Ramblings - sorry bit boring

I was going to blog yesterday but our Internet router was playing up last night. I have no idea why, but seems to be fine this morning. Maybe it just needed a rest like I do!



Well, beginning of the month again and i would love to say 'yippee payday' but our overdraft was so huge that we are about £25 in credit after both of us have been paid and all the bills accounted for. That is what I call rubbish. Mind you we use one of those Tesco Clubcard Plus accounts for our shopping, which means in reality all our petrol and food are paid for already, but it still feels crap to only have £25 spare cash.

The reason we are so skint? We booked 2 weeks in Crete for the end of August. Yay! But it meant that all our hard earned savings are gaaawwwnnnnn! I don't really mind going without a little bit though seeing as we have something ace to look forward to. It would be a bit pants to have no cash and nothing to look forward to, which is the normal state of play around this house!

So yeah, we are booked 2 weeks all inclusive in Crete and I am counting the days! Also it gives me a real incentive to lose the flab, as when we went to Malta last June I was 15 stone 7. It would be nice to be well on the way to that figure if possible. I have 8 weeks to do it, so lets rock!

We have our annual Piano Recital on Sunday too, so that's something nice to look forward to. I chose my dress about a month ago and it fit snugly, but comfortably, so seeing as I have shed about 9 pounds since then, it should fit brilliantly now. I pick it up on Friday and then have to take it back on Tuesday. Cost £80 to hire it, and I have paid £40 already, so that helps out. I have already accounted in this months bills for the other £40 so I don't need to worry about that either.

On the 16th We are going to go to Norwich camping for the weekend. Paid the deposit for that and accounted for the other £75 to pay the balance there too, and that is a relief.

There was so much to take into account this month that I nearly forgot about paying for Norwich. That could have been a bit painful, so just at the last minute I remembered to add that onto the sum total.

This months bills were £2265. Horrendous I think. Ok, I did have a few bits and bobs on there that wont be there next month, but that's a lot of cash. When you think that a lot of people just getting married will have similar bills, that doesn't leave a lot of space for enjoying themselves and having fun does it. When you consider this amount its easy to see why people argue about money and stuff. I wonder what kind of people these days would be able to get married, buy a house and have this type of bill package and then have their wife give up work to start a family. I doubt that's possible for most people these days. There is no way on earth DH ever earned near that amount even when he had a good job, let alone now. There has to be the 2 of us working or it would be curtains.

Our bills per month, just for the hell of it are thus:

Cost to run 5 bedroom house, village location, East of England, nothing special:

Mortgage (aka millstone).......................... £946
Council Tax................................................. £127
Life Insurance for Me and DH................... £88
Water Rates .................................................. £35
TV Licence .................................................... £12
Mobile Phone Me ......................................... £22
Mobile Phone DH ......................................... £22
Gas and Electric ...........................................£148
Sky TV ............................................................£20
Cinema passes x3.......................................... £40
Gas/electric/white goods homecare plan ..£40
Buildings and Contents Insurance............... £22
Broadband Internet....................................... £13
Landline Phone.............................................. £40
Car Insurance for Me and DH..................... £64
Loan from my Mum to buy a car................ £50
Dog Insurance................................................ £10
DVD rental........................................................ £4
Games Rental................................................... £8
Musicians Union Membership...................... £12
Food and Petrol (minimum!)....................... £450

Total ..............................................................£2173

Now, apart from the 3 Unlimited Cinema passes and a dvd and games rental there isn't anything on this list that isn't run of the mill and kind of a necessity. Ok, I guess you could argue that if really necessary we didn't need Sky TV, but that's only £20.

You can see why people think 'stuff it! lets run up a credit card and live a bit'. Its unusual if we ever have any spare cash, and pretty horrifying when you consider the above does not include Clothes, shoes, haircuts, school dinners, trips, decorating stuff or general things needed for the house day to day, entertainment etc. How on earth do people cope if they smoke? 20 fags a day would be about £40 a week... OUCH!

Sheesh.

Would be good to compare this with other countries, as I expect that there could be some significant differences.

We don't own credit cards anymore, but boy they are tempting hey! So easy to max one out, but the rest of your life paying it back. I could easily go out tomorrow and spend a couple of thousand on stuff, but with no spare cash ever, it would take the rest of the century to pay it back.

Credit cards are a wicked temptation for people and its horrible. Its so easy to get so far out of your depth that you have to shove 2 straws up your nostrils just to keep breathing a bit. We've been there, and it wasn't pretty. Everything is fine until 'life' deals you a bad card. Ours was job loss and half pay in the new one. Gulp.

The only thing that saved us was getting a couple of lodgers and that is all. It would have been the streets mate! I am glad we have lodgers though. It makes life a little interesting.


Talking of lodgers, Felix - Sue's cat - is coming home tomorrow after his ordeals. He is blind, has one leg with pins and a bar attached to it and a broken jaw, but he is getting better by the day. We will be feeding him with a tube that goes into his tummy, and keeping him in a big cage in the office until he has recuperated fully. Hes not out of the woods completely, but he is on the mend. We saw him yesterday and he looked very well.

Eating wise, well things have been going well. Yesterday I didn't have much. I had a square of chocolate in the morning, some peanuts for lunch and a mashed potato, tomato, jalepeno, frankfurter and cheese concoction that is FAB on slimmingworld diet that I made up. Its just 4 syns.

4 chopped frankfurters - 4 syns
mashed potato - I use instant
chopped tinned tomato
chopped jalepeno's
grated cheese allowance (54g half fat)

Its brilliant. Great for the band as its soft, but great on slimmingworld too.

Today, I had a smoked trout flaked on green salad, and it was yummy. So a syn free day again so far. I am going to do a beef stirfry for tea, and then enjoy a couple of glasses of red whilst watching Big Brother. Yay.