£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Week 84: Day 1

Morning! Here I am, twice in 12 hours . It would just be wrong not to do a 'new week, hurrah' post, right?

I have a third potential replacement architect coming round for a chat today, and when he's quoted we'll be able to make a decision on which one to go with and I can take a break from thinking about the extension for a few days - until I need to find a structural engineer, at least! I'm fairly sure I've decided which of the architect replacements to go for, but I feel I ought to get a quote from today's guy just in case.

DH has loads of travelling coming up (at the moment he is essentially acting up into the role his work want to promote him into), so it's going to be a tough few weeks in terms of DC logistics. Luckily he is able to keep claiming overtime, so I am trying not to stress too much about my income sliding during these times. Obviously I don't want to stop earning completely, but with DC3 only in school for three hours a day and DH not here in the evenings more often than not, it's just physically not possible for me to keep earning at a decent rate.

Astonishingly, the budget is actually on track this month - we haven't really overspent on anything. I'm going to need to buy a little bit more food before we're into next week's segment of the food kitty, but hopefully that will even out, as I still have £270 left in the food budget for only a fortnight left in the month.

In the face of DC3's ongoing part time hours I've tried really hard to be realistic about my list for this week and keep it only to the things that, barring major disasters, I should be able to achieve. I am loving the online food shopping delivery and am definitely going to keep doing it fortnightly once the discount codes run out with top up fruit and veg shops every week (I don't get fruit and veg or meat from the supermarket as they all come in plastic when you get them delivered). It means that I have time for the 'nice' bit of the shop (topping up the plastic free stuff in town), and the boring bit just shows up without me making much effort.

To do this week
1. Make a decision on architect replacement.
2. Batch cook bolognese.
3. Batch cook macaroni cheese.
4. Send birthday cards to three relatives.
5. Order trainers for DC2.
6. Top up fruit and veg shop.
7. Clean house for relatives visiting this weekend.
8. Three social media posts.
9. Contract work for next week.
10. DH chase builder and phone another builder for a quote.

September money goals:
- £13.85/30 September rounding down pot.
- £3,766.98/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £664/864 income for October.

Week 84: Day 5

Morning team! There is a team, right? I'm not here by myself at 5:30am? :rotfl:

Had a long chat with DH last night and we've decided to go for the architectural technician/technologist who quoted last week rather than Monday's architect (barring a couple of points that need checking, but assuming they are fine). The technician was cheaper overall, and his hourly rate is lower (and he isn't VAT registered) so any additional work he needs to do will be cheaper too. I also got the impression he was very straightforward and would just get the work done which will be nice after the drama with the previous chap. The architects would be great if we wanted to explore more design options, but actually we've got a design - yes there might be a few minor improvements to be made, but we could keep chucking money at this design phase indefinitely, and at the end of the day we're talking about a £200k house, not a £1m mansion.

The builder we really like has also promised to submit a quote by Monday, which will give us a baseline to start working from, which I'm really excited about - will be so good to have more information to work with.

In more MS news, I went back to the community orchard yesterday and filled another bag, having already used up the apples I picked the other day! I'm going to turn this lot into crumble, chutney and frozen portions of stewed apple (we go through stewed apple at a rate of knots in the winter - the DCs have it most mornings with yoghurt or in baked oatmeal). I'm aiming to do similar once or twice more this year and really get as much as I can in the freezer.

I also had a massive charity shop win yesterday. I have said before here that I never bother with them because I hardly ever find something, and the time isn't worth it. Well, I need a couple of pots to plant hyacinths/narcissi in for Christmas, so I decided to commit a little time each week to browsing charity shops for the rest of the month in the hope of finding a good pot or three, and yesterday, on only my second browsing session, I found a great table centrepiece china pot for narcissi AND a 100% cotton checked shirt AND a 100% wool Jigsaw dress in perfect condition. I was so pleased with myself - they aren't 'this'll do' type pieces, I genuinely really like them. So giving myself more time during the week has actually, for once, actually paid off in terms of money saved. I have been so desperate for new clothes since my big wardrobe sort out the other day (well, since before that, but that made it clear why I needed new stuff!), and I feel like I have had a bit of a wardrobe refresh with really good quality stuff, for only £20.

Other clothes news - I emailed to complain about a work dress I bought in July that has split at the seam. I can mend it but am annoyed that it split after only maybe six wears, and after a bit of an attempt to fob me off with a partial refund, they gave me a full refund and let me keep the dress. So I was able to also buy new jeans yesterday for 'free' with the refunded money. So I've basically doubled my clothing options since Monday, for a tiny outlay.

More spendily, I've spent some of my business account savings on some stock for the new way I want my business to move. It's a wrench to actually invest any money in it (we're talking <£250 here, not millions) as I hate taking any financial risk in my business (totally unlike my general spending habits!), but I've got to give it a go to see whether it's a realistic prospect for me to develop. It feels good to be moving forward with something that will move me away from my last bit of client facing work, which long term readers will know is a big goal for me.

Debt busting news - I'm on the countdown to the end of the month now, as I always am by about this stage. We're within a couple of hundred pounds of the next thousand barrier on the CC debts, so I'm looking forward to getting to the 1st and paying a chunk off - we'll be under the £12k barrier with the CC debt in October, which is amazing (still the parental loan and the loan consolidated into the mortgage outstanding, lest anything think we've paid £50k off our debt recently :rotfl: ). I'm pleased with the way the debt is trickling down. While it's not disappearing at an amazing rate, I'm just happy each month to see that the number is lower than the previous month. Our budget pots are looking ok, despite me indulging in buying flowers the other day and DH having a missing £30 in his expenses claim (presumably a receipt that got lost in transit somewhere :mad: ). I knew this would happen with such a big claim, he is too scatty to build up big deficits like he did recently. He can submit online and scan receipts on his phone, so I'm going to ask him to submit more or less daily while away in future so this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

On the subject of finances, I think we should probably take a moment here to also celebrate the fact that my car hasn't broken down for almost two weeks now :rotfl: .

Right, I'm off to do a little knitting before the DCs wake up - I am loving these little pockets of free time I'm getting with the smaller to do lists. I really really must make sure I keep this up. I'm still not sure what the financial implications of pushing myself less hard will be long term, but the benefits for us as a family and me individually of me being less frazzled and stressed are huge.

To do this week
1. Make a decision on architect replacement.
2. Batch cook bolognese sauce. Haven't done this yet as had so many leftovers in the fridge and freezer to use up.
3. Batch cook macaroni cheese. Ditto.
4. Send birthday cards to three relatives.
5. Order trainers for DC2.
6. Top up fruit and veg shop.
7. Clean house for relatives visiting this weekend.
8. Three social media posts. Two down, one to go!
9. Contract work for next week. Last few minutes needed to finish off this morning.
10. DH chase builder and phone another builder for a quote.

September money goals:
- £17.17/30 September rounding down pot.
- £3,766.98/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £664/864 income for October.