Going to get rid of my mortgage!

bbh30

Have had a very tempting day so far!!
I had to go shopping for some items for work (can reclaim the money) so off I trotted to Sainsburys. Whilst I was walking around the store there just seemed to be sooo many special offers and bargains- I could have easily filled my basket and spent £20 worth. Anyway, using as much restraint as I possibly could, I bought only the stuff required for work. I had planned ahead though and taken my piggy bank of coppers to pay with! Stood at the self serve checkouts for about 20 mins putting all my coppers in! But it was worth it as when I got to work I was able to reclaim the money as "real money" so that has now gone in my purse, ready for the big food shop at the weekend.
So although Ive been to the shops, I didnt buy anything for myself, and even managed to change my big pot of coppers for a £5 note. So Im going to put it down as an NSD.
Home now for the evening, not planning on going out again, going to make a risotto for dinner.

bbh30

One side effect of all this penny pinching and refusing to go shopping until the weekend is the fact that we literally have no snack foods in the house. We have a few apples and a couple of pears left in the fruit bowl, but other than that we have no "snacky" type foods left. The kids came in from school wanting something to eat as usual and I gave them some fruit sliced up. When it came to dinner time, they both ate all their risotto up, every last mouthful and left the plate clean. There were no moans about "but there's bits of onion in it" and instead of using stock I had used half a portion of the soup I made at the weekend watered down- so it had hidden vegs in there too. I think they were genuinely hungry by dinner and they also have come to realise that unless they eat their dinner- they will go hungry- as we have no other food!
Ive also realised how programmed Ive come to be about how often we need to go shopping- I could have done soo much shopping in Sainsburys today but I still have lots of food left in my cupboards. We live in such a throwaway society- it has been really good for me to rethink my shopping habits.

bbh30

Absolutly shattered, once every 2 weeks I have to do a "long day" at work from 8-6. Dont get a break or anything so I am feeling dead on my feet. Still, good things from today; more free food from work- a whole lasagne (mine and husbands dinner), some mini pizzas and some jam tarts (will go in kids lunchboxes tomorrow)
Spent nothing so another NSD. Husband back from abroad also and brought me a big bar of milka chocolate- aaahh just what I needed after my day!
Other ways I have saved money today include: asking neighbours to take kids to school rather than paying for breakfast club (cant do this too often but every so often is ok!). Eating leftovers for lunch. Check online banking.

bbh30

OK Im getting really worried about how we are going to make it to the end of the month now. The husband gets paid next thursday so technically we only need to make it to next thursday- but it will be a few days from him getting paid to the money reaching the joint acount. I dont get paid until 31st.
I managed to sell one of the kids old bikes this morning on facebook for £20. But Ive also remembered its my neice's 16th birthday today so I am going to give her that £20 note. Ive got a load of other old children's bikes I can sell but I need to wait until after my sons birthday when he gets his new bike- otherwise he will have nothing to ride between now and then. His birthday is next week so cant get rid of them now.

We have hardly any food- have made it without going to the shops! Nearly buckled when the snow came but then I thought, realistically, even if we get snowed in for 3 days- Ive still got enough pasta, rice, tins, frozen stuff to get us through. So no need for me to go panic buying.

So tomorrow morning Im going to LIDL to get some shopping. I have about £20. I need to buy soo much stuff. Ive just used the last dishwasher tablet, Ive no veg left in the house, as well as needing baking supplies, bread, milk, sandwich stuff, oh I dont even know where to start.

We are meant to be meeting a whole group of friends for a pub lunch tomorrow to celebrate some friends engagement. If it goes ahead (not sure it will because of the snow) Ive decided that I will feed us lunch before we go, Ill take the kids drinks in their drinks bottles, and hope somebody there will offer to buy me a coke! If not, Ill drink tap water! There will be about 30 of us in the pub celebrating so I dont think anybody will notice what I do/don't buy at the bar. We will also only stay for an hour just to pass on our congratulations and then disappear. Sitting in the pub for hours with the kids isnt exactly fun anyway as they get bored.

Today was another NSD, leftover lasagne for dinner with a tin of sweetcorn.

Im worried about my shop tomorrow, I hope I can stay in budget. Fingers crossed.

bbh30

Well not a NSD but not too bad. I did the food shopping at LIDL, spent £36.75 in total which was over budget but I am trying to compare to if I wasnt trying to be frugal- I might have spent £100. I havn't been near a shop for 2 weeks. I emptied the cash out of my purse to pay as much as I could - £15.26- and the rest had to go on my card. I did buy a few things which were expensive- e.g. a melon but the kids really like to eat them and I think as it is full of vits then Im not too worried. Only thing I couldnt get at LIDL was bread flour- a bit annoying as they usually have loads. I also didnt get any food for the son's birthday party which is on wednesday after school- Im going to get that from Sainsburys as Im planning on doing oven chips and chicken nuggets and I dont think the chips are that great from LIDL. In fact, I rarely buy oven chips as I usually make my own from potatoes but I think some of the kids coming will be a bit fussy so I just want to give them food they are used to.

We went to celebrate our friends engagement at the pub- was quite pleased how we timed that as we were meant to be meeting at 1pm for lunch (there were about 30 of us meeting so people were arriving at all sorts of times). The husband, the kids and I all had lunch at home and we promised the kids they could have a packet of crisps at the pub when we got there. I packed them a drink also. When we got to the pub- everyone else was just starting their food and we just said we had already eaten. Then, even better, another friend offered to buy us a drink so the husband and I got bought a drink and spent nothing! We only stayed for one drink then disappeared. I know people like that at the pub are usually really annoying but often enough it is us buying the drinks so I dont feel too guilty. Also the husband and I were just drinking soft drinks.

Now home, had a chicken curry (chicken from freezer, with onions, bendy carrots, and a couple of mushrooms bought today!) which homemade flatbreads for dinner. Got the recipe for the flatbreads off here actually- it was literally just self raising flour and natural yogurt. I added some thyme and coriander which gave them a bit more flavour and then lightly fried. They were delicious and cost pennies to make so definately something I will make again.

Now just having a cosy night in, Ive washed all the bedding so looking forward to going to bed! Weve got a house viewing tomorrow so we need to spend the morning cleaning, then I think we are going to take the kids to the park in the snow- another free activity!

monkeyman1974

bbh30 wrote: »

. Then, even better, another friend offered to buy us a drink so the husband and I got bought a drink and spent nothing! We only stayed for one drink then disappeared. I know people like that at the pub are usually really annoying but often enough it is us buying the drinks so I dont feel too guilty. Also the husband and I were just drinking soft drinks.
!

nice of your friend to be paying off your mortgage

well done for your efforts but you are taking it too far - would you like your friend to read your post?

bbh30

monkeyman1974 wrote: »

nice of your friend to be paying off your mortgage

well done for your efforts but you are taking it too far - would you like your friend to read your post?

No, not at all worried- over the years we have bought this particular friend plenty of drinks-offered this friend boarding and lodging for the night, helped this friend move house, given this friend untold amount of lifts places- next time we see them we will buy the drinks. Nobody keeps tabs. I am short of available cash at the moment- until I get paid. He offered to buy us a drink. Next time we see him, we will get him a drink. Its not a problem.:beer:

pixnmix_2

Well done so far on your mf w journey. But you need to
have treats built in. You sound very hard on yourself x

bbh30

Thanks for the comments pixnmix- I honestly dont feel I am being hard on myself. As a family- we have never eaten as well as we are at the moment- and we are just eating stuff out of the freezer combined with the odd fresh veggie etc that Ive bought. Its all because Im having to plan ahead what we are eating and what activities we want to do- it means we dont spend half the day wondering what to do or what to have for dinner- then spend the afternoon in Tesco spending £20 on something for dinner.

Generally a quiet day- spent the morning cleaning ready for house viewing- but then they didn't bother to turn up (didn't even bother to let us know- thanks guys!) so the husband took kids out and built the worlds biggest snowman and took them sledging round the park.

I made tomato soup for lunch with some wilted celery, onions and a tin chopped tomatoes, then for dinner this evening, we had the last of the xmas turkey. I froze it on xmas day after lunch as we went away on boxing day. So I got it out the freezer last night to defrost- had it with roast pots, carrots, peas and some stuffing. Tomorrow we will have turkey pie!

Ive got another house viewing tomorrow morning so the house wasn't completely cleaned in vain.

All back to work and school tomorrow, booo, unless we have a huge dump of snow overnight- lets keep our fingers crossed eh??!!

Still havnt managed to try and jump start my car as its currently buried in snow- I will use the husbands car for the week as hopefully he will be working at home and not really need it.

bbh30

Ive spent a lot of time today looking at houses on Rightmove. The main motivation for reducing this mortgage as much as we can is so that we can move. We are currently living in a 3 bed house but we really need a 4 bed house. As the husband works from home, he needs an office/study/bedroom to work from. He does alot of phone conferences etc so it needs to be a room that he can shut the door and have it quiet and the kids wont be heard. So currently the kids share a bedroom. They are perfectly happy sharing at the moment- in fact I think the boy child would be desperately unhappy without his sister! However, I am aware that in the next year or two- they won't want to share any more. If I had 2 boys or 2 girls I would be happy to say "tough"- but it would be nice for them to have their own space as they get older.

I had to go to Sainsburys before work for some stuff for work again this morning. I did end up buying a couple of things whilst I was there- used up some nectar points to pay for them and had to pay about £1.50 out my bank account. Im a bit annoyed as when I left Sainsburys I remembered I have a sainsburys voucher in my purse from a refund I had from an xmas pressie which I had forgotten about!! Ah well, it will all be there for next time.

After work and school pick up- dragged the kids to the bank (amongst their moans!!) to pay in my work expenses so that I didn't fritter it away! All paid in so bank account is now only £1.50 down.

Tomorrow is the boy childs birthday, all presents are organised, and he even has some sweets to take into school! I need to make him a cake but I wont do that until tomorrow (in fact he says he wants to help make it!) then we can serve it at his party on wed.

Im hoping to overpay £1000 next month- I hope it will be possible. I will put most of my pay towards it, then I can add the council tax payment (as we get 2 months "free" now). Also by shopping frugally I hope to add more throughout the month.