Jan 09 Summer sun, peachy bums and... toddler tantrums..

[120]

New thread here...

Dog, forgot to say last night, dh looked at quite a few Zafira's and said they were all awful.

He works for a famous network of car dealerships and the salespeople told him not to touch them with a bargepole. Apparently lots of them have been used as taxis as well, so are absolutely shagged even if just a couple of years old.

If you do go for one, check for excessive wear on the driver's seat and steering wheel - sure sign of having been a taxi.

Lots of people round here have Galaxies and love them, but apparently they aren't that good on petrol consumption.

You know what you really need don'tcha? A vw bay window camper with a double cab seat and 3 belts in the back!

Moose- do you pay rent on the house now? Does your sister own her own home?

We are in a similar situation but DH is an only child which makes things easier. We don't pay rent but we do maintain the house which is v v v expensive!

Oh Moose, I hear ya on the uni fee business. My thinking on this is that perhaps uni is a dying trade to be honest. I wonder if in 10 years time it will run as it does now. I think industry will become more invloved in it, as there is no way people can keep absorbing these debts.

Rather liek the pensions, unless you are the mega rich, I think that these things are simply beyond us. We are more likely to be able to muster enough for a few driving lesson and that wil be their lot! I can't see the next few generations having the whole nest egg and about to inherit a house scenario. I know very few people in this position. So for example, where a child may have been going to get nanna's house, now nanna's house will be paying for mummy and daddy's house. ANd mummy and daddy will be living to 90 and so jnr will not see that money.
That's assuming any money in any house isn't tapped off to pay for elderly living.

CHanging times. I think the next 2 generations are essentially going to be on their own.

So on that note, in our house we are thinking of buying a camper. Because obviously anyone with a leaking shower, and old boiler and dangerous electrics needs a boiler.
We were going to go on holiday, so say £1300 for that. Plus we can sell me lovely old MX-5 that my mum uses, that we have never been able to bear to part with £1400, plus £1500 saved from my pay over 3 months. = one camper. Not a fab one, and possibly a bit of a bin. But we get to go to the festivals, have trips out and generally have a sunny life.

Like my thinking? We ar elusting after the one we used for my wedding, that I'm sure I am meant to own.....watch this space!

When dh starts uni we'll sell obviously, and that will be a years living contributon. I love it when a plan comes together.

Moose - on the Argos thing, yes, I can see how there is a dfference in how they used it.
Although I do think the Argos is under rated as a toy. Between looking, planning presents, finding out how to/what it does/why you have a and so on, then cutting, sticking and playing - it's a multi faceted tool!

We have a scenic which is good. So maybe the next one up is too? Ours was £1400 I think.

Are you feeling anybetter chick?

Tree you should house swap with another mumsnetter for a hols and use money to fix something in your house for now. I have a lovely 6 man tent, if you lived closer you could borrow it anytime

Leonard, yes, we pay full rent and have done ever since we moved in. We moved in to give my Dad secure tenants that would treat the place with respect and ensure him an income when he was suffering from cancer.

After he died, we were accused (by his gf - she who shall not be named) of sitting pretty and waiting for him to die so we could inherit.

Totally ridiculous and very hurtful. Obviously, we weren't expecting him to die, we were told prostate cancer had a very high survival rate. By the time he died, we'd been here for nearly 4 years and we had paid for (and carried out) all the maintenance on top of the rent, Dad had paid for nothing since the day we moved in and pocketed several thousand pounds a year that he had no way to spend being bedbound and terminal and which his delightful gf blew on giving him no fewer than three funerals (one service and a funeral here plus a repatriation and burial in Ireland - all of which cost getting on for £50,000) and this for a man that hated fuss and lived frugally all his life.

Unfortunately he had lots of brain tumours near the end and dgf influenced him to change his will to leave the property in trust as apparently his daughters couldn't be trusted with money (at the age of 37 and 39 fgs). His original will left everything 50-50 to me and my sister - his final will was signed just two days before he died.

I have since found out from my aunt that he told her wanted to protect us from my sister forcing us to sell, but in reality it has landed us with a whole other heap of problems. We can't even move out, as we can't afford anything at all around here, ds1 can't cope with the thought of moving and ds2 is settled and happy at school.

In the meantime, his gf is entitled to all the profits from the property, including having the right to sell it if she so wishes, as long as she puts away the value as at Dad's death in trust for myself and dsis.

The will was drawn up by his gf's solicitors, who are based in Devon and he was bedbound in Warwickshire! He had serious brain tumours that were known to be affecting his thinking and moods and he signed the will with two of gf's friends for witnesses, two days before his death when he was on high doses of morphine. His signature is barely legible and having visited him two days before and then the day after, he barely knew who I was and couldn't see the photo of my boys that I took to put by his bedside. The whole thing was a disgusting fit-up.

My sister did approach a solicitor, who did some investigating, agreed the whole thing was at best unprofessional of the other solicitor and at worst malpractice, but there was not enough 'actual evidence' to contest the will and be sure of a result in our favour (all the medical people involved declined to make statements either way). She then asked gf to go to mediation to come to an agreement over the will but she of course refused.

I tried to keep out of as far as possible. We have to stay here, she is our landlady (like it or not) and we just want to get on with our lives to be honest. It was a lot of nasty upset and raw emotions at the time, but mostly I don't think about it anymore - that is until our long-term financial wellbeing comes into question.

Tree, the only problem with a camper for that money would be the general upkeep and maintenance. They are absolute money pits.

We have just paid out £200 for the MOT, we need about £1000 worth of welding, we have a sliding door at the sprayers at the moment that cost £350 to buy and will have cost another £250 by the time we get it back. We are also desperate for a l/h sliding door (so the one for a right hand drive van - ours has twin sliding doors) which are like hen's teeth and if you do find one it will cost upwards of £1000 to buy plus having it fixed up and sprayed to match the van - and ours is a tatty old family mobile rather than a smart van. They need servicing very regularly or there are all sorts of knock on effects and you will need a friendly vw mechanic for the trickier stuff. Keeping it on the road generally is ok as they are very basic and therefore simple to work on once you get your head around them, but you will need a copy of How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive it is the vw bible and has got us out of a few scrapes over the years.

Hope I'm not putting too much of a downer on it for you, but its better to know these things before starting out on a vw love affair than to find out the hard way.

(I still hope you get one though, they are so much fun. )

Whoa sorry, should've proof read, that's a mega post and a half!

Dog, I was only joking about the camper really - see my post to Tree to find out what I really think about them.

Dog - it is sweet but I do miss that closeness I had with DD. I guess that is just the reality of having more than one though. I do still have a brilliant bond with him but I don't understand him like I did DD iyswim.

We are saving for uni. I put £75 a month in each of their accounts which won't be enough buy hopefully I will go back to work full time in the next few years so can save more. It is well over 10% of our income at the moment as DH really struggling and with him being self employed we get no pension/paid holiday etc. so will have to do something about that too soon. It is hard to keep up and it means I don't spend as much on other luxuries like clothes and things. I do it on direct debit so there is no way it can be spent. We are fortunate that no takeaway delivers to us and nearest fish and chips is too far to bring home hot so the weekly shopping has to cover every meal, think that is only reason we manage to save.

Moose - if you are paying rent into a property you should inherit I would talk over with a solicitor again or citizens advice. Might go nowhere of course. Does sound like a rotten situation.

Nothing a solicitor can do Leonard, thanks to the poor way the will was worded. It seems gf gave the solicitor the impression she was living in the property when the will was made and he drew it up accordingly. In fact she has never lived here, or even stayed here overnight.

She is entitled to do what she wants with the place until we inherit (15 years from when Dad passed on) and that includes chucking us out if she's so inclined. I don't think she ever would though, as she is obsessed with doing what she 'reckons' my Dad would have wanted and she knows he would never have wanted us homeless. The will made no provision for us to stay on in the house whatsoever, she could even move in here herself or sell it from under us if she wanted to.

Dad was a very simple man, even before the brain tumours. These things would never have occurred to him.

Lord only knows what could happen if she gets dementia in that time (its a serious possiblity and she is definitely getting weirder by the week) if her daughter gets power of attorney, we are in big trouble, as she is a ruthless woman who is hugely into money and making money from property (and that's putting it politely).

Sister paid a top notch solicitor who basically said we are 'done up like kippers' and only had any chance of changing things if we had BIG money to throw at the situation. Obviously we don't, but if we did I can't help thinking the solicitors would be the only real winnders.

We are just redoing our budget this week and I think we seriously have to look into putting at least something away each month for the dcs' future. It won't be much, but got to be better than nothing I suppose.

Hard to see where to make cuts though, our food shopping isn't at all extravagant and we often work hard to make things stretch. A takeaway would be a huge treat for us and then only dh and I once the dcs are in bed. I rarely buy myself anything and even wait for birthdays and christmas to get my moisturiser etc as presents from family. We are currently paying off a rather large loan that we have had for some years now and things will be easier when that's gone and I'm thinking if we can live on dh's money now ( we can't) then anything I earn when I go back to work should be able to go straight into savings.

Everytime we work it out it seems to lead back to selling the camper as the only way to raise some money and cut our outgoings - but we can't bring ourselves to do it and the boys would never forgive us. Guess I'll have to remind them of that when we can't afford for them to go to uni.

winners not winnders

Oh good grief Moose. It must make your blood boil.

Bloody money. Wow at your saving plan L.

On the plus side, dh is dead handy as he raced minis when he should have bben at uni gettng an education. So he can do a good amount of vw work. Welding etc would have to go out though. Hmmmm.

It just pains me to chuckk money at weekends away and holidays [which we do get because my mum is so motivated to take the grls on holiday as she just loves it]. A few of those added up and we have the van - and all the festival going and weekends away that mght entail

Don't sell your van Moose. I know the future looms, but I always think of those with no future. Sickness, chronic illness, life limiting illness - who knows what might rain on our parade.
We have to enjoy our kids right here right now. If these campers/clothes/days out/ are how we do it, then so be it. We have to build happy memories. For me, pretty pictures in my memory really do help me. I am struggling with work, but the sight of a pale blue playhouse with the new little lights, and the bloody paving, means I am going for a reason. A good reason. It's not because I have to [I do], it's because I have to to make life look like this [delusional]. If that makes sense.

BTW, local charity fundraising drive for a local girl. Have started a thread here if anyone can spare 79p to remember Ellie.

I totally get where you are coming from Tree, but we don't seem to be seeing much for our money these days. Not as much fun when it goes into welding and respraying a door as it is when it gives you a lovely home and happy children.

We are lucky in that dh's aforementioned lovely aunty pays for our summer holiday and the ferry fare is just about covered by our Tesco vouchers. We just could't afford a holiday if this were not the case.

We do get a lot of fun and enjoyment out of our camper during the summer months, but it pretty much stays wrapped under its cover during the winter other than the odd drive out to charge the battery and occasional dog walk/picnic with hot chocolate.

The upside is that they tend not to depreciate and you can usually at least get back what you paid for them, can't say that for many other vehicles.

Dog, I got that weird breathing think towards the end of dd's pregnancy, particularly during the night. Mw and gp decided they were a combination of anaemia and anxiety attacks. You may well be anaemic, as breathlessness is a common symptom, when was your last blood test?

Moose - I would keep it, if they don't lose value it is as good as saving for the pleasure it gives. We use tesco vouchers to pay for days out and have national trust membership so use that as much as we can. Also lucky that beach and national parks so close that really don't pay for days out, just pack a picnic and head for the hills! I am so lucky with that, would be very different if in a city. PILs usually treat us to meals out etc often enough that we don't really ever go out on our own other than with other families and then do picnics. We also take advantage of all th farm attractions! We are very boring!

Totally agree that welding can't be made fun, whichever way you cut it.

LeonardAndDeidre - sounds lovely!

Turns out parents eve is a with child affair. Mum had come up to baby sit, so wasn't really needed, bless her. Now dd1 has heart set on nanna coming, which means dd2 too, and also means we may well be out for my first online grocery order in a year. Arse!

Doa, have you tried belly breathing. When you breathe, make an effort to push your belly out when you inhale, and let it go down on the exhale. Has sorted many a labouring panic attack ime

hi ladies

hi mm - it is hard 2 budget

got my blackberry today is lush
cant use yet as old phone still working

Leonard, we miss Lancashire for cheap days out. We used to go to all sorts of places when we lived up there, Hebden, Skipton, Blackpool, Lytham, Trough of Bowland, Haworth and further afield to Harrogate, York and Fountains Abbey - the dcs would have loved it. Everything around here costs £££ and we find ourselves going to the same places for picnics again and again, which tends to get a bit boring after a few years.

Well, I am just back from the GPs. I thought it didn't really hurt when poked - until she poked it in just the wrong right spot - ouch! She tried to get me into the fracture clinic tonight, but they weren't answering the phone. She is now going to call them first thing in the morning and then let me know when to go, but should be sometime tomorrow. Until then I have to treat it as a fracture rather than a sprain, so no weightbearing - to coin a Tree phrase - arse!

Apparently at the fracture clinic my xrays will be reviewed by an Orthopedist (sp?) and then, if necessary, more will be taken. Whatever the outcome, at least I'll know that the xrays have been assessed by two medical professionals rather than just one - so will have a second opinion. Really hoping they say its just bruised - will be a bummer if I have to have a plaster on while it heals, although thinking about it, I might actually be more mobile with a plaster.

Oh Tree - you were bang on about the swelling and pins and needles. She thinks walking on it yesterday caused some swelling in the ankle joint that's pinching on the nerves. Foot is flipping freezing again now, was fine when I was in the docs. Have put my warmest, floppiest sock on it and it still feels like ice.

Ah well, at least I don't have to cook the tea tonight now.

OOoooh ouch Moosey., poor you.

Hi Tink

is anyone around this eve to keep my charity thread a bit bumped? Got to go out for parents eve. We've raised a fiver by starting a thread. Amazing really isn't it?

Found you.