Amazing April Austerity.

[CremeEggThief]

Hi All,
Taking the liberty of starting a new thread, as I went to post spends on the old one and it's full.

We had a lovely day out at the seaside and visited an old lighthouse as part of it. As we rely on public transport, that's always a big part of our days out spend.
£9.60 bus fares.
£9.60 train fares (with the family railcard).
£6 lunch from Sainsburys ( £3 meal deal each).
£4.50 entrance to the lighthouse.
£7.10 coffee, hot chocolate and cookies in a café afterwards.

Oh and DS needed a haircut, which I think was £6.50.

Dont I am at that, what a complete bitch! I am a nurse as well and can well imagine one of my previous managers writing something like that out of spite can you avoid using her again as a reference? I think I used a deputy ward sister plus a friend colleague the last time I went for a job. Have you thought about coming out into the community? Its def my niche and I love it!

Ipsos my dd has a huge plastic storage tub for the lego, I am not precious about keep certain kits together at all. We tend to build the kits, then dd will play with them for a bit and then eventually they all get broken down and end up in the big tub. She then enjoys making her own lego creations which I think is brilliant for her imagination.

We survived Air hop, was crazy but great fun, dd loved it but is completely knackered now! We ate at Frankie and Bennys afterwards which was £20.

Hopefully rest of the holiday should be fairly low spend now, I need to do a food shop but hoping to get to Lidls as its mostly fresh stuff we need.

Have you seen those Lego bags that are drawstring so they go totally flat and then you can just pull the string and it's back to a bag? They can be sewn quite easily.

Hi need, Thanks for that. tbh I'm a ridiculously organised workhorse of a person and I just have more work than I can fit in. On the plus side, I've just had an article accepted for publication by an academic journal. It took two or three years to do the research for it, working alone at home as a volunteer. The publication allows me to enter a competition in the university that involved a massive application form that's taken weeks to complete and involved co-ordinating 7 people to get it done. So I am achieving things. There just aren't enough hours in the day iykwim.

I need to prioritise getting an hour of stopping time every day, but I find that hard to do because there is just Too Much Fun to be had. And it's all so much fun, and how does a person step away from that?

[distant sound of Ipsos exploding in a small shower of sparks]

I'll think about your list idea, but I think buying my dh a tranquiliser dart gun might be more effective.

Girlie, the job was a community one. Is that what you do? I'm on the community bench so will be benching and getting experience there! Until it comes up again.

Just spent a fiver today on DD's haircut. I thought I might have to bribe her with chocolate from the shop next to the hairdresser but she behaved beautifully and the hairdresser thought she was cute!

I will say the P word then Ipsos, Prioritise what is important Sounds like you get a lot from your academic endeavours, and that gives you satisfaction, so maybe keep up with that? £35 per hour to keep your hand in at work is good too, but depends if you want or need the stress.

I guess your DS will not always come home for his lunch, and will at some point (when he and you are comfortable) will become more independent, so will do stuff without you. Perhaps it's a case of ticking along until then.

Gosh need I suppose you're right. I'm torn between being worthy and contributing to the household financially and doing what feeds my soul and enjoying the science. The problem is that if I'm always ill from doing the earning job then the tiny amount of money I contribute doesn't help much at all. That's a good point. I'll give that a lot of thought. Thank you.

I've got this fantastic star chart going at the moment and every time I feel genuinely happy and contented I put a star on it and write down what caused it. It's funny the things that turn out to make me happy. Like playing music badly with ds when we both enjoy it, or writing that paper and seeing work that was purely an expression of my own imagination in print. It a useful exercise.

The writing work is a big drain on energy though because it is just grunt work, and involves no expression or imagination at all. That's why it earns money I suppose but maybe I don't have the energy just now.

Oh I have completely fallen off this thread, am going to try to get back into it by posting my spends for as many days back as I can remember, I hope that’s ok.

Today:
€5 so far on a scone, a coffee and a Diet Coke at work, the drinks were badly needed as I was up so early with DS teething. I may also need to buy some chocolate to get me through working late this evening! The scone was needed as I was starving by 11am having had my breakfast earlier than usual (thanks DS!) but I really need to come up with some handy snacks for days like that. I make my own brown bread, so maybe I should start making brown bread scones to take to work with me. I find hummus a very handy snack food for home but I can’t have it at work due to the smell.

Tuesday:
€2 on water
€52 in Pennys (Primark); I couldn’t try anything on with DS in the sling so I just bought a good few things to try on at home last night; it turns out only one item is a keeper and the cost of that will be covered by an item I returned so I will be getting all that €52 back onto my credit card.
€8 on Netflix

Monday:
NSD for Cash but my annual government stamp duty payment of €30 appeared on my credit card, so annoying to have my credit card balance go up by €30 with nothing to show for it!

Sunday:
€30 in supermarket
€65 on a lovely practical new raincoat, reduced from €130. I’m so pleased with it, I’ve been looking out for one and any nice ones I had seen were very expensive so I think I got this one for a good price. I know I will get lots of wear out of it.

Saturday:
NSD.

ipsos I'm sorry if you've explained before. But what field was your paper in? is it you that did law?

Super dosed up on cold and flu stuff today. Have sort of floated through the day.

Wandered into new look at lunchtime bought a skirt and a pair of cropped trousers. Trousers might go back though. I didn't try them on and all afternoon I've been wondering whether they'd suit me. So £34 spent but maybe £20 back.

Also bought a birthday card and gift wrap for my sisters present.

Off home now for merguez sausages (spicy Moroccan/French lamb sausages yum) and couscous and salad for dinner.

Hi Em I've been keeping that under my hat since I'm such a blabbermouth about everything else that it would make me far too identifiable. :-) Thanks for asking though.

I just checked my upwork earnings to find out if the work is worth it and they've calculated my earnings at only 80% of the sum I was expecting. I've written and asked them to double check. No sense doing all that work if they don't give me the money. :-)

Dont, what a pain! It's not far that this manager is abusing their power like this. I hope you get some good advice on the employment forum.

Ipsos, I agree that you need to set yourself a non-negotiable hour to do your work. I think an hour after school drop off would probably suit you best, as then it's out of the way, but maybe an hour after your DS goes to bed might work too. I've enrolled on upwork too now, but no interest so far. I could really do with some work, now my temporary 1.5 days a week job is over. Even £50 extra a week would make a massive difference for us...

I saw my CFS occupational therapist today and she says I'm doing so well, she's happy to discharge me! It's not that I have got better, but it's that I've leaned to pace and manage the condition much better and that I prioritise and say 'no' a lot more. She's asked me to make a post-discharge appointment for 6 months, to discuss how things are going.

Spends: £7 bus fare, £6.45 lunch and £1.10 bus fare for DS, as he had a dental appointment, but we walked one way. Shows how expensive our buses are, if it's £1.10 for a half fare, travelling 1.7 miles!

Wow! I saved $0.99 in fees by getting upwork to pay my money to paypal, but I lost £18 because the exchange rate $ -> £ from upwork to a bank is £0.71 = $1 whereas the exchange rate from paypal -> bank is $0.68 = £1.

Rats. The money just seeps away through so many cracks.

Now I will have to leave the money in paypal and hope the exchange rate increases, so I'm now involved in currency speculation too. Weird.

Will catch up tonight- sold my baby carrier for same price I paid for it only loss was the postage and I'd two years of using it for that price!

Hi Creme unfortunately ds sleeps fewer hours than I do. I go to sleep at 8pm the same as him and get up at 6am when he does. If I set non-negotiable hours, I'm just using up time that I needed to do something else. It's all a bit complicated.

I think it's a really good question whether the little paying job is more valuable to me than the fun voluntary work that I have to self-fund though.

Well done Lilac :-)

Merguez sausages sound interesting Em, are they homemade? I love couscous and want to start making it more so I'm looking for new things to serve it with. I especially love what a nice lunch the leftovers make!

I'm doing other twenty minutes in the office and then I'm heading home to spaghetti and meatballs, DH makes a great tomato sauce so I'm really looking forward to it. And I have resisted the call of the chocolate all afternoon so I'm definitely treating myself to some Easter egg tonight!

Dont yes I am a community nurse, I went into nursing thinking I would end up on the District and I did its hard going at times and super busy esp recently with all the cut backs but I do love nursing patients in their own homes. Plus the hours are much better than on the wards

Creme That's great news about being signed off, sounds like you are managing the condition really well.

Ipsos Look, friendly post alert, friendly post alert . No nastiness intended at all, promise. May I gently suggest that you are actually putting a lot of barriers and conditions in the way of doing an hours work Which suggests the work isn't that valuable to you?

Thanks Need. As I said, it doesn't mean I'm cured, but it's good to know I can feel almost normal with the strategies I've learned. I still feel tired most of the time, but not exhausted/overwhelmed/wiped out, so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

I live my life permanently knackered Creme, but that's entirely my own fault, I am very bad at pacing myself and not like you with a condition.

need Yes I see what you mean. I'm thinking hard about. :-)

Ooh Ipsos fabulous news on the publication! I would love to know more about it (not that I'm very good at science, I'd love to be though) - of course I understand if you'd rather not say here/PM though!

Might I suggest the FlyLady thread over on the Housekeeping board - it really is wonderfully friendly. The FL site itself is rather vomit inducing but we just do it in our own way and it's a lovely supportive group. Having similar issues with health/getting easily overwhelmed etc, it has been brilliant for helping me see the wood for the trees IYSWIM and celebrate what I can do rather than constantly beating myself up over what I can't.

Had a lovely quiet day so far helping DSD with coursework (screenplay!), just tidying up for pupil now. Thankfully my voice has returned if a little croaky.

Creme that is awesome! Well done on finding that work/rest balance. :) I'm glad they do a follow up appointment.

Thanks Cag. Just going to wash up, wipe down kitchen surfaces, and sit down for the evening, with.

Garlic chicken for dinner, I bought those magi flavour wraps on offer in ssinsbury and they were lovely! I buy muscle food hampers when on offer and I have loads of chicken breasts so this is something to do with them.

Today i spent £19.90 on a new potato ricer, nine when rusty so I've had to replace it. I'm thinking I really could have waited.