30 small steps

mortgage_girl

Some fantastic steps towards cost reduction there cookie. :T The crepes sounds amazing - nom, nom, nom!

MGx

cookie9

A nice email to start the weekend as train company have emailed to say cheque for £80 being sent to me as our train was over 30 minutes late. Strange to say that the train company made no mention of compensation when we arrived at our final destination although they did apologise for the delay. Fortunately I can project my voice quite well so made comments to Dh about the passenger's charter so hopefully people in our carriage got the hint! My father is so funny as he got us a copy of the charter to read on our journey. Dh was rolling his eyes but is quite happy now.


Menu planning going well but DH has lots of travel planned for work so will have to re-think some meals. Hopefully he will make a big batch of his Bolognese. Slow cooker is working hard at the moment with stews and soups.


The drop in temperature means we have had the heating a lot and even the electric heater one day to fast heat the living room. Yes I know very un-MSE. This morning as I was up very early I lit candles in the livingroom to the the chill off before little cookie and DH got up. If only they would both learn to close doors. I think little cookie is slowly getting there but can't say the same for DH.


Oh well off to make snack pots before our walk. Have a lovely weekend MFWs.

cookie9

Lots and los of work to get though this weekend. I am now having a short break before getting back to it. Interesting to see some of the chat about pensions on the boards. I am trying to work out what we need to retire on. I really don't want to be doing my current job when I am 67!


We visited family in Norfolk last weekend and had a lovely time. After a quick look at house prices there we could sell up and buy and be MF now. At the moment still have to work for pension and school fees but may be a plan for the future.


First OP of 2016 made so hopefully will hit target of current target of £4,000 just waiting to see if DH wants to make any OPs this month too. Another little bonus is that my cashback for switching is winging its way to my bank account.


I still haven't made any progress re switching my bank account despite saying I would do this ages ago. Perhaps this week I'll action it. Better get back to work now. Hope my fellow MFWs are having a productive weekend.


Quick update: Just installed some shopping apps after reading the weekly email and dealhunter's blog. Hopefully this will give the OPs a little boost.

mortgage_girl

Hope you've got all of the work done that you wanted to cookie and have had a bit of time to relax too. Wow at you being able to sell up, buy in Norfolk and be MF - it must be quite tempting. Great news about making your first op of the year and your cashback being on the way. :T

Hope you have a good week.

MGx

cookie9

Updating my diary using my lovely new laptop. Expensive buy but needed for work and for home. To offset spending hope to keep to a cheap February. Quidco should pay me £20 in February so that's a nice little boost. I have bought DH's Valentine's present using vouchers and still have quite a few left from rewards on my credit card. Local supermarket had bagels 2 for £2 so freezer well stocked for lunches.

Best buy this month? M&S as picked up some Frozen wrapping paper for £1.50 but then spotted a large roll of Frozen paper in their sale area for £0.39. Morale: Always check the sale area just in case.

As January was such an expensive month no additional OPs this month. Will look towards February now.

Update: Car insurance haggling resulted in £70 off renewal for the same policy. Still £100 more than last year.

cookie9

How quickly time flies as we are more than half way through the month. Not many steps taken towards OP this month. I have made my standard OP but nothing on top. On the plus side I have managed to declutter quite a few areas in the house so my wardrobe is much improved as is the wee man's bedroom. Just don't ask about the kitchen cupboards.

This weekend I need to do some batch cooking for the freezer and create my meal plans. I am trying to be more organised so I have more family time. Thank heavens for slow cookers!

cookie9

Up early so catching up on diaries and having a cup of tea in bed. This week I need to update our family finances sheet which I confess I didn't do last month. I'm not sure if it is the weather or work stress but I am very tired so by the time I come home play with wee man, get dinner ready, tidy up, get wee man down I am ready for bed myself! I don't know how other people cope with working full time and having a family but we do struggle.

Alas very little to report in terms of money making apart from £2.50 from Quidco. Oh small steps indeed.

Unfortunately with the cold weather and various illnesses the heating has been on a lot so not much cost saving there. At least meal planning going well and in an effort to become healthier I am adding at least one extra portion of vegetables/fruit to all my meals. This is working surprisingly well and both husband and child happy with their food.

My decluttering going fairly well although do have a lot of old school/university books to clear out. I did sell some on Amazon but that was some time ago and now they are pretty out of date. Hoping my husband will clear some of his things over Easter as I can't get into the loft space to put away our Christmas decorations!

So looking forward to some time off at Easter.

cookie9

Well I have finally updated our family finance sheet so can see better where we are at. It is a pity that this year has been quite expensive to date but things should be better over the next few months.

I am counting down to the Easter weekend. A 4 day weekend! Hopefully some major decluttering and a chance to review where we are and where we want to be. Goal setting really works well for us but it's good to review things every once in a while. Not just financial goals but also life goals too.

A lovely weekend with lots of trips to parks and having fun as a family. Both boys ( little and big )sleeping already and I am just getting things sorted for the morning so less rushed. Hope everyone else had a good weekend too.

cookie9

A lovely Easter weekend. Lots of walking/jogging in the park trying to keep up with wee man on his first bike. DH treated everyone to a trip to the cinema to see Zootopia. Wee man loved it and DH and I were suitably entertained especially with the Breaking Bad references.

I managed to avoid another expensive month by fixing our fridge freezer. Unfortunately I had to throw some food out and had a meat packed Sunday as had to cook everything that had defrosted. Things seem to be ok now so will start to refill the freezer again. We really want to get healthier so I am planning to look at some new recipes and make sure we are eating lots of fruit and veg. Tomorrow I will sort out my meal plan and getting shopping.

We had lots of family time this weekend so not a lot of decluttering done but did managed to clear a couple of boxes on top of the wardrobe. Found £8 in cash and lots of colouring pencils for wee man so that was a bonus. Even better was buying a scratchcard ,which is something I do perhaps twice a year, and winning £100!

No good ideas on how to increase finances or decrease spending this month apart from using credit card to get cashback. I have it set up to pay it off in full every month so will use it for our grocery shopping so at least we get something back. Hopefully Quidco will pay out too creating a little OP.

mortgage_girl

Sounds like you've had a lovely weekend. Well done on your scratchcard win! :T

MGx