5 years MFW - Lets get cracking...

lulabelle1

The down times are tough. Allow yourself a few treats along the way and hopefully it will make the journey a little quicker and less painful.

edinburgher

Had a mardy few days recently were felt fed up of feeling broke all the time as have hardly anything left in current account but Im manning up again.

You're a woman - there is no need to man up

I do sympathise - I have spent £150 on unplanned expenses in the last few days - makes a mockery of the concept of 'spare' money!

nattypants

HDK - September 2017 is fantastic....just round the corner really AND this will be your second achievement of becoming MF:T

My own predictions are currently coming in April 2023:eek: which does worry me as you'll all have left this board and I'll be tootling around on my lonesome:cool:

PS re the laptop - welcome to the nattylula ways:D

lulabelle1

Hurrah for the nattylula ways!!

MoneyMission

Ahhhh. HDK. Someone else with a 40th to celebrate soon. Its mine in a few weeks. Have just purchased myself an antique wooden standard lamp from fleabay. When it gets here I will buy a new shade for it then stand back and chortle as Mr MM tries to wrap it up!

I think a you are very deserving of a new laptop. And chocolate and wine too!

HelenDaveKids

Thanks Guys. Perhaps need to lady up then!

May just treat self NP. My lap top is very battered and have to hang lead a particular way in order to charge and if unplugged no longer holds a charge, and my @ key is missing.

Can have a joint celebration MM. Are you planning on doing anything special? Im feeling sorry for self as it seems so old! (sorry for those seniors around). I had 3 kids under 4 for when i turned 30 so I suppose I have aged!

Once finished will still be saving though as my car is old now, will be a major banger by then, plus will then need to be thinking of uni fees.

HelenDaveKids

Posted my OP money. Will take us under 85k which is brilliant as we are now down to what the house cost to renovate.

Will be going F/T jan 20th unless something fantastic twist of fate means I dont have to, hopefully be only for 3 months. Its not a big increase (ony 3.5 hours but all at highest paid job) but means will only have the 1 job and be mon-fri predominantly and will make child care challenging. Be interesting to see if financially better off as unsocial hours tend to make other 2 jobs money quite good.

Defrosted freezer today and did general clean up. Have friends coming for tea NY eve so wine chilling (NP's fermented grape juice diet)

edinburgher

Have you considered sprucing up your current laptop? If it was made by one of the larger companies, 3rd party batteries and chargers can normally be had reasonably cheaply. The same goes for replacement keyboards, although you need to be good at DIY or know a techy who can replace it for you.

About £100 all in could probably revitalise it - how much would this save vs a replacement? I did the same for my old laptop and got an extra 18 months out of it (and it still works for emergencies)

southerndave

What he says ^^^^!

I have a Samsung Netbook (Sammy) and it is on its second life. Could have blown £200-300 on new machine, but spent £70 renovating this. It's lightning fast now and good as new. So many guides on the net 'how to' do stuff, even non-techies should be able to do basic upgrades for very little money.

I also dumped the useless and bloated Windows for Ubuntu (Linux) and its been the best thing I ever did on a computer.

If your lap top is really too far gone and you do get something new, maybe worth trying newer first at your local computer shop (not PC World!) for renovated seconds there, be a lot cheaper. May even take your old one in part-ex for bits. IF not, your old one may also be worth more broken into parts and eBayed. I wouldn't recommend selling the HD though.

HelenDaveKids

Could do, but thought I could let the kids carry on bashing this one and try and keep the new one for just me and DH. plus quite fancy one with a bigger screen as find it really hard to read articles for my course, and I often use the music teachers and find it so much easier.

In 2 minds though as my BF has a kindle fire and Im soooo jeolous as love gadgets and reading. They are quite expensive again at the mo though.