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

Crumpets

Hi CathT, thanks for dropping by I think I have heard of a bowl full of lemons, I've seen a couple of things on pinterest from there I think. I'll check it out tomorrow to get me inspired for the new year :T

Hi gg, it sounds like you had your fair share of Christmas disasters too. I'm sure we'll be laughing about it in years to come, every Christmas day I expect

We've had quite a full NYE today, I started off by taking the kids to the cinema, £20 for tickets for the 3 of us :eek: I took popcorn and choccies with us so didn't spend anything whilst I was there and I parked for free so it could have been worse. We went to watch Tinkerbell and the Neverbeast which I really enjoyed. The little ones found it a bit scary in places though and dd2 was scared at bedtime

I had to pop into tesco for pet food and milk and it was absolutely crazily busy:eek: people queuing for ages to get in and out of the car park and with trolleys piled high...it's bizarre! I was glad to get in and out as quick as possible

Ooh as I didn't post yesterday I haven't mentioned my mad shopping spree at the garden centre I ended up buying quite a lot of stuff BUT all of it was 50% off. I got 8 things for my present box as well as a birthday present for my mum, some new Christmas decorations and even a couple of Christmas presents for next year :T

This evening my lovely friends brought dinner round for us and the children had a lovely play as well as me getting some adult company :T one good thing about dh's accident is that it as shown me I have some lovely friends...I'm very lucky

Well as it's the final day of the year I suppose I'd better have a few goals in mind

• Op £3000
• Carry on with the decluttering - any proceeds from this will go in our camper van fund
• Do less DIY and enjoy the weekends more
• Exercise twice a week minimum
• And the obligatory healthy eating/losing weight

I hope everyone has a fantastic NYE whatever you're doing [STRIKE]even if it's just watching James Bond like me[/STRIKE]

Heres to a happy and healthy 2015 :beer:

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Well the first day of the year has been a busy one for me, I have been very productive and I'm worn out now

I've ;

• done 2 loads of washing
• made 2 batches of curry for the freezer
• Made pea soup after I accidentally left the bag out of the freezer
• Changed dd1's bed sheets
• Took kids and the dog to the park for fresh air and exercise :T
• Cleaned the bathroom
• Visited dh :T

It's been a very frugal day too, the only spend was £4.10 on the car park at the hospital :mad: we've eaten left overs for dinner so it's been a good start to the year :T I've also made a very good start on my healthy eating regime, not one chocolate has passed my lips [STRIKE]and it's not because all the nice ones have gone out of the quality streets[/STRIKE] :rotfl:

This morning I made a very exciting discovery, I can now check my mortgage from an app, which will make it much easier to keep tabs on what's going on :T it's very exciting and shows quite a lot of information, I can see myself checking it *a lot* :rotfl: the first mortgage payment of the year should go out tomorrow so I'm looking forward to updating my signature :cool:

Crumpets x

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets, I'm dizzy with your achievements & plans! All sounding great. I think you might be onto something with the dropping DIY/enjoying weekends more, I've been thinking along the same lines. We seem to spend every weekend sticking things in/bringing things down from the loft, putting up a curtain poles etc I'm sure there'll be time for that as the kids get older, I keep thinking I should enjoy this family time more & just live in a complete tip :eek:

I'm jealous of your app! I was looking for a generic mortgage calculator type app yesterday but couldn't see anything that had decent reviews in the App Store

Good luck with all your MFW aims for 2015 not to mention the Campervan, I really think you should get a full scale model of the one Peppa has :rotfl:

Crumpets

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Good luck with all your MFW aims for 2015 not to mention the Campervan, I really think you should get a full scale model of the one Peppa has :rotfl:

can you imagine it! At the push of a button the beds will unfold, all we'll have to do is tell it where we want to go and it will direct us and we need never bother with air or sea travel again as we can just sail everywhere in it :rotfl: :T

Well I've started to de-Christmas the house as I was getting very fed up with the clutter. I'm leaving the tree up until the 6th but all the nic-nacs, lights and cards have come down. It feels better already :T I've even got the washing billowing on the line today so it feels very spring-like here I just need to sort out homes for the rest of the new toys and we'll be almost back to normal :rotfl:

I have to say I'll be glad to see the kids go back to school on Monday so things will stay put away for more than 5 minutes :rotfl: I'm fed up of picking the same things up over and over again:( I've just emailed Ds's pre school teacher to see if I can increase his hours now that he has his funding through, it will help me get more things done around the house and spend more time with the animals

We've been invited round to a friends for dinner tonight which is lovely so I haven't got to do any cooking :T the kids will enjoy playing with their friends too so it will give me a bit of a break. Every time I start to do a job I hear "MUM HELP" :mad:

Right, my times up, Ds is wanting me

Crumpets x

Crumpets

My first OP of the year has been made £230.35 :T it feels good to be off the mark :j

It's been another busy day today trying to get things ready for the new term. All the school uniforms have been ironed, school dinners have been ordered and we have packed lunch stuff coming with the online shopping. I have however discovered that pre school is not going back tomorrow as I thought :mad: this means that I have to take dd1 and Ds to Pilates in the morning :eek: I'm not sure how successful this is going to be

Our broadband decided to conk out last night which is a complete disaster for me :eek::cool: after some instruction from dh and a trip to currys (spent £9.99) I managed to solve the problem :T dh had to do an online shop for us from his hospital bed as I didn't know if we could fix it

My challenges to myself this month are to have a meat free and booze free January - so far so good :A I've also done 2 days of my exercise DVD and I have Pilates tomorrow so I'm quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately it means I have to pay for 6 weeks of Pilates classes which is £42 but never mind

I'm going to get dd1 into bed in a few minutes then have some peace and quite on my own :T

Crumpets x

JHH1982

Hi Crumpets - just catching up....So sorry to hear about DH and his Xmas stay in hospital! Really fab that he was 'released' for a few hours to spend some time with you and little ones.

Well done on the OP as well!! An amazing start to the year! :beer:

JHH

Crumpets

Hello JHH, we have had some good news today and hopefully dh will be home tomorrow :T It will be so good to have him home

We're almost back to normal in crumpet cottage, I finally took the tree down and gave the lounge a good clean. It feels huge now and also very bare . All but one child has returned to school, Ds goes back tomorrow so I will have 3 hours to myself for the first time in 3 weeks :T I can't wait I'm planning on going for a long walk with my friend I'm determined to get rid of the 1/2 stone I put on over Christmas [STRIKE]and more[/STRIKE]

Unfortunately I need to report a bit of a spendy day yesterday, I didn't really have a choice for most of it as it was for dd1 for school. I had to get football boots, shin pads, sports bag and sports socks :eek: I wouldn't mind if she was particularly sporty but this is just for PE :cool: it is also both girls birthday at the end of this month and we have decided to get them guinea pigs I saw a hutch that was on offer in pets at home for £50 so I got that :T we just need the piggies to go in it now...we're all very excited :T

Today has mainly been spent in the house so it's been a LSD, I had to pop out and get some nappies and salad and I also returned some slippers to Next which is an £8 refund :T I hate to say it but I almost couldn't be bothered to return them glad I did though!

An easy dinner tonight of Fishcakes, salad and chips...yummy

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Well it's been a crazy week since I last posted, dh came out of hospital on Wednesday so it's been all systems go since then :T on Thursday we also became owners of 2 lovely little guinea pigs so the girls are very happy and are taking their guinea pig duties very seriously These are their main birthday present so they will just have a few small things to open on the day. Dd2 really wants to have a birthday party and I haven't got the time or the energy to do a DIY one, I priced up the Wacky Warehouse and it's going to cost £130 :eek: I really do not want to pay this but I don't want her to miss out so I don’t know what to do

I'm hoping to get organised enough to list a few things for sale over the weekend. We are also trying to sell our small car, dh advertised it on FB and we had a bit of interest in it. Hopefully that will go over the weekend too. It's an old banger so if it doesn't sell we'll scrap it. We're now on the look out for a small car that can fit the 5 of us in if we need to. This is all part of our camper van plan :T

Sadly we lost one of our chickens today, I now only have two hens and the cockerel. Once these have gone we won't be getting any more. They don't lay anymore so we'll just give them a comfortable home for the rest of their days. They take up quite a big chunk of our garden and I'd like to have that space back for the children to play in now they're all getting bigger.

Dd1 lost a tooth today so the tooth fairy will be visiting tonight :T:eek:

Crumpets x

Crumpets

Well it's been a lovely bright breezy morning so far so I have taken the doggy for a lovely long walk and put the washing on the line. I can't remember putting my washing on the line this early in the year before. Anything to stop it from hanging around the house :T

We have had an enormous pile of rubbish in our front garden for [STRIKE]months[/STRIKE] weeks, we had been trying to get a removal company to get rid of it for us for ages. Today it has finally gone, it cost us £40 but it was definitely worth the money and it's much cheaper than a skip :T

Unfortunately when I was checking the online banking this morning I spotted that there had been some fraudulent activity on our PayPal account :eek: dh has been on the phone to the bank this morning and hopefully we should be refunded and given new bank cards...this is the second time in a couple of months this has happened :mad:

Ds has a birthday party to go to this afternoon, luckily my present box is very full after my sales shopping so the present is all wrapped up :T I still haven't decided what to do about dd2's birthday party. I really need to get it sorted as it's only a couple of weeks away now

CathT

Sorry to hear about your chicken Crumpets. Hope the PayPal problem gets sorted too, DH was a victim of fraud a few years ago as someone took out 6 phone contracts out in his name. We didn't lose any money butit was very inconvenient and time consuming sorting it out.

I could do with stocking up our present box, parties seem a constant weekend activity when you have little ones.