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

Crumpets

Hello diary, long time no see.

Well we have had our first family holiday in our camper van and I'm pleased to say it was a success. We had a week in Dorset and helped by the excellent weather, our National Trust membership and the RSPB membership it was pretty frugal. :j We're hoping to have another couple of weekends away over the summer too. :beer:

Back home with a bump now and trying to battle our way through the school holidays. I took the kids to the library today to sign them up for the summer reading challenge and we stopped in at the bakery for a cake to bring home to eat. A little treat and it put a stop to the arguments for a while

Mortgage has gone out today and once dh and I are up to date with the finances I can hopefully put into place a regular OP. I didn't manage to make any last month

I've also had to pay for ds's swimming lessons and £30 excess to get my phone repaired, so quite a spendy start to the week really. cheaper than buying a new phone though which is what I had to do last time :cool:

Crumpets

The end of the first proper week of the school holidays for us (due to being away and having dh home previously) and I think I've done Ok. We've had one day out that was quite spendy where we went to a wildlife park but other than that we have been visiting National trust properties and doing free activities locally. I also treated the kids to a McD's dinner, their one of the holidays

Today we're off on an impromptu weekend away in the van as it's nice weather :T I love it! I'm so glad it has warmed up today as it's felt so autumnal this last few days. I don't want summer to be over yet!

Next week will be rather more spendy as we have a family wedding and a couple of meals out planned. Hopefully I'll be able to find enough free activities for the children to avoid unnecessary spending that way.

Crumpets

Gah! everything has totally gone to pot here! We've spent an absolute fortune over the last couple of days on a family wedding with more spending to come :eek: We're totally behind on our finances which has led to us being charged interest and fees as money wasn't in the right account at the right time :mad: I'm feeling really cross about it and we don't seem to have time to sit down and get caught up.:(

I'm sure we'll get sorted eventually but it's rather disconcerting.

However, its gorgeously sunny so I'm trying to stay positive. We have done a few small things to get us back in to our frugal ways

• We dug up potatoes from the garden and ate them for dinner last night
• we made a meal plan and did an online shop. the bill was greatly reduced from having a proper list!
• I'm decorating the kids room and have steered them away from the very expensive wallpaper to a much cheaper version in B&Q
• Using CC vouchers to have a 'big' day trip out rather than cash :T

Also good news - my engagement ring has resurfaced! I found it in the boot of the car - who knows how it got there

Sadly I cannot report any OP's until our finances are back on track...hopefully it will be in the near rather than distant future.

Today we are having a chill out day, We will be heading to the library this afternoon though and I also need to get ds's PE kit for school. I haven't brought anything for school yet, I need to get moving before everything sells out :eek:

Crumpets

Well it has been a long old time since I last popped in here!! We took some time out of overpaying in order to get ourselves a camper van :j we ended up buying a panel van and converting it ourselves into a camper :T we've still got a bit of work to do, but we've had a couple of fab holidays in it already so its the kind of work that will get done eventually :cool:

Anyway, now that has been ticked off our bucket list we're back in the position to start OP'ing again:T I made a one off payment of £450 yesterday and set up a standing order to make a regular OP of £150 per month. I shall be doing what I can to increase that each month.

I'm looking forward to keeping my diary up to date and finding some new ones to read

greent

Hello and welcome back! xx

Crumpets

Thanks for the welcome back Greent :hello:

I'm really enjoying having my head back in the MFW mindset, we do still have some fairly big plans for the year for the house and garden so all our spare money isn't being thrown at the mortgage but I'm just happy that we are making some OP's again.

Our first major job to do this year is to get an asbestos roof removed, we have a ramshackle old garage at the very bottom of our garden that needs removing and replacing. I've contacted a local company for a quote but so far no reply

In good news I have requested a £95 payout from Top cash back :T I think that can go to the mortgage when it arrives

CathT

Welcome back Crumpets, another one trying to strike the balance here. Camper sounds great and you'll make some brilliant memories.

Crumpets

Hi CathT, it's nice to see some familiar 'faces'. I need to catch up on some diaries and see how everyone is getting on.

Nothing much to report today, I had to go and buy a gift for dd's friends birthday. Now they are older they don't get invited to so many parties so I no longer have a present box. I also have both dd's birthdays next week. We are trying to cut down dramatically on the amount of waste we produce as a family, so I am looking for second hand gifts, or eco friendly ones. Dd2 has asked for a music box so I've bought a lovely retro one on ebay, cant wait for it to arrive :T I've also bid on a craft set so I'm hoping to win that too. DD1 on the other hand is now well into her teens and is not so easy, she want a camera. She's very arty and is looking at photography courses in the future so it needs to be a fairly high standard camera :eek:

Pooky

Welcome back Crumpets! My eldest did photography at school, then a diploma in it at collage and carried it on into her journalism course at Uni. Luckily my Dad is a bit of a camera and photography wizard (it’s where DD got her passion for it from) so he advised us the best way to go. See if you have a local camera club or an independent camera shop that you can and chat to. The schools recommendations were useless, if you’re making the investment then it’s worth doing right.

DDs job now involves a lot of photography and filming and her knowledge of cameras and lenses etc is astounding.

Crumpets

Thanks for the advise Pooky! it sounds like your dd is doing brilliantly! I'm hoping that my dd will go down a similar path in the future. Well we bit the bullet and ordered her a camera this morning, It was more than we were planning to spend but we didn't want to have to upgrade it in a years time so hopefully will save money in the long run. We managed to get a refurbished one from ebay plus it had an extra 10% off so it could have been much worse! :money: Need to find her a course to do now so she can learn how to use it properly. I didn't think about a local club, that's a good idea, I will look into it.

I've just done a bit of a money shuffle to the mortgage too. I've just OP'd the £95 topcashback money plus I found £72 in an old flex account that wasn't doing anything so that's been OP'd too £167.17 in total, not bad for a Monday morning hey :T It's amazing how quickly I've become addicted to OP'ing again. Feels like I've never been away