The Mortgage Free in Three - Take 2 challenge (MFiT-T2)

taxi73

I also agree its when they are at school they become brand aware.
I also believe that showing children how to shop in a supermarket and the pros cons on different financial products and how they work when old enough to understand is a great life lesson.

gerbiljo

weezl74... i am in a similar situation to you although i am not pregnant. our little girl is 14months. we have decided to really over pay and scrimp ourselves to do so, this will allow us hopefully to be mortgage free before our little girl is 5. we have just had a holiday and are going to hold off for a while on further holidays. we have been lucky with the interest rate and after maternity leave my work would not allow me to work part time and i could not afford to not work at all. so we have tried to turn this into a positive as we both earn ok money. i feel by the time our daughter is aware of money we will be able to give her more and i think she will appreciate it more then than now, afterall they prefer the wrapping paper to the presents! hopefully when we are mortgage free we can have another baby and i can be a 'stay at home mum'! so for us we are tightening our belts as much as poss and just enjoying our time together and making as huge over payments as we can. i think when children are older you have to strike the balance better

i have skinted ourselves this month by over paying more than we can afford so my husband isnt too happy with me! but he will appreciate it in the end (i am the driving force of the overpayments!)

FunnyRabbit

taxi73 wrote: »

I also agree its when they are at school they become brand aware.
I also believe that showing children how to shop in a supermarket and the pros cons on different financial products and how they work when old enough to understand is a great life lesson.

I agree - as a family we have our main shopping and then we all are allowed 1 treat, for me its normally chocolate, DH's is beer and then DS can choose something too.

He also gets £2 pocket money a week and is allowed to spend it on what he likes, but if he wants something more expensive he has to save, he has a bank book too so he can see how much he is saving and is quite proud of his flourishing balance :rolleyes:.

At the moment he isnt clothes brand aware, but he likes to give Nintendo my hard earned money and would buy Wii and DS games when he can!

ninky_2

#86 reporting for duty. 90k now down to 80k.:j

cazmanian_minx

Crumbs Ninky, that's some going!! Well done!

cha97michelle

Oh well done Ninky. How did you manage that much?

Quiet so far for me. I am still paying my interest off on a daily basis where i can, and my balance is about £100 less than where it would have been without doing this. I was doing some calculations last night. My first target for the 12/03/10 is to get the mortgage to £33,750.50. I need to find an extra £650.02 to get here between now and then. We are due some money back from Quidco, and also there are the 2 council tax free months. Unfortunately, we also need to put another car through the MOT (we did mine yesterday), have spends for 5 days at centre parcs in Feb, also my Mum's 50 th birthday and my dads birthday in Feb. It is going to be interesting but we can only try. I will do all i can within my capabilities, which at the minute are more budget stretching rather than earning.


If i don't make it though, i won't stress about it as we are only a little way in and it will get easier i am sure.


weezl my DS1 is not brand aware in any way. He was 3 last October. He was perfectly happy with just his stocking presents on christmas morning, but ecstatic with everything else. My mum got him a nintendo DS for xmas, and that was only because his cousin has one and he was looking on at it enviously. In reality, he mainly uses it to write on the screen with the pen, so a posh magna doodle. I am sure it is school that does it to them. I am making the most of the bit now where they aren't bothered. School kids can be mean too. I don't want my choices then to affect them in terms of them being picked on for what they don't have. My nephew was picked on when changing for PE as his pants had pictures of Noddy on. This was in his first year of primary.

At the minute, all mine want is my time, and my attention. They are happy to do housework and bake and do crafts with me. We do the occasional playgroup to get out costing a few quid for both of them. I occasionally buy my DS1 the cbeebies mag at £1.95 weekly as it is the only thing he asks for and it provides enough entertainment to be worth it. Happiest days are spent in the garden or indulging in our hobby of geocaching which has no cost whatsoever. Bad weather can mean the occasional trip to softplay, but that is usually about £10 including a drink, and not more than once a month. I'm sure your boys will enjoy the foraging and gardening too. Think on it as we are setting them up for life rather than depriving them. My 3yo can make a simple sandwich, can understand basic cooking techniques and gardening techniques, and is very knowledgable for his age.

taxi73

ninky wrote: »

#86 reporting for duty. 90k now down to 80k.:j

wow..thats fantastic:t:t:t:t:t:t

taxi73

cha97michelle wrote: »

Oh well done Ninky. How did you manage that much?

Quiet so far for me. I am still paying my interest off on a daily basis where i can, and my balance is about £100 less than where it would have been without doing this. I was doing some calculations last night. My first target for the 12/03/10 is to get the mortgage to £33,750.50. I need to find an extra £650.02 to get here between now and then. We are due some money back from Quidco, and also there are the 2 council tax free months. Unfortunately, we also need to put another car through the MOT (we did mine yesterday), have spends for 5 days at centre parcs in Feb, also my Mum's 50 th birthday and my dads birthday in Feb. It is going to be interesting but we can only try. I will do all i can within my capabilities, which at the minute are more budget stretching rather than earning.


If i don't make it though, i won't stress about it as we are only a little way in and it will get easier i am sure.


weezl my DS1 is not brand aware in any way. He was 3 last October. He was perfectly happy with just his stocking presents on christmas morning, but ecstatic with everything else. My mum got him a nintendo DS for xmas, and that was only because his cousin has one and he was looking on at it enviously. In reality, he mainly uses it to write on the screen with the pen, so a posh magna doodle. I am sure it is school that does it to them. I am making the most of the bit now where they aren't bothered. School kids can be mean too. I don't want my choices then to affect them in terms of them being picked on for what they don't have. My nephew was picked on when changing for PE as his pants had pictures of Noddy on. This was in his first year of primary.

At the minute, all mine want is my time, and my attention. They are happy to do housework and bake and do crafts with me. We do the occasional playgroup to get out costing a few quid for both of them. I occasionally buy my DS1 the cbeebies mag at £1.95 weekly as it is the only thing he asks for and it provides enough entertainment to be worth it. Happiest days are spent in the garden or indulging in our hobby of geocaching which has no cost whatsoever. Bad weather can mean the occasional trip to softplay, but that is usually about £10 including a drink, and not more than once a month. I'm sure your boys will enjoy the foraging and gardening too. Think on it as we are setting them up for life rather than depriving them. My 3yo can make a simple sandwich, can understand basic cooking techniques and gardening techniques, and is very knowledgable for his age.

All valuable skills
What is geocaching please

Kaz2904

Geocaching is a bit like orienteering as far as I understand it. There is a website which is dedicated to this. You enter details of the area you would like to walk and it will bring up co-ordinates for a cache. You then go and find it. I did look at this briefly once but just haven't had the time to explore it further. It looks like something we would enjoy as a family.
We are lucky to live in a beautiful area and go out walking regularly even if it is just a meander through the woods to pick up leaves and dinosaur bones (sticks!). We go picking in the late summer and autumn and then turn our pickings into eatings!
My DD has just turned 8 and she wanted an ipod for her birthday. We said no, too expensive and too easily breakable. We managed to find an mp4 player on ebay for £17. It never arrived so I got my money back and she chose to pool all of her birthday money and her saved up pocket money and look on ebay for a second hand one. She was able to get a 30gig ipod for £65. Well impressed! We then bought her a docking station for Christmas that was £79.99 but she didn't get loads of other stuff from us.
She is very concious of money and will happily get something in a different colour or with different laces as long as she can get what she wants. She got Animal boots from ebay as they looked like uggs and were much cheaper. She then got Vans trainers with yellow /black checked laces instead of pink and saved £25 on them. She knows that if she will adjust to something cheaper then we will accommodate her rather than insisting on getting uggs and us refusing to buy her anything (horrible things they are!).

My 6 yr old isn't into brands really but has requested boxer shorts. Not an easy feat as he's sooooooo skinny!

Like others, I feel it is about striking a balance!

taxi73

thanks for that Kaz very interesting.
My DGS aged 5 got a DS off us as he wanted one due to his friends on the school bus having them.It was the only thing he wanted.
That was a one off as next year as his mum couldn't afford it ...I have asked her to put money away next year for his stuff...it's hard when they start schoolbut balance is the key and I'm doing no favours to her if I buy him everything he wants!!