Eternal gratitude to the NHS

2 Posts today to play catch up !

The past fee weeks I have been in a complete flat spin, Our youngest was taken ill, nothing out of the ordinary, watery eyes, slight temperature and a bit of a cough that got worse when he was asleep but when he was up and about he was back to normal, that was the Wednesday, no appointments left in the doctors so Thursday night we thought we would take him to the walk in centre in the hospital, so hubby took him up while I looked after the girls, well within 1/2 hr of being seen at the hospital baby boy was being whizzed down to be incubated to stop his airway closing up, so as you can imagine I have never been so scared in my life, the staff were wonderful with up and never left our side right through to when they transferered him over the Alder Hey Childrens Hospital, anyway, long story short they dont actually know what was the matter with him but were treating him for bacterial croup he came off his tube on the Friday and after a weekend stay in hospital we were released on the Monday - which was actually our wedding anniversary, which we both forgot but in hindsight we had the best anniversary gift ever! - I cannot praise the nurses and doctors enough and even if I started today and continued daily I would not be able to thank them enough, thank you so much x x

Money Monday

For this post I thought honesty would be the best policy. Now that the kids have gone back to school I have had a mid year recap on what we set out to do in our resolutions. Financially we are still pretty much in the same situation, but has now come to a head and needs to be addressed - not because it is getting worse but just because I am fed up of the money situation dragging on.

So anyway after going to the bookshop to try and find a book to help us in our situation, there isnt one definitive book that I could find that deals only on tips to get out of debt, sure they all contain a chapter on getting out of debt, but then the remaining 3/4 of the book is not relevant to me, why would I need chapters on savings and investments???? give me that when I am OUT of debt, plus all of them held some information but not all, and then I thought, surely the first step in saving money.... is to not spend money on a book telling me how to save money !!

After an indepth look at our finances we are just under £17,000 in debt, (this doesnt include the mortgage) included in this is a £12,000 loan which we took out over 20 years in order to keep the payments down to a minimum but looking at the small print it totals (when you add the interest)that we would owe £35,000 !!!!!!!!!. since looking at our finances I have figured a way that all debt can be paid off within 7 years - without it being too much upheaval or cutbacks.

I also chose to share this information with you at the START of my journey so that we can all live it together if you choose to join me on being debt free rather than sounding all preachy at the end of it, yes it will be tough, yes there will be times im sure I would rather throw the towel in and buy something pretty and blow the budget, but all I can hold onto is that light at the end of 7 years (if not sooner)

We have already had a kick start to our budgeting by default - the second car (which has always been needed for Mark to get to work at 5.30am) failed its MOT and needed to much work to put through so that was scrapped, profit (£80) but on top of this we do not need to pay £120 p/yr Tax, £40 p/yr MOT, £300 p/yr Insurance, £65 p/mth Petrol. so in all it will save us £1240 p/yr

So in order for Mark to get to work now we are in the process of trying to find a small 50cc scooter/moped for him to ride(its too far for a bicyle)which on average will cost us £500 to buy, £15 p/year tax, MOT £15 p/yr, £100 p/yr insurance and £8 p/mth petrol Saving us (without including actual purchase price of scooter) £1014 p/yr.

I have picked up some other tips frugal living, budgeting, saving tips whatever you want to call them, so over the next days, weeks, months, years I will share them with you along the way.

Here we go again !!

So it is September 2nd 2009 - nothing monumental to the majority of the world but Im sure a fair few will identify with me, today is the day that we started potty training our little man.

we thought as the older kids start school on Friday (why bring them back in for one day is beyond me , but Im sure that it makes sense to the powers that be!) it would be a good time to at least try,

Ill be honest with you, I do have mixed emotions starting the old potty training routine, first thoughts, no more nappy changes, no having to remember changing equipment (even if we have got it down to 2 nappies,wipes and nappy bag),no trying to find changaing facitilies or even a clean dry surface. saving landfill sites as well as saving us a small fortune monthly. There isnt going to be any mad panic when the baby has no nappy on and you husband decides that this is the time to tell you that he used the last one earlier and for got to tell you !!

Then I started to think about the other side, as he is our only son, if we go out for dinner its not going to be me who is on relay to the toilet with a 30 second warning as I have done with our 2 daughter' much to the hilarity of husband - oh revenge is going to be sweet !!

I remember marvelling at how tiny the newborn nappies were, and picking the nappies for the newborns, of course they have to be the softest, comfy to the bottom, snug enough to not let any leaks through, but not tight enough to blemish new born skin, so after all this and me in my hormonal state picked the ones with the cutest picture on the front !

So here we are he is our last (and while we do not in any way 'baby' him) its another part of babyhood that is never going to return to our house, along with the mountain of bottles, the endless sleepless nights that made every day feel like groundhog day but now in hindsight have a rosy nostalgia to them.

but for now so far it has taken me about 2 hours to write this post because, we have had 2 'accidents' flatly refuses to sit on the potty but knows when he needs to go because he asks for his nappy, but is having the time of his life running round with nothing on showing everybody his 'willy' as for me I think Ill have to get out the packet of Thomas the Tank Engine big boy pants as a bit of bribery save him flashing in public only so long you can get away with that for ...

WISH ME LUCK - IM GOING IN !!!

Poem for Wednesday

I love this poem, I dont know who wrote it - credits go to whoever it was - but it gets me through some really tough times x

Dont Quit

When things go wrong

as they sometimes will

when the road your trudging

seems all uphill,

When the funds are low

and the debts are high,

and you want to smile

But you have to sigh

When care is pressing you down a bit

rest if you must but dont you quit

Success if failure turned inside out

the silver tint on the cloud of doubt

and you never can tell how close you are

it may be near when it seems afar

so stick to the fight

when you're hardest hit

Its when things seem the worst

that you must not quit

LOVE TO YOU ALL x

I dont know how or why - but I am thankful x

As you already know I have 3 children and would love more, my dream would be a house full of kids like they are in Cheaper by the Dozen where it is all organised chaos, - we have the organised chaos sorted already, but circumstances and finances dictate that we cant have any more children, I do however love all the films with large families in and love reading books about large families. I recently picked up a fantastic book written by a lovely lady Mary Ostyn who actually writes on of the other blogs that I follow http://www.owlhaven.net/ the book is called The Sane Womans Guide to Raising a Large Family, and Ill be honest with you I have read it minimum 4 times and still love it!!

Anyway in the book it tells the story of how Mary and husband are raising their family, and the financial obstacles that they have overcome in order to adopt, A paragraph stands out so vividly to me (I am summarising here) "adoption is an expensive business but somehow a door always opens and god provides for us, enabling us to proceed with the adoption process and alowing us to open our doors to care for another child" - Sorry Mary I know I havent quoted it exactly !!

Which now brings me to our situation, for the longest time (in fact for as long as I can remember since being with my husband ) we have had to scrimp and save for everything, I am not overly religious but I do believe that something/somebody is looking down taking care of our family. Whenever we have the wolves at our door (collection agencies), just before they manage to get in something always comes our way, I dont believe that it is down to luck, twice it has happend to us this week, we had some concert tickets that we couldnt go to - had them for about 6months no joy in selling them, but this week when we had a Friday deadline for a debt, someone out of the blue said they were unable to get tickets because it was sold out ! this is not the first time, I was crying because of the relief.

Later that evening, I was taking to Mark (husband) about it and he had thought the same thing - he likes to think that it is his mum looking down on us still taking care of us - I hope so - I dont think that we are ever going to be rich and affording foreign holidays, but we are so much richer than any millionaire who doesnt have to wait and save for anything, I have my family, and we have camping holidays, but my family and the time together with them is so much more precious than any amount of money in the world.

method in the madness !!

Hi All,

I would appologise for being so absent again ! but it is the school summer holidays, we have been away camping, recharging batteries and to be honest it has done me the world of good, I sat in the tent just after the kids had gone to bed and have taken the time to sit and think and to take stock of various items that have been gradually been building up in my mind, and because we have so much coming up it was great to take the time to allocate memory space to all the things coming up and to mentally declutter, I think sometimes we all get so busy in day to day life that we dont manage to finish one topic before we go on to the next one, or even have the time to mentally process before adding another juggling ball to the collection. So any way now I have had the time to chill and relax I have processed and sorted my thoughts and am now bursting to share all my ideas and memories with you over the coming months, and for once in my blogging life I am ahead of myself when it comes to subjects to write about, - I look forward to sharing them with you and am going to try and commit to blogging at least 3 times per week, and hope that you will join me on the ride - I love you all for your patience !!