A Much Needed Break

I thought it was time I wrote another post, great idea let everyone know how your finances are doing, let the blogging world know how much you,ve spent, saved, budgeted for this last few days. So O.K. now open up your blog and lets get on with it...............Nothing.............I have writers block.

My finances are in the best shape they have been in for years, my spending is now under control, and my savings are growing.

My Holiday starts in a couple of days, my much needed time away from MIL, work and a chance to clear the air with The Foxx.

But where is my head, it,s with my Sister who as I write this is changing her life turning everything upside down, and in my opinion is the bravest Woman I know.

Forgive me my lack of committment to my blog, I will be taking almost 2 weeks away from the PC, until I return all the best with your plans hopes and dreams.

Friday,s Spends A Little Splurge

My Weekly Splurge. Well here she is, not exactly the kettle of my dreams, that one was $142 but definitely an edgey little number, when switched on she makes very little noise and lights up like the cockpit of a jet plane. Plus she makes a mean cup of tea, and cost $78 a little cheaper than the $100 I had intended to spend, so good for me.

Total of todays spends

Petrol $20 ( I have fuel left in my tank from last week. )

Debt $ 25 ( normal weekly payment )

Layby,s $65 ( payments on my pots, pans and bedding )

Clothing $23 ( broke my promise and bought a couple of tops to take on holiday )

Food $100( not spent yet just allocated to jar )

Kettle $78 ( as stated above )

TOTAL SPENDS = $311

My snowflakes went up by $202. 22 made up of

Overtime payment $172.22

Money for online surveys $30.00

All up I,m really pleased with my weekly spends considering I had,nt planned on the kettle expense. I,m kind of hoping to get some change back out of the Grocery money, but as The Foxx will be shopping for me, it,s highly unlikely as he has a sweet tooth.

I,m working again tomorrow and this will be going into my wage next week, just in time for my trip away. This extra money will be allocated towards Champagne, gotta love those bubbles. Yes after all my frugal months I,m splashing out on this holiday.

My First Emergency Of 2011

Me And My Big Mouth

After my comment yesterday about having had no financial emergencies and everything travelling along on an even keel. I woke this morning to find our house in complete darkness and The Foxx out at the fuse box with a torch. Our old but reliable kettle had decided to become our old and unreliable kettle, and had tripped the safety switch in our power box !!!

It,s not a fixable problem so a new kettle is now on my shopping list for tomorrow, and in my usual fashion of buying for quality and not price, I will be up around the $100 mark. Still it,s money well spent to get a decent cuppa. Although I will be looking for the best price possible.

My wages will be given an extra boost tomorrow, with extra snowflake money ( overtime money ) and this is my last wage before I take off on my holiday.

As soon as we booked the table for Dinner last night we realised we had made a mistake, there is no need for us to be having a night out so near to our week away. We thought that we had to use the coupon by the end of this month, but they have extended the offer until the end of May, so plenty of time to go for this meal.

My Sister lives about a 5 day drive away from us on the opposite side of this vast country, normally we would fly but as she is coming to live she wants to bring her car. But she does not want to drive across the Nullabor Desert alone, so she is putting her car on a train and then meeting the train in South Australia around the middle mark and coincidentaly this is exactly where The Foxx and I are going to be. This was not pre-planned but I,m glad that we are going to be there for her as she is going to need a lot of support. Then she will have to drive alone for another 2 days to get to Queensland, I would love to make this drive with her, but she insists that she needs the time alone to think things out, plus I would be abandoning The Foxx right in the middle of our holiday, plus I would not be back in time to start work the following Monday. So lots to think about.

Life Goes On

Now that I know that my Sister is going to be living near me my head is in a whirl, I cant sleep at night, plans , thoughts and suggestions are whirling around in my brain. On the 1st of January I made the statement that 2011 was going to be a great year, and since saying that the world has being going through some troubling times. Some right round the corner from me and some on the other side of the world. But I could stil not get rid of the idea that for me anyway, things were about to change.
Could this be it ??? could the difference be having my sister back in my life ?? I,m not sure but I cant get rid of the knot of excitement I,m feeling right now.

On the PF side of my life, I seem to have settled into a routine of working out my wages on a Thursday night and shuffling my money around on a Friday. I have not had any major financial emergencies so far this year, so I have not had to redo my budget other than to add on my layby payments for my bedding and pots. I have opted to pay the minimum amount on these purchases weekly. I figure I have waited 20 something years for new pots so a couple more months wont make much difference.
The Christmas present my Daughter gave to her Dad and I is finally going to get used on Tuesday night, when we will get all dressed up and go out for a free swanky meal. I love eating dishes I would never attempt at home.
And talking about dishes, I made out a menu which covered dinners this week, so no scratching my head and wondering what on earth to eat, I involved MIL and The Foxx in my decisions so we are all happy and everyone gets at least one favourite dish a week. And leftovers are being put aside for a Friday when it,s every man for himself and it,s first to the freezer scores the dish they prefer. It,s only week one but so far so good.

I have been a little slack commenting on your blogs, please I do try and find the time to get online every night after tea, but this week life just seems to be getting in the way. MIL has been a little under the weather, and I have been spending more time sitting chatting to her. My depression has been coming and going in waves, although that now seems to be back under control. And after getting a bone marrow test done The Foxx has 33% cancer cells, so his Leukemia, is back with a vengeance and the Chemo drugs he has to take have been knocking him around quite a bit.

I think we need this holiday big style !!!!!!!!

In Holiday Mode

Well the beginnings of another week and a step nearer my holiday, I will be leaving home on the 25th March and returning on the 3rd April, cant wait apart from the time I took of for my Daughters Wedding last November it has been 15 months since our last break.

We are going back to our old stomping ground in South Australia, where we lived for 9 years when we first emigrated out from Scotland, we have some amazing friends there and some terrific memories, in fact sometimes I wonder why we ever left ???

On the financial side we tried to do this Holiday as cheaply as we could and managed to get cut price airfares and a terrific deal on our Hotel, we will eat out as cheaply as we can when we are on our own, and splash out a bit when we are out with friends.

My Holiday fund is nowhere near large enough to accomodate this Holiday, and so I am not touching it and we are going to finance it mainly by cash and The Foxx,s CC. He has a limit of $2,000 on this card and pays it out every month, with a little help from his good lady ( me ). If used correctly I actually love the concept of CC,s but I,m not very good at using them correctly and so I don,t have one.

I am absolutely loving my new PC it is soooomuch faster than my old one, the mouse actuallly moves when and where you want it too, and my super sized monitor means no eye strain. Although I have taken it off of the shelf it was on and put it on a flat surface as I was getting a crick in my neck just looking up at it.

My Sister has made the decision to leave her Husband and come all the way over from the other side of Australia to live nearer to me. He is an Alcoholic and is not getting treatment for it, he is completely in denial. I know that this move is going to bring it,s fair share of dramas into my life and of course my sister,s. So I will write more about it as it unfolds.

There,s Light Appearing Now !!!!!

I,m Feeling Heaps Better


I was looking for a picture which described how I feel right now, and to tell you all that I can find some light at the end of this tunnel, and I found this picture, maybe not exactly what I was loooking for, but it made me smile. Which should give you some idea of where I am right now. My meds have been tweaked and I,m in a much better place right now. Thanks for the support I may not have been blogging and commenting but I have been lurking so I am up to date with all your achievements and supporting all your failings.

I even felt well enough to work a little overtime yesterday, so looking forward to a little extra in my pay next week.
I will be heading off Grocery shopping soon and putting some money onto my layby,s ( pots and bedding ) I don,t know how much as yet as I have not done a budget up to include this, as I have been doing my Ostrich ( head in the sand ) act lately, which is a lot better than my Shopaholic act which started the month.
I have just noticed that my sidebars and Snowflake total need updating so I,ll be on to that soon. Otherwise everything is OK on the financial front.
The Foxx and I have still not had THAT conversation yet. But we are going away for 10 days at the end of the month, and we are going to be on our own for the first time in ages. I have no intention of spoiling our break, but some aspects of our finances and relationship are going to have to be ironed out.
More about our mini holiday later.
Once again a shoutout to an amazingly supportive bunch of bloggers, I have missed you all but I,m back now.

Sinking Lower And Lower

I have noticed a pattern forming and it seems as if my fits of depression are returning, this is a surprise as I am currently on my meds, so perhaps I need the dose looked at.

Symptoms for me are highs and lows, when I say high I actually mean I am feeling well and capable, where the lows have me keeping away from friends. Staying away from the Internet ( I call this my Ostrich time, head in the sand )not answering the phone and missing time off from work, so I,m currently at home, and forcing myself to post.

Things are still not good between The Foxx and I, he is once again broke and turning to me to keep him going, but I,m so over constantly being in financial charge.

Yesterday he wanted me to help him in the garden, but I wanted to sit and play games on my PC, and that ended in a row. Yes he is the one with the physical illnesses and I do sympathise and worry about him. But at the moment I am just mentally hanging on by a thread.

I have completely run out of paid sick leave, and so I am not being paid for my time at home, and like it or not I will have to return to work tomorrow.

I am stalking the blogs today, and will make no comments, because my head is not in the right place for making, enthusiastic, helpful, chatty responses.

I,ll be back with meds firmly in place, till then, happy blogging.

A March Shopaholic,s Confession.

Guess what I have been up to these last few days!!

Well if you thought that maybe I had taken time off from blogging in order to spend money then you were absolutely right. The Northern Hemisphere is looking forward to warmer days and we in the south are hoping for cooler days and nights. It all started with new carpets going down throughout the house, as soon as they were down I wanted to decorate the whole house. normally you would do this before the carpets went down but we got about 2 days notice and we had to strip 3 bedrooms and a lounge/ dining room of all furniture. so you see I have been busy. no time to blog.

To get back to the cooler weather thing, I want to get more organised in the Kitchen, and that means more cooking from scratch and replacing one or two items which have outgrown there usefullness. Namely my pots, I bought my last set about 22 years ago and they were inexpensive then. I have always stood and drooled over Baccarat pots, but I wouldent spend the money on them. so how could I resist this set which were 1/2 price reduced right down to $380.00

Gorgeous arent they, sorry I couldent find a larger picture, the special on that day was for 50% off plus a wok, so I put them on a layby and will pay them off gradually over 8 weeks.

O.K. satisfied that I had gotten the bargain of a lifetime and had got spending money, out of my system. I confidently decided to browse around our local Curtain Wonderland Store. Because this is a rental house I never buy curtains, as they are always already on the windows, maybe not exactly to my taste but in the case of this home not too shabby at all. So passing the curtains and going deeper into the store I discovered The Bedding Dept. I love, love, love, white bedding, I know it,s not really practical but what the heck, it,s one of lifes little luxuries for me. so I bought a white and silver duvet set , two extra white pillowcases, 4 new pillows and a couple of white and silvery sparkly cushions to throw on the bed.

All up about $150 as these were also on sale, and are now on a 12 week layby.

Am I finished ? well almost I have wanted a yogurt maker for the longest time and now I am making Greek yogurt like a crazy woman, cost $19.99. And lastly I got my bread maker out and I am now making my own loafs. The Breadmaker was a freebie, so spending spree over.

I am looking for someone, to tell me how to make inexpennsive bread and yogurt as the pre-packaged way is expensive.

How did I finance this amazing Spending spree, all of my layby deposit payments came out of my snowball money plus what was left after No Spend February, and after $1,000 had gone into my debt repayment. I will have to massively update my budget to include my PC payments and my Layby, s. I. will do that on the weekend.

Thanks for the amazing support you gave me after my last post, I have done nothing about speaking to hubby again, but I will.