. Already done my expenses to be paid in February and a tiny Quidco cashback payment is in progress, so I won't need too much to push me over £60 next month either.

I'm also very pleased with how much I managed to cross off my to-do list for the month!

HEALTH
- Drink 2 litres of water a day < Not quite there yet but I'm definitely getting a lot better at drinking more.
- Reduce biscuit eating to twice a week < Was doing really well on this and then fallen off the wagon this week, but again I'm improving.
- Take a vitamin c every day. < This is the bit I have real problems remembering, even though I keep the bottle on my bedside table :rotfl:

OTHER
- Open an ISA (future house move funds). < Opened and first payment made!
- Open an easy access savings account for car and holiday savings, and a fixed rate savings account as a future maternity fund. Did both of these! The rear tyre replacement meant that I didn't pay anything in to the car fund this month, but I did make a holiday saving payment, and paid £150 in to the maternity fund. I also opened another easy access account for an emergency pot and shoved £1000 in there so it's out the way.
- Print off wedding photos for a frame we got as a wedding gift, and hang it up. This is the one thing I didn't do, DH needs to pick a photo of me as part of it, and I need to decide what other family ones to print off. It's on the list for February.
- Sort out all the filing for bill paperwork. < Done, although sorting through some papers earlier I found another few bills so I need to file those.
- Buy a blind for the living room. < Did this on Tuesday, they had 5% off on the one we wanted so we saved a few pennies. It should look really nice when it arrives!

So apart from the wedding photos I managed to get a lot done in January, a nice start to the new year! :j

Had to go and get a headlight replaced in my car today. £40 because they have to take off the entire light fitting, you can't just reach through the front of the engine to get to the bulb :mad: Felt a bit sorry for the woman at the dealership who had to give me the bad news and asked if it was "okay" that they were charging me so much. I was a sharp and replied with "well it's clearly been designed like that so I don't really have much of a choice". Hate being rude to staff, but the way car companies treat their customers is a joke.

Anyway, it's now February and that means it's time for new month aims!

HEALTH
- Reduce portion sizes for dinner
- Only eat crisps at work < Such a vice for me!
- Exercise video once a week < Probably going to fail miserably at this.
- Take a vitamin c and d every day < Have got these on my bedside table ready to go.
- Get a smear test < Well over due and I know it's important so no more procrastinating on this!

OTHER
- Print off wedding photos for frame and hang it up < Carried over from last year.
- Sort & photograph wedding china < Been hanging around under the stairs since May!
- Sort out all the stamps and send them to someone who buys them < Got loads of used ones that people have given me, going to donate the money to the MND Association
- Buy a tumble dryer
- Update car log book with married name and address < Procrastinating on this for months too!

Tomorrow I'm taking DH out on a date to Carluccio's for lunch using the voucher highlighted on MSE, really looking forward to a nice Italian-style carbonara!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

We have made some very good progress this weekend! :T

- Sent an OP of £54.04, which is the £30 standard OP plus two lots of Quidco payouts (wasn't expecting one until the end of the month so that was a nice surprise).
- Got some more wedding photos printed off by Boots. They were dispatched really quickly and arrived on Wednesday so I filled up the photo frame and DH has hung it up at the top of the stairs. So now every time we go up the stairs we're at the top in our wedding finery!
- Ordered the blind for the living room and that also arrived at the start of the week. DH put it up last night and it looks fabulous. Got it from Blinds2Go and it was made to measure and everything, so really happy with the service and will use them again when we need another blind.
- Finished painting the second bedroom so it can be an office. FIL is going to source new skirting board during the week, and we need to get a new carpet. Once those two things are done I can buy a desk and DH can get his books and bookcases moved over.
- DH bought a lovely grey and white rug for the living room from H&M Home, that's booked to arrive on Friday.

Just writing it all down has made me realise how much we've got sorted in one weekend! Can't do it every weekend or I'd be exhausted by Monday. Speaking of which it's half term this week, so my commute will be considerably quicker, I'm really looking forward to it!

Have a good week everyone!