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

Crumpets

Hi Matt, thanks for reading! unfortunatley my end goal is not 2017, infact I don't really have a target date, I vaguely mentioned 8 years might be possible last year so I guess it will be 7 year now, 2021. I'll be 41 then so if I could do it in 6 years so I'm MF at 40 would be fantastic. That's quite a good goal to have

How's your weekend going RT? Are you out of holiday mode yet?

Another productive day at crumpet cottage today with two jobs being crossed off our 'house projects' list. Dh finally concreted my rotary washing line into the lawn so no more wonky washing! :T it's been leaning over all year and I've been trying to prop it up with the little plastic balls from the ball pit - they do not make very good props :rotfl: I look forward to using my non-wonky washing line tomorrow (hopefully)

It has taken me all day but we now have a lovely picket fence painted in country cream I'd been putting the job off for over a year and I'm so glad it's done now. We already had the paint so it hasn't cost anything and it's quite a transformation :T I'm absolutely covered in paint though, it's all up my arms, on my face and in my hair :eek: I've had a shower but I'm still quite painty :rotfl: I just need to buy a few plants to put in front of the fence and it should look really nice. I'm trying to create and 'English country garden' look so need to research plants to buy.

Dh took the children to the library this afternoon whilst I was doing the painting and he got a couple of DVD's for the kids and Life of Pi for us to watch tonight :T I've read the book and loved it so I hope the film is good. The cost of borrowing DVDs has gone up at the library though, it used to £1 and it's now £1.30 :eek: that's quite an increase, but I guess it's still cheaper then most places.

Delicious roasted veg pasta for dinner tonight using up lots of our veg box, I'm hopefully going to make the beetroot chocolate cake tomorrow as we still have some of that to use up. We have got absolutely loads of beans this week and I'm at a loss to know what to do with those. We'll probably end up blanching and freezing them. Any ideas for using them most welcome :cool:

Crumpets x

Pooky

You don't need to Blanche beans for the freezer, we never do and they cook just fine

Crumpets

Thanks for that tip pooky, that will save me quite a bit of time :beer:

Crumpets

It's been a very spendy day today :eek: we took the little ones to gymnastics this morning which was £8 followed by a trip to the wholesaler to stock up on store cupboard essentials, we also got dairy products and meat for the freezer and spent a grand total of £166.27 :eek: it should keep us going for quite some time, we won't go there again before Christmas now...I now have 8 boxes of cereal in my filing cabinet :rotfl:

We then went to Next where I spent £85 on clothes for dd1 because quite frankly she's an embarrassment, she's very tall and very slim so finding trousers to fit her are a nightmare. The other day whe was wearing some trousers that were far to big on the waist and too short so she either had half masts on or her bum was hanging out :rotfl: Next do a slim fit so hopefully that problem is solved :cool: next stop was Argos for a new printer - £50 and then dh has noticed that our PC is playing up and we have a lot of stuff stored on it so he has just ordered lots of storage and other stuff and spent £150 :eek: we have the savings for it and it's essential really so there we go. Not much to be done about it.

I'm hoping for a much cheaper day tomorrow, I'm meeting a friend at a NT property. I need to put £10 in two of her boys birthday cards though - out of the present fund. I have a present box full of things for small children but nothing for 11 and 8 year olds . I'll take a picnic and drinks though so hopefully it will be £10 maximum on ice creams etc for the kids

Ds has done brilliantly with potty training today and he is now without a dummy, without the use if the dummy fairy too :T my baby is growing up

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets

Glad you've got your rotary washing line up - I just gave mine away! We had a wasp nest a few years ago & it really frightened me (finding wasps in DS' cloth nappies that had been on the line :eek:) so although I know it's not environmentally great & not very MSE I've given up on outside drying. My friend wanted a rotary line so I exchanged it for the price of a haircut (she's my usual hairdresser, she didn't just hack my hair as a deal over a washing line :rotfl:)

How was the beetroot chocolate cake?!

Re: DD1's clothes, have you tried Monsoon? I know they're not cheap but they do have good sales, I used to get DS's jeans there as there's are *really* long & slim, my DS is the same as your DD1. When he grew out of them I sold mine at the NCT sale at a profit despite the knees nearly being worn through! Monsoon stuff has a real premium.

On the spendy day, we've had a few of those this summer. It's a shocker when you realise you've spent £1000 in a couple of weeks :eek: As you say can't be helped though.

Hope you have a brill day today, OH & I have been toying with joining NT, do you recommend it? Everywhere we went in Cornwall there seemed to be NT signs & we kept saying "see, if we'd joined we'd be getting in free now"

Crumpets

I'd definitely recommend joining the NT, especially if you holiday in this country, like you say they're all over the place. Your dd would be free so you would only pay for 2 adults and 1 child. You'll get your money's worth after about 6 visits. Lots of them have brilliant playgrounds and often have extra activitites on for kids. If you have any local to you they are great for a cheap day out, especially in the holidays! Someone mentioned to me that joining the Scottish one is slightly cheaper and still gives you access to the English properties. I haven't checked it out though.

I couldn't cope without my washing line, it's one of the things that I really love, especially after the winter, I can't wait to get my washing on the line :cool: there's something about watching it billowing about that makes me happy I don't have a tumble dryer either and I hate having a clothes airer hanging around the house. I brought a heated airer last year which helps with that.

I've never brought any kids clothes from Monsoon, but I'll take a look (in the sales:D), unfortunately I couldn't sell it on at a NNS as dd is too old but it might do well on eBay :T

Still no beetroot chocolate cake, it's one of those things that keeps sliding off the list. I'll see if I have time this morning, it will be nice for our picnic

RoaringTwenties

Oh yes of course DD1 is too old for NCT NN Sale I forgot!

I do have a tumble dryer & I'd be telling fibs if I said I didn't love it. I don't fly so that's the way I reason it carbon footprint-wise If we get rid of the airing cupboard (see my thread update!) think we'll get one of those floor to ceiling radiator ladder things

Thanks for the NT info, I'll look into that, sounds great :money:

Forgot to say glad the potty training is going well :T My DD did a poo on her potty yesterday, totally unprompted by us. Thing was, she was still wearing all her clothes :rotfl: She just came in to the room, sat down on the potty, said "poo" & did one

Crumpets

Hello, I lost a big post in Monday and then went to bed in a strop :rotfl: in my defence though I had had a very stressful day, the kids drove me potty and then to top it off someone crashed into me on the way to dd2's swimming lesson:mad: luckily no one was injured but the car needs repairing.

Yesterday dh and I went on our spa day which was lovely. Included in the voucher was a facial, back massage and a 2 course lunch each, we did splash out and upgrade to a 3 course meal and we had a bottle of Champagne :cool: and then I brought some fancy all singing all dancing cleanser so it wasn't a very frugal day at all:o. It was worth it though, it was so nice to spend some time as a couple without little peopgets round. The money will come out of our date night fund as we very rarely get to go out on a date these days

This morning I had to drag the children around the shops, this no supermarket challenge will certainly be a lot easier once the kids are back at school. We got bread and cakes from the bakery, some ham and stewing steak from the butchers, fruit and veg from the green grocer and then some other groceries from home bargains. I felt like I got quite a lot for my money today :T it reminded me of when I was little and doing the shopping with my mum, quite nostalgic

This afternoon I am meeting a friend at the local wildlife place, I have membership, Ds is free so I'll just have to pay for the girls. We're having lunch at home so I'll just take some biscuits along for snacks to make it a cheap outing :T

Later I'm going to send dh out to post an eBay parcel, we finally sold the baby monitor for £31, quite happy with that. He also needs to go on the hunt for somewhere to buy some alcohol. We don't drink lots but will need some to take camping with us tomorrow. I also need to make a beef stew in the slow cooker overnight for our dinner tomorrow when we get there :T

Lunch time now, I've just made some broccoli soup...yum

Crumpets x

giblet1979

Hey crumpets,

So sorry to hear about the crash - glad noone was hurt but sounds stressful

Hope you have a lovely time camping x

Crumpets

giblet1979 wrote: »

Hey crumpets,

So sorry to hear about the crash - glad noone was hurt but sounds stressful

Hope you have a lovely time camping x

Hi giblet, thanks, it's just something else to add to the pile of stuff to deal with <sigh> looking forward to a few days away from dealing with stuff :T

Just a quick update this morning, I've op'd £30 from the sale of the baby monitor :T got a few more things on the bay at the moment so hoping for another £15-£20 from those.

I need to find a better place to hide my Christmas presents, dd2 discovered the Elsa dress I've got her :eek: it only arrived yesterday and it was really creased so I hung it up in dh's wardrobe, she saw it and said 'whose is this beautiful dress mummy?' I told her to forget she saw it and she said it was so beautiful she couldn't forget it next week everything will be squirrelled away in the loft. Whilst I was looking in the present cupboard this morning I also discovered 2 pairs of winter pj's for both girls that I'd forgotten about :T

We're almost ready for camping, dh is working this morning and we're setting off after lunch. The stew smells delicious, I'm looking forward to eating it around the campfire this evening