Well, some of my wish has come true - I am getting a bit more late summer - lovely day today and yesterday - might even go to the beach tomorrow. And I am working on Conscience again and it's looking quite good.
Next week I think may be a bit dominated by working on Clive and Naomi's garden - well, it's all money.
I have been too dominated by negatives, about not having any money (we've got enough for the next 6 weeks I guess) and about the fact that "my agent" has not yet looked at the re-write. Going ahead with something and persisting must be a good thing. (Unless it's something very stupid of course). What will happen to us in mid-October if Mark has not got work? I don't know, we can borrow a little bit from Ned's funds... but I have prayed that we will not have to.
I have a persistent fantasy that if we could obtain £250,000 from somewhere (the lottery being the only likely source of such money) we could pay off the debts, carry out the repairs and re-decoration of the house (including the slightly improved conservatory) have a couple of short holidays and have a few thousand to tuck away for another rainy day. We have agreed that we will never have credit cards again. We have now learned to live within our means and not get overdrawn - although this has in some cases been a matter of providence. If Mark's last payment hadn't come in early, we wouldn't have been able to afford to have the car serviced, and if we hadn't received an extra payment from the Tax Credits our tiny holiday would have had to be even less luxurious. However, if we actually had some savings, we wouldn't need to get into debt. Since we lost our credit facilities, we have borrowed around £6,000 from Ned - but most of this was a large tax payment for the year to April 2010 - which was overdue, that was our last "good" year before the recession, some money to make Christmas sufficiently festive - and a couple of thousand to tide us over when there were long gaps between jobs (January to April in other words). We have not been living extravagantly. The only major source of real economies we could make would be take-aways - we have had a few - never more than one a week, but it's still £20-40 depending on what one gets. If we put away £30 in savings every time we didn't have one - that would sort out Christmas I think. Actually, that is a terrific amount of money - it's 15 weeks until Christmas so it would be £450 - and a year's worth would be £1500 - not enough for a holiday - but perhaps could get us to a gite in France without all the meals etc.
However, we don't have a takeaway or a meal out every week - we had quite a few at the end of the last month because of the festival etc. But now we are back to normal - that is, normal for winter, i.e. the onset of the comfort food season. This makes me nervous - but I am happy with nourishing soups on the whole - and that should do me. Anyway, on the WW diet you can eat baked potatoes and all sorts of things. It's lucky I'm not a pudding fiend. The diet was going well, but I had a setback due to the holiday. A week without tracking what I ate - and lots of fish and chips and curry. Bound to be bad. I put on 4.5lbs... unbelieveable - I don't think this is serious weight, perma-fat - because I didn't actually feel fatter, I was feeling thinner in fact, so I expect next week to have lost all that, plus a little bit more. But this is for the diet bore blog.
Anyway, having spent several weeks in paralysed anxiety, I am now feeling energetic and happy again. Hurray!
Next week I think may be a bit dominated by working on Clive and Naomi's garden - well, it's all money.
I have been too dominated by negatives, about not having any money (we've got enough for the next 6 weeks I guess) and about the fact that "my agent" has not yet looked at the re-write. Going ahead with something and persisting must be a good thing. (Unless it's something very stupid of course). What will happen to us in mid-October if Mark has not got work? I don't know, we can borrow a little bit from Ned's funds... but I have prayed that we will not have to.
I have a persistent fantasy that if we could obtain £250,000 from somewhere (the lottery being the only likely source of such money) we could pay off the debts, carry out the repairs and re-decoration of the house (including the slightly improved conservatory) have a couple of short holidays and have a few thousand to tuck away for another rainy day. We have agreed that we will never have credit cards again. We have now learned to live within our means and not get overdrawn - although this has in some cases been a matter of providence. If Mark's last payment hadn't come in early, we wouldn't have been able to afford to have the car serviced, and if we hadn't received an extra payment from the Tax Credits our tiny holiday would have had to be even less luxurious. However, if we actually had some savings, we wouldn't need to get into debt. Since we lost our credit facilities, we have borrowed around £6,000 from Ned - but most of this was a large tax payment for the year to April 2010 - which was overdue, that was our last "good" year before the recession, some money to make Christmas sufficiently festive - and a couple of thousand to tide us over when there were long gaps between jobs (January to April in other words). We have not been living extravagantly. The only major source of real economies we could make would be take-aways - we have had a few - never more than one a week, but it's still £20-40 depending on what one gets. If we put away £30 in savings every time we didn't have one - that would sort out Christmas I think. Actually, that is a terrific amount of money - it's 15 weeks until Christmas so it would be £450 - and a year's worth would be £1500 - not enough for a holiday - but perhaps could get us to a gite in France without all the meals etc.
However, we don't have a takeaway or a meal out every week - we had quite a few at the end of the last month because of the festival etc. But now we are back to normal - that is, normal for winter, i.e. the onset of the comfort food season. This makes me nervous - but I am happy with nourishing soups on the whole - and that should do me. Anyway, on the WW diet you can eat baked potatoes and all sorts of things. It's lucky I'm not a pudding fiend. The diet was going well, but I had a setback due to the holiday. A week without tracking what I ate - and lots of fish and chips and curry. Bound to be bad. I put on 4.5lbs... unbelieveable - I don't think this is serious weight, perma-fat - because I didn't actually feel fatter, I was feeling thinner in fact, so I expect next week to have lost all that, plus a little bit more. But this is for the diet bore blog.
Anyway, having spent several weeks in paralysed anxiety, I am now feeling energetic and happy again. Hurray!
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