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

littlegreenpeas

Hello Crumpets
Well done on the thrify day and clearing the freezer a bit


LGP

Crumpets

Well the apple crumble turned out to be rhubarb:rotfl: I really must get a marker pen so I can label things properly, at least it wasn't a chicken casserole though:rotfl:

It was a NSD yesterday and we had a lovely day at my parents, they did us a lovely buffet lunch and we came home with a bag of presents for under the tree. I also gave them their gift, I hope they're gong to save it for Christmas day! It's going to very weird not seeing them on Christmas day, my first one ever without them, I am looking forward to a very simple and easy day on Wednesday though.

I braved the shops this morning to get the last of the food shop, I got to Aldi for opening time this morning and it was still really busy. I felt I was just getting a normal shop with a few luxuries thrown in and I when I got to the till I'd spent over £80:eek: I also had a 20% off beef wellington voucher but she couldn't put it through as I handed her the voucher too late :mad: that's our Christmas eve meal sorted though, dh and I will have a nice romantic meal once the kids have gone to bed:p

The rest of the day has been spent cleaning and tidying, the kids have been so hyper today, they've played beautifully though but have been very loud! Dd1 is at TKD now and the little ones are having some telly time, so it's peaceful for the first time today:T

Tonight I'm going to try and wrap Ds's birthday presents as it's his birthday next weekend and I want to get that out the way.I also still have the 'Santa' gifts to wrap as well as dh's. Dh is feeling quite poorly today so I'm hoping he'll go to bed early so I can do that tonight too.

Tomorrow we have a day of visiting planned so that should fill the day and tire the kids out. We have no plans for Christmas eve yet though, apart from maybe going to the crib service at the local church...I'll need something to help the time pass quickly for the little ones. We could wrap up and take the dog on a nice walk, she'll appreciate that. Depends what the weather is like...

£10 left of my weekly budget to the op pot:T

Crumpets x

littlegreenpeas

Crumpets, if you run out of wrapping paper give me a shout I still have shed loads............................................lol


Well done on the £10.00


LGP

Crumpets

littlegreenpeas wrote: »

Crumpets, if you run out of wrapping paper give me a shout I still have shed loads............................................lol

I still have loads of wrapping paper to LGP, I'll be glad to see the back of it to be honest, I feel like I've been using it for years! It will do at least another year, maybe two. At least I don't have to buy any I suppose, although I do have to buy new kids paper every year.

Well finally the big day is only 1 sleep away, Christmas eve hasn't quite gone to plan so far, but we're only a few hours away from the kids bed time:T This morning I have done yet more cleaning, attempted to take the dog for a walk, picked and cleaned the sprouts (a job that the little ones really enjoyed doing:rotfl:) and am now having a well deserved rest. Dh went to fetch the turkey from the farm shop which was a bit of an ordeal as there is a lot of flooding and only 1 road open so there was a lot of traffic:eek: it cost us £35 for the turkey crown but I'm hoping we'll have lots of meals and some for the freezer too.

We also have an unexpected little visitor at the moment as last night the dog brought us an injured hedgehog:eek: we've put it in a box with some food and water and it seems to be doing ok, we'll give it a couple of days to recuperate and then let it go. Dd2 is extremely taken with it though and it's been named spike:)

Jobs left to do today are:

Put gammon in slow cooker
Wrap the last few presents
Make mince pies
Make stollen
Drink mulled wine :T
Print off 'from Santa' labels

The crib service at the church starts in 45 minutes which i really wanted to go to but Ds hasn't had a nap and dh is currently wrapping my presents so that will take him forever so we'll probably give it a miss. I think I'm going to book panto tickets for next Christmas eve as the day is dragging a bit now.

I'm looking forward to my beef Wellington for dinner tonight and hopefully watching a Christmas film with dh, I can't wait to get all the presents down and see the kids faces in the morning:D

Happy Christmas everyone :xmassign::xmastree::santa2::rudolf::xmassmile

Crumpets x

cotswoldaccountant

Happy Christmas Crumpets! I hope you and your family had a wonderful day yesterday.

CA

Crumpets

Thank you CA, we had a wonderful day, it was as relaxed and simple as I'd hoped. The children woke up at 8 o'clock and were quite happy with opening their stockings for the first half an hour, they only had their Santa presents and presents from us yesterday so not too many to open and they sat and played with them really nicely. There will be more presents on Saturday and Sunday though as that is when we are seeing relatives. It's also Ds's birthday on Saturday so there will be double presents for him. Then comes the challenge of finding homes for them:eek:

Dh and I received some money for Christmas so that will go towards buying something for the new kitchen, probably a le creuset hob top kettle:smileyhea

Christmas dinner was delicious and we seem to have enough food to feed the 5000 so I'm hoping I won't need to hit the shops for a good while, I might buy Ds a birthday cake rather than making one though, I'll see how I feel.

I love the fact that this week will probably be a no spend week, I can't see us needing to buy anything for the rest of the week, that will be an extra £50 to op if that's the case.:T

Today I'm going to take the kids to the park to burn off some energy and then I will attempt to make mince pies and stollen as I didn't do it the other day. I also I really want to use up the jar of mince meat and the marzipan that have been in the cupboard for what seems like forever!

Dh is still poorly:( so he can have a quiet one at home

Crumpets x

Pearla*Merle

Love le creuset! I found a beautiful LC teapot in TK Maxx a couple of weeks ago, it's a dream.

PS. Happy Christmas!

Crumpets

Happy Christmas P*M I hope you've had a lovely time

Today's been a good day, my sil and her bf popped round for lunch and played with the kids for a couple of hours unexpectedly which was nice, we're exchanging gifts on Sunday at our Christmas number 2 so we still have presents under the tree.

I have finally found and ordered a winter coat in the sales:T it was reduced from £110 to £70 and then I had a £10 off code and should get 10% TCB if it tracks so I'm very pleased. I just hope it's as cosy as it looks. I also got dh 3 jumpers from Next for £34 instead of £82:T that's my sales shopping done now, I can't be bothered trawling websites anymore.

In preparation for our trip to York in a couple of weeks I've just spent £25 worth of CC vouchers on £40 cafe Rouge vouchers, £40 Prezzo vouchers and entry into the Viking museum so I'm feeling rather smug at my frugalness:cool::rotfl: we're obviously going to spend some money while we're away but I'm really hoping it won't be more than £100, infact if I spend less than £100 The change can go to the op pot:T

Tomorrow it is Ds's 2nd birthday so we have my parents coming over for lunch and cake, we'll just be having cold meat, cheese, pâte etc followed by birthday cake, so minimal spends required. I just need to pop out and get a fresh loaf in the morning. Ihe kids will also be getting more Christmas presents:eek:

Dh and I are having Christmas dinner number 2 tonight using leftovers, I love Christmas leftovers it makes cooking really easy:T

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Well amazingly, after thinking I had enough to feed to 5000 we've eaten all the Christmas food! There's just enough meat left to make a pie out of and that's it. We're out at the inlaws for a big lunch tomorrow but on Monday I'll have to do a meal plan and head out to the supermarket.

Ds has had a wonderful day today and all the children have had more Christmas presents, dd1 got a furby which is bloody annoying:rotfl:

The ebayer with the missing parcel has been in touch and it hasn't arrived so I've had to refund nearly £30:mad: I hope I can reclaim it from Royal Mail, not happy:(

That's it for tonight, time for a glass of wine

Crumpets x

Crumpets

That's all the festivities over in crumpets cottage, all presents have been given and received and I'm still trying to find homes for the new toys. I need to buy a couple of new storage baskets for Ds's ever increasing collection of vehicles!

Dh and I got a soup maker from mil so I will have to do some experimenting, I was hoping to get a thermos flask but we'll have to buy one of those ourselves. I've got some stilton and Brie left from Christmas so I might throw those in with some broccoli and cauliflower:T

When I said the other day that my sales shopping was done I lied:o I've brought a cardigan, some Laura Ashley kitchen scales and a picture frame, I'm going to the garden centre today too so I might yet buy more:eek:

I can't believe it's new years eve already! Nothing planned here, just watching a film with dh and I'll try and stay awake until midnight:) I have a bottle of fizz in the fridge so I'll probably open that too, it's only me that's drinking though:D

I need to work out my December op and also any yearly money that hasn't been spent, that might be a job for tomorrow:T I can't wait to get my annual statement to see the full amount if op's in 2013:)

Time for breakfast now!

Crumpets x