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

Crumpets

gallygirl wrote: »

Oh dear, I can feel your shame from here :rotfl:.

I've just about got over the embarrassment GG:rotfl:

Been a busy and fairly frugal couple of days, yesterday the porch was demolished and the new foundations laid for the new porch. It looks like it's going to be a decent size which is good because it will provide much needed storage for coats and shoes etc.

I also had my shopping delivered, which includes all my cleaning and toiletries for the month, will hopefully be able to stick to £50 a week at aldi for the rest of the month. I've decided to give up eating meat for lent too so hopefully should make the budget stretch a bit further, the rest of the family will carry on eating meat but my portion can go into the freezer for another day :T

Today I had to buy tickets for dd1s school production - £32 for 4 adults and 1 child ticket :eek:, I got my parents tickets too, I'll wait and see if they offer to pay for them :rotfl: I also spent £2 at playgroup which is worth every penny:T

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, I'm off on a spa day with my friend:T it's a bit of an indulgence but surprisingly not too expensive, I'm having a back massage and we're having afternoon tea and the rest of the time will be spent lounging and sitting in the pool...cannot wait:D

It is also world book day at school tomorrow and dd1 is going as Sara Crewe from A Little Princess ( has to be a Victorian character) my pinafore turned out surprisingly well and she's gone to bed with her hair in rags so hopefully she'll have lovely ringlets in the morning:T

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Just a quick update today, world book day costume went well, and dd1 looked fab with her ringlets, she liked it that much that she's gone to bed with her hair in rags again

My spa day was absolutely wonderful and just what the doctor ordered, spent £11 on lunch and £5 on parking so not particularly frugal. Dh had the day off work so he looked after Ds and took him to a DIY store and McDonald's :rotfl:

I've got a friend coming for lunch tomorrow so I'll have to see what I can rustle up, I have soup and baked potatoes in so shouldn't have to go to the shop.

Tiling man came today and has done a fab job so hopefully won't take him long to finish off in the morning:T

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Just posting to say hello Crumpets, your life sounds much like mine, I paid £2 to baby groups this Weds & Thurs and they were worth every penny, and I sent the Tiger Who Came to Tea in on World Book Day :rotfl:. Good luck with your MFW journey, mine has just started in earnest xx

Muser1

Me too my £5 weekly playgroup spend keeps me sane :rotfl:

Crumpets

Hi Roaring Twenties and Muser, what would we do without playgroups? the people that run ours are great, the kids enjoy it so much. We're really lucky that ours is part of the pre school so that by the time they are ready to be left, they are so used to the staff and building that it shouldn't be a problem (she says hopefully:D)

Today has been such a glorious day, the washing got properly dry on the line for the first time this year:T I made a plan for the garden and armed with a list we went to the DIY store to get seeds, we ended up buying a potting table too (dh said I couldn't have one for my birthday:p) so we have spent the entire afternoon in the garden, tidying and sweeping, by the time dh had built the potting table it was dinner time so no actual planting got done today:rotfl: the little ones loved it, dd1 had to be dragged out but had fun when she finally came out.:T

Tomorrow someone (i.e dh) needs to go shopping and I need to spend the day baking and tidying as I'm hosting my first coffee morning on Monday morning so want everything to look nice :eek: I'm going to make a coffee cake and some fairy cakes for any kids that come along, I also need to make sausage rolls for packed lunches, unfortunately my savoury scones didn't go down well with the kids so I'm trying something else this week.

I've decided to join dd1 at tae kwon do tomorrow night:eek: it looks really fun when I take her but I know I'm going to feel a complete numpty when doing it, I'm feeling rather nervous about it:o

Crumpets x

Thistlewhistle

Hi Crumpets,

I hope you're going to invite us all to your "porch warming" party!!:rotfl:

T:D

Crumpets

Of course TW, it might be a bit of a squeeze but we’ll manage

Another lovely day today, I really hope this weather is here to stay for a while, it's so nice to have the back door open and for the kids to be able to wonder in and out. Got the washing dry on the line again and all yesterday's laundry is ironed and put away:T I love this weather, it's been a while since both my laundry baskets were both empty.

I ended up going shopping today and dh took the children to the park, I somehow managed to spend £75 in Aldi:eek: I hope I've got enough food in to last quite a while now otherwise my budget is blown:mad: maybe I should have let dh go after all.

This afternoon i have made a coffee and walnut cake and some fairy cakes for my coffee morning and some sausage rolls for the lunch boxes. The house is clean and tidy (down stairs anyway:rotfl:) so I'm all good to go:T

Crumpets x

littlegreenpeas

Can I gate crash the party. I will bring some bubbles x lol

Crumpets

Of course LGP the more the merrier...I am also a big fan of bubbles:D

Yesterday I had a huge shock when I logged into our current account as we were £670 overdrawn:eek: the reason being was that the credt card DD had come out and we hadn't transferred money from the savings to cover it:mad: all sorted now but I hate it when things like that happen. All finances are up to date now as a result of that so i suppose something good came out of it:p

Yesterday was almost a NSD for me as I had my coffee morning which went well, we are putting a team together for the relay for life in June so it cost me £15 to enter, all for a good cause though, now we just need to get people to sponsor us:T My cakes went down well and there is only one tiny fairy cake left which dd will have in her lunch box tomorrow. Dh also treated himself to breakfast in F&B's but he needs fattening up so can't begrudge him:D

Today dh has been off work and we have been having a DIY day, doing all the little things that need finishing off, dh has finally tiled the downstairs loo after waiting for 2 years:T we used left over tiles from the kitchen so didn't cost us anything. I have been putting up my pictures in the kitchen, I also have found 2 picture frames in the loft that I'm going to paint and put some family photos in:T We also returned a box of tiles so £20 to go back in the house fund and I also returned some seed trays as I found some in the garage. In the past I wouldn't have bothered returning something so small but £3.50 better in my pocket than theirs!

All my ebayed pots and pans were collected today by a very nice chap who tried to pay way over what he had won the items for (£7) in the end we split the difference and he gave us £10 for the lot. I felt bad for taking more money off him but he was very insistent, he has sent us a message this evening saying how pleased he is with everything. It's so nice to have a positive eBay experience as you hear so many horror stories.

Tomorrow we have bricklayers coming to start building the porch...hurrah!

Crumpets x

Crumpets

It's been a few days since my last update as life seems to have been pretty hectic, so I'm taking the opportunity whilst Ds is asleep and before I start my ironing to update:D

DIY and building work is all going well, all the block work for the porch is up so we're just waiting for the next stage to happen. A few weeks ago I got an outside lantern style light on freecycle that is going to go in my porch, it was a bit scruffy looking so yesterday I got some spray paint (using nectar points:T) and I've painted it sage green and it looks so good! I'm really pleased with it and it has not cost me a penny:T I also spent some nectar points and a next voucher that I got for Christmas on some new cushions, I feel like I've been on a shopping spree but I haven't spent any cash:T Unfortunately though i have spent some money on some new picture frames as the ones I painted looked really !!!! so I'm not having them on my wall:eek:

This morning Ds and I went swimming which was lovely, it's only the third time he's been so he was a bit concerned but he was getting more confident by the end. I'm hoping this will be a weekly thing that we do, It costs £3.30 for us both to go and is well worth it:T I was really organised too and took a snack for him so we wasn't tempted by the cafe:)

This afternoon I'm going to do some baking with the little ones when dd2 comes home from pre school, we have also made a sour dough starter so I may attempt to make some bread. Tomorrow we're going to a friends for lunch and I said I'd make sticky toffee pudding to take so that is also on my to do list, I may need to go and get some ingredients for that though.

I'm sure there is more I wanted to update with but can't remember now :cool: it's time for me to do the ironing now

Crumpets x