My mortgage free mission!!!!!!

frugalfrog

Payroll exam posted today (it did seem really easy, hope thats a good sign and not a bad one!). Will find out in the next 3-4 weeks, so fingers crossed!

Popped into local charity shop which has been having a clear out (where I went a little mad last week), lady inside said to take as many books as I wanted, it would only cost £1. They would only be thrown if they werent sold... I could bear the thought of books being thrown so I got another bag full! Lots of classics & books I've wanted to read for a while. I now have 33 books on my shelf to read!!! I better get reading! Once I've finished my exams I will have a lot more time to myself.

frugalfrog

Just come across this online & thought people might find this interesting, its a good list of homemade cleaning products / shampoo recipe

http://boards.fool.co.uk/where-do-i-start-to-have-a-go-at-being-8533452.aspx

frugalfrog

Just got another 50 points bonus referral for superpoints
http://superpoints.com/bonus/7br7ll

frugalfrog

Hello everyone

Been away for a while, its been a busy few months and not really had time to come on here.

Business is a slow start, but have quite a few people wanting me to do their tax returns after April.

Still have the dream of being mortgage free, but that seems miles away at the moment, seen as we have been living on the breadline for the past year:(. Have had to get a 0% cc to be able to eat! So should really be moving this to the debt free board rather than this one at the moment, however it is only just over £1000 which I am hoping to earn over the next couple of months with tax returns, so shouldn't be that bad (hopefully!:o)

I have started back on the online earnings this month, since around the 12th I have earned around £70, not all have paid out yet & some are in vouchers rather than cash, however, I am using the amazon vouchers to buy necessities & some luxuries.

My little girl is now a lively talkative 21 month old and we are expecting another girl in August. I am hoping I will be able to juggle 2 little ones and working on my business from home. My parents come over regularly to look after my toddler while I get on with work, so no childcare costs.

My financial aims for this year is
1 - pay off the 0% credit cards
2 - save around £2000 in savings
3 - then start paying off on our mortgage!

At the moment this seems a long way off and will take a lot of budgeting and looking for places to increase our earnings, but I am determined to do it!

Looking longer term, my mortgage fixed rate will end in April 2016 & want to reduce my balance to under £100,000 mark by then, however, that means an overpayment of £4000 per year, not 100% sure whether that is achievable at the moment it will take a lot of hard work and sacrifices

Lois_E

Hi frugalfrog and nice to see you again. It sounds as though you have had a tough patch but things are beginning to look up, so good luck for the way forwards. Congratulations on your second baby on the way, too.

frugalfrog

Hi

Thanks yeah it has been a difficult few months, with my other half trying to run a small business in these economic times and having to offer credit to his big customers, but not being able to get credit from his suppliers leads to a rather difficult cash flow issues! We get to the end of each month and I am surprised that all the bills have managed to be paid. He had a good few months start of this year, but our tenant in BTL is moving out this weekend so we are £450 short, which is a LOT to us!

We have had to cut back even more than we did, other half has pretty much given up drinking, but still working on his smoking (but that is difficult).

Trying not to go out in the car if we can help it, petrol is soooo expensive & car really needs a service/fixing, as it is not running brilliantly & the thermostat has stopped working (which can't help the MPG). Luckily my partner is pretty good with cars and probably can do it himself. It amazingly passed the MOT on Thursday (and it was an extremely thorough MOT - other half stayed with the guy when he was testing it) so we know there is nothing major wrong. Found all the bits we need on Ebay - thermostat & oil & filter changes - which in total costing just under £80, which is not too bad, but waiting until we have a new tenant just in case we are short another £450 next month.

We have been budgeting to spend no more than £40 per week on food shopping, which we have been doing well as my parents have invited us over for Sunday lunch for the past few weeks and giving us some extra meat to have on Monday. So have a bit of back log of meat in the freezer of food which I have bought for the week but not eaten. This week has been even lighter as Friday my niece and nephew came down to stay with parents so we had a takeaway with them. Today is family Sunday lunch with my family & tomorrow with my other half family. Its great when you have a supportive family when it comes to difficult times like this.

Lois_E

Hope you get a new tenant soon.

Thank you so much for mentioning your car's MOT. I just checked mine and it runs out on Tuesday!! Will have to ring up first thing on Tuesday morning and try to book it in ASAP. What a pity it's a bank holiday tomorrow. I also checked its tax disc and that runs out at midnight tonight, so I've been able to renew it online today. Phew!

CathT

Sorry things have been tough, hope they start to get better. Congratulations on your pregnancy too, such lovely news. It's great your family are so supportive whilst things are difficult. I hope both your businesses pick up soon.

frugalfrog

Had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend. For the first time in a long time my other half chose to have a long weekend (normally if he has work, he will work). So managed to have some good family time together.

Lovely dinner around my brother-in-laws yesterday, and I was very proud of my daughter being such a good girl. She is only 21 months and her cousin is 17 months, but he is going through a bit of a stroppy possessive of his toys and hitting stage, and kept pushing and lashing out at my little girl. But she took a very grown up approach to him. Then she sat really well and ate a huge dinner without throwing or wanting to get down. A lot of people disagree with how I raise my daughter, I don't shout or "tell her off"/discipline her/force her to share but allow her to investigate the world how she wants to (ok there are limits when she is doing something dangerous). It may just be that she has a good temperament, but everyone comments on how well she behaves & nicely she play with out little ones. I do believe that this is because she has chosen to act like that rather than been forced.

DH's granddad had come down for the weekend, he lives over 300 miles away in the Lake District so don't get to see him often. But he gave us £50 for my daughter for Easter. Which is a huge amount of money for her, now we have the dilemma of what to spend it on! She doesnt need any toys or clothes (plus that would be a lot of stuff!), we could put it in her Junior ISA, but then she wont see if until she is 18. My idea was to take her for a couple of days out - to petting farm & to see Thomas. Just need to find a day when its not raining & other half is not busy at work.

Going to cook a big pot of chilli for dinner, which should last 2-3 days dinner (may still the last day in the freezer as would prob get bored by then). Don't think we will need to do a proper shop this week, just go to get some milk & fruit & veg (and sugar - I've got my pregnancy sweet tooth back!). Will do a proper audit of freezer later today & make a sort of meal plan for the week.

Going to sort out a proper SOA and precise financials once I've don't this years tax returns & see what we will be getting this year in tax credits. End of tax year is Friday, so will try and get this done asap, by end of next week, I do keep the books pretty organised so it shouldn't take long. Then I will upate signature.

Off to try and meet swagbucks target for today, then to the bank, then going to start dinner.

Lois_E

frugalfrog wrote: »

Lovely dinner around my brother-in-laws yesterday, and I was very proud of my daughter being such a good girl. She is only 21 months and her cousin is 17 months, but he is going through a bit of a stroppy possessive of his toys and hitting stage, and kept pushing and lashing out at my little girl. But she took a very grown up approach to him. Then she sat really well and ate a huge dinner without throwing or wanting to get down. A lot of people disagree with how I raise my daughter, I don't shout or "tell her off"/discipline her/force her to share but allow her to investigate the world how she wants to (ok there are limits when she is doing something dangerous). It may just be that she has a good temperament, but everyone comments on how well she behaves & nicely she play with out little ones. I do believe that this is because she has chosen to act like that rather than been forced.

Hate to break this to you, but a lot of it's probably her temperament. My aunt had a first child just like yours, and thought it was down to her excellent and enlightened parenting style. Then her second child came along, and found the same kind of parenting didn't produce the same results at all!! The children in question still joke about it now they're grown-up. (Not that it's all down to her temperament, of course. Beautifully behaved children usually have both a co-operative temperament and great parenting, so well done!)

frugalfrog wrote: »

DH's granddad had come down for the weekend, he lives over 300 miles away in the Lake District so don't get to see him often. But he gave us £50 for my daughter for Easter. Which is a huge amount of money for her, now we have the dilemma of what to spend it on! She doesnt need any toys or clothes (plus that would be a lot of stuff!), we could put it in her Junior ISA, but then she wont see if until she is 18. My idea was to take her for a couple of days out - to petting farm & to see Thomas. Just need to find a day when its not raining & other half is not busy at work.

What a lovely gift. How generous of your DH's granddad. Have fun deciding what to do with it. You could always split it - spend some on days out and put some in the JISA. Why not take some photos of her on the day(s) out and send them to the granddad to show him what good use you made of his gift?