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

Crumpets

I'm really proud of myself this week, I've been really careful with my spending. I haven't spent on anything unnecessary and I've stuck to spending my weekly cash budget :T we have spent a bit on the house this week but we have a budget for that. I really can't wait to get the downstairs finished, I'm fed up of having tools and bits of wood hanging around!

Last night we went to a brilliant free fireworks display, we spent about £5 on cakes and mulled wine plus £2 on sparklers for the kids. It was really lovely, even though the little ones didn't like it. Ds even fell asleep despite all the big bangs and we had to put him to bed in his clothes :rotfl:

Today has mainly been spent tidying the house (not that you'd know :mad:) it's been a lovely day so I've put the washing on the line. It'll finish off on the clothes horse over night :T My parents came over for a quick visit so I've given my mum some bed sheets to take home to dry in her new tumble dryer :rotfl: :T

I have a few things finishing on eBay today, 1 has definitely sold and I'm hopeful another one will, anything else will be relisted. I'm going to list a few more things this week, clutter begone!

Christmas shopping is going well, I have my mums present, all of dd1's stuff, all of Ds's birthday presents and christmas presents and most of dd2's :T I can't wait to get wrapping but i've ordered wrapping paper from the school fundraising thing so I have to wait for it to come :cool:

I have a fairly social week this week so I'll have to be careful with my budget to make sure I have enough money for everything. I also really need to take a top back that I brought a while ago but the card I paid for it on has disappeared in the house somewhere so I can't return it until I find it :mad:


Still lots to do so I better get the chicken in the oven for dinner...

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets, I've been lurking away but just no time to post recently! Let's not discuss the malted milks, save to say I'm buying a secret stash just for me at the mo

The My Little Pony onesie sounds fab! Did they do them in adult sizes? Only joking [STRIKE]ish[/STRIKE] . The Pudsey onesie seems to have had a very pleasing unexpected consequence - DS wants to wear it so much he's being very careful about keeping it dry at night :T

I hope you find the top to return! And if you get your house sorted let me know the secret will you?! I was lurking on a Mumsnet Xmas thread recently, it was all about things kids ask for for presents, it was hilarious. One little girl asked for some Cillit Bang Apparantly she saw an advert for it where it just went "bang" & the house was clean, she thought this would be useful for tidying her room :rotfl:

greent

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

And if you get your house sorted let me know the secret will you?! I was lurking on a Mumsnet Xmas thread recently, it was all about things kids ask for for presents, it was hilarious. One little girl asked for some Cillit Bang Apparantly she saw an advert for it where it just went "bang" & the house was clean, she thought this would be useful for tidying her room :rotfl:

Oh if only!!!!!:rotfl:

Crumpets

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Hi Crumpets, I've been lurking away but just no time to post recently! Let's not discuss the malted milks, save to say I'm buying a secret stash just for me at the mo

The My Little Pony onesie sounds fab! Did they do them in adult sizes? Only joking [STRIKE]ish[/STRIKE] . The Pudsey onesie seems to have had a very pleasing unexpected consequence - DS wants to wear it so much he's being very careful about keeping it dry at night :T

I hope you find the top to return! And if you get your house sorted let me know the secret will you?! I was lurking on a Mumsnet Xmas thread recently, it was all about things kids ask for for presents, it was hilarious. One little girl asked for some Cillit Bang Apparantly she saw an advert for it where it just went "bang" & the house was clean, she thought this would be useful for tidying her room :rotfl:

Cillit Bang would definitely be on my Christmas list if it did that! :rotfl: well done to Ds for keeping his pudsey onesie dry:T That must make life a bit easier for you. :j

I'm still being very good with my spending, LS days for most of the week. I took Ds to the wacky warehouse and spent about £5 and I spent £2 yesterday on biscuits to take to a friends and that is pretty much it. We will have a spendy weekend though, dh is going out for a curry tomorrow night, I'm meeting up with an old uni friend on Saturday night and on Sunday we are taking dd1 to comic con in Birmingham. If she wants to buy anything she'll have to use her pocket money :cool:

Today is going to be a lazy day, dh has the day off work and as we have no children at home this morning we're going to have a date it's nice to have some alone time especially as life has been pretty busy recently.

5:2 is still going really well, I'm finding the fast days have been getting easier and I've managed to get out of the habit of buying M&S ready meals for my dinner :T I've lost 6lbs now and an inch from around my waist which is amazing I'd Like to lose another 6lbs before Christmas but I have a lot of nights out planned so I'll see how I go

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Hello

After it being a horrible morning weather wise Ds and I have been having a morning in the house. We've played all sorts of games including twister! Ds is cruel, he just makes up where to put hands and feet and he had me in some very difficult positions :eek: we've also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I froze half the dough [STRIKE]and ate the other half [/STRIKE] ready for next week :T

As it's children in need today I had to send the girls in with money, [STRIKE]fortunately[/STRIKE] dd1 is missing her pyjama day at school as her class have gone on a trip to a wildlife centre, which is much more fun than wearing pjs to school.

This weekend is going to be a little less spendy than I anticipated as I've been informed that comic con is in fact next weekend not this one so we have a free day on Sunday now :T good job I realised before we turned up and had to deal with a very disappointed girl :eek:

I've been having a bit of a sort out and have found another bag of stuff to take to the charity shop, I'll do that this afternoon as I'm popping into town to get my hair cut. It will be my first hair cut since June and only my 2nd one this year! I used to have my hair cut every 6-8 weeks so this has saved us a lot of money over the year. It also means I have lovely long swishy hair I also have somebody coming to collect something on freecycle that has been cluttering up the living room, so I'll be happy to see the back of it :T

We currently have 12 things listed on eBay, I'm not expecting them all to sell but it would be nice if some of them did. I've listed my old phone with a smashed screen and have already had 2 offers of £25. It's only on for 99p so I don't understand why people don't just bid on it, they might get a bargain!

Dh is off out for a curry tonight so I'll be making pizza for the rest of us, dd1 and I are going to watch Dirty Dancing I can't wait, I hope she loves it as much as I did when I was younger :cool:

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Hello, LSD today after quite a spendy weekend, a night out each for both dh and myself plus lunch in M&S cafe yesterday for us all. It was really nice though and great to go out as a family for a change. We also had to go to the shops to get some things for the Christmas shoebox appeal, thank goodness for Primark and poundland. Primark have got loads of Frozen clothing and Pj's in stock so both girls were trying to persuade me to get them stuff but I resisted :T They'll just have to wait and see what they get for Christmas

Today I had Pilates which is getting really hard! I definitely feel like it's doing something now. I also went out for a cup of tea and a cheese scone with my friend and spent £3.20:) I just need to post an eBay parcel and that is it for spends today :T we managed to sell a couple more things on eBay the weekend, the best thing being my smashed phone selling for £51! I was gobsmacked. I'll get those wrapped up and posted tomorrow.

Grocery shopping tomorrow, last week we went off piste with the meal planner so we have quite a few meals in already for this week so I'm hoping not to spend too much. I will pop a few things in the trolley for Christmas too though.

I'm trying to book our family holiday for next year but I'm struggling as where we want to go has been booked up for Easter and we can't really afford the summer holidays so I'm not sure what we'll do I'll be really upset of we can't go back again. I wish we could take the kids out of school, sometimes I wish I home schooled so we didn't have all these restrictions in place.

I'm looking forwards to an early night tonight as I'm still recovering from my night out on Saturday. I'm getting to old for this lark! :eek:

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets, checking in! We just finished our Xmas shoebox appeal too, I'm friendly with a girl who works in our Clarks & she saves the toughest/brightest shoe boxes for us that do it locally each year :T. and yes, Poundland does come into it's own!

A friend of mine was saying just the same about home schooling the other day, her OH told her to forget it, they'd rather pay treble for the hols than not be able to hand the kids over in term time :rotfl:

Glad the diet is going well & the eBay sales sound fabulous :money:

Crumpets

Well it's been a while since I updated as I have done very little MFW stuff this month. I've just op'd £70 from ebay sales and that is it other than the regular OP. I guess living life has taken priority which is a good thing. Both DH and I have had busy social lives this month and it doesn't look like it's going to slow down before Christmas.

I did have a nice free night out last night though as I was the designated driver so wasn't required to put any money into the kitty :T I'm off out again tonight with some old uni friends and I will spend some, but I'll be as frugal as I can be. I have a busy day again tomorrow so I don't want to be feeling rough so I'll be taking it easy;)

Some exciting news though ( I think so anyway ) we have booked our holiday for next Easter and we are going to DISNEYLAND!! in Paris, but still I think we've got quite a good deal, we'll be there Monday to Friday and will be there for my birthday, when we will be lunching with the princes and princesses...I'm so exicted, probably more so than the kids will be once we tell them :rotfl:

So we definitely need to be putting money into our holiday funds to cover spends once we're there. We're driving so I'll make sure we take a good supply of snacks and drinks. if anyone has any other money saving tips for surviving Disney I'll be happy to hear them:p

I've been thinking about what my goals will be for next year in terms of our MFW quest. I'd love to be under 100K by the end of 2015 and I need to work out how much we need to OP to get there. I have no idea how to do that though:o

Happy weekend everyone

Crumpets x

Goldiegirl

Hooray, Disneyland!!! :j


I love the Disney theme parks. Haven't been since the 90's, but I'd love to go again before I get too much of a bad back to go on the rollercoasters! :rotfl:


Best financial advice for Disney (any theme park in fact) Do not allow your children into the souvenir shops!:rotfl:

Crumpets

Hi Goldiegirl, Yes I'm really looking forward to the rollercoasters...luckily they do a parent swap so one of us stays with the kids whilst the other one is on the ride, so we don't have to queue twice I think with the souvenirs, I will give the kids a set amount to spend and once it's gone, it's gone :money:

Well I am very glad that the weekend is over as it was very hectic and quite spendy :cool: this week has got to be extremely frugal, especially as it's the last week of the month. I don't really have much planned apart from a birthday party for ds to go to. I have a present in the box for that so it won't cost me anything :T

I've just realised that I am working on Thursday evening so unfortunately I won't be able to go to circuits but at least I will be able to have an extra OP to finish off the month :j

I've been doing a bit more Christmas shopping today, I only have dh and my MiL to by for :T I'm really looking forward to doing my wrapping up now, I'll start next week whilst the kids are at school. I always get so paranoid doing it in the evening whilst the kids are in bed in case they come downstairs and catch us:cool:

Crumpets x