Apologies

   

I have been missing in action for around a week now and it will be a couple of days before I can write a proper blog post.

My apologies to all my blogging friends as I have not been commenting either, however normal blogs will resume as soon as possible, with an explanation.

Love to all.

A very mixed kind of week

R.I.P. Margi

Yesterday saw me attending my Son-in-Law's Grandmother's funeral. We were all asked not to wear black and were invited to celebrate her life rather than to mourn her passing. She was a member of  a choir and so there was lots of singing, as well as funny anecdotes from family and friends.

So let me put it out there this is how I want to go, with smiles and maybe just a few tears.

I am not long back from my weekly shopping trip to Aldi and now I am writing out my menus for this week. Last week I was running behind so badly that I made no lists and it was a week of constant " what's for dinner " this actually makes me lazy and also makes me think takeaway. So it's back to my organised self this week.

I got a nice little windfall this week in the form of a letter from the Tax Department telling me they had superannuation money to send me, and as I am now retired and have no superannuation fund they will deposit it into my bank account. I have 100 different ways of spending this money so The Foxx and I will have a look at where it's needed most.

My Grandson turned 6 this week and so tomorrow we meet up with the family and celebrate, it did'nt seem right to do this before The Funeral. It was hard for me to cut back on his present because I usually go for the no expense spared toys. But I managed to do his gifts his card and a cute bag to put them in all for under $50.

Use them or Lose them

 

Keeping things for good

OK hands up who keeps things for good, I have dishes which I only use on Christmas Day, why !!! because I deem them to good for everyday use, then there is the canteen of cutlery which like the dishes only puts in an appearance once a year, Oh and I almost forgot the crystal champagne flutes and the wine glasses and I could go on and on. Why did I buy them in the first place, simply because I liked them and looking at them gives me great joy.

But only once a year !!!!!!

When I left The Foxx I spent hours berating myself for leaving behind a gorgeous sexy set of pots which I had saved long and hard to buy myself, I could not believe that I had left them behind, despite the fact that I had never ever used them. My Mother-in-Law also has special things she has put away for a rainy day, she is 84 now and is ill, so really what is the point.

So on Sunday out came the pots, the dinner service, the cutlery and the special glasses. I am now going to start using my favourite things and get as much use and joy out of them as I can.

Thank you to everyone for their supportive comments regarding the ongoing battles with my Mother-in-Law, I am going to take a strong but not aggressive stand to get my house running the way I want it to. This will no doubt attract a few comments from her, but I have thick skin.

Last night on one of our consumer shows one of my favourite Australian bloggers did a segment on making her own soap, washing powder and growing her own veg. Did you see that I said to Mother-in-Law now you know it's not just me with daft ideas LOL

Things are really quiet on the financial front just now, as things are all going to plan with repayments, we are working to a really tight budget just now and their is very little left for our entertainment jar, but we really don't mind. On Sunday we went for a leisurely stroll round our local fruit and veg markets, got some great bargains and then stopped off at my Daughter's for coffee. A cheap day but an enjoyable one.........

Angry Mother-in-Law

Yesterday while out buying my ingredients for my washing powder, my Mother-in-law told me in no uncertain terms how ridiculous I was becoming, how much she hated " that kind of stuff " and surely I could get it just as cheaply at Aldi. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention another few areas where we could save money ( I'll leave that comment to the readers imagination ) but as she is an old Lady with set ideas about how things are done, I let it slide.

I fight my mother-in-law constantly over menus, shopping lists and a heap of my other money saving ideas, she has never ever learned the art of saving, budgeting even switching things off after you have used them and not leaving taps running these all seem to be alien concepts to her.

So now on top of the money she puts in for food she sneaks other food items into the house as she obviously feels my lists are lacking, they say two women in the kitchen does'nt work and now that I am home full time I am now noticing how much control of my Kitchen I have lost over the years.

I want that control back, so maybe some of these issues we are having are as much my fault as hers, so I will continue to go about my frugal ways quietly one fight at a time.........

I got a final reading from the Electricity supply to The Restaurant yesterday so I am now sitting with the Phone account the Gas account and the Power bill, a grand total of over $5,000 and no way at present of paying them, so I am going to have to wait until they put these accounts into the hands of collection agencies and then make arrangements to pay these off slowly.

I am now finding myself back where I started  when I first started this blog, seems to me I am going backwards instead of forwards.

Is it all bad news I can hear you asking, not at all everything in my personel life is fantastic The Foxx left me a note this morning and his bankcard, just in case I needed anything, I am staying home today so I can give him it back tonight with thanks. My Daughter-in-Law is 7 months pregnant and we are having a little boy this time, this is my 4th Grandchild and will  make 2 girls and 2 boys. My Grandson will be 6 this month and so I will be looking for a present for him this weekend and my Daughter will be 37 in a week or two and the family are all coming here for her party. This will be the first time since I left that we will all be together and I can't wait.

So am I in debt YES

Am I happy YES

I Feel Like a Real Housewife Today

Bringing out the housewife in me

Tomorrow I am taking the bull by the horns and making my own washing powder, I have done all my homework, as today I went to the Supermarket just to make sure everything I needed was in stock. so now I know quantities and prices. Wish me luck, I have never ever done anything like this, can't wait to work out the cost per load. Although I think I will have to wait until it's all used up before I can get an exact figure.

I have been missing in action for a few days now, no reason in particular. I was doing very little on the PC very little on the expenses side of life and I decided to give my home a good clean, so now I am the proud owner of the tidiest linen cupboard in the world. The neatest kitchen cupboards and the shiniest most organised fridge in the Universe.

Pay day today for The Foxx, in one hand and out the other, such is life !!!

Ladies Of The Pink Purse

All about the Pink Purse

The pink purse is where we keep the Grocery money, it is kept in the Pantry and gets topped up every Saturday morning. When my sister was living with us we all put our money in and if any of us were picking up Groceries we took the pink purse, obviously nobody was in control of the spending but as long as we had money still in the purse on a Saturday morning when it was time to refill, we knew we had kept within our grocery limits.

Now that my Sister is no longer staying with us and my MIL is unwell the pink purse is all mine, I can hunt for bargains and budget on food to my hearts content, I am empowered as I am THE KEEPER of " The Pink Purse " better not let this go to my head.......

Many moons ago in an earlier post I wrote a letter to The Foxx
http://towardsretirementwithdebt.blogspot.com.au/2011_02_01_archive.html

I had a feeling he was reading my blog and I put this out to him in the hope that he might see how desperate I was to change our financial ways. Yesterday I let him read the post, I felt comfortable enough with our situation to let him in to one of my best kept secrets, this blog.

He offered me nothing but support after he read it and assured me that from now on things will be different, I think he was quite surprised at the whole idea of me having a blog and seemed surprised at the community in general, he laughingly suggested that this is where I get my crackpot ideas from, so bloggers keep those crackpot ideas coming my way...

The Last Pity Party Post

I am now a Housewife and Caregiver

I'll bet you had thought that I had exhausted the disasters which I have been recanting in my last 4 blog posts. but no the final, nail in the coffin of our finances was brought about by my MIL ending up in hospital with heart failure while I was away from The Foxx. I have a really guilty conscience about what happened to her as I am almost positive that the strain brought on by my leaving  contributed to her condition. So now I am unable to work as I am needed at home with her pretty much constantly at the moment. I made all the normal enquiries about a Carers Pension but as it's based on the amount of money coming into the home, The foxx's salary is too high for us to make a claim.

So now I am her caregiver without being able to make a claim for financial help, part of me is panicking and part of me feels empowered. For the first time since I can remember I am solely in charge of making sure we can afford to live like this.

So budgeting, menu planning and spending are all dictated by me. I am totally committed to getting us out of debt and living a stress free lifestyle.

I will be counting my no spend days again, taking special note of cheap petrol days, produce market shopping for fruit and veg, remembering to turn off electric lights and even making my own laundry detergent. i feel excited and I know with your help I can do this...

PS Jane can you remember the name of the website we used to use to track our spending ????

The End or is It ????

When I turned the key on The Restaurant door on Christmas Eve I think I knew that I would never trade again, nor did I want too, I had not had a decent nights sleep in weeks the first and last thing I did every day was count money, I had thumping migraines and there was no money in the bank to buy stock to open up again after the staff' came back from holiday.

When my Sister was with me we used an existing bank account of hers and with it came a credit card, this was purely an emergency backup, but let me say that we had a lot of Emergencies, of course when we broke up the partnership we closed those accounts down and opened new ones. so the CC went and the bank would not allow me any line of credit at all as we were a brand new business and nobody was willing to take a chance on it succeeding and them getting paid. Let me tell you that there is no way you can run any business without huge savings or a line of credit and I had neither.

I needed to talk to The Foxx but our conversation lead to the biggest row we had ever had, all of both of our pent up frustrations came flooding out, this was on New Years Eve and by the 3rd of January I had left him, in fact you could say I ran from everything that had gone wrong over the last 7 months. I sent the Restaurant keys back to the landlord and told him to do his worst, but he would not get blood out of a stone as I was jobless, homeless, carless, husbandless and was considering declaring myself bankrupt. 

I must have a Guardian Angel, as my Landlord has wiped my debt and cancelled the 27 months I still had on my lease, of course for that he gets all my fixtures and fittings to do with as he pleases, but I don't care I just want to wash my hands of the whole sorry mess.

The Foxx was not prepared to let me go so easily, although I made things really hard for him and as I was out of the state he could only reach me by email or phone and for the longest time I did not want to speak to him.

And then I got sick ! all of my stress etc. meant I was suffering with a severe bout of Shingles and in unmanageable pain, even the strongest painkillers were having no effect.

So who turned up to Nurse me, my Sister I was housesitting for a friend and because there was nobody there to help me she flew across Australia to look after me, some things are just meant to happen and during the time we were alone we rebuilt our relationship.

I am now back home and The Foxx and I are determined to get our marriage and our finances back on track, we do love each other, but I have warned him we play as a team or not at all. So far so good I'm not sure how he will take the saving and budgeting plans I have been making I imagine that it will be met with some resistance at first as this is a totally new concept to him. But I plan to let him see what a success we can make of this together.

But before we start to save we have got to get rid of the build up of bills we accrued between the house and the Restaurant, but we will do this as a team, wish us luck....

Goals For March

Taking my lead from Carla I am posting this months goals

Financial Goals

• Catch up time this month, as we are so far behind with everything it's not funny.
• I really need to start a holiday fund big trip coming up in August.
• Keeping an eye on housekeeping costs by menu planning.

De- Cluttering

• Not so much decluttering, more extra money making, things for e-Bay.
• Take photos again for e-Bay.
• Catching up with housework.

Personal Goals

• Keep The Foxx on track and motivated.
• Keep up with everyones blog posts.
• Read one self help book monthly. ( any ideas ? )