Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

I've had some great news, I applied for a new role and work and I've got the job! More hours, so more money but more importantly no more weekends, so I can enjoy a bit more family time! I've also managed to sell a few more things so I have actually managed to break my £7.5k total for the month! Happy, happy, happy!

White_Iris

Feeling very MSE at the moment, yesterday I cut the childrens hair and both ended up looking great, so quite a few pennies saved there, the other evening it was super chilly for July but instead of putting the heating on we lit the woodburner - more effort required but no money spent - and yesterday I spent the afternoon with DD cleaning and decluttering the childrens bedrooms and sorting out their clothes and school uniforms. I now have tidy cupboards and a big bag for charity.

Today is pay day and I was thinking of taking the children to a soft play area but for the three of us it would cost about £10 plus drinks/snacks (they don't let you take your own :mad:) however it's quite a nice day so we'll go to the park instead. Plus they've been invited to a birthday party in about a week which is at a big themed indoor play area, so we can wait for that and spend our money on a different day out instead. :money:

sweetpea26

Congratulations on your new role at work WI and your superb moneysaving approach. You have achieved so much .. have you read the first page of your diary recently?

White_Iris

sweetpea26 wrote: »

You have achieved so much .. have you read the first page of your diary recently?

Wow, things really have changed a lot! :rotfl:

edwink

Hi WI


I have just been reading your diary. So much to read and catch up on!! Just to say well done to you and all the effort you have been putting in to getting your house deposit etc. What a remarkable achievement!! You sound so happy about it all too which is nice to read!!


Well done too on the little earnings you have made through e*ay and F*cebook!! Every little helps eh!!!


Keep going!!!


Edwink x

White_Iris

Just a quick catch up, holidays are flying by and money is flying out of the bank equally quickly :eek: Haven't managed to save as much as I had hoped, the deposit pot is currently at £7815, so nearly £200 short of my target for August. Better pull my socks up in September! We now have our mortgage offer in place and the build is on track, so it's just the deposit we need now. :cool:

Confession time - I've been using the credit card a tiny bit and currently need to pay back about £100 on pay day. I haven't done any overtime this month but I will have had three weeks of my new shifts, so my salary this month should be higher than usual but September will be extremely frugal.

White_Iris

White_Iris wrote: »

Haven't managed to save as much as I had hoped, the deposit pot is currently at £7815, so nearly £200 short of my target for August. Better pull my socks up in September!

We didn't manage to save any more during August so the months total was £7815. However we have been given some money from my parents to cover the remainder of the deposit. :j They have both recently taken lump sums from their pensions and have kindly gifted some to us - we are feeling very blessed and grateful right now. :A

White_Iris wrote: »

Confession time - I've been using the credit card a tiny bit and currently need to pay back about £100 on pay day. I haven't done any overtime this month but I will have had three weeks of my new shifts, so my salary this month should be higher than usual but September will be extremely frugal.

I did have more than usual in my pay check but almost all of the extra went to repay the credit card, however as I don't need to save for the house deposit any more I'm feeling quite wealthy at the moment! We do still have to pay for all the other moving costs though, and while we do have a secondary pot of savings for this, we still have to be careful with our spending. I'm going to get some bits listed on eBay tomorrow and I also need to make a list of upcoming expenses (including Christmas :eek:).

White_Iris

So, I've managed to list some bits on eBay and have made almost £50 from them and I've also made £40 selling things on our local Facebook group. The eBay money is going to get left in my PayPal account and go towards a new bed for DD and will get topped up with rewards from surveys and any other eBay sales. Some of the Facebook money has gone towards a Christmas meat hamper from our local butcher and the rest will be used for a night out on Saturday, which should make it very low spend. :-)

Getting back in the swing of work and school but it's pretty tiring trying to juggle everything. Hat's off to any parents that work full time, especially single parents. You guys deserve a medal for doing both!

I'm currently trying to get ready for the move. We haven't been given a completion date yet but we should be exchanging contracts in the next few days and the people on site seem to think they are about a month ahead of schedule, so we could be looking at November! We've decided which pieces of furniture we don't need and I'm slowly starting to sell them or give them away, as well as having a general declutter and packing away things we can live without for a few months. I've also decided to give some of the furniture we are keeping a bit of a facelift with some chalk paint, so I'm also trying to get that done while family life goes on around it. I need to get it done while I have the space to spread out in the dining room, as I won't have that luxury once we move.

White_Iris

White_Iris wrote: »

I'm currently trying to get ready for the move. We haven't been given a completion date yet but we should be exchanging contracts in the next few days and the people on site seem to think they are about a month ahead of schedule, so we could be looking at November!

We've exchanged contracts (hooray!) but they've given us a provisional completion date of 18th December (Boo!). Apparently it's all down to when the utility companies come and connect up the site. I cried when they told us, that is the worst possible date for us. Not only is it a week before Christmas and I was really hoping to be in and settled for Christmas day, but we're going away that weekend and won't be back until the following Monday night. :eek: Fingers crossed for an early completion.

We've been totting up what we owe for the extras we've opted for and although we have budgeted for most of it, we didn't have money for flooring. We knew right from the start that this would have to go on the dreaded credit card and be paid back at a later date but it's still horrible to see a large balance on our previously clear card. We opted for good quality flooring as we both felt it would be a false economy to go for the cheapest option and have to replace some or all of it in a few years but still...wow...flooring is expensive!

So although we might not be moving for another 2 months, I'm still purging and packing. It'll look like we're living in a squat soon but it will make the move easier, especially if we're doing it just before Christmas. The children are both getting new beds, so we're not taking the old beds with us and our bed has been moved so many times, we don't think it will cope with another move, so we're ditching that too, so we'll all be sleeping on mattresses on the floor soon! :rotfl:

White_Iris

Wow, it's been such a long time since I last posted! This is will be a final post on this diary as things have changed so much since I started it, I feel like it's now time for a change. We have moved and it was just a few days before Christmas, which was exactly as chaotic as you'd expect it to be! The house is great and although the garden is still a work in progress, it should be done by the summer when we can all enjoy it. We have ended up with some credit card debt which is disappointing but we're figuring out ways to deal with it. We have a plan and in 5 years or less we'll be debt free, which does seem like a long time but we're settled in our forever home now, both with jobs we enjoy and a little bit of expendable income so things should be ok. If I start a new diary I'll add a link to it here but otherwise, thank you to everyone who has read and commented.
Iris .x.