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

Crumpets

Another busy weekend, 2 children's parties plus meeting up with friends. We did manage to get a decent amount of work done on the van yesterday which is great :T MiL kept an eye on the children so we could get on

I made a £40 op today which is the total of what I've sold this week. £90 OP so far this month :T

Crumpets

I haven't had chance to update for a while, still got my MFW hat on though :T

I have to say so far January has been pretty pants for us, we've had things breaking, a rodent issue and sickness. I'll be glad for it to be over next week.

Anyway, I've still been plugging away and have had some success with selling stuff. I should have another £33 to OP this week and I've just sold an old phone for £25 which will go towards next months OP. I'm having a major declutter of the house so hopefully I'll find more stuff to go as I work through it all. I've brought myself the Marie Kondo book, 'the life changing magic of tidying up' it has quite a following and I'm hoping following the rules will make for a simpler, clutter free life :T 3 bags of things went to the charity shop at the weekend as well as a bin bag of teddies. the kids haven't even noticed, so I'm sure I can thin the 'keep' pile down even further

We're off to Cardiff on Thursday for our cheap birthday trip away, I need to make sure I change some clubcard vouchers for an evening meal plus sort out DD's Blue Peter badge for the Dr Who experience. We could do without going really as DH has been busy at work and we've both been under the weather. Oh well, I'm sure it will be fine when we get there. I have both DD's birthday presents but I need to get cards so I'll have to nip into town tomorrow on my own so I can get them. They have both requested big birthday badges too

I have two parcels to post today, one Royal Mail and one Myhermes. Unfortunately I under estimated postage on the one item by £2.50 :mad: Cross with myself for guesstimating. :mad:

Crumpets

Once again life has been busy so I haven't had time to update my diary, I have a rare few minutes peace in an empty house so I thought I'd get myself back up to date

Last weekend was our trip to Cardiff for the Dr Who experience and we had a really lovely time. Our hotel was right next to two major supermarkets so that helped us with cheap breakfasts in their cafe's, and we even had a picnic tea in our room on the second night as we were full from a big lunch still. Dr who was brilliant, although the little ones found it very scary but big dd absolutely loved it, she was in her element :T we did soft play for the little ones in the afternoon, followed by a museum and fish and chips before coming home the following day. It was a lovely frugal break :money::)

Unfortunately our bad luck with things breaking down continues. Now the dishwasher needs repairing. There is a hole in the waste pipe so I'm hoping it will be straightforward to repair (I hope!!) the repair man can't come until Wednesday so we have lots of washing up to do in the mean time

The decluttering is continuing, we have taken 5 bags of stuff to the charity shop, I've sold a few more items on eBay and a box of cd's and books have gone to zifit which should get us about £15. This will be OP'd when it arrives:T I have a few more items to list on eBay this week, I hope the weather improves as they're spring/summer clothes. I have decided to give my eBay items 2 chances on eBay and if they don't sell then they are off to the charity shop too :cool:


Last night dd1 had her birthday party which was a pizza and movie night, so quite frugal really. We already had the film she wanted to watch so all we had to buy was pizza, popcorn, icecream and a cake. I think I spent about £30, she decided she didn't want party bags which saved some money too :T Tomorrow we have dd2's birthday party. She decided she wanted a ninja turtles theme and I knew I'd seen kinder eggs with ninja turtles in them. I didn't buy them when I first saw them unfortunately so I must have been in 10 different shops looking for the over the past few days. I eventually found them in the last shop I could think of :T:j we'll need to get party food and a cake in the morning but hopefully wont spend more than £25. I'm so glad birthday season is over tomorrow :cool:

Kittenkirst

Sounds like you had a lovely (and frugal) time away as a family
Bad news on the dishwasher- fingers crossed its cheap as chips!

Fab work with the decluttering too! I'm on a similar mission with the decluttering- fingers crossed for bidding frenzies on our items hey!

Crumpets

Hi Kittenkirst, How is ebay going for you? it's slowed down a bit for me, i think all my good stuff has gone now, I still have some clothes to list but I really cant be bothered

The decluttering is still on going, although is now hampered by the kids being home. I don't mind though, I like having the slower pace of life that the holidays bring us I must take a big pile of stuff to the charity shop tomorrow though as it is taking over one of the sofas :eek:

We're on track for a frugal 1/2 term, yesterday a friend and I tried out a new soft play centre in town, I think it must be subsidised by the council as they offer all sorts of classes for parents and children at really reasonable rates. The children enjoyed it too which was good. Less than £10 spent there. Only £3 spent today on bananas and crisps, we went to the park to make the most of the sunshine, even though it was absolutely freezing. Met up with some friends and went to their house for a play and a warm up so it's been a lovely day :T Tomorrow we had plans to go to a NT place but it's going to rain all day so we need to go back to the drawing board. It might end up being a day in the house

We've booked a camping holiday :T it's for the end of July and is a home education festival in Wales so we need to get cracking on with the van. I know July is ages away but we are still a long way off even all being able to sit in it, let alone sleep in it :eek::rotfl:

I've just made my first OP of the month - £40, £15 of that was from Zifit for old books and cds. Hopefully I'll have a bit more ebay money to OP too. The only trouble is I keep spending my paypal money buying things off ebay argh I need to control my shopping urges :eek:

MumofIowans

Just wanted to say hi Crumpets and ask how many different pots you divide your money into? I've reworked our budget for this year and I'm trying to cover all bases. We don't have a date night pot so I really should make one of those, although with a 5 month old that probably won't be happening for a while! I've really enjoyed reading about your journey and I'm beginning to understand what it's like to juggle everything and keep the kids happy

Crumpets

Hi mumofIowans

yes, date nights don't happen for us very often either but we save £50 a month in this pot. If we have a takeaway it also comes out of this pot. Sometimes we don't go out for months and then we get the chance to have a night in a hotel or go to theater or to a gig so it's nice to know the money is there for that when we do get the chance. At the moment we have pots for holiday, clothes/toiletries, Christmas, birthdays, car, date night, kids activities/education, home/garden, contingency/emergency. I think that's it, but there might be another one that I cant remember. It all goes into one account but we keep a note of what is allocated for each item on a spread sheet.

Hope that helps

Crumpets

Its all been a bit of a struggle here lately, dh has been ill for a couple of weeks now which has been pretty miserable. Things seem to keep costing us money too which is very frustrating. For example, yesterday DH parked on his friends drive way and the manhole cover broke so we've had to pay £70 to replace that...so frustrating :mad: I did receive a letter from HSBC yesterday saying I was getting £79 in fees refunded though which I suppose means we're still £9 in profit

I'm still decluttering and I think the house is starting to look better for it, There is still a lot of stuff to be taken to the charity shop and for now I've run out of things to sell. I'm sure I will unearth some more goodies though, especially in the loft :cool: I've made a couple of small OP's this month but it's all going a lot slower than I had hoped it would due to things breaking and needing repairing.

At least the weather is nice and the sun is shining :T I'm so pleased I've been able to get my washing on the line most days over the last couple of weeks. It gets about 90% dry and I just finish it off on the clothes horse overnight. At least it means the clothes horse is now away in the day time, I get so fed up of looking at it

I finally got round to get a couple of quotes for a new patio and path in the back garden and they were both so much more expensive than I expected. The first one came in at £2500 which I thought was a lot and the second quote came in at £4500 :eek::eek: We can't afford to get it done at those prices so we'll have to live with it the way it is for now :mad: I feel tempted to spend the money we had saved on a holiday instead now :cool:

Tomorrow DD1 and I are off to London for the night :T We're going to Kidzania and then staying over night with my SiL :money: On Saturday morning we're going to to the Foundling Museum before coming home. I cant wait, it's going to be lovely. Probably spendy but hey ho

MumofIowans

Thanks Crumpets, that does help! I have most of those pots covered, just nothing for us. I can't see that I can squeeze it in either but I'll definitely keep, it in mind, I don't regularly contribute to our emergency fund either, and that got halved a few months ago when we had to do repairs to the car. Again, that will just have to wait just now!

I hope you had a great weekend away. Sometimes you do just have to let things get a little spendy!

ourcornercottage

Just as an aside, my son sings the Rizzle Kicks song as "get down with the crumpets" and I always think of you! He is convinced its not trumpets its crumpets!