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

ztan

Thanks Ztan - what are you hoping to grow? Do you have much outside space where you are? The self sufficient 'good life' is a dream for us too! I am currently trying to find ways to life it within our circumstances which gives us a house without much storage in a town estate with a very small garden!

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Wow you have been busy again! You is super mum!

We have a fairly large garden, especially as we're living in a coach house- they don't normally have gardens. We've got a raised bed in already with herbs in, Thyme etc and Chillis.
I'm waiting on the delivery of a Maris Piper Potato bin thing comlpete with seeds and gloves- it was an offer in the Guardian. So Potatoes, Baby Gem Lettuce (again free seeds from Hbase!)
Also tomatoes... hopefully from some seeds we saved out of some yummy ones we had last year... and some bell peppers. I've got to go and get a mini green house to keep in the garage to get them started, and then we're building a few more mini beds this weekend out of the left over timber I blagged from a friendly supplier at work last time!

Small gardens do stretch you a little don't they? What sort of thing are you hoping to grow?

I_want_a_baby

Oh wow, you have great plans then and very frugally done too!! Fingers crossed for a good season weather wise.

Our garden is about 8m long x 5m wide but has a summerhouse and a brick built shed in it. The problem is not the size (using square foot gardening you can fit loads in!) but the sun. Obviously plants need sunlight to grow and our garden is about 70% shade so we have to work to fit in as much as possible in the remaining 30%.

This year we are going to grow runner beans, little gem & salad leaves in the sunny area - these are so easy to grow so by doing this we will see if we have the right conditions to be able to grow anything worth having.

At the inlaws we are going to have a 25ft trench with 1/2 runner beans and 1/2 french beans. And the most likely this autumn/next year we will have a veg plot with strawberries, radish, courgette, maybe onions, carrots & potatoes, rhubarb and any other things we can think of growing.

I have grown veg in different scales for the last 5 years so I would miss it if I couldn't grow anything.

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

Very quick update from me.

Husband bought an external hard drive to back up all of our photos etc. I had budgeted £100 and yet it cost about £55.

I have transferred the £45 difference to the ISA:
£31 to Mortgage OP (New total £1107.38)
£11 to Fees Savings (New total £396.00)
£3 to family fun (New total £81.50)

Yey!

Stacey

I_want_a_baby

I have been looking into our bank accounts etc and have pretty much decided to pool our 2 barely used personal current accounts and our bill current account into a santander 123 current account and then transfer both of our isas to the santander 2.5% interest rate cash isas and then pay into them our odd few little savings accounts for the kids etc. This will leave us with two bank accounts but still lots of little pots on spreadsheets. We will have to wait until 14/05/13 when our current isas mature so hope that these are still available then.

Despite being OCD with saving the pennies etc i don't think I would be able to remember to do all of the transfers if i have lots of accounts with different banks so I would prefer to bank with one company only.

Any way managed to find £10.02 from various pots to save, trf'd as follows:
2.50 House move fees - new bal 398.50
7.02 Mortgage OP - new bal 1114.40
0.50 family fun - new bal 82.00

Hoping to save a little of the food budget this & next week & REALLY looking forward to paydays next week too!!

Stacey

CathT

I am going to take some inspiration from you this payday to separate money into pots, be more organised and fritter less!

If you pop over to newgirly's diary I'm sure she is making homemade gifts and I'm sure there may be reference to a website.

I_want_a_baby

Thanks CathT!

I do think I would be lost now without my different pots! I hope you find it as useful as I do.

MFW activities today:

• Cashed in the lonesome £100 premium bonds
• Did a £6.10 payout from TCB into 640 tesco clubcard points - cash from the tcb snap&save.
• Did one PC survey - should get £3 voucher.
• Did one OR survey - 50p
• Did two VO surveys - 75p each - claimed a £10 sainsburys voucher.

Off to lidl now to get a few essentials - going to stick to the list as I may be able to save some £'s this week from the food budget then :money:.

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

Not sure if I am going to be able to save any food money next week as may need to put some of it in the car for fuel. So decided to save £20 cash from the food budget this week and take out the rest of the cash from the envelopes and then I will know this needs to last me to payday and I will use cash only until then (obviously save some if I can).

So managed to save:
£20 cash from food budget
£3 online leftover fuel budget
£1.73 save the change
£24.73 Total

This was put into savings and split as follows:
£ 6.50 House fees - Balance now £405.00
£16.23 Mortgage OP savings - Balance now £1130.63
£ 2.00 Family Fun - Balance now £84.00

Nice to have 'made an op' today looking forward to when Halifax actually set their online banking up so I can OP it & see it.

Stacey x

icklehelen

:wave: Hi Stacey

It's great to see how well your way of watching the pennies is working for you - I may have to look into some of these ideas myself (particularly the date night pennies as this is a rather neglected area of our life - that sounds worse than it actually feels!! :rotfl:)

I've finally taken the plunge and started my own diary - hopefully it will help me focus a little more

ickle

I_want_a_baby

Thanks Icklehen! Had a quick read of your diary & can't wait to see how your story progresses .

Received the £100 premium bonds into account today - trf'd to savings and split as follows:

£25.00 House Move Fees - Balance Now £430.00
£75.00 Mortgage OP - Balance Now £1200.63
£5.00 Family Fun - Balance Now £89.00

Will try & have a NSD today & do a couple of surveys.

Stacey x

I_want_a_baby

Morning everyone!

Firstly a big thankyou to Icklehen, Kirstypark, Stripes, CathT, Alchemilla, Ztan, Froggy-G, Muser1, GreenNinja, TwinnyD & Linz for reading & commenting on my diary - lovely to have some fellow MFWer's reading, following my journey & giving me lots of advice :money:.

So payday for hubby today & though a combination of his work bonus, saving money on budget pots already full up, £3.80 quidco, £6.01 underspend on my mobile bill, £2.50ish save the change, no water bill this month £55 we have been able to transfer £329!!!!:j to the savings pot!

I have split it as follows:
£85.00 House move fees - New Balance £515 (10.3%)
£228.00 Mortgage OP - New Balance £1428.63
£16.00 Family Fun - New Balance £105

I am waiting for halifax to sort out their online banking for mortgages before I OP as I have heard that their account numbers are changing and I don't want my lovely OP above to get lost - so it is currently in the ISA earning me interest.

This definately seems like a huge leap forward in terms of saving as instead of my small pennies and pounds irregular OP's we are talking big sums very happy!

I am awaiting my first payment from the new job - unfortunately most of my money will be going on unforeseen bills but if I was not working that would have had to come out of the above so swings and roundabouts and I know that my working is contributing to our goals.

Other small things I have been doing are:
Not going out and spending money as kids & hubby have been ill.
Made homemade pizzas for tea last night & put two homemade pizza bases in the freezer for another time.
Made a list of Old Style things I would like to do on their board on the fancy a challenge thread, this will mean I take steps towards the lifestyle I want & save money - WIN WIN!
Might be able to save £10 out of this weeks food money - will keep you posted.
Saving vouchers & doing surveys.
ENJOYING this wonderful sunshine - and living in the here and now - no worrying/stressing about anything just living in the moment.
Looking forward to easter sunday & as well as the easter egg hunt for the kids, the start of the BTCC championship!!

Speak soon - happy MFW wishes to you all.

Stacey