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

greent

We've been to DLP half a dozen times now, staying in various accommodation (including, one memorable time, the pink palace - courtesy of tesc0 vouchers!) We've always done a 5 day/ 4 night stay Day 1 we do the main park when we arrive @ lunchtime-ish. Day 2 the main one again. Day 3 the other one. Day 4 the main one and maybe a quick nip to the other one. Last day, the main one.


My biggest bugbear with the parks is that (theoretically) you aren't meant to take your own food in (not the case when we first started going) We usually fill up massively in our hotel at breakfast and also take a backpack to breakfast - into which we put buttered rolls and muffins from the breakfast buffet (all wrapped in serviettes from breakfast and put into plastic bags in the backpack. Maybe a yogurt on a couple of days. We then top this up at lunchtime with fruit (taken with us) and fries (purchased in the park) and tea/ coffee/ hot chocolate. Ice creams sometimes if weather is good. Not the healthiest option but it works for us, and then we have a decent dinner most evenings. Saves a fortune I have no scruples about it - the park's food is way overpriced.

JHH1982

Hi Cumpets,

De lurking to say how exciting for the DL holiday!! :T
I was lucky enough to be taken a few times by my parents when younger - it's memories your little ones will keep forever

Best Wishes
JHH

Crumpets

Hi JHH and thanks for delurking...please stay delurked

Greent, thanks for sharing your experience of DLP, there are some good tips there, particularly stocking up at the breakfast buffet :beer: I don't expect it to be the healthiest or the most frugal week but anywhere we can save a few £ is great. We're actually staying at the explorers hotel, so not an actual Disney one, but it looks cheerful and it was the cheapest option, not to mention offering big rooms for larger families :money: I do remember last time we went having a particular fondness for the hot dogs and waffles in the park

Another LSD today as I went to my mums, dd1 was off school poorly today so we just went and chilled out there. I spent £5 on some flowers for her and £1 on some mince pies. Tomorrow I'm going to have to pay £20 for the school Christmas night out but I'm not expecting to have to spend anything else.

Dh is just on the phone to our bank as we have had an unexpected payment credited to our account of £147. No idea where it has come from but I'm hoping I can OP it

Crumpets x

greent

Ooh - we stayed at the Explorers one last time we went (2 years ago now, I think) - there are 6 of us, so having the extra side room in with bunk beds was great! (and an extra tv in there!)


x

Crumpets

greent wrote: »

Ooh - we stayed at the Explorers one last time we went (2 years ago now, I think) - there are 6 of us, so having the extra side room in with bunk beds was great! (and an extra tv in there!)


x

I'm a bit frightened to ask what it was like now in case it's not very nice :cool:

Well I figured out what the £147 mystery payment was and sadly I can't op it it was money I had transferred out of savings to cover the cost of the pre-school fees. Talking of pre school fees I had to pay £182 yesterday to cover this half term, but that is it now. He'll get his 15 funded hours in January :T

I've spent the morning in the garden, cleaning out the chickens and doing some tidying. It's such a mess though, we really need to spend more money on it but there is so much to do in the house still and argh...I need to win the lottery

I've keep thinking about our MFW goals and what we want to get done in the house and I think next year I'm not going to op as much. I will still OP the regular amount but any money we make from ebaying, bonuses etc can go into the house fund. Sometimes it's so over whelming what needs doing [STRIKE]it probably doen't help that I watch a lot of housey programmes and get room envy[/STRIKE] :cool:

It won't be a NSD today unfortunately as I need to go and buy chicken food etc. I am working tonight though so I will hopefully have an extra op to make next week which will start December off nicely - I can't believe it's December next week :eek:

Crumpets x

JHH1982

Crumpets wrote: »

I've keep thinking about our MFW goals and what we want to get done in the house and I think next year I'm not going to op as much. I will still OP the regular amount but any money we make from ebaying, bonuses etc can go into the house fund. Sometimes it's so over whelming what needs doing [STRIKE]it probably doen't help that I watch a lot of housey programmes and get room envy[/STRIKE] :cool:

I can't believe it's December next week :eek:

Crumpets x

I know the feeling well and it's very frustrating having to balance reality/day to day comfortable living vs what you 'want' to do.
We have a 'scheduled' 18 months paying off our 'pots' (bank of mum and dad, garage, car, etc) before we can start properly overpaying the mort. And i'm desperate to start throwing everything at the mortgage now!!!! :mad:
But the sensbile thing and what i feel most comfortable doing is getting the money we owe paid off first - but like you, it does leave me very overwhelmed sometimes...never mind though, it could be alot worse, least we are in the MF mindset taking steps to be "FREE" , which is more than alot

As for December - hoorah the :xmastree: can finally go up :T
Are you putting your tree up this weekend Crumpets? I bet it's a source of much entertainment and excitement having 3 little crumpets to assist!

Crumpets

Sadly we're not putting the Christmas tree up this weekend, it's a bit too early for me. We will probably go and get one next weekend though. We have a great community orchard nearby that grows them and we get to go and choose one and dig it up ourselves! I love going round and choosing a good one :xmastree: The kids are currently watching Polar Express though so it's beginning to feel quite festive :santa2::rudolf:

After reading about the craziness that was Black Friday yesterday I'm quite glad I didn't venture out. I did buy a couple of things though. I got dd2 a winter coat from Joules for next year as well as an extra gift for dd2 and ds. Probably totally unnecessary but dd2 has been asking for a flutterby fairy every time she sees the advert and it was only £9.99...:o

I've just made my final OP of the month of £51.40 :T it takes me up to £380.70 for November, which isn't bad I suppose. I think I'm really going to struggle next year not making all these little extra OP's

Well it's been a very low spend day today, just 73p on postage for a DVD I sold the other day. I wanted to take my new (to me) brogues in to be re heeled but the cobblers was closed so I'll have to save my money for next week We went to my parents for lunch today and got quite well fed so we'll only need soup or something on toast for dinner. :j

Tomorrow ds has been invited to his first party, I'm pretty sure I have something in the present box suitable as well as cards and wrapping paper so I won't spend anything on that. I'm taking dd2 to the party as well so dh will probably take dd1 out for some daddy-daughter time, this will probably involve eating cake

After just saying it was a lsd today, dh has just been asked to go out tonight so that's that out the window! ah well

Crumpets x

greent

Crumpets wrote: »

I'm a bit frightened to ask what it was like now in case it's not very nice :cool:

It was a nice hotel - worked really well for us as a family I'd certainly go there again


x

JHH1982

Crumpets wrote: »

I've just made my final OP of the month of £51.40 :T it takes me up to £380.70 for November, which isn't bad I suppose.

Blooming Amazing OP's for Nov - well done!! :beer:

And our :xmastree:is up :j

Crumpets

well done for putting your tree up JHH:T I'm really looking forward to getting mine up this year. As we've had a bit of a change around this year I'm not sure where the trees are going to go:cool:

A lowish spend day today, spent £20 in tesco on a few groceries and a few presents. I also finally took my new shoes into be re heeled today, I have no idea what the previous owner had done to them but the heel had half disappeared! the cobbler gave me a few funny looks when I handed them over :rotfl: I will have to pay £12 when I pick them up tomorrow, hopefully they'll be alright and I will have got a bargain pair of Office brogues :T

You may remember that a while ago I brought a case of wine on groupon, well today I had a letter to say my next case will be delivered on 29th December and was going to cost me £89.99:mad::eek: it appears I had signed up for a wine plan!:mad: I've just emailed them to cancel any future deliveries, so I'll have to see what they say, I'll be gutted if I have to pay that much for 12 bottles of wine:cool:

The mortgage has gone out today so my next job is to check the balance:T I think DH and I are going to go through our November finances tonight, I really tried to cut down on non necessary spends this month but I feel like we've both been spending money like it's an olympic sport :eek: I'm hoping that it's just been because we've been buying Christmas presents which are budgeted for.

crumpets x