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

Crumpets

Hello everybody, thanks for all your replies and tips, I have a few new things that I can try, but I think I just need to accept that food is expensive. Like you RT I don't buy cheap, especially meat and I hardly buy any processed foods...maybe that's where we're going wrong :rotfl:

I love your way of describing things Rt it does make me smile I think I know what a bay city roller looks like and I can definitely imagine you sitting around your gas fire...I remember those well

I also am at home but with 2 pre schoolers who love to 'help' I don’t always have the energy. Although we have done some baking today, dh made a chocolate fudge cake and the little ones and I made some rice crispy cakes (I just need to stay away from these now). Back to making lunch boxes now and already I'm not doing what I said and making it the night before! Infact I'm going to do that next.

We went to the camping shop today and spent a fortune :eek: but we're all good to go now, I just need to find us a campsite now:T did okay on eBay today, £22.70 made today with a few items ending tomorrow. Quite a few things didn't sell though so will relist them on the next FLW.

Only dd back at school tomorrow so I'm looking forward to Tuesday when dd2 is back too, then hopefully I can get a few jobs done. Speaking of jobs I had to give dd1 a tutorial on how to change her quilt cover as she will need to do it on her trip...more practice needed I think:rotfl:

Crumpets x

greent

Crumpets wrote: »

Hello everybody, thanks for all your replies and tips, I have a few new things that I can try, but I think I just need to accept that food is expensive. Like you RT I don't buy cheap, especially meat and I hardly buy any processed foods...maybe that's where we're going wrong :rotfl:


I also am at home but with 2 pre schoolers who love to 'help' I don’t always have the energy. Although we have done some baking today, dh made a chocolate fudge cake and the little ones and I made some rice crispy cakes (I just need to stay away from these now). Back to making lunch boxes now and already I'm not doing what I said and making it the night before! Infact I'm going to do that next.

:T did okay on eBay today, £22.70 made today with a few items ending tomorrow. Quite a few things didn't sell though so will relist them on the next FLW.

Crumpets x

We don't generally buy processed foods either (although I admit to BE cod fishfingers for DS2) - I generally prefer cooking from scratch from a taste and additives point of view. Our freezer mainly contains raw meat, fruit and veg (quite a lot of which is from our garden or my mum's), HM chicken stock, HM meals (usually leftovers ) (eg: chilli, curry) and some bread products - and a box of fishfingers and a bag of frozen chips
Our chicken is usually free range (our eggs always are) and meat in general is red tractor (definitely British pork produce - EU allowed treatment of pigs is not as high a standard as UK's ) It's just not possible to get bills to those really low levels, I find


Children 'helping'... lol - my youngest (4, almost 5) loves to help.... things take twice as long and it's always messier but I console myself that it is actually a form of multitasking! - making something useful (food!) AND spending time with the children doing something which they enjoy (I'd personally rather bake with them than do painting or sticking!:eek:) I shall be doing a batch of flapjacks (for lunchboxes) and rocky road (using up weird choc and unwanted cereals) tomorrow night with DS3


Ebay relisting - I've been relisting my last lot of unsold items for free - if you edit your item there's a little box to tick on the very last bit where it is then relisted for free for up to 3 further times - seems to be going ok x

Crumpets

Hi Greent, I also prefer cooking from scratch but we do have a supply of fishfingers in the freezer. I really struggle with finding things that everyone will eat, my dd's are particularly fussy and quite often dd2 won't eat her dinner at all. It's very frustrating. Would you mind sharing some of your family meals please? Also do you make your own bread? I'd really like to start baking bread but don't really know where to start.

I like your approach to children helping, multi-tasking is a good way at looking it. I was multi tasking earlier whilst trying to Hoover a Ds was straddling the vacuum nozzle like a broomstick:rotfl: not much vacuuming got done though.:o

Today I have no energy, I feel like I'm having a post holidays slump, luckily the little ones are quite happy making nests out of their quilts so I can recover with a cup of tea and MSE :coffee: Still I have got a few things done, the kitchen has been cleaned and the eBay parcels are wrapped ready to post, just waiting for one more item to finish and then I will be off to the post office. I've made enough to pay for 2 nights campsite fees:T I'd like to go for 3 nights so I might sort out some of Ds's toys that he has grown out of and put them on FB and see if I can make a little bit more.

Even though I haven't left the house it has been a very spendy day as I've had to pay the balance on our holiday cottage and on dd1s school trip. I also need to book airport parking so I need to check the flight times, can't wait to go away now, I just hope the weather improves.

Dh is changing his work hours this week and he'll be doing more working from home in the afternoon it will be nice to see more of him but we have our little routines and things we do and I just feel like it will be weird him being home more:cool: I might send him to the loft with his laptop to get him out of the way.:D

Baked potatoes for dinner tonight.

Crumpets x

cotswoldaccountant

Crumpets wrote: »

Dh is changing his work hours this week and he'll be doing more working from home in the afternoon it will be nice to see more of him but we have our little routines and things we do and I just feel like it will be weird him being home more:cool: I might send him to the loft with his laptop to get him out of the way.:D

My DH works from home and it is a mixed blessing. Useful to have him around to help with emergency childcare during the day when I have to do pick ups from clubs etc, but he is very choosy about when he is available - at this moment he is out for a quick run, but when I ask him to help with us getting out of the house, he is always VERY busy.

Crumpets

cotswoldaccountant wrote: »

My DH works from home and it is a mixed blessing. Useful to have him around to help with emergency childcare during the day when I have to do pick ups from clubs etc, but he is very choosy about when he is available - at this moment he is out for a quick run, but when I ask him to help with us getting out of the house, he is always VERY busy.

Hi CA, I think it will be a mixed blessing, today I'm going for a swim when he gets home which is a definite bonus

Dd2 is back at pre school today and it's amazing how much stuff I can get done with only one child at home. Who knows what I'll get done when Ds starts pre school in September :rotfl:

I got the rest of the eBay parcel posted this morning and I made about £40 over the weekend which i'm really pleased with as most of it was clothes that had been hanging in wardrobe for ages:T I'm hoping to book our campsite today, I just hope the weather improves as it's going to get chilly.

I had to go and stock the kids up on vests and socks today, I only went to tesco and it cost me nearly £30:eek: on vests and socks! I also returned a pair of jeans to next that were too long so that's £20 back into the clothing fund, I just remembered that I need to get dd1 some more jogging bottoms for her school trip so back to tesco I go *sigh*

I've got my soup maker out for the first time in a while today so we're having broccoli cheese soup with some Camembert that I found lurking in the fridge :T not sure what's for dinner today, I might do a curry with some Quorn pieces and veg. The kids haven't noticed that we haven't had real chicken for a while :rotfl: I'm not sure if it's cheaper to eat veggie or not but I'm feeling healthier.

Crumpets x

SmlSave

Send some of that lovely soup this way please

Just popping in to say hi

Crumpets

Hi smlsave, thanks for dropping in, hope everything is good with you.

Just a quick one from me today as I'm currently working through Greent's diary.

It's been a LSD today, just £3 spent buying some snacks to take round to a friends house. The weather has been gorgeous again today so I've got loads of washing dry, I've ironed half and will do the other half tomorrow. Took the children to the park twice today which they enjoyed but we did have a scary incident with dd2 on the see saw :eek: one of the children she was on the see saw with got off and dd was catapulted over the top and landed on the floor. It was horrific to watch but luckily she wasn't injured, just shook up. It could have been a lot worse:eek:

Yesterday dh and I got happy with a hammer and demolished our 70s crazy paving huge fireplace ready for a wood burner to be installed. The man is coming to start it on saturday:T the room looks a lot bigger and better already now that the monstrosity has gone:rotfl:

I'm feeling very inspired by Greent's diary so hopefully I'll update tomorrow with some money making schemes

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Lost 2 long posts today so far :mad: will try and post later once I can get on the pc :mad:

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets, I've been AWOL for a few days with ill kids, sounds like you've been busy! When you and DH have finished smashing your fire to bits you can come and have a go at my 1993 special if you like

Well done on the eBay selling. The holiday cottage sounds lovely - are you going far?

Glad DD is ok. My DS has had moments like that. Kids are just there to turn you grey aren't they? :eek:

I hope the iPad stops eating your posts soon

RoaringTwenties

greent wrote: »

Ebay relisting - I've been relisting my last lot of unsold items for free - if you edit your item there's a little box to tick on the very last bit where it is then relisted for free for up to 3 further times - seems to be going ok x

greent does this work? I was suspicious as I was sure it said something about other selling rules applying and I thought I'd end up getting stuffed with some automatic system somewhere!

Apols for hijacking your diary Crumpets