Our attempt at being MF!!

CathT

Happy new year everyone, we had a very quiet evening at home but very enjoyable.

Was hoping to have some firm targets in place but not got that far. I have however paid another £150 off cc which we would likely have spent on the night out we didn't go on. Also found £35 in an account as paid car insurance in full and had already sent money for direct debit which was cancelled. Took the children to spend their Christmas money and ds chose a huge lego police set and dd bought some clothes. We were going to pop to the zoo but the children weren't keep so we went home and built lego and played board games instead. That's going to be pretty much what we do today too and I am embracing my last lazy day! Working 3 days this week and that early alarm is going to be a huge shock to my system!

50p on y0ugov this morning and wondering if we can stick to a £100 cash food budget until payday. DH pay date is changing this month (9 days later) but am confident we can get to my payday in 3 weeks. Freezer is full and we eat fairly cheaply anyway. As we have no events or outings planned this may result in another £150 OP/savings which would be fab.

apple_muncher

Happy new year Cath!

I know what you mean about the alarm clock being a shock tomorrow... I'm not looking forward to it very much...

newgirly

Happy new year cath

CathT

Thanks Apple and Newgirly, I did not enjoy getting up early at all! Am counting down my remaining working days already!

Not much happening money wise but did a 25p survey on y0ugov yesterday and DH has kicked off the food spends doing a small top up shop today. He confessed to wanting to stray from the list but didn't due to our challenge! £5.67/£100 spent. Hoping for a few nsd's now to give us a bit of a head start.

Mortgage balance updated and was less than my spreadsheet which is always a bonus!

greent

Happy New Year! Boo to alarm clocks! (one of my boys went back to school yesterday, so I had a 6.20 alarm - NOT nice after a very relaxed 2.5 weeks! )
x

pinkypig

Happy New Year Cath. Glad you survived the alarm. I'm back tomorrow after a long school holiday. Debatable if it will be me or the class that'll be more bewildered:rotfl:
Have a great 2018 xx

michelle09

Happy New Year Cath! The alarm clocks are definitely not fun, early shift tomorrow so up at 5am. Urgh.

Well done to your DH. He's learned well.

CathT

I don't miss my early starts with long days Michelle. Getting the children ready to leave the house for 6:45am was not fun!

Well I'm finished for the week now

Have caught up with things in work and partly resolved an IT issue which hopefully means I can access my holidays and book some regular long weekends off with my remaining leave.

50p on y0ugov, current account checked and no further food spends so we are still on £5.67 for the month. I do need to do a food shop tomorrow but I'm going to check cupboards and freezer first and meal plan. I came home to find dh had made a soup with veg I didn't even realise we had. That will provide lunch for a few days.:j

De-cluttering challenge going well, the idea is that you delcutter 1 item on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd etc and by the end of January will have got rid of 496 items! So far I have got rid of 2 hand creams, a body lotion, talc, emolient, hair serum, perfume set box, box from christmas gift, another pot of cream and a broken plastic storage box. It is possible to do the challenge in reverse starting with 31 items on the 1st so if I can declutter 135 items tomorrow I will be on track for that! Think seeing quicker results will be more motivating. I found myself scanning ds's bedroom whilst he was reading to me at bedtime! :rotfl:

Tomorrow needs to be productive but hopefully I won't be woken too early as I'm shattered and dreaming of a 7:30am (at the earliest) wake up call! I need to take the tree down as it's usually away by now but I haven't got fed up of it this year! Some decs have been put away but I need to do the rest. Ds wants to build some more lego and I think a couple of hours in the zoo might be planned too.

Fingers crossed i strike the balance between getting everything done and also feeling like I have had a day off!

CathT

Well the children woke my at 7:15am so I shouldn't complain. Long gone are the days of having a toddler who thinks 4am is playtime!

Continued with my decluttering challenge and 135 items have left the house! This was a mixture of old clothes of ds which we have passed onto his cousins, an old radiator, some Christmas decorations and also some broken bits of toys). I now only have 26 items to do tomorrow to remain on track.

We popped to the zoo for a couple of hours this afternoon but due to the rain visited a lot of the inside enclosures! It was fairly busy though and I assumed everyone there was a member. We had lunch before we left and as we didn't stop when there we saw a lot during our short time there.

Kitchen cleaned, food shop done and downstairs hoovered. Just need to dust and light some candles and we will be all set for wine and Peaky Blinders!

Food spend challenge 28.85/100

pinkypig

Busy and efficient as always Cath - you've inspired me to declutter too! I'm going to start with the bookcase :eek:

Enjoy your weekend xx