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

Crumpets

Hi Lisalou, I've just commented on your diary, thanks for stopping by

We have resumed our positions on the sofa and we're about to stick Star Wars on in preparation for watching the new one next week we have a baked camembert, pate and crusty bread, yummy :T

greent

We have a cordless Dyson - and a 'normal' one (the small one, not the upright) - the cordless is fab for doing up the stairs and a quick vacuum in the kitchen if something is spilt We also take it camping to vacuum the tent!! I still like to use the corded one in the lounge/ dining room every so often, as it does suck up more - you can see the difference in our lounge carpet when I do it. The cordless is much more convenient, though! And I get the kids to use it - bonus!
x

Crumpets

Well I've tried my new vacuum out on the stairs, which is something i very rarely do and it was really easy! I love it

A NSD day today, I went out for a huge walk with my friend earlier and got very wet and very muddy but I really enjoyed it. The dog hasn't moved from her bed since we got back I've just done a bit of college work and I'm now going to chill out and have a mooch on here. I need to make a birthday cake later and see what food I can rustle up for a buffet lunch tomorrow

Crumpets

I'm still loving my new vacuum, I'm sure the novelty will wear off but at the moment I'm enjoying grabbing the vacuum and get up all the bits, sad isn't it really to get so excited about a piece of household equipment :rotfl:

It's been Ds's birthday today so we had the family round for some lunch, £15 spent on lunchy items but there is enough left for tomorrow's lunches too. We're also having a little party for his friends on Wednesday and I've promised him a character cake so we'll go and choose that tomorrow as well as getting more party food! I'll be so glad to get back to normal next week :cool: We went out for dinner tonight at Frankie and Bennie's as a special treat, not exactly frugal but I did have a 25% off voucher which saved us £15 :T:money:

I'm starting to think about finding homes for all the new toys and I've come to the conclusion that I will have to get rid of some old ones first. The first step is to put them in the loft and then if no one has mentioned them by Easter I will feel its safe to sell them :rotfl: I fear Ds is developing a complex as he keeps asking me not to give his things away :eek::rotfl:

I've signed up for 2016MFW challenge and I've set myself a target of £2000 op. I hope this is a realistic target and I'll aim to meet this by selling things, using rewards and TCB, not frittering money and maybe even by me working if everything goes to plan :T

Crumpets

It's New Years Eve already! Im looking forward to starting a new year, I feel like I have lots of thoughts and ideas whirling around my head so I need to get these down on paper and try and make sense of them I have a few short term goals as well as some longer term ones, I mentioned most of them in a previous post though

Just one last day of festivities to go then we can assess the damage :cool: Ds had his birthday party yesterday which was nice, quite hectic but he had some lovely presents from his friends. I think it must have cost less than £40 including party bags, cake and food so I'm quite pleased with that :T I've got my eye on quite a few toys that can make the first leg of their journey out of the house now :rotfl:

Next month I have both dd's birthdays, I've got dd1s gift but I also want to take her to Cardiff to the Dr Who experience. I'm not having much luck finding cheap accommodation for the 5 of us :mad: it's so frustrating, why don't family rooms cater for 3 children, it can't be that unusual surely??

I'm going to pop into town today, the girls are desperate to spend their gift vouchers and my present box is quite empty so if I see any bargains I might get them. I also need a calendar but I refuse to spend more than £5 on one, less than that hopefully! We also need to get a bit of food to take round to my MiL's today but hopefully won't spend more than £15

I've just had a thought, I haven't withdrawn our £50 cash spends for this week I'm going to OP it instead, great end to the year :T it will just mean we have to have a very frugal weekend, but I'm sure that won't be difficult

littlegreenpeas

Hi Crumpets

Happy New Year. I have been reading life in the Crumpets house with great enjoyment. Good luck with your plans this year.

Lgp

Crumpets

Hello LGP, happy new year to you, how things? Your signature looks amazing! Well done :T

Happy new year to everyone!

We're still very Christmassy here, still got all the decs up and the living room is still being over take by toys so I'm beginning to be a little bit stressed by it all. We normally leave everything up until January 6th but I'm not sure we'll make it this year. Saying that i've spent most of the day doing college work so I may not get around to it before then as there is still loads to get done before next week :eek:

Dh and I have done a complete stock take of the cupboards and freezers today and we should have enough to make plenty of meals. I'm hoping to just spend minimum amounts on topping up with fresh stuff for as long as possible. It would be great to be able to save a couple of hundred pounds off the grocery budget. We do have both dd's birthdays at the end of the month which is the only thing that could spoil things, luckily they share a birthday so we'll only need to do a buffet once :rotfl:

A local organisation put in a free kayaking session today at the local leisure centre, I managed to put dd1s name down and she had a brilliant time! It was really well run and lasted almost 2 hours! She's interested in joining the Sea cadets now which is brilliant...long may it continue :T

I've made my first OP of the year today, £50 :T hopefully we can reinstate our regular OP soon, dh and I need to re do the budget and go through our finances. I need to get dh in a good mood first though as he hates doing it

RoaringTwenties

Hi Crumpets! Well done on the OP, cracking start to the year :T

Good luck with the groceries, as you know I have the opposite problem since the floods & power cuts. It is astonishing what you find lurking in your freezer though as I have recently discovered (still having nightmares :eek::rotfl:)

Nice to be back x

Crumpets

Not quite the frugal end to the week, we took the children swimming this afternoon as they asked to go. It's something we very rarely do but they all enjoyed it so much! It was £13.40 for a family swim followed by £8 on drinks afterwards. We've decided to try and make it a regular thing as we all really enjoyed ourselves. I've also booked the girls onto ice skating lessons starting at the end of the month. It's all money well spent though I think.

Dh went shopping today to get some fresh items and spent about £15 in aldi on milk, ham, bread and fruit and veg. Hopefully this will last us most of the week :T we had pasta carbonara for tea today, good way to make 2 rashers of bacon spread between the 5 of us! :rotfl:

The car is going into the garage in the morning, it's making some very funny noises so I hope it's not going to be too expensive to repair

RoaringTwenties

Fingers crossed for the car Crumpets

I think something like swimming is always worth the money, it's great family time & keeps you all fit as well as improving the kids' confidence & skills. We need to start going again!