Going to get rid of my mortgage!

gallygirl

bbh30 wrote: »

Thanks for the compliment Thistle- I think I just ramble but it helps to keep me focused!

Rambling is good. I count it as my exercise for the day .

bbh30

What a busy day I have had!
The husband got back from Germany last night but after spending about an hour with him, I remembered that I had been invited to a friends house for cake! So suddenly had to dash out, told him I would only be out for an hour, didn't get home til midnight! Ah well!
We all got up early this morning so go to parkrun, we all ran 5km (even the kids, I was pretty impressed with them- there wasnt even too much moaning!), I even beat my parkrun time from last week by 4minutes so I am quite pleased with myself.
Once we had got home, showered, had a brunch of pancakes, then went to a local food festival for a nosey around, lots of free tasters (yum!) and I did end up buying some flavoured cashew nuts but they were really tasty.
Dropped the husband off at the train station as he has now gone to a stag night, the kids and I went to visit my parents, both my brother and sister were there visiting with their children so all the children had a lovely time playing in the garden whilst we all put the world to rights.
Stopped off at ALDI on the way home to get some food shopping as we had literally no milk left by now, and one apple, that was about it in terms of fresh food- spent £42 in ALDI on ham, cheese, fruit, milk , vegetables, etc. I actually need to to go LIDL tomorrow also as I want to buy red peppers and avocados (half price weekend) and bread flour (forgot in ALDI) but that will be a quick trip.
Havnt had dinner yet but I made a massive chicken and lentil curry last night of which there are plenty of leftovers so I will have that in a minute when I can be bothered to get out of my comfy chair!!!
MSE things from today:
1. Free activity at parkrun, husband wanted to get coffee after from the cafe but I persuaded him to wait until we got home
2. Online banking checked
3. Shopping for the week fro ALDI
4. Washing dried on line
5. Leftovers for dinner, and pancakes for brunch (egg, sr flour and made with water as no milk!!!)

bbh30

We did pop into LIDL this morning and I spent a little more than I had planned, £18.22, but stocked up on all the half price weekend offers, bought some Pepsi also, and a birthday present as the boy child has a party to go to next weekend.
The rest of the day was no spend; we went to a free farm open day, it was really good! They had so much stuff on, animals to look at, arts and crafts, tractor rides, loads of things. The kids really enjoyed it. We got home from that about half 3ish and then just spent some time pottering before dinner; we had a BBQ. Turkey breast steaks (LIDL half price w/e) marinaded, a salad made from lettuce from my friends garden (free), red peppers(half price w/e), avocado (half price w/e), spring onions and cherry tomatoes, and I did some potatoes too. It was realy delicious. We have a fridge totally packed to the brim with food now which will last us more than a week I hope.
So things from today:
1. Competitions entered
2. Free entertainment (open farm sunday)
3. Washing all dried on line
4. Took drinks and snacks to the farm with us rather than buying stuff there- they had a delicious smelling BBQ which tempted me though!
5. Dinner made using half price ingredients
6. Lunches all portioned up and ready to go for the next 2 days for me (still getting through leftover curry)

bbh30

I had to go to the supermarket for work this morning, I was going to go to Sainsburys but decided at the last minute to go to Tesco as I am trying to save up clubcard points. £42 spent in Tesco on credit card, which can be claimed back. The husband asked me to get him some Alpen, I bought 2 boxes which was on offer at £2 each. So £4 of my own money spent.
Had a great day at work, managed to salvage an avocado which was going very soft and going to be thrown away- brought it home and made guacamole- perhaps put a bit too much chilli in as it's very hot! Chopped up one of my peppers from half price weekend at LIDL and been dipping it in my guacamole- delicious!

So todays mse things:
1. online banking checked
2. competitions entered
3. shopping for work, clubcard points added to my acc
4. washing dried outside
5. avovado saved and made into guacamole rather than chucked in bin
6. kids had a shower rather than a bath tonight!
7. leftover bbq food for dinner with dips, cruditees and jacket pots

I will have to use my car tomorrow, I havnt used it in about 3 weeks, I hope it starts. It still needs a new exhaust, Ive been putting off doing it and using the husbands car, but he needs it tomorrow.

bbh30

Car went ok today, luckily! It was noisy, but I got to work and back in one piece so survived!
Today has been a good day, I got an email from one of the competitions I entered saying I have won a £50 Toys r us voucher, woohoo! I will use that to buy more presents for all the parties my kids get invited to, I think Ive got about 8 on the calendar for the next few weeks so I will stock up on little presents.
Leftover curry for lunch, leftover BBQ meat and jacket pot and salad for dinner, all quite thrifty.
5 a day things:
1. Banking checked
2. Competitions entered
3. Girl child went on Brownie trip to local pet shop, instead of driving her there and back I managed to lift share with another parent saving petrol (and time!)
4. £50 voucher won (although not sure when it will arrive)
5. Husband filled his car up with diesel, I gave him a 5p off per litre before he filled up, total saving around £2!
6. Made shortbread for lunchboxes, snacks etc..

bbh30

Today was meant to be my day off from work but (silly me) I had planned and arranged a school trip to a local farm this afternoon. So I went to work this afternoon to take these kids to the local farm- we had a really nice time.
This morning the husband and I had a meeting with the builder on our new house and we chose our new kitchen and worktops and tiles. We just chose from the basic range as we didnt want to pay out for any extras. It's a little annoying as we redid the kitchen in this house a couple of years ago and paid for quality stuff and the carcasses are going to be much thinner in the new house. We had agreed to pay for no extras but we have since decided to pay for an outside tap to be fitted (£100) and also for a shower to be fitted in the family bathroom (£500), I do know the shower could be fitted later but I think the price would probably be the same because if we left it until a later date, then we would have to pay for the tiling to be taken off and redone etc. So thats more money that needs to be saved.
So todays mse efforts:
1. Banking checked
2. School trip to farm paid for on credit card, can claim money back but get points to keep!
3. Competitions entered
4. Girl child had dinner at friends house
5. Lunch and dinner from stores
6. Meat taken out of freezer for tomorrow dinner
7. Had 2 pairs of black leggings with a hole in the crotch- used my trusty sewing machine to repair and now they are good as new. Also sewed up a hole in some socks
8. Basic range of kitchen and tiles chosen for new house

bbh30

The husbands PPI money from HSBC arrived today, hoorah. Its gone straight into the savings giving us a nice boost.
Ive handed all my expenses into work so hopefully that should arrive in the next few weeks.
I had some soup for the freezer for lunch and slow cooked some beef strips with some onions, mushrooms and peppers for dinner. I then made a sweet and sour sauce to go with it- was delicious. There is enough leftover for 1 lunch and 2 dinners too. Ive also made a pasta salad for kids lunches tomorrow.
My friend has offered to take us all out on saturday to a local farm/amusement park type place. She has offered to pay as she said it is her birthday present to the kids. So I have offered to make a picnic for us all. Im trying to keep it as low cost as possible. Im going to make some bread and then I can do sandwiches, and Ive got crisps in the cupboard. If I can get some cheap sausages I can skin them, and then make some scotch eggs and some sausage rolls too (got some puff pastry in freezer). And then Ill try to make some cakes or something too for a pudding. So today's mse efforts:
1. Online banking checked
2. Competitions entered
3. NSD
4. Money from husbands PPI claim arrived and put into savings
5. Day out planned on saturday courtesy of my friend
6. Dinner all made from stores and excess frozen

bbh30

Ive not done very well at being money saving today. I was trying to make things for a picnic tomorrow for when we go out with my friend but ended up going to the shops to buy things.. sausage meat, cheese, some fruit.. total cost around £10. But I am very much looking forward to our picnic tomorrow, I have packed for us... homemade pizzas which we can eat cold, salad, homemade scotch eggs, homemade sausage rolls, strawberries, hm chocolate brownies... yum yum!! This will feed 5 of us and there will be plenty of leftovers also. Im really lookiing forward to the day out tomorrow, and just hope the sun will shine!!
I swapped some of my Tesco cc tokens in the clubcard exchange and bought some lego which was reduced- 2 lego trucks , 1 to put away for the boy child until xmas, the other for a birthday party he has been invited to, some playmobil for the boy for xmas, and some new drinking glasses for us as I keep breaking them!! Ive ordered them online and can pick all that up tomorow, it cost me 75p of actual money and the rest was paid for with cc vouchers.
I took the kids to their swimming lesson this evening, I prefer the earlier lesson they have now as it means I can go for a swim at the same time. They are coming on in leaps and bounds in the private lessons... they are both swimming in the deep end now with no floats etc- they couldnt do that at Easter! So even though the private lessons are costing us more, I think the group lessons were a bit of a false economy.
Ive entered a load more competitions, online banking checked, picnic is all prepared and ready for tomorrow. I wanted to do park run tomorrow morning but we wont have time before we go out for the day so I will just have to make sure I do it next saturday.

bbh30

What a busy busy weekend I have had!
We went out all day saturday with my friend, then on saturday evening, my friend and I went out for dinner the 2 of us without kids which was lovely.
Today has been pretty busy.... a morning of swimming, food shopping, taking boy child to a party, cleaning the house, discovering our garage roof has collapsed so consequently emptied out the garage and took pretty much everything in there to the tip... took me 3 runs to the tip and back but everything was waterlogged. We rent the garage (which is in a block) from the council and pretty much everything in there was junk anyway so it was a good excuse to go through everything and get rid. Ive decided to end the tenancy on the garage, as now Ive emptied it Im not going to continue paying for it. That will save us £40 a month.
Finished the day off with making bread for the week and entering competitions for the day.
So financially it has not been a great weekend- my friend paid for our day out on saturday which was generous of her but then I paid for hers and my dinner on saturday night. It wasnt too expensive as I had vouchers for money off so cost a total of £22 for the 2 of us so not too bad really!!
Today I paid for the food shopping for the week, £35, hopefully that will last us all week, although I may take the kids strawberry picking after school one evening as they are desperate to go.
Ive got to stay late at work tomorrow for a meeting, luckily the husband will be around to pick kids up from school so no after school club needed.

bbh30

Ive had 2 no spend days on the trot, woot. My £50 toys r us voucher arrived today, Ive put it away to spend another day. Online banking has been checked, dinner out of the freezer, lots of competitions entered. Washing all dried on the line. I will need to go shopping tomorrow for work but can claim money back.