Credit crunched

Looks like the credit crunch has finally caught up with us. Poor Owen got paid off from his job on Friday afternoon. It was just a case of the shop not making enough money, so they couldn't afford to pay him any more. It did come as a bit of a shock at first but we have been in worse positions financially and survived, I'm sure was can do the same again. So we've drawn up an action plan to cut our expenditure. Come Monday morning the Sky package will be cut to the minimum, Setanta sport will be cancelled, the phone will be on incoming calls only and we'll be shopping in Lidl and reduced to clear for our food. It doesn't help that the fuel pump in the car went on Friday morning and is costing £200+ to replace. Nor am I looking forward to telling Jenny the childminder. Grace just loves going there, and Jenny and her family are so lovely. I think I'm more upset about that than about Owen losing his job!!
I'm also planning to get the veg planted in the garden so we can supplement our diet with those later in the summer, and am going to get some "stuff" on eBay so I can fund the rest of the vivarium building without dipping into our day to day household money.
Am off to lurk Down the Lane now and get some frugal tips and motivation!!

Eggs eggs eggs!!!

Yesterday morning I followed my normal routine. Grace and I had a wee play then got up, watched some kids tv, had cereal and toast and a nice cup of coffee for me. Grace ended up wearing more coco pops than she ate and I had no hot water, so I rang mum and arranged to take her round there for a bath. I was going to my boss's leaving lunch and had just washed my hair so I rushed round getting it dried, letting the dog out, checking on the geckos. And I found this.....
I was so shocked and so excited! But then I started to panic a bit. I had all the bits for the incubator but it was not built and I didn't have a thermostat to control the temperature. So I very, VERY nervously lifted them into a box of damp vermiculite, packed the box into a bigger box with loads of styrofoam peanuts and seatbelted it onto the front seat of the car. I bundled Grace into her car seat and raced her round to mums for her bath. I then rushed to the pet shop in Carrick to see if he could incubate for me - he had no incubator!! On the pet shop man's advice I got a matstat to complete the incubator and raced back to the house to get it built. I built the incubator in 3 minutes flat then tore round to mums ans stashed the eggs in her airing cupboard to keep them warm.
I was running so late that I had to get mum to drop Grace to the child minder. I made it to work to pick up the girls just in time. We had a nice lunch out then I took the rest of the day off to come home and sort out the incubator.
It has taken most of today but I managed to get the temps to settle between 81f and 88f. They are still plump and a good colour, so hopefully they will turn out to be fertile and hatch soon