would love to be mortgage free!

Peonie

Congratulations, that's excellent news.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi Caz

:T:T:T:j:j:j:j:j:T:T:T

That's fab news

Tilly x x x

QB_Wolf

Well done on the 2.1 - brilliant news!!

P.S I wouldn't change my user name if I were you!!!

TwinnyD

Yay, congratulations Caz :j:j:j

coldcazzie

Thanks guys am really very pleased with my result this year, considering how horrendous the module has been.

coldcazzie

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season! We've had a lovely week last week and hopefully another to come.

Have a friend coming over today, and we're hosting a child-friendly NYE party tomorrow on a bring and share basis so I've some food to prep today. Forest school on Friday

Been thinking about this past year and what changes I want to make in the coming year. I want to grow more food (did in 2011, but didn't grow anything in 2012), feel better in myself (already doing better on that front), remove some unhealthy things from our lives (environmentally and emotionally), and make more effort with friends (we've been neglecting some of our friendships).

Money-wise, we have been pricing up the remainder of our bathroom and some storage etc too. We had to buy a new hoover as ours gave up completely, so that has eaten some of our budget we weren't planning on. Having a fence in the front garden has increased in priority as next doors kids are taking the !!!! riding their bikes across our garden, so suspect that will be something we get done. We'll see.

I've joined a thread on OS on meal planning in the hope it keeps me focussed on that front - have been a bit lapse recently, and there have been some issues with Squish and food. Her and I went through our usual meals and have decided to remove some, and change others so she likes them better and so mealtimes and food are less pc a stress trigger. This is also partly where the growing comes in - hoping to get her involved in growing foods she likes. Already been looking at various veggies like mangetout, cucumber, peppers etc, and I'm going to look at the wood we have in the garage and see if we can make some troughs to grow them in.

coldcazzie

Just ordered some more bathroom bits. Still need to get floor, tiles, paint and a shower screen but they will have to be bought in person instead of online. We also bought the girls a new wardrobe. Tomorrow, once last month's cc bill is paid, we'll be ordering the items to finish Lumpy's bedroom (toy storage) plus a tall, wide bookcase to put all our books on on the landing (thus meaning we can rehome 3 smaller bookcases). This evening I shall be mostly juggling food prep for tomorrow evening andisting stuff on eBay while it's free listing.

coldcazzie

What is going on with the weather?! Last 3 nights I've been woken up at least once by rain/hail/wind pounding the front of the house. Keeps setting house and car alarms off all over the place. Glad we're not going anywhere today, but hope it stops on/by Friday - don't fancy playing in the woods in hail and buffeting winds!

Food prep is going well. Yesterday I defrosted the pork leg, made apple sauce and made roasted butternut squash and red onion soup which I'll put in the slow cooker to reheat. We had roast chicken yesterday, and I put the carcass with some veg in the slow cooker overnight to make stock (never done that before!) Hopefully I have enough freezer space to store it :eek:

Today I need to check that the rest of our bills have been correctly paid, open a couple of new savings accounts and buy those furniture bits.

coldcazzie

Money thoughts for 2013:

I joined the MFiT challenge hoping to increase our emergency fund from £2000 to £6000. I can't commit to huge amounts of increase at first as we have other commitments first. I did wonder about a token payment to make myself feel better (perhaps £5 a month?) but I'm not sure. I would at least have something to report, which would be nice... this money will be going straight into my ISA because then I consider it out of bounds.

I want to, this time next year, have enough money saved up to at least start on the kitchen. I'm opening up another FD regular saver to that end. Pretty much any money I earn this year will be going towards this after my expenses are paid.

We'll be continuing with our current £55 op each month. I want to look again at remortgaging.

We changed our phone and broadband supplier. Overall we will only spend £3 less a month basic, but they are giving us £30 cashback for joining, plus a brand new router for free and ours is on its way out (has been for a while and Sky want us to buy a new one from them for £80+). We'll see how it goes, if the next year is horrendous we'll go back to Sky again.

Really need to get my finger out and get listing stuff on eBay today. I've mountains of stuff but I just can't face it.

Need to do another SOA.

Peonie

Hi Cazzie, I have always struggled as to whether I should focus on one thing, i.e. savings, or if I should fill a few pots at the same time. I like OPing a small amount each month even though I'm still focusing on saving. So, I think your token emergency fund payment each month is a good idea.

Do you know how much you will need for the kitchen? Unfortunately works for the house always seem to cost more than we first expect.