Crunching the numbers

Following on from this post about budgeting, I have this morning just considered our budget for the next three weeks.

(image from en.wikipedia.org)

We start with what we have got [the balance in the bank and any cash], add on what is expected in the next week, and have a total from those figures.  Then I look at what demands there are on that money: quite a few this time - taxing and MOT for the Fiesta [£205], and the bills that are due between now and the 7th June [£250.60], and my NI bill [£68.90].

I take that second total away from the first, and it leaves me with a decent amount.  BUT I have to deduct the amount I still need to put into savings from that [£550] and that leaves us with just short of £95 a week for the next three weeks.  And that is for all discretionary spending - food, fuel, activities, donations, medicines, gardening bits, gifts, toiletries, etc....anything that is not a direct debit or a previously considered bill.....

Out of that weekly amount I know that I have to give the FH £4.50 for his lunch club, and the YFG will have a £10.50 piano lesson two weeks out of the three [one is half-term] and our church giving will also come out of it [usually £5].  That leaves us with £20 spent most weeks before we actually start eating and driving the car.  I know that I put diesel in my car last week so it won't need any this week, but it will be in need of a top-up next week, so that will have to be taken into account.

Given that I have fairly good store cupboards, I think that our food spending could be covered easily by about £40 a week, so I am fairly confident that the savings goal will be achieved.  But all it needs is the Fiesta to fail the MOT to put a spanner in the works, but we will take each event as it comes and just wait to see what happens.  It runs well, is well maintained and looked after and there are no strange noises, so fingers crossed!

Not a penny spent

The coffee morning went well today, and we raised about £150 for the chapel, which was good going.  We had a raffle, cake stall, refreshments and some cards and books of mine for sale.  I sold a wee book for 50p, so I donated that to the raffle in exchange for a strip of tickets, then I sold a box of wrapping paper for a fiver and donated that to the general coffers as well, in exchange for the one cup of tea I managed all morning.  The sponge I made went down very well, but the lemon cake was rather overshadowed by some cream scones that someone made, so I brought that home again and the folk are munching their way through that quite happily!

A short crisis meeting at school, and then home to the FH for a couple of hours.

Tonight has been gymnastics and home again - quite tired.  Back to gym in the morning, washing and cleaning tomorrow afternoon, and I am determined to watch Jack Reacher this Saturday somehow.  Sunday brings a gymnastics competition, and the return of Case Histories at last - all in all, quite a lot to look forward to, and no plans to spend much - I may buy a couple of photos of the YFG if the photographer at the comp takes any good shots, but I might not...

Coffee morning tomorrow

We have several coffee mornings at the chapel each year, and I like to make some cakes to share with the refreshments.  Sometimes I make one of these:

These lemon muffins go down very well too sometimes:

but tonight I have made a couple of different items to ring the changes......

No photos, sorry!  I'm sure you know what a lemon drizzle loaf looks like, and a Victoria sandwich with seedless raspberry jam.  The third one, I have never made before, and it is from a little book of recipes from Lyle's Golden Syrup, called, quite unimaginatively, a Golden Syrup cake.  It called for a cake tin of 30cm, which is quite large, and I didn't have one that big, so it is deeper than it should be, in a 24cm tin......it is still cooking.  Hoping to get to bed today.

Unfortunately I have to report that one of the weaker chicks died this afternoon - it was one of the last two to hatch and spent too long trying to get out of the shell, I think, resulting in a deformed foot.  It was just too weak to survive, which was a shame.  The other slightly deformed one is making progress but is not yet strong enough to go in with the other 9 little cheepies.

The FH's dentist trip went very well.  The tooth was a bit of a terror to get out, but the dentist is excellent and managed it rather well.  The receptionist co-operated with me and I paid the bill rather unobtrusively so that the FH didn't find out how much it cost - he came home from the lunch club mortified yesterday that someone had told him that they had paid £45 to have an extraction, so I wasn't very keen for him to make a scene in the dentist at the price.  It was a little more than £45...but not much more.  

He has been out to the bee club tonight in an advisory capacity, sitting in the bee shed and observing the others as they checked over their hives, and shouting instructions for them!  It is good to see him getting back to these things and being "normal" again as far as he can.

Better go and stick a skewer in this cake and see how it is coming along.

D-Day

The FH has been wanting to get a tooth extracted for some weeks now - I rang for an appointment and had to wait two weeks for a slot, and then when we rang them on the morning of the appointment with his INR result for his warfarin, the level was too high last week!  It was tested again on Tuesday and was at a more acceptable level [2.6], so we are hoping that today will be the day.  I am not a fan of seeing a grown man squirm in a dentist's chair, so I may sit in the waiting room, especially until the bleeding has stopped!  

(image from museumoflondon.org.uk)

Because of his heart conditions, he has to take antibiotics before he has the procedure anyway, so we have that to remember to take first, then we have to be sure to take the INR record booklet with us as well.  He is currently preparing himself a cooked breakfast as he is worried about when he will be able to eat again so wants to have a good breakfast before it all starts.....

A morning at home

Nowhere to go, but plenty to do!  

The house is looking rather scruffy and there is a heap of ironing to get done.  I need to sort out some kind of menu plan for the rest of the week, the weeds are growing rather too nicely with all the wet weather that we are having, and the chicks need cleaning out on a daily basis.  I also need to get into school today for a couple of hours as I have not been in all week to do any of my book cataloguing work and they will be thinking that I have given up!  The cake tins are empty, the FH wants a raffle prize to give to the lunch club, and I think I may have a parcel arriving today.  And then my Dad is supposed to be visiting later on as well... One doesn't have time to get bored, I'll say!

The girls at gym have a competition on Sunday, so I won't be at church but the congregation has a DIY Sunday this week (called a "local arrangement" where the church has to sort out the service or get a preacher themselves - we usually DIY) and another lady is doing the service this week as I won't be there to do it because of the gym competition.  She has asked for some help, so I also need to look at the readings and see if the grey cells can come up with anything for her to do.  It is always different preparing something for someone else to deliver from doing it for yourself as I know that on the day I can change the words slightly or even improvise a little if I am led to change what I had prepared.

I had better get on.  The FH has had his first batch of pills so he can have his breakfast now, then I will go and do the chooks, and get on with the day.  It is not raining here this morning but it is rather chilly.  Hoping that it is warmer where some of you are at least.  Have a good day xx

T dilemma

I have been receiving parcels and vouchers from BzzAgent for some time now, and quite enjoy trying things out for free, writing reviews of the item in return.  We have enjoyed all sorts of things, from bake in the bag sauces to deodorant, and the latest offering is Flora baking oil stuff.  I received the voucher yesterday - since it is sold in the chiller cabinet, one has a voucher to get it "free" rather than it coming through the post.

                                                                                      
           Only trouble is, where would you think the vouchers are redeemable?  And only there.  Exactly.

So, the dilemma was - do I go and get it, or do I not?  The voucher expires before the end of the month, so I thought that it was silly to lose out on a bottle of some oil/baking creation that was £1.98 and might be fun to have a go using, especially as it is supposed to be heart-healthy.

So I went in, went straight for the chilled aisle, got it, and got out!

A good day at work

Yesterday's service went really well and things happened that I hadn't planned but which suited the message perfectly - and that can only have been God's hand on my work.

The planning and preparation I put into that service was a little bit more than usual, for some reason, but I felt that that congregation, yesterday, needed a very strong message.  I haven't a clue what has been happening there [one of the little problems with Methodist preaching is that you get sent to congregations you don't know that well] but I felt that there was a need to hear something strong about coming together in God's love, and about that being a Choice.

(image from goodsalt.com)

It tied in well with the reading from Acts 16 about Paul & Silas in prison in Philippi, and then the earthquake breaking their chains so that they were free, but they Chose not to leave.

I put the hymn "Bind us together" into the service, because it fitted in extremely well with the message.  The congregration have the words projected onto the wall above the preacher's head, but I felt that I had to use the hymn book otherwise I would be turning my back on the congregation to read the words from the wall.  I looked down into my hymn book for a minute to find the hymn, and when I looked up, they had all moved around the church in order to sing the hymn holding hands in a huge circle.  I quickly stepped over to join in, and it was very moving.  So much so, that after the sermon, I asked the organist to play another chorus of the hymn and we all held hands again.  I sang that chorus with tears in my eyes.

I love Ann Voskamp's image of the people of Christ being his Body [nothing new in that] but not his estate - and I used that image yesterday, telling the people that we are the Body, held together with nerve and sinew, not kept apart by barbed wire fences, separated by ditches and dry stone walls.  There is a need, I believe, in that church yesterday for some pulling together.  I don't know why.  But that was what I was called to preach.

And the most gracious blessing is that the congregation told me afterwards that I was right.  "That was a message for me," said one woman; "I will remember that service for a long time," said another, and yet another said, "We needed that."  It was the women who told me what they felt, the men were quieter, but I think that they felt something too.  No one told me why, no one mentioned what had been happening there, or why that word was needed there yesterday, and I did not feel it right to ask. They were appreciative and welcoming of the Word.  And that was enough.