I'm going to do a diary too :)

gerbiljo

Cb- £80 today so £58740

I am lucky that I have the childcare, though my parents have hinted about not wanting to continue this, though I think they've had lots of problems with my grandparents who want them around alot and it is causing friction between them and I think it dawned on them the other day that 'having to look after my daughter' provides a very good excuse, also they come round at the weekends to see her as they miss her for a day, I guess they like to feel its their choice and who can blame them for feeling that way afterall.

Yes having another baby allows another application for flexible working although I know can submit one anytime after a set time after a previous application, I don't think my work would even consider it tbh. I was a bit annoyed as there was someone at another branch who wasn't available for part of their shift when they were called back and now we've all had sort of 'warnings' saying that we have to be accessible 9am til 7pm every day and this has annoyed me as I am on a 48hour contract and this never seems to be acknowledged (which I had to get a solicitor to fight for when I returned to work), however in reality it is very unlikely that this happens so I guess I should just let it go. Do you get the childcare vouchers?

I think my hubby could be a SAHD but in reality he quite likes his job and I don't like mine, plus he gets bored easily and I don't, I need more 'me' time also and it would work better if I got that in the day and then we had joint time in the evenings. I am hoping I can do some temporary work even like 1 evening a week or something and get enough just to keep in the job to some degree. I think I could be some sort of casual stand in for holiday/ sickness and then again that would be enough for me, it all depends if I have another baby and they get annoyed with me again and are inflexible with my hours then it might end in a way where I don't want to fight for my job again.

gerbiljo

Hi Michelle, yes it is a bit hard...its a bit depressing, I have put tight timescales on everything, which means more pressure I guess.

I think the advantage of stoozing for us was that we weren't living off cash in the cupboard, at the end of the month if we'd overspent on shopping etc we had less to live on and my husband could not live like that, its easier for me as I'm more determined, he plods on more. He was getting quite depressed at being in all the time and it was causing tension, with stoozing I guess we spent more, I don't know how much as I haven't worked it out and reverting to this new schedule might prove too much as I have lost way a little with how much we are actually spending a month, however, my husband was much happier without having such tight restrictions and I was happy that the mortgage target was met each month. Time will tell, however if it goes wrong I will quite simply have to skip a mortgage overpayment it is as simple as that the cards need to be cleared, I guess because the end point is quite near it can't be all that catastrophic if its a month later, I just have ambitious plans for a big holiday and then having a baby all in time for our daughter starting school. I tend to forget as well that this challenge was originally going to leave us with 15k at the end of next year and I seem to have just forgotten about that and am trying to make this up from nowhere, in reality that is 1/4 of our annual income so it being eaten up in a 3 year period is ambitious.

Will try and keep updates on the whole picture so I can see back how I'm doing, i think in reality we will clear the cards and mortgage in time but theres a risk to meet these deadlines I will stooze again....theres another two cards I copuld get tho the primary target at the mo is to try and avoid doing this for just living expenses anyway.

Good luck with the stoozing

CathT

gerbiljo wrote: »

Cb- £80 today so £58740



Do you get the childcare vouchers?

Yes so they do help a bit. If i can keep monthly costs to my £240 voucher I think this only costs us £170 due to tax and NI relief and I can subtract the voucher amount from my income for Tax credit purposes which probably helps a little bit.

I have never put in an official flexible working policy request but will definitely do it if I need to.

gerbiljo

thats good about the vouchers, hope they consider a more flexible pattern for you

gerbiljo

Overpayment today of £2615, so target hit there this month, will update credit card bit when payments are due, new total £56125, will go under £56k one wednesday through normal payment:money:

gerbiljo

We did our shopping yesterday leaving us a lovely long weekend yay.

We bought £47 worth and then hubby ran back and got some cakes to hit £50 about 20p over then our £10 came off Fantastic, we even got our daughter one of those little sun suits (hard enough getting suncream on her face plus its age 4-5 so should fit for our next lovely holiday too once this is all done) as they had 25% off clothes, all in all pretty good.

Not much planned today but hubby has been laying bricks and he's used quite alot anyway, doing more today the shape is definately coming up and so we've had to decide where the door position was etc, I think I will be a bit disappointed in the size as we are only seeing the outer edge at the mo, but we know it will only be a small size increase nevertheless improve our quality of life:)

We might be going to a house open day today, the house has 9 acres:eek: but really bad position, it was up for sale for 700k a few years ago and now 450k, we wont move we can't atm but I'd like to get an idea of size so I can see in life whether I'd want that much land. This is all a far away dream of course. Though there is an outside chance that we could buy a family house on hubbys side in the next few years which I think has between 2 and 4 acres (need to google earth it and work it out), but we shall see, atm I cannot think about borrowing more money I think if we did consider it would have to be managable on one salary only as I don't think I'm up to it, oh well we'll see. I wish I could move my current house I love it but the garden is so tiny!

Might try and update my cc challenge soon. Can't wait til wednesday when mortgage comes off!

CathT

Enjoy the house open day, sounds like someone might get a bargain there.

I sometimes wonder if we would start our mortgage journey again in a new dream home but we will stay here and get it how we want it. It will be amazing how quickly we can save once the mortgage is gone/drastically reduced.

And what a great excuse to buy cake! A lot of MFW's seem to have shopping vouchers at the moment, great savings to be made.

gerbiljo

Yeah the house online said the price but when we got there the paperwork said guide price so presuming its going to auction tho there was no date. It was packed. People were talking about making it a housing estate, its such a shame when these areas of land are sold for building as it makes land so much more expensive to buy. I guess if people are going to make thousands or more then thats why and why would they care that I would like a big garden!!!

I agree we could save alot but for us I see that a long way off unfortunately. Our house will be perfect then well probably end up living on a caravan for 10years on a plot of land!! I wish we could just move our house!

Will document the credit cards this week. We did have an unexpected purchase tho.... we bought some tiles for our ensuite floor (which I know is crazy seeing as the extension isnt built) but they were £20 to do the whole floor and discontinued, they look like sand/beach Debating whether to get the tiles for the cats room floor, they have the same ones in black, so I think it would cost about £30??? We'll see. Hubby needs £50 more in building equipment and he reckons that will have him going for a couple of months, he is making amazing progress. In september he has to do another professional membership which he will need to work for so around that time he will have to have a building break, hopefully he will pass and another payrise will be on the way!

I have made very poor use of my time this weekend! Today I'm going to do some cleaning and we might go to the farm

gerbiljo

So today mortgage came out, daily interest=£2.30, monthly=£71.41, £386.10 paid off! new balance is £55735 after a smidgen of rounding down...so gonna update chart now.

Credit card payment comes off on the seventh...will update then tho I know we have over spent on the sainsburys one, I will do a target pass/ fail post I think.

Week isn't going too well, today I just feel motivated to see this thru, usually I get down so hope I can keep it up!!

vl2588

That is an awesome amount to have got down to!