Janineh1982 MFW Chapter Begins :)

janineh1982

Whoops 8 months have managed to pass by since my last update

I am back to the land of MSE though :T

A 'few changes in the last 8 months......

1. got married this month :j
Spent more than had hoped but spent a lovely week in Tuscany (where we got married) with our closest friends and family in the process. Savings have taken beating in the last 6 months, I.e not much saving has been happening

2.The now DH bought a BMW M5 in Feb :mad:
We argued alot about his purchasing it. In the end he managed to find a 'bargain' and has assured me he will be able to sell it in 12 months time for what he paid for it because of the bargainous price he paid :cool:
So this will go back into savings pot for the deposit.

3.DH and i sat down last night and reviewed finances.
We realistically think we can (combined) save £120k by March 2015
Based on mortgage + overpayments we will be making if we secure a 250k ish mortgage (350k ish valued house with 110k ish dep) we should be able to be MF 5 1/2 years after taking out the mortgage :j

Firmly back on the savings band wagon band wagon once ago a :T:beer::j:p:D:money:

janineh1982

NSD yesterday :j
Only spends today will be scheduled (fuel in the car)
Slowly getting back into the swing

DH is suffering terribly with hayfever and not sleeping very well, hence i'm not sleeping very well :undecided. Think he will be shortly be banished to the spare room:rotfl:

Salmon in chilli ginger sauce arrange for tonight - as per the meal plan

DH off to germany next week so likely to be a week of sugar puffs/crunchy nut/freezer dregs, for one at dinner :rotfl:
How single people are over weight i cannot understand! I simply have no motivation to cook for just me

AlwaysOptimistic

I totally agree regarding the cooking for one, on the rare occasions its just me around I usually just have cheese on toast or something equally easy

janineh1982

:j It's Friday & Payday :beer:

Wed = NSD
Thu - SSD (scheduled spend day)
£30 Nails
£70 Fuel
Fri = Payday and some spends :cool:

Need to pop to the farm shop and grab a steak for dinner tonight and a card for my Besties daughter's birthday, she's 9 :eek: ( i feel old )

Started this week to look at making a will and take out a life insurance policy- what a depressing subject after having got married a few weeks ago! :wall:
However after this weeks news, to phrase "you never know whats around the corner" is so true!
Monday evening we found out DH's cousin suddenly passed away.
She has suffered from serious psychiatric problems for a long time, hence when DH said she'd passed away my first assumption was that she had decided it was time to leave (she has tried a few times before)......However it turns out she she was in a 'good' place at the moment, enjoying life and seemingly doing really well. She was out for dinner Monday evening with her mum and literally choked on a steak bone! Paramedics were called but it was wedged so far and firmly down her throat, they couldn't remove it quickly enough.
DH is really close to his uncle (cousins dad) and it's just awful, it somehow seems worse that a cruel accident took her, whilst she was enjoying life .....

This is DH's second cousin in the last 4 years to have died and we are only 29/30 (his cousins not so far away in age) - it really and truly makes me sit back and take stock of how very very luck and blessed we are in our lives.

janineh1982

Payday yesterday :j and £££ transferred into the various pots

Managed to spend a little more than planned for BFF daughters birthday when shopping yesterday but ho hum :cool:

Productive evening yest

1. house cleaned from top to bottom :T
[LIST=2]
[/LIST] 2. Steak and butternut squash salad made for dinner, delicious
[LIST=3]
[/LIST] 3. bread cobs made for weekend lunches

Made a picnic lunch and went for a refreshing 6mile walk with DH and the hounds into the peaks. Looking out at the top of the hill over the beautiful countryside makes me realise how much I enjoy the countryside ....I cannot ever imagine having to brace London and/or city living!! :eek: a few days normally in London the office, for me, is enough and I just want to be back home!

Should be a cheap rest of the weekend..... Home made Chinese tonight, including prawn crackers (yiu cook them in oil) which we bought for ~70p from Chinese shop last year and they r still gong strong :rotfl: ..... Film and a glass of wine or 2!

Lie in tom if the hounds allow it :cool:, pooch walk and then BFF daughters birthday party! We normally pop in for about 45 mins, which is generally our limit with 30 loud, hyper kids :eek:
Then DH flies to Germany for the week, que cereal dinners for one :rotfl:

Also need to checks couple of quidc0 purchases which aren't tracking!
In less than 12 months it has paid out over £900 with another £200 currently tracking! :T:j
A lot of what we buy though is train ticketand hotel rooms for work

Right off to the rock and roll which is my life......ironing

janineh1982

I've have been pretty good spends wise all week......but had a naughty chinese with the besty last night i'm having such a rubbish week at work i justified it to myself - but regretting it now :mad:

Never mind - other than the naughty chinese i've been living on freezer dregs and cereal whilst DH is away. Work has been so busy i've not had any time to spend lol

We are off to London this weekend for a friends wedding. Turned out to be a bit bit more exp than anticipated - £200 for the hotel :eek:
Which considering how much time we both spend in the London for work and have a good grasp on prices, for the hotel we are staying in AND on a Saturday, it was a suprise to have to pay that much (nothing much cheaper around, we searched thoroughly!)
Anyhow trains were also exp because we didn't book far enough in advance, so selected a hotel with parking and will drive - my trusty car will only hoover up about £50 fuel there and back, instead of the £150 it was going to cost for trains :T - lets hope the weather is good for this weekend.

The sun is [STRIKE]shining[/STRIKE] hiding today - but it feels quite warm already. I honestly hope we get some kind of summer in the next few months! The one recent bit of nice weather we had in the UK DH and i were away getting married, so to us feels like we've had virtually no nice weather since the brief spell in March we had!

Need to update task list for the next few days to keep me on track - things have been getting left as work has been so crazy!

janineh1982

To Do List:-

1. Italian Course - Find good online free one, if possible
2. Sort Photo's to print for photo frames
3. Order online shopping
4. Clean car before Sat
5. Iron
6. Clean house/change bed clothes
7. Pack for London

janineh1982

A few months MIA again but trying to get back on the MSE wagon so to speak...

So my Dec 2013 savings target was 25k - i missed this by just shy of 3k for several reasons:-

1. Married my lovely Hubby in June 2013 in Italy (pretty expensive)
2. Husbands 30th B'day Dec 2013, very expensive watch and Safari purchased for the occasion.

The plan of attack is to continue saving as much as we possibly can as we are looking to buy a house this year - we have found one (and duly fallen in love with it ), we just need Mr. Vendor to put it back on the market (estate agents said he will in the new year) and accept our offer this time :cool: (rejected last time :mad:then he removed from market for Xmas)



Current ££ Status is:-

JH savings = £22.1k
JH Hubby Savings = £13.5k + £17k ( £17k when he sells his M5 which is being advertised next week)


Total Savings = £52.6k


The house we have fallen in love with and want to buy is pretty expensive and we need every last penny we can find, even with this we will still need to borrow ~£40k from my parents so we can hit the 15%+ deposit marker + Stamp D + Solicitors.



So, however the land lies in a few months (i.e. if we are successful and we get the house and therefore owe my parents ~40k or we don't get it and need batten the hatches down for a bigger deposit) - the upshot is 2014 needs to be a CHEAP year!


This weekend is a planned cheap one -



Fri - cinema :T (taking drinks with us to cut costs)
Sat - Dog Walking, jobs around the house (need to sort list tomorrow) & cooks something nice from things in the house (possibly corn beef mash with bean, which I've not had for years )


Sun - Long Dog walk in the peaks somewhere :j, cook ham hock for lunch/dinner (need to find a recipe for this) and relax in the evening :beer:

janineh1982

Been MIA for a little while due to operation - still recovering at home and going slightly insane with boredom:eek::(:mad:

Even though i WFH 3-4 days a week- the nature of the op means rest and not sitting typing, moving a mouse all day - i cant lift anything about arm height or anything heavy - the result basically meaning i can read, watch TV, sleep and make lists, but not actually action anything on the list :rotfl:

Nor can i walk the pooches - which I'm really missing - despite the horrible wet and now v cold weahter

DH is being a superstar, especially with my grumpy mood from being restless, bored and not wanting to be treated like an invalid :o

The silver lining is that many NSD days are being racked up :j

We are still on target (just) for January savings - the slight challenge is that DH is having a few issues selling his car, due to time of year, cost of running it and that essentially it's a boys toy!! I think this means it's going to impact the savings target negatively by about 2k ( i think this is what he'll have to drop it by to sell it - gut feel atm though not certain).....

ho hum - could be worse. Also the house we want to buy isn't even back on the market yet anyway and the longer they leave it the more we can hopefully stockpile and therefore owe < to my parents.

I've been reading through other MFW diaries in my time of boredom, i am a serial [STRIKE]stalker[/STRIKE]lurker of Tilly and GallyGirl for some time now - both a huge insipiration!
I finished Laura Jo's today - wow she did amazingly!!!

Have many new ideas to try and claw back some of the potential 1-2k we may loose on his car.

I have an extra £187 saved this month and just checked, in the last 18 months, DH and i have been paid £1451 from £co - not bad:T especially as the vast majority is work related travel/accommodation!
Obv we always £co personal things if we can as well!

Right - off to scour the forums to see how else i can make my millions :rotfl:

janineh1982

Well..... Not an overly productive day in the JH household :rotfl:

Today's achievements: in no particular order,
DH drove me to the shops, £10.10 of to up shopping to get us thro until Sunday(he's then away with work till Fri so I shall eat hm bread and freezer food

'Gently' sorted and filed last 3 months of mail

Spent hours (and hrs!) re designing my s/sheet for tracking ££ - mainly for when we get the mortgage as the way we (I) currently track will need to change!

Made HB diet Cajun chicken and wedges for dinner - was yummy

Trying to get on top of weekly shopping and limit it to £50 - there is only two of us, I mostly cook from scratch and bulk cook/freeze where possible so it should be poss!!
The thing I really really seem to struggle with and that costs ££ is the odd/random things or things that I don't use much - having to buy them for a lot of recipes
I do try and substitute or leave out but shill always to end up needing something!!