Little by little

LittleMissGiggles123

Hey again Em


Just picking up on your delivery cost comment, I popped on to A$da the other day to see what delivery slots they had available. I think it was a Wednesday & when I checked they had a Thursday slot for 69pence! It was a lateish one, think it was between 8pm - 10pm, but if you're not fussy about that then that is an absolute bargain.


On our good food mentality now, we've started eating more cheaply during the week & then having a treat night on a Saturday. We will either treat ourselves to a good steak or something, or we will look through our multitude of cook books for inspiration. I find I enjoy it more now too because its not 'the norm'.


x


x

Emthemist

Missed a couple of days - sorry!

Been a bit of a busy week. Had a "sharing the knowledge" type thing at work for a couple of days. I could only go for half a day on Wednesday but got the free lunch! Very MSE of me! Meant that DH could take the calzones I'd made for lunches for an extra day, and because I went to Pizza Express for dinner with my baby mamas, I came home with enough pizza for two of us to take for lunch (there were 7 of us so we ordered the 8th pizza on the Wednesday deal to get it free for our husbands lunches!) Then free lunch again on Friday as we were on a jolly with work! What a fat foodie week I've had (and unfortunately my glutteny is showing on my tummy now :-( - you can take MSE too far I think!)

We're going down to the south west next weekend for two weeks. Our CM is on holiday so thought we'd make the most of it and go and stay with family. We've been on Mr T's website and got our tickets for entry to attractions basically for free because of the rewards points, even paying for the in laws entry - one more reason I'm reluctant to stray from that supermarket Giggles! It may be a trick to keep you shopping there but it certainly works on me!

I've made it to 7 swims on my pass now so number 8 tomorrow and that makes any more after that a bonus. Certainly helps me get fit thinking I'll lose money if I don't go (I'm so money-orientated!)

I don't know if any of you may have the answer but.... Years ago when I started thinking about a MF journey, I found a spreadsheet (yes I know - geek!) that took your mortgage month by month and you could add in your overpayments and it was a "real time" tracker of how much you have left to pay. Unfortunately we had a wine vs laptop incident and as you can imagine the wine won (as it always does) so I don't have a copy of it anymore. I'd be grateful if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Sorry for the long post. I'll try to update a bit more regularly - for this week anyway!

Have a good one x

Emthemist

Had a chat with DH last night and we've decided that a realistic MF date would be by the time he is 50, that's in 2028, cutting about 11 years or so off our mortgage.

Working that out roughly, it comes to £250 OP per month on our current mortgage. I realise the figures will change next time we remortgage and if he is out of a job in a couple of months, but it is a long term goal and the nearer we get to our £250 each month, the nearer we are to getting rid of our largest expenditure each month. I will recalculate the figures each time we remortgage to keep an up to date figure that will get us to our goal.

We know that thinds don't always go to plan, so we've set a back up MFW date! So that is when I am 50, 5 years later than him. It is only a back up so here's hoping we don't need it...

My plan is that if we don't make our £250 while he's out of work, we will tally it up and try to make it up when he's working again, once we've built up a good buffer again if we've had to dip into it. (Also hoping for a holiday and a car upgrade - but that may be wishful thinking!)

xx

WhiteSnowdrop

Trying to pick a MF is hard I think just because there are so many variables to consider especially when you little kids and don't really understand what changes they bring as they grow, i.e. expenditure! I think you are doing really well and have a very sensible plan. Because of the type of work DH does we have to have a chunk of money behind us and also have to sometimes stop op's and 'owe' ourselves. I believe that being conscious of becoming MF is half the battle.

I want to start taking the kids swimming, we haven't done it enough and its virtually impossible for me to do it on my own with twins, you've got thinking and I'm off to check out at what point one adult can take two kids swimming.

Ps where are the lists I've heard about….

Emthemist

Ha ha you got me! My lists are all written down, and unfortunately mostly to do with spending money!

I have friends who take two children swimming - admittedly not twins. They usually put the youngest in a flotation device (an inflatable sit in seat thing) while they play with the older one, and have tummy bands and arm bands on the older one so they can take the smallest one out and swim with them. Perhaps you could do that? Or maybe have two flotation things so you can have one out at a time if they're not big enough for arm and tummy bands.

I drove DH's car on Saturday and spotted a warning light on. Got to take it into the garage on Friday morning (so no swimming for Lo this week) and potentially will cost us money :-( Got to get it fixed before we go away in it though. Can't risk it breaking down on us. One time when we went we had a flat tyre, so there was me bfing Lo on the side of the M5!

WhiteSnowdrop

Some fab ideas there, thanks, I'd not even considered that. Hope the car isn't too expensive.
ws

cb4fwh

Emthemist wrote: »

I don't know if any of you may have the answer but.... Years ago when I started thinking about a MF journey, I found a spreadsheet (yes I know - geek!) that took your mortgage month by month and you could add in your overpayments and it was a "real time" tracker of how much you have left to pay. Unfortunately we had a wine vs laptop incident and as you can imagine the wine won (as it always does) so I don't have a copy of it anymore. I'd be grateful if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Hiya - you're thinking about Locoblades s/s which you can download via his thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1157173

Emthemist

Ah ha! Yes I think you are right cb4fwh:A!! Although I think it has been updated somewhat since my last foray into MFW!

Hmmm, a new spreadsheet to play with :T!!

katiegizmo

Good luck on your journey - your situation sounds similar in a lot of ways to mine so I'm wishing you all the best and hoping to get some inspiration too as I've been demotivated to work on our overpayments of late (must be those sleepless nights!!!) xxx

Emthemist

Thanks katiegizmo. Do you have a diary? I'd love to read about how someone in a similar situation is coping!

Just a mini update from me - just got my Spanish bank credit card statement - £10.32 cashback added to my OP for the month! It's a nice bonus since it's only money we would normally spend straight out of the current account.

I think I'll spend tomorrow night closing out my month, seeing as we'll be away at the real month end, I don't really want my in laws watching me tally our month's spending! Hopefully I'll be able to update my signature stating I've made an OP and that I won't have to spend it on the car...