A stay at home mummy who wants to be a mfw - Yes I can and Yes I will!

Mortgagefreeby50

Sorry to hear about the colds etc, this weather doesn't help as we're all cooped up!

CathT

Colds and little ones don't mix well, sending get well wishes. Great news on the rent saving. We've had a spendy month too and I'm looking forward to making plans for 2013.

I'm also glad you will be updating more regularly as I enjoy your diary.

I_want_a_baby

Thanks for the comments Mortgagefreeby50 & CathT.

Update for week ending 14/12

£11 leftover from food budget into Mortgage OP tin
£1.60 leftover from food budget into date night fund

£40 new food budget
£10 new fritter budget

I have decided to restart my blog (link in my profile). I really liked the focus it gave me as a stay at home mum and look forward to continuing with it. I do have a couple of adverts on it (or did before I changed the appearance), these have literally made about £5 in over 2 years and you have to reach £60 before payout so should it make any money I will OP it but in the meantime I am just doing it for the love of it!

Just completed a quick PC survey - Fresh Start this stands for Pinecone .

Got a very busy weekend ahead (haven't we all!) but will try and update again before the weekend is out!

Stacey x

MushyPeas

Hi I want a baby, just popped on to your blog - it's a good read I've been following your blog on here just for a few weeks but it's inspirational.

I'm now on maternity leave, about to give birth, so it's really interesting reading someone else's experiences. And I want to get finances sorted!

Good luck with 'the plan' and I enjoyed the family bucket list

Pea x

I_want_a_baby

**cough cough** :wave: Erm ok I know I said I was going to post more regularly but we didn't really shake off the colds and then Christmas kinda got in the way!

However I am back now and very much need to get back on the MSE wagon.

I am about to do our banks and assess the situation _pale_.

I will be back to update shortly x

I_want_a_baby

Ok so the budgets have been updated, wages transferred to various places and it wasn't quite as bad as first thought - phew!

Updated targets are:
Mortgage OP account from 2279.35 to 2285.46
Emergency account from 4750.00 to 4852.08
Date Night Fund from 21.80 to 23.40
Bucket List fund from 10.00 to 12.00
Dog fund from 10.00 to 14.00

Balance in purse-
Fritter £20.00
Food £20.75

Aim for January is to spend as little as possible.

I am aiming to spend a max of £65 on food by using up all of the food I have (a lot especially with the christmas food) and using coupons, luncheon vouchers, loyalty card points etc.
My food budget is £160 so I could OP quite a lot if I achieve/come in under this!

Generally I want to reduce spending in 2013 and really think before I buy things if it is something I want or need and if it will enhance my/our lives or just be a one minute pleasure.

2013 will be about memories and quality time together and money really isn't needed to much for this. I do want to eat well which does cost money but I can counter act this by using up leftovers, shopping carefully and throwing in some frugal or veggie recipes.

I am really looking forward to seeing what 2013 has to throw at us, I am ready and waiting to face it and hoping I can OP a lot as well!!

Merry Christmas everyone x

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well 2013 has been frugal so far!

NSD yesterday and another NSD today so far.

So far just trying to get back in control of the house. Dealing with all the tidying and washing and so on that has built up!

Bought some Dulux paint for sons bedroom in a local store the other day and it was on offer for £12.50 per tub. Going to look at the paint chart I have to see if it is worth getting any for any other rooms - This is budgeted for anyway so won't count as spends as such. We need to take a faulty lampshade back to the store anyway so will be going there this weekend.

Feeling very happy and blessed at the moment and whilst making our house a home this year is my priority (our first every mortgage home!!) I am also looking forward to living more a more frugal lifestyle focusing on quality not quantity and of course OP'ing!

So in summary no money spent in 2013 so far, I am going to try and do the banks tonight so I will see if I can find some pennies to OP!

Stacey x

Youknowme_2

Hi I want a Baby,
Despite lurking on MFWboards for a while now I have only just found your diary.
There are a number of similarities with ourcircumstances and has been really interesting reading, so thanks. We have had our house for overfive years now but still not got around to paint some rooms!

Good luck on your aims for 2013

I_want_a_baby

Thanks youknowme!

So today was another NSD (by NSD I mean no food or fritter money spent).

Jan 2013 - NSD's Achieved - 2 (so far).

Don't want to be overconfident and swipe too many pennies into the pot yet so no OP today.

Will be back to update very soon x

I_want_a_baby

Morning Everyone!

Well update from me is as follows:

Had another NSD on 3rd of Jan which took the total to 3.

4th of Jan we went on a lovely village walk with my dad and bought a little chocolate bar each in the village shop. Dad paid for these bless him. I then saw a friend and popped to morrisons.
£20.22 spent in morrisons, all in cash as I forgot vouchers and a couple of not strictly essentials.
Balance of £44.78 left for food this month.

Yesterday was another NSD - 4 so far :-)

Today we have to go to a couple of shops and return a couple of items.

We have also started looking into getting our garden ready for summer.
We need a 5 x 2 metre area paved by the house, a 1.4 x 2.2 metre area paved in front of the summer house and a block paved path. We would also quite like a block edging to the patios and block edging for the lawn to tie it all together. It appears however we vastly underestimated how much this would cost we were thinking in the region of £500 for everything. It appear from first glance we need to add a 1 in front of that!

We want to get it done with medium quality slabs/blocks and obviously have a good job done, this may well be our forever home so we don't want to compromise. So for now we have said we will try and just get this done (and the lawn reseeded) and worry about buying plants/garden furniture/trellis/all the other bits etc next year.

So I very much doubt that we will come in under our £1k budget lol. We are going to go and look at some slabs today to get a better idea of prices and I am hopefully going to get my mates dad to come round and give us a quote/some advice too.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Stacey x