Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

lulabelle1

MissOptimistic wrote: »

Hi Newgirly, on the subject of homemade gifts I thought I would share something I did this year for my two sons which went down really well. I went onto the 'wordle' website and you enter a list of words, the first being the persons name, and then you enter as many words as you want that you associate with them, so in my boys case, their nickname, fave food, colour, interests etc. you can play around with the layout, fonts and colours, so I made their name in the largest font, and it arranges them into a trendy 'word picture' I printed them out, put them into a sleek black certificate frame which was a couple of pounds and hey presto! My 12 yr old actually said he started to fill up when he saw it as it was so personal. A nice idea that you could do for anyone x

Brilliant! I have seen one of these in my sisters house.... I didn't realise that there was a website for this. I'm going to make a note and have a think about who I can do these for next year...... Thanks! X

lulabelle1

Newgirly - the presen a month idea is great, I shall be watching your diary for tips. I'm all for saving money and I think homemade gifts may actually be nicer than some of the rubbish we end of buying for the sake of it in the shops.

MissOptimistic

Little tip when you go on the wordle website, if you click on 'advanced' you can choose the sizes of the words by doing this
Name:40
Pink:20
Cuddles:10
The number being the font size, you get my drift!
I like the idea of homemade pressies too, a couple of years ago I made a cushion for my niece onto which I had appliqued her name.

newgirly

Urgh, still not feeling well, and my laptop is on its last legs so I am using dh's old one which he takes to work with him most days We do have a new pc but its in the cold conservatory on a desk with a hard chair, not so conducive to wasting hours on mse :rotfl:

Today I'm taking down the dec's , the house needs a good clean and I can't see the point inleaving them up when I will have to do it all again in 2 days, its nice to start new year with a clean xmas free house! I should go out and buy some fresh flowers really, it all looks a bit sad when its over.

Yesterday I went to the shopping centre, mainly as I had serious cabin fever, we only stayed and hour though as I felt rough, but I did get a watch with the money dh gave me for xmas, its one that doesn't need a battery and it was half price, so a bit mse but I was good and didn't look at any sales this year, even boots, so I will have an airing cupboard free of xmas gift sets.

I'm thinking of keeping an online spending diary, a fellow mse'er pointed me to one last year, but I didn't keep it up, does anyone use one that they can recommend? Its a bit scary to see how much money goes on coffee etc. but it would be fascinating to see the difference between what I spend and what I think I spend!

nattypants

Hi newgirly, I use a free app called Spending Tracker. There's quite possibly loads of better ones out there, however I've been really good at entering all spends, and it was free:D

I hope you feel better soon - fresh flowers are always a great purchase to cheer the place up:)

*Jellie*

I use a spending tracker app too. I started on a free one but didn't use it for long as it didn't work in the way I wanted. I'm about to start using a paid one.

newgirly

Ooh thanks guys, I'm off to have look!

newgirly

Mmm, my computer won't allow anything from that budgeting site, I might have to look for another.

I have had a bit of success today though, I am due to cancel our usual 3 months half price before xmas sky movie package (mean mum ) but thought I would try getting rid of the whole lot :eek: This would be a major thing in our household! Anyway, once I found out you can't still record or pause decided against it, however by this time the nice sky lady had offered me sky for £5 pm for 3 months , plus if I cancel movies with from today will refund most of the DD that came out this morning :T So instead of £30 per month I will be paying £2.90 in total for 3 months , whoo hoo!

I won't be so popular once the kids find out the movies have gone again though, thay moan every year :rotfl:

At the other end of the scale I have just renewed our merlin annual passes for next year, and that was not so cheap.:o £442 this year. They currently have LOTS of money off, however this saving was negated by the fact the twins are now 12 so we can't all be on the family ticket. I also upgraded to a premium one for me so I can get free parking for only another £21 (some park charge £6 a day) all in all not too bad and I think we saved something like £150 buying in the sale after xmas than if we renewed in april.

I've stuck it on the new stoozing cc and have the money in april from a spare wages week from dh, but it would be nice to try and earn enough before then to pay for them.

newgirly

So far off my new years want-to-do list I have :

Used nearly a whole ball of wool for a scarf then unraveled it as it grew by too many stitches :rotfl:

Cleared 12 binbags from the loft, took 3 to the charity shop, recycled one at the tip and binned the rest, it feels good

Agreed with best friend to try and lose weight in Jan and exercise more (the same friend whom I shared the evil personal trainer with last year )

Tomorrow I need to :
1). Get a calendar
2).get a sealed pot
3). try and stop dh insisting on cinema AND h*rvester as one is a treat but two is too expensive.:D

lulabelle1

You've had a busy day - well done! I've been a lazy moo most of the day.....