The Crumpet family's journey to Mortgage Freedom:-)

Crumpets

Well we have had a lovely and pretty frugal weekend. Saturday we had a family barbecue and we got to see out squishy little niece. We made some veggie stuff to take to this and I also made a vegan Victoria sponge (Jamie Oliver recipe) for the first time...it was bloomin delicious. I've had to send dh off to work with the last slice to stop me from eating it :rotfl:

We also bought a (new to him) bike for ds, again £25 from the land of FB. I'm really pleased that for £50 they both have great bikes that should certainly keep them going a couple of years :T I'm going to put their old ones on freecycle, as with a bit of tlc from someone who knows what they're doing, they should be ok.

I've finally won some shorts on the bay for ds so everyone has enough clothes to last them the summer now :T hoorah!

Yesterday was spent building a fence :T it looks really good, just a little bit more to go and then I will be able to stain it. Our new furniture is being delivered on Wednesday so it would be amazing to have it finished for then :T We then had an impromptu barbecue at a friends house, we were both pretty low on food but it's amazing what you can cobble together when you think about it it was a lovely way to finish off the weekend

Unfortunately I think I may have used some of the food that was designated for meals until shopping day so we might have to be a little imaginative with our meals for a few days :rotfl:

I really need to pay attention to the house today as it has been neglected for a while. I also want to mow the lawn as it looks like we're due some rain this afternoon. My veggies will certainly appreciate that!

Right housework awaits :cool:

Crumpets

Well the rain didn't materialise the other day so the veggies are still desperate for a proper drink of water. I don't think watering with the hose pipe has the same effect, and with today's news of future water shortages I feel bad using it :cool:

The fence is now complete and has had two coats of paint :T I managed to only use half a tin that we already had so the new tin we bought can be returned. [STRIKE]Unless I decide it needs a third coat[/STRIKE] The new rattan furniture has arrived so hopefully dh and I can construct it this evening. I really hope I like it, you never can tell with these groupon purchases :cool:

I went out for an end of term breakfast with some friends this morning - £9 spent using cash from my purse. It wise nice to get out of the house and be me for a while :T

We've managed to eek out the shopping :T Helped partly by being invited to several barbecues :rotfl: I might have to do a late night shop tonight though. We may be going camping at the weekend (depending on the weather) so will get supplies for that just in case :beer:

Not much else to report, I've ran out of steam for decluttering and selling. Will have the week off from it next week and then get back into once half term is over.

Crumpets

I think I've broken the weather - Ever since we've got the garden nice and our lovely furniture to sit on it has rained!:rotfl:

At least the rain made the decision about going camping easy - we are definitely not going in this weather :rotfl: I'm in a bit of a quandary now though. Some friends are going to a local festival for the day tomorrow and we're unsure about going. Basically it will be a £200 day out, factoring in ticket prices, kids rides and a few drinks etc :eek: I really don't want to spend that on a day out, at the same time it will be fun and nice to spend time with friends. Argh what to do? :cool:

I finally went grocery shopping last night. I made the fatal error of not going with a list or of making a meal plan for the week. So the cupboards and fridge are stocked up, but i'm not sure if any of it goes together to make any meals

I have spent the morning scrubbing a church pew We bought it when we had our new kitchen a few years ago and used it as seating at the table. However we've fallen out of love with it as it's too big really. I'm cleaning it up ready to sell and it is a completely different colour under the decades of grime that it came with Can't believe we've lived with it in that state all this time! hopefully it will get a decent price once it's spruced up :T

My other job for the day is to clear a space in the utility[STRIKE] cupboard[/STRIKE] room for all the cushions from the new outdoor furniture. It's a really tiny room and stuff just gets dumped in there so I'm really not looking forward to getting started on that. Coffee and a browse on here first I think

Crumpets

Half term activities are keeping me busy and away from posting on here! I have a few minutes to spare now though as dh has taken the little ones swimming :T

Head won over heart at the weekend. We didn't go to the music festival, instead we went to a campervan festival which was a much more reasonable £5 to get in We did buy a few bits for the van whilst there but we have a separate fund for that :T

Half term hasn't been too spendy so far, trampolining yesterday which was £9 for them both as I had a 'one free' voucher. Swimming should cost less than £10 too. Dd1 and I have spent a couple of hours wandering round a nearby town so she could take some photographs - we did stop in a cafe though for a cuppa and a cake though.

Tomorrow we are off to Manchester for the day, DH has a meeting there so I thought we could hitch a lift and do a bit of sight seeing. Not sure what there is to see as it's been years since I last went. There is a sightseeing bus tour so I think we'll do that plus go to the museums. I'll take some clubcard vouchers for our evening meal before we head home. I'm hoping it will be a pretty frugal day out:)

I've requested a £12 pay out from TCB which will be used for an extra OP before the end of the month hopefully. I'm looking forward to the mortgage going out on Friday :T

The dishwasher seems to be playing up we keep getting an error code and it doesn't seem to be drying so i think we might have to get someone to look at it hope it's nothing too expensive. In the mean time I've got all the bits out and cleaned them, filled up the salt and it's currently on a hot wash with some bicarb thrown in. So I'll see if that has any effect first :money:

Dinner tonight will be left overs of some description, I might also need to make a few snacks to take for our journey tomorrow. I will have to see what I can rustle up

Crumpets

Just a quick update from my previous post, After speaking with a dishwasher repair man it seems that its not financially viable to repair the dishwasher :mad: So a new one has been ordered which will be delivered on Sunday. We went through TCB so hopefully that will track. I really hope this isn't the beginning of the end of our appliances as they were all bought at the same time! :eek:

Just ordered £50 of Zizzi vouchers from CC for tomorrow nights dinner...their vegan pizzas are delicious

Crumpets

Well that was a busy weekend, we spent a fair amount too. We went out on Friday night for a friends birthday and treated ourselves to an air bnb for the night it's a very rare occurrence so I feel we can indulge every now and again. It saved on taxi fares anyway

Our trip to Manchester was fairly successful, we all enjoyed the open top bus tour which at £25 for the family felt like good value for money. We also made the most of the free activities on at the museums too :money: CC vouchers were used for dinner but as we had some problems with the children's meals they didn't charge us for them. This meant that we had £20 left to put towards our meal out on Friday (same meal two nights out in a row...in different locations :rotfl:)

Today we went to a birthday barbecue, I've had to spend quite a lot on gifts this weekend - 4 children's gifts and 1 adults :eek: it's a good job we have a present fund!!

The new dishwasher was delivered this morning :T Free delivery if we had it delivered on a Sunday, saving £20. Dh also installed it himself which saved a whopping £90!! All seems to be working well so far, so fingers crossed this last us a good few years now. Cashback on it is also tracking :money:

Back to school tomorrow I think all the clubs and activities are paid up until the summer holiday so hopefully there will be no surprises. I miss them when they go back to school but I will be glad to get the house tidied and the cupboards stocked again.

I've also sold a few things on the bay over the weekend so I will package them up and send them off tomorrow. :T

julicorn

Crumpets wrote: »

Quick update to say

• vegan halloumi is setting

I'm now having a well deserved cuppa

I know this was a little while back, but i onpy just noticed this! Do you mean you made vegan halloumi? How did it turn out? :heart2:

Crumpets

Hi Julicorn, yes I made the vegan halloumi, a friend bought us a vegan cheese kit It was ok, it didn't taste much like halloumi but it was quite nice, definitely tasted cheesey. I'd make it again, let me know if you'd like the recipe

Crumpets

Crumpets wrote: »

Back to school tomorrow I think all the clubs and activities are paid up until the summer holiday so hopefully there will be no surprises. I miss them when they go back to school but I will be glad to get the house tidied and the cupboards stocked again.

Well I was wrong about the activities being paid up for the term. I've had an email for £48 for piano lessons and £24 Beavers subs :eek:

I've just checked the mortgage and all looking good, one part of my mortgage is only £47.07 from being under £40k so my mini goal for this month will be to OP by that much extra. I've just sent off a £12.25 OP from TCB so just £34.82 left to find

I've got two online grocery orders being delivered tonight, one from 1celand and one M0rrisons. Hopefully that will keep us going for well over a week. I've just had a message from school though to say I hadn't booked ds's school dinners for the week so that's a week of extra packed lunches I now need to cater for

I'm still waiting for a couple of eb@y items to be paid for so I can post them off. I need to see what else I can find to sell...

julicorn

Crumpets wrote: »

Hi Julicorn, yes I made the vegan halloumi, a friend bought us a vegan cheese kit It was ok, it didn't taste much like halloumi but it was quite nice, definitely tasted cheesey. I'd make it again, let me know if you'd like the recipe

That would be great actually, thank you! Would love to give it a shot :j