Friendly Frugaleers- Accounting Accurately All April

[Wolfcub]

New fred

£10 on some tearoom treats dm ordered for me, partially exchanged for some shopping I did for her and then paid her the extra

Yay for meet up em! I need to start arranging to meet people. I have forgotten how to People 😂

I seem to have spent very little lately so that’s good. Just had my induction for another course. My tutor suggested I look at training to be a mental health first aider in the workplace - does anyone here have those at work?

Sing we have Mhfas among other things. Really valuable. We train in house though, not sure how it would work with an external qualification for us.

We don’t have mhfa here. Although work have recently said they’ll pay for gym memberships for everyone. I haven’t taken them up on it yet but am going to see if they’ll pay for my Pilates and yoga classes.

I am also forgetting how to people. It was nice to catch up.

Back in office this afternoon. Am so bored. No point starting anything because Easter. People are out because Easter. And I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs.

I can’t go home because dh has the car and is picking me and the kids up at 6 after his osteo appointment.

Sigh.

We have mhfa at work and while I've not needed them they say they are busy (unfortunately) but v worthwhile IMO.

£2.60 chips for D's lunch and a brew.
That's it

Haven't read back properly, not ignoring people.
Better work week here which helps. Dh was paid by old government dept for annual leave he'd accrued but not taken & couldn't carry over to new dept. It was a very welcome and rather unexpected windfall. I was paid for a few additional hours I worked in Feb but the number of hours is much higher for March, so April pay will be better. It all helps.
We have paid of our remaining CC debt but have decided to keep our loan which has 3 years to go & are building a savings pot now which we have never really had. It will soon go as we will need to replace the car at some point and have more work to do on the house/garden, but it will be amazing to think that the loan we have should be our last ever new borrowing. That is our aim, no more new borrowing and pay mortgage off more quickly if we can.
Chippy tea tonight when ds gets back from first cricket training of the year. Dd had rugby training last night & this afternoon. It's so good to see them getting back into sport and socialising., Had my parents round for a BBQ on Tuesday evening which was lovely. No extra expense, just used what we had in the fridge & freezer..

Hey North nice payout there and good frugality.

Ooh that is great north and sounds like a great way to use the money.
I was CC debt free until IVF drugs emerged as an extra cost, £850 for the egg collection round and £250 for each of my frozen transfers. So now have 1200 ish plus £500 for our trip to Dorset. Sigh.

Ah gen I'm sending every good vibe your way. It's criminal how costly ivf can be.

I keep promising myself every day that il catch up here and be accountable but still failing! I am however setting myself a mini-challenge to post everyday so here I am today 👋. NSD but lots of money shuffling!

Funnily enough Sing dh was telling me about mhfa last week and I thought it sounded like a great idea and was thinking of suggesting it at my work. We do already have a really good package for employees to access various support though.

School's done and I've eaten half a Galaxy and dozed off on the settee. Perfect way to start the hols!

North congratulations on paying off the CC and getting a windfall. 🎉

The MHFA for work sounds like a very good idea, especially in these troubling times.

Hope you enjoy the training Sing.

I went for a walk in the park today. The sun came out after a dull morning. Saw a blackbird eating a worm. I've noticed blackbirds seem intelligent, they stand and stare at me for a while then decide I'm no threat and carry on without getting scared and flying away if I walk past. Very frugal dinner, someone bought me chips. Spent £2 on sweets.

Happy bank holiday frugal folk - apologies to our lovely Irish contingent who miss out on this one

I love blackbirds Amber, they have such a beautiful song. They especially like chunks of apple or pear on the ground, I have an overripe pear I'm going to put out today for them.

I am not doing so well with Ebay selling at the moment. I did really well last year but people don't seem to be bidding as much lately. Have listed some lovely things, all popular brands and barely worn and had very little interest. They are listed until Sunday night thoigh so hopefully will get some bids by then.

God knows why I cleaned the kitchen this morning it's now covered in stone dust

We have some regular blackbirds and they do indeed do that wolf. I do say hello to them so they know it's me

Do Ireland not have gf as a bank holiday? Well I never knew. EP visiting today. Possibly bike track too. Definitely need to fill cars up so £100 ish there

Whatcha doing wolf to get stone dust there?

Life new door going in to replace broken one. I cleaned really carefully this morning so they wouldn't think I was a slattern. All needs doing again now

Aah hope the new door is nice.

Thanks for the thoughts re MHFAing - I will speak to my work coach about it. Could be a good extra thing to have when applying, but I’d have thought it’s more of an in house thing like you say wolf - there is a free standard qualification I can do but surely it’s better to learn it in the context of the actual company you work for. So it may be a bit of a waste, when I could do a different qualification.

I think ours were trained by an external org sing. I can find out. Do the free course imo, no matter if you need a slightly different one later. The premises are the same.

Ah i see wolf. New door yeah, extra cleaning boo

Morning All.

YaY to the new door wolf

We have MHFAs too - they are so useful. Ours did external training with people from other organisations, so no scope for tailoring to teh organisation.

Gen that is so expensive. I am channeling good vibes to you and your eggs.

Ddad is poorly after his second jab. I am worried - he is getting more and more frail with each thing that he catches. He never seems to fully bounce back. I will visit today.

Thanks everyone, my critical illness cover and income protection pays out after 12 weeks I think so having a buffer is nice.

I'm also saving child benefit this year too. It's €280 per month so saving €210 and remaining is split between the two of them for clothing sinking fund. I've thought a bit about it and I owe them money into their savings accounts that I borrowed when I was on mat leave in 2014, I'm going to pay it back to them when I've the full amount saved. I thought of paying it back €5 or €10 per week but this is cleaner and I didn't think I could manage without their child benefit so once this is done, I'll think of how to use it best going forward.

It's funny how the weather varies so much - we had a fabulous day yesterday - 19 degrees in the afternoon, had to go to nearest big town for a bank statement. It was thronged, people buying beer and ice cream, lots of people topless, it was a pet day, going topless was a bit extreme. I had dressed for normal weather so had my thermal vest under my jumper, was sweltering

north that is a great plan you have for saving and no new borrowing. and lovely payout for accrued holidays
I planned to get a loan to do extension for my new house and pay it off and then get car loan pay that off. But dp have given my inheritance early, I knew they were helping with the deposit but wasn't expecting this as well. This is my current plan, borrow from that pot for extension, pay it back, sell car for cash, borrow the balance from pot, pay it back etc so that I keep a nest egg. I want to be independent but wasting money on interest seems mad when this is on the table.

Mortgage will be fixed for 3 years and penalised for overpayments as far as I can make out, so I'll save my overpayment and pay when fixed period runs out and then re - fix.

wolf exciting to be getting your new door installed

No bank holiday here although lots of companies do close, I'm at work however! Similar companies to us are closed though.

Happier that sounds like a good plaN

Sorry to hear about your dad Unescorted, hope he starts to recover from his second jab soon

Omg the dust. I have literally redone every bit of cleaning I did this morning plus redone all the washing up and had to wash out all the cupboards and appliances. Door a massive improvement on the previous one so worth it but omg - need to pay doorman

Wolf stone dust is awful you have my sympathies

Gen ouch at the cost of those IVF drugs

Snuggly I sold loads mid Dec to end Jan then hardly anything in Feb and nothing in March, until today.

Unescorted your poor dad, I hope he's feeling better soon.

Happier yes to being your own bank, this is what I do, saves so much in interest. It's also a relief to know there's emergency money in an account if something crops up and you need it.

Sold something for £10 and spent £20 on diesel.

Good Friday is a bank holiday in Ireland but not a public holiday. So the banks and lots of other businesses close. I'm on holidays this week but my company is closed today anyway. When I was a kid (Catholic upbringing), it was a day of fasting and abstinence. You were expected to attend a religious service in the afternoon which went on forever called Stations of the Cross. It was supposed to be a somber, subdued day where you think about Jesus's suffering on the cross. I live in a small town and (in normal times) some of the small shops put notices up to say that they'll be closed from 3-5 to allow the shopkeepers to attend the Stations. I'm not remotely religious so the main GF tradition I observe now is eating hot cross buns. Although I forgot to get some.

It's a gorgeous sunny day and everyone I observed at the shops earlier seemed to be in a good mood - well, in so far as you can be given the pandemic and restrictions.

I have the window open so the cats are wandering in and out.

Spends today
Supermarket top up shop €23.58
Books order €27.40

I'm making a conscious effort to read more. And buy from an independent bookshop - I know the business is suffering badly with the non-essential shops closed.

Doing some jobs around the house today. Off to clean the bathroom.

Visit to DDad was better than expected. He has perked up a lot - pre jab health. Phew.

The village is rammed today - we were on the BBC regional news as a place to visit when you could see your mates outside. I walked up to the foodbank but called dh for a lift back.

I am admiring all your savings plans. Keep up the good work peeps.