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

greent

Oooh - the food sounds lovely, especially dessert!
x

Crumpets

It was, it's amazing how delicious jelly and ice cream can be :rotfl:

It's been a nsd so far today but I will be sending dh out to get some wine for this evening. The little ones will be going to bed soon as it's been a long and tiring week for them and dd1 is at her friends at the moment so it's all quiet here :T

There hasn't been much to report here, Everest have finally been and fitted the secondary glazing so no more drafty windows...Yay! We have had to pay £1300 for it though...boo:( It does protrude out further than I had hoped from the windows so we might have to get some curtains to disguise it. We currently have Roman blinds so I might get some cheap and pretty curtains to go with them and cover up the ugly bits at the sides.

Dh finally went to collect the meat pack that we ordered on groupon a few weeks ago so I'll portion it up and freeze most of it. There should be enough meat to last a few weeks which will help with the budget. I've been trying to work out how much money we've been spending on groceries and I'm finding it quite difficult to tell as some has been spent in cash. Last month was quite spendy though as I had the last couple of supermarket shops as well as a trip to the wholsalers. it will be interesting to see how I get on this month as it will be the first complete month of not using supermarkets. Dh thinks we should cancel our weekly fruit and veg box as it costs £20 a week and he thinks we can get more for our money at the green grocers. I kind of agree with him but it's difficult to get much organic at the green grocers and also I'll feel guilty if we cancel:o

Tomorrow I'm hoping will be a fun but low cost day as we have a couple of things planned. There is a local craft fayre that we are going to in the morning and then in the afternoon we are attending one of the national heritage open days http://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/ which will hopefully include a river boat trip. We're meeting up with some friends so it should be a fun filled day.:T

Friday night film tonight is X-Men 2

Happy Friday

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets

Lots to catch up on! Glad you had a great summer by the sound of it. Has the Elemis resurfaced your skin yet? You probably look about 18 by now, I shall rename you Dorian Crumpets

Sorry to hear about the eBay debacle. Some people are so unreasonable :mad:. I was thinking of getting back into eBay, it does pay off but oh the hassle! Think I'll get the NCT NNS out of the way & see what's left!

Sounds like you've been doing lots of work on the house, it's never ending isn't it? My OH says she feels like a bird & our house is her nest, she's constantly having to stick another twig in it to keep it together :rotfl:. Hope you feel the benefit on the windows soon :money:

Glad the kids are getting on well with their new schools - how weird and fabulous to have child-free time! I remember when DS went to nursery I didn't know what to do with myself - for about 5 mins till I remembered the housework

Your new clothes sound great & deffo a bargerama :money:

Is My Fitness Pal an app? I could do with a good app to track my [STRIKE]failure[/STRIKE] success

The meal out sounds delish, I love the image of you both spending most of it in the loo :rotfl:

Great OPing too, you're putting me to shame as I'm going the other way

Well done on Xmas too - nearly finished, that's amazing! I buy odd bits when I see them but I try & get the kids' birthdays at end of Aug & start of Oct out of the way before starting in earnest. Wrapping took some sorting last year as I recall so that's another reason to get organised early.

Hope you enjoy the film & the day out tomorrow

Crumpets

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Hi Crumpets

Lots to catch up on! Glad you had a great summer by the sound of it. Has the Elemis resurfaced your skin yet? You probably look about 18 by now, I shall rename you Dorian Crumpets

Sorry to hear about the eBay debacle. Some people are so unreasonable :mad:. I was thinking of getting back into eBay, it does pay off but oh the hassle! Think I'll get the NCT NNS out of the way & see what's left!

Sounds like you've been doing lots of work on the house, it's never ending isn't it? My OH says she feels like a bird & our house is her nest, she's constantly having to stick another twig in it to keep it together :rotfl:. Hope you feel the benefit on the windows soon :money:

Glad the kids are getting on well with their new schools - how weird and fabulous to have child-free time! I remember when DS went to nursery I didn't know what to do with myself - for about 5 mins till I remembered the housework

Your new clothes sound great & deffo a bargerama :money:

Is My Fitness Pal an app? I could do with a good app to track my [STRIKE]failure[/STRIKE] success

The meal out sounds delish, I love the image of you both spending most of it in the loo :rotfl:

Great OPing too, you're putting me to shame as I'm going the other way

Well done on Xmas too - nearly finished, that's amazing! I buy odd bits when I see them but I try & get the kids' birthdays at end of Aug & start of Oct out of the way before starting in earnest. Wrapping took some sorting last year as I recall so that's another reason to get organised early.

Hope you enjoy the film & the day out tomorrow

:rotfl: I wish I looked 18! my only resemblance to an 18 year old is that I've gone quite spotty :eek: :rotfl: my fitness pal is a free app and it's good for tracking calories eaten and exercise done etc, if you sign up we can be friends on there then we can see how the other is getting on

I used to love doing the Christmas wrapping when we only had dd1, I used to do it on Christmas eve with some mulled wine and carols playing, it was lovely, now with 3 of them it takes so long! I need to get started soon

Crumpets

It's been another busy weekend for us, it seems to be never ending at the moment but we've been doing fun stuff so I can't complain.

Yesterday was a LSD, £10 spent at the local craft fair, mainly on biscuits and the bouncy castle we also brought some fruit, veg and milk to keep us topped up for a few days. Despite there being gourmet hot dogs for sale at the fair we came home for lunch before heading out to our second activity of the day - a fabulous free trip on the river :T I love free stuff, the children really enjoyed it and it was nice to get a different view of our local town. I've never ventured on the heritage open days before but I'll definitely do it again.

Today dh has been on children duty whilst I've been working, he's taken them to gymnastics, the library, McDonald's and then his mums so his only spend was the food. We're still working on getting out of that habit I'm not sure how much I have earnt today but it will be Op'd once I've got it :T

I've got two loads of washing clean and dried again and all the school uniforms are ironed and put away ready for the week, I'm really pleased with the way my organisation is going so far this term. Things I need to improve on are more home baking for lunch boxes and getting change out for dd1's lunch money so I'm not scraping around and raiding the children's money boxes for pound coins. I already owe Ds £5 :cool:

It's starting to get quite chilly in the evenings now, I'm sitting under a blanket at the moment. We'll be keeping the heating off for as long as possible but we'll need to order some logs soon I can't wait to see how efficient our log burner is this year we should be much cosier as we've had a new front porch and doors, new windows and the log burner since last year :T

Time for a quick cup of tea now and then bed, I'm pooped!

Crumpets x

sassycat

Hi Crumpets!
I've been subscribed to your thread for months now and I'm bursting to ask........Do you live in Evesham? I've lived there for the past 4 years but have just moved to Manchester but still trying to sell my house in Evesham.
You talk about so many familiar things that I can't be far out.
Hope you don't mind me asking. Not a stalker!
Love your posts by the way.

Crumpets

Hi sassycat, no you're not far out, I am in that neck of the woods, although not actually in Evesham I thought I was being suitably vague about where I was but obviously not :rotfl: I bet you're finding Manchester a bit different to down here. Best of luck with selling your house :beer:

Crumpets

It was my second week of Pilates today so I have signed up and paid for 5 weeks in advance, that was £35. At least I haven't got to think about getting money out every week for it now, and it will definitely make me go. I'm not paying £7 a week to sit at home

I've also done a bit of baby sitting for a friend this morning so I didn't quite have a child free morning but I did get paid in a rather large courgette :rotfl: that will be roasted tonight to have with some pasta:T that means that I haven't started on the NCT NNS pile yet, I need to get a move on other wise it will be too late. Hopefully I'll get it done on Thursday when Ds is at pre school.

This afternoon I've cleaned the chickens out and I discovered they had red mite:eek: so what was supposed to be a quick once over ended up being a huge disinfectant job. I've had to send dh out for mite powder and we'll have to try and catch the chooks to put it on them :eek: wish us luck

I want to do a bit of baking this afternoon, I also have lots of raspberries to pick in the garden and I noticed that some of my tomatoes are finally turning red so will get dd1 to help me when she gets home from school - anything to get her away from a screen :mad:

We messed up on eBay yesterday. We forgot that we had arranged for someone to come and collect something and neither of us were in when they turned up I know I'd be very cross if that happened to me so not sure what to do about it :cool:

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets, you've been busy! The weekend sounds like lots of fun. You are doing well in your organisation, I am too at the moment - uniforms ironed, reading diary up-to-date etc we'll probably slack off as the academic year progresses eh?

Not sure I can join you in the Fitness app, am about to post my diet tale of woe on my diary shortly...:(

I've started the NCT prep finally today. I came over all soppy though & kept a few things back - how ridiculous! It's a faff but am hoping it sells. This time our minimum is £1, it used to be 50p, hope that doesn't put people off

I don't pretend to understand the chicken sitch but hope it gets sorted soon [STRIKE]yuk[/STRIKE]

Have you messaged the eBay buyer yet? Many people can be reasonable - I forgot to send something last week & the buyer was lovely when I frantically apologised & immediately sent it first class, even left me nice feedback. Good luck with it

Crumpets

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Not sure I can join you in the Fitness app, am about to post my diet tale of woe on my diary shortly...:(

I've started the NCT prep finally today. I came over all soppy though & kept a few things back - how ridiculous!

Have you messaged the eBay buyer yet? Many people can be reasonable - I forgot to send something last week & the buyer was lovely when I frantically apologised & immediately sent it first class, even left me nice feedback. Good luck with it

Don't worry about it RT, I'm doing really crap too, I just can't get my head in the right place to resist the treats, although I did resist ice cream and chocolate at the theatre last night :A [STRIKE]had two glasses of wine instead[/STRIKE] I have allowed myself to keep 1 box of baby stuff that I can't part with, some things I'm ridiculously sentimental about too I'm leaving dh to deal with the ebayer :cool:

Life is just plodding along here, I've nearly finished stripping all the wallpaper in the living room, I'm hoping to get the last bit done this afternoon :T the next phase is staining the beams, they're a horrible orange pine colour at the moment so I'm staining them a dark oak, I've already done some of the room so I just need to carry on as before. They're not original beams but I quite like them and they add a bit if character. I think removing them would be a whole lot of hassle and expense.

Yesterday Ds and I had a nice day out with my mum, she treated us to lunch so all I spent was £3.20 on parking and £2 on a souvenir to send to my American friend last night I went out with some friends to watch the local am-dram production which was surprisingly good :T spent £10 on the ticket, £1 on raffle tickets and £5 on drinks. It was a good night so I don't begrudge the spend

Today I have had a thoroughly lazy morning, Ds went to pre school crying which made me feel :(I caught up with last nights Bake Off and did pretty much nothing else. I've got him back now and we've had lots of cuddles

Plan for the rest of the day is

Strip wallpaper
Take dd2 to gymnastics
Take dd1 to get PE bag and a birthday present for her friend
Find something to have for dinner - I haven't done a meal plan yet!