Memorygirls - Make Do and Mend

knitwit67

You make my brain hurt:rotfl: Maybe I should read one of your books. Maybe you should try hypnosis to give yours a rest sometimes;), keep up the good work

Memory_Girl

ClootiesMum wrote: »

Excuse me for saying - but WHAT A BLOODY BRILLIANT IDEA

Do you mind if I steal this?

:pYES I DO MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:p But I'll SELL you the idea for £124 :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Wee grey stuff is working overtime trying to come up with ideas now.:j

..................but on another note .............. My stern talking to the cats must have worked cos Boots has just flown past me in the hall with a wee moose in his mouth. Feeling really guilty now because I think I killed the Mammy Moose last night:(

I'm back inside BTW - the hailstones got too much for me. Gotta love Summer in Scotland:cool: NOT!!!!

Memorygirl

Memory_Girl

knitwit67 wrote: »

You make my brain hurt:rotfl: Maybe I should read one of your books. Maybe you should try hypnosis to give yours a rest sometimes;), keep up the good work

Well I could do - but I used to Stage-Manage a Hypnotist. And I'll tell you I trusted him about as far as I could spit him:D.

As for my books - I tell everyone to read the "Speed Reading" section first then the rest of the book will only take you ten minutes - LOL

Memorygirl

PS Good Idea - sell nine of my books and make £124 .......off to add that to my list.

cha97michelle

I am a MFW and when i was working it was not a problem to find bits to pay off the mortgage, but it is getting harder now i'm a SAHM and my income has dropped.

The way i manage it now is that every time i get some money i was not expecting i send it directly to the mortgage. Some of this is quidco. I have also joined a couple of the bingo sites where they pay you cashback to join and then have free games and scratchcards every day on their sites. I also ebay like a mad thing and budget tightly, and more recently i have also took on some mystery shopping jobs. I also have a set budget for certain bills like the entertainment package (TV/phone line rental and call plus broadband) and DH's mobile bill, and when we come under budget i transfer the difference across. I also pay my monthly interest on the current account balance in, which is usually a £1 or 2.

We are also collecting cans, and get my family to save them. My mum has a shop, so i don't know how she gets so many for me, but i am not complaining. When we exchange them for cash it won't be much but it will go to the mortgage too. I had a few scraps of gold knocking round and they went too.

I cut my own hair, and most of my clothes are presents. I accept any hand me downs people offer for the kids. DH cuts his and the kids hair.

We shop at a local place which sells food bordering on out of date, and they sell frozen food too. Every weekend they have bargains, so we shop then. This week they are selling frozen joints of ham for 99p each, and 36 pots of toffee ice cream for a £1. Can't beat it. Sometimes they even give food away for free if it past its date completely.

I find reading the threads on the MFW board and the DFW board so inspiring. Perhaps you should start a thread where you ask people to suggest ideas for you to raise £124 x1000.

Anyway, my point is, if all you can do is send your small savings, this does work. I have paid nearly £1500 extra on top of my mortgae payments this year using methods like those above.

I believe in you.

Memory_Girl

Without quoting your whole response above, can I just say one thing

Michelle - you are my Hero!!

Your brilliant ideas have so inspired me that I have printed off your post and pinned it upon my planning wall for daily inspiration. You're right in that its the daily pennies that will conquer this mountain of a mortgage - not some random massive payment.

Righto!!! next week I reach my target of having a £500 buffer in my current account. From that point on, every Friday I will transfer every penny over £500 into my savings account, then when I reach a £124 target I can withdraw the money and colour in one of the leaves of my "Money Tree" - let me explain

I took an A1 sheet of paper last night and drew on it a trunk of a tree - with two huge limbs growing on it - One for debt, one for mortgage. I've got ten branches on the mortgage limb, with ten twigs, each with ten leaves. Every time I pay in £124 I can colour in my leaf in a beautiful colour. Every time I pay off £110 of my debt I can colour in a leaf on the other side. I want to make sure I am always aware that I am making little daily steps towards geting to my goals. .............. and OK there wasn't much on telly last night I wanted to watch:D

Things are afoot on the school front. Definite descision being made on the 8th of June - gulp!!! but I feel very very positive. Loads of phone calls flying around .... my brain is whizzing and I'm being so brave that I'm beginning to scare myself.:eek:

On the moneysaving front - I made strawberry smoothie ice-lollies for the kids last night - BIG HIT!!! I am so a popular Mummy:D Tonight eldest DS has decreed we are to have a popcorn and video night - he has just acquired a whole series of the Muppets so I'm sure I can guess what the movie is going to be "ma-na ma-na doo doo doo-do doo!!!" So I will get away with sausage, egg n Slimming World chips for tea - and huge bowls of popcorn with jugs of squash:)

Job for today - find a successful business person to help me write a "proper business plan" for the school (thats one that actually works rather than the fiction you have to write for banks:rotfl:)

Shopping for the weekend consists of Milk only - although I have a litre left so may get away until Sunday.

Much frugalness

Memorygirl

ClootiesMum

Hi folks,

Michelle - yes, you are an inspiration

Memory Girl - your poster sounds wonderful - and it'll be good for the boys as well having something they can see too. Just as well the TV was rubbish last night.

Best of luck with the school & enjoy the Muppets tonight.....

cha97michelle

Thanks both of you. It's just me. I am a bit over zealous about paying off my mortgage and i think i probably bore some people sometimes. I try and keep my major mumbles for my own diary on MFW. I try to do a little bit of something every day, and i know i will get there. In an ideal world that would be very soon, but i just keep plodding.

I love the sound of that tree. It is nicely balanced for all you want to achieve as well.

I don't feel like anyone's hero. :rotfl:I know how extremely priveliged i am to be able to stay at home with my kids and not be in debt, and to have DH to support me. Anyone who can do it alone and be successful at it like you are is my hero.

I can't wait to hear what you do next.

Memory_Girl

I'm so impressed by your signature Michelle - you have inspired me to knuckle down and make my last £9.00 odd last as long as I can. Helped of course that eldest DS is goint to Grannies for a sleepover tonight and won't be back until tea-time tomorrow.

Gran gave me a pound for the littlie to get something with yesterday - so off we beedled to the local Charity shop thats doing 8 videos for a pound. Back home with 4 Beatrix Potter animations and 4 Winnie the Pooh - I'm trying to extend his viewing from "The Singing Kettle".

The lady in the shop was sorting through some donations and said to me "look at what some people give - do they think we can sell random bits of plastic?. Wonder what this was?" as she lobs a plate sized plastic thing into the bin. I fished it out ............ and thought ........... no it couldn't be?????????? Its a ravioli maker. And I've been following them on ebay and the metal ones goe for more than my pocket money. So she sold it to me for 10p - just because I knew what it was:j

Now full of plans for ravioli stuffings from garden produce - I've got pasta maker, which I practiced with until I could make perfect pasta so I'm confident in making little ravioli parcels that I can freeze for tasty suppers later in the year.

Butternut squash and ginger in pork butter
HM Curd cheese and chive
HM Curd Cheese and spinach
Hm Curd Cheese and Basil
Minced beef and garlic in tomato sauce
Swiss chard and parmesan
Pea and Mint
Broad Bean and Bacon


Oh!!! I need to find a chest freezer soon and have a full on pasta production run:rotfl: Because I am pretty certain I can make the ravioli, open freeze on a tray and then bag up - so that they "free-flow" That way I just take out how many we need and pop into boiling water for a few minutes - and suppers done. Seeemples!!!!!!

Oh I love my gadgets - having said that I do use them to save the pennies and as most were charity shop bargains or gifts I don't grudge them the space.

Making pancakes for the boys breakfast - although they are eating them just as fast I am am cooking them - hopefully there will be some left over for eledest to take with him later.

I was hoping for a NSD - but having used milk to make pancakes I am going to go to LIDL foor some white stuff later - so spends of £1.09 coming up.

Plans for the weeken

Milk Run
Change bedding and 2 second wash
Pin out first wash
Weedkill top bit of garden
Cut down rest of bottles to use as planters
Ironing - YUCK!!!
Fill planters with compost / vermiculite mix
Pot up peas
Continue my crochet cushion project
Shopping from home - meal plans for as long as possible
Gazpacho soup for dinner
Hoover downstairs
Scrub livingroom table (cheerios from supper last night stuck on top - yuck)
Get ready to start packing up the school tomorrow


Whew!!!!!!!!!!!

well off I go - like one of Snow Whites little men.

Have a great day all

Memorygirl

Memory_Girl

Been out in the garden again - where I seem to do most of my thinking these days.

My mortgage has got 23 years left to run - I owe £124000, so I make that £14.77 per day to pay it off in the time period. TOO MUCH!! I cried..... but........... "Give yourself a break Memorygirl":p It's too much because you are on benefits - set yourself another target and work your way up to £14.77 over the years as you get back to work.

So decisions, descisions........................

My 1/1000 project is going to be "paying" my savings account the princely sum of £4.13 FIRST THING EVERY MORNING for 30 days to make my first £124 towards paying off the capital. If I can do this for 10 whole months I could actually pay a whole 1% off the mortgage - but 30 days first.

This is partly inspired by the often chanted "personal development" mantra of "Pay Yourself First" - but also from the Payment a Day thread here. I need to get into a positive (if small) habit to start chipping away at the mortgage. I need to feel that I am doing something every day to create a stable future for us.

So I'm off to make my first transfer - 1/30th of 1/1000th of a goal - but its a step towards that shinnig future nevertheless.

Beginnning to think I've lost the plot - :rotfl:

Memorygirl

ClootiesMum

What a brilliant first of 1000 ideas - and it's so do-able. And it's a brilliantly simple idea - how do you come up with all these wonderful thoughts? When I'm in the garden all I seem to think is, "Is that a weed or a plant?"