It's official...

... I'm in a fug. A deep, gloomy, London pea souper kind of fug. The sort that refuses to disperse, no matter how frantically I wave my arms around the fog (and this would explain the lack of blogging. Too busy waving to type). Too much fustiness, in fact, around for me even to be bothered to find a pic to post. Oh yes, things are dire indeed. The reason - our trip. Admittedly, we have a nice, relaxing time, recharging our batteries, but the main purpose of the trip was to check out the real estate, or in other words, sort out our tree-change, and hopefully find a splendid, reasonably priced house which we could buy without too many financial difficulties.

Splendid houses abounded. Unfortunately, they were all $200,000 above our price limit. And this is in a country town! A country town which is rather handily situated for treechanging commuters to regional centres on a nice quick train line, I'll admit, but still! And it's not like we're asking for much - after all, there's only ever going to be the three of us, so all we want is a small, 2 bedroom house with enough of a backyard to put in vegie patches and fruit trees, hopefully not next door to skanky neighbours.

And you know who's pushing the prices up? The greedy sods who insist on having second homes. We went to the open-for-inspection for a great home - affordable, in the good part of town, lots of light, nice garden, etc, and whilst we were there this old crone told the agent that she was quite keen on it, as she's looking for her FOURTH INVESTMENT PROPERTY! The Galumph had to hold me back, because I was this close to tackling her to the ground, giving her a good thumping with her walking stick and screaming "Why do you need a fourth home? You're going to die soon, anyway!"

So, anyway, we came home and sat in front of our budget spreadsheet, and figured out ways to save even more. "The life of frugality must be embraced!", declared the Galumph, which in itself is pretty darn depressing, as the ol' belt doesn't have too many more notches to tighten with. With only one income coming in, it's not like we're indulging in fine dining every other night, or throwing money away on fun things. We only eat out twice a year for birthdays, for flips sake! (although in the interest of Operation Save And Become Mega Tight Asses, I've cancelled my own dinner out this year, so if you hear me crying next Wednesday, you'll know why)

Thus the fug. I know, I'm really lucky, and I have so much to be thankful for, but I'm still feeling a little gloomy. Please excuse me. Our treechange, which we thought we happen so soon, seems rather quite far off now. Plus I have a sneaking suspicion that I have my phantom period (since I don't get an actual one any more, but still have all the hormones buzzing around doing their thang like making me teary and hormonal, yes, sorry, faaaar too much info), which isn't helping matters.

So, I'm going to put on my new favourite song, and dance around the loungeroom whilst watching this until I feel better. Any other ideas for fug removal would be appreciated, as long as they are cheap!