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

greent

Crumpets wrote: »

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:

You won't have to pay that. L*waites - they will most likely phone you up and offer you discounts and incentives - just stick to your guns and say you bought a gr0up0n offer and that's it - their sales staff have high targets (linked to monthly pay) and will try hard to persuade you (I don't really know this because I know several people who work there (the HO is a couple of miles away from me) :whistle:)


If you haven't had email confirmation within 24 hours give them a ring and say you want to cancel and when they start their sales pitch just say no again and that you don't want it regardless of any offers they have


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Crumpets

Thanks for the advice Greent, I'll give them a call as I've had no response to my email...surprise surprise

Well we still haven't caught up with the finances so still no idea on how much we've spent on Christmas. we've all been either poorly or too tired in the evenings to think about doing it....it's making me feel anxious though :cool:

Last night I went out for our pre school Christmas night out, we went out for a curry and I managed to only spend £20 :T I have another night planned out for tomorrow and I really only want to spend £20 again...all these nights out are taking its toll:eek:

Tomorrow we are going to get our Christmas tree, I can't wait to get all the decorations up, I'm beginning to feel rather festive. I might even start wrapping up the presents this weekend:T

Crumpets

hello, We've had a lovely festive weekend. We went and picked our Christmas tree yesterday. It's become a lovely family tradition to go to the local orchard and choose our tree and I was very proud of myself when I chopped it down :xmastree: It cost us the grand total of £14 as they charge £2 per foot. There were a few trees available for £1 a foot but we didn't find one we liked at that price The kids enjoyed decorating it and it now looks like Christmas has exploded in our living room :T

Last night I went out to celebrate a friends birthday, I overspent slightly on what I had hoped to spend but that was because we had a few cocktails. Because of the late night it has been a very relaxed day today. It was almost a NSD but we popped into town for a festive coffee/hot chocolate. All in all though it's been a lovely day with no pressures on our time

Tomorrow I have to get things organised for our pre school Christmas fayre so that will take up most of my morning. I need to post my SiL's birthday present to her but that should be the only spend :T

Crumpets

Well yesterday was Ds's Christmas play and pre school Christmas fayre so it was a very busy day. I. Was tasked with organising the fayre (kind of) and it all went swimmingly. It was very busy and I must have spent about £15 on raffle tickets, tombola, cakes etc :eek: all for a good cause though and I did win a big vegetable hamper in the raffle :T I'm going to prepare and freeze a lot of it for Christmas dinner

Today dd2's school had a parent - child craft morning so Ds and I went along to that and made lots of lovely Christmassy things. I was going to go to soft play with Ds so I saved some money there, as well as not having to have all the mess in my house :rotfl:

On Saturday we are having a Christmas soiree (:cool:) so I'm going party food shopping this afternoon :T we're going to the wholesalers so I'm hoping it will be reasonably priced. I need to get drinks as well, hopefully it won't all get drunk on Saturday and it will last over Christmas too :T we have 14 adults and 14 children coming :eek: I always worry about under catering for these things so I'm bound to go way overboard

Well I'd better get some jobs done

Crumpets x

littlegreenpeas

Hope you had a lovely time

LGP

Goldiegirl

Wow, that's a lot of people - hope it went off ok and you have leftovers!

Crumpets

Hi GG and LGP :j we had a wonderful party thanks, a few people couldn't come so it wasn't as hectic as I thought and everyone seemed to have a good time. I went WAY over the top with the food and drink, but that's ok as we will have lots of yummy pic-nicky dinners. Also people brought us wine and chocs so we're quite stocked up for Christmas now :T all I need to get now is the meat for Christmas day

This morning I had a mammoth gift wrapping session and I only have dd2 and dh's presents to wrap now. Unfortunately I will need to buy some more wrapping paper for the 'from Santa' gifts I have rolls and rolls of other stuff but it has to be completely different paper for presents from Father Christmas

It was dd2's first nativity today in which she played an angel, it was lovely and she remembered her line :T dh and dd1 have just gone to watch the evening performance now. Tomorrow it is dd1's turn and then we are all done for shows for this year

Today was Ds's last day at pre school so I had to send in the teacher presents, as there are 5 of them it was quite a challenge to get things in budget but I think I managed it. I got them each a Christmas candle that I got in the January sales and a pair of Christmas socks that were 99p a pair on eBay :T it worked out at just over £2 per gift :T Tomorrow dd2 will have a visit from Father Christmas at school which we have to provide the present for (£5 or under) and I managed to get a Barbie for £3.99 from Smyths so I hope she likes it

Ds and I are just watching the Snowman and the snow dog...I'm feeling very festive now :xmastree::santa2::xmassmile:xmassign:

Crumpets x

Crumpets

I've done absolutely nothing I had planned today as we had visitors all day, this has resulted in me only spending on some mince pies and a Yule log :T I really do need to go to a supermarket or similar tomorrow though as I need to get some selection boxes etc. we did have a log delivery though which was £130 :eek: am now sitting in front of a toasty fire though

Dh and I finally went through our November finances last night and belts definitely need to be tightened if we are to do the things we want to do next year (camper van mainly) I need to not buy any clothes! I've asked for Ds to get some for his birthday and I'll ask my mum and dad to do the same for the girls birthdays, in fact I might ask for clothes shop vouchers for my birthday too we also need to have a break from doing things to the house to build up the savings pots a bit. It will be a very frugal start to 2015 for us

Tomorrow Ds has his pre school Christmas party which has cost £10 and I have a Christmas night out with the school mums on the evening. Food is already paid for (£20) so I'll just need money for drinks. I'm going to take £10 and once it's gone it's gone :cool: There have been so many things going on lately that have been £10 here £10 there and it all adds up. I still need to pay £25 for the school termly fee but they will have to wait until after Christmas...it's never ending :mad:

I need to get my frugal MSE mojo back I hate this feeling of frittering money away:(

Sorry for the moany post, I'll be much cheerier tomorrow:p

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Well it was the Christmas meal out last night which was really good, I overspent slightly by spending £15 instead of £10, that's probably as I went in on a round instead of buying my own. A great night was had though so I'm not grumbling. Dh has his night out tomorrow and hopefully that is the last of them :T

Today has been dd2's last day at school so I went in the town to make the most of my last day of freedom (still had Ds but taking 1 out is much easier than having them all tagging along) I got a few more little pressies, some really nice cadbury's biscuits from homebargains for only £1.99 a tin :T:money: there are a couple of friends where I'm not sure if presents will be brought so I don't want to be empty handed if we receive gifts. :cool:

I've been very lucky this week and I've been given some clothes for both Ds and dd2, this is going to be really helpful in my no clothes buying challenge it helps that dd2 is the smallest in her year by a long way so friends with children the same age as her pass clothes onto us I also have a bag of clothes and a car seat to pass onto my friend with a younger child. I really love the way parents look out for and help each other out with baby/ children's stuff. :T

I have been very organised and made a start on our Christmas dinner prep. I have blanched and froze carrots, cabbage and sprouts and also par boiled and froze some potatoes ready for roasting :T it was all from the veg hamper I won on the raffle and I didn't want it to start rotting, it will also make Christmas day a little less busy

Unfortunately dd1 still has to go to school tomorrow i can't wait to be able to turn the alarm clock off for a couple of weeks I have said I'll take the children to McDonald's tomorrow to celebrate the end of term but other than the it should be a NSD for me...not sure about dh though :cool:

Crumpets x

Crumpets

It's been a nice start to the holidays today and Ds has definitely enjoyed having his playmate at home :T

I carried on from yesterday and I have made a cauliflower cheese for Christmas day which is now in the freezer, I also had some parsnips that needed using up so I made a batch of spicy parsnip soup:)

Dh is off out tonight so dd1 and I have a nice evening planned once the little ones are in bed. We are going to watch elf and do some wrapping up I was very tempted to buy myself a nice M&S meal for dinner tonight but I've got some lentil curry out of the freezer instead :money:

I really hope the kids give us a lie in tomorrow, what's the betting they're up before 6 :rotfl:

Crumpets x