The 2 Year Freedom Plan & 2015 Beat The Budget Challenge

I_want_a_baby

Sorry I wasn't very clear, I'm budgeting 5 x £50 every month from the monthly pay, my week runs thurs-weds, each week I will take £50 out in cash to use for the food shop. On the months where there are only 4 Thursdays I'm going to use the leftover £50 to bulk buy.

I_want_a_baby

I am so motivated to save right now!

I've been scrimping and saving, reducing down any budget pot that I can, saving anything I can and making things go as far as possible.

I managed to save £40 difference between our rental income, mortgage and costs, I saved £12 from an item I sold and another item I sold netted £6.30. All little savings have been transferred across and now our balance saved stands at £1010.43 which is 12.85% of our target

Ways we may be able to save more this month:
First direct cashback for switching.
Halifax cashback for switching.
Manage to eek out fuel in cars x 2 and not use remaining £40 budget.
Come in under food budget.
Spend less than budgeted on daughters birthday.
Plus any further direct debits being less than budgeted.

Plans for the weekend are to not spend and to catch up on lots of jobs at home:

The weeks washing (5 loads) to be dried in front of fire. - 1 left to do
Finish making log and coal store out of pallets. - hubby working on this now - coal store finished.
Chop up logs to go in log store from big branches.
Remove weed from pond.
Check level in oil tank - needs to be resited before refilling.
Make raised bed for salad.
Edging for front border.
Mend clothing x 4 items. - done
Make loaf of bread.
Make pastries for treats instead of buying treats.
Sort and tidy our room - done/kids room - done/office.
Stick to meal plan

Let's see what we get done :-)

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

Had a lovely day today.

My husband made a wonderful log store with removable lid and slide up hatch out of free pallets and wood we had already.

I tidied and organised the kids rooms and just about finished ours too!

I listed a few things on our villages newly created swap site:
I have agreed to swap some jeans we don't need for some felt in someone's shed - hoping this will cover the coal store roof.
I'm swapping a spare USB/plug adapter for a toasting fork I've wanted for ages.
I'm swapping a wine rack we don't need for a couple of homemade birthdays cards and giving away some wellies to someone who needs them.

I've managed to get the mending done, fixed a hole in my dressing gown, three tiny holes in my pj bottoms, a huge hole in daughters comforter and a hole in the side of a snowsuit. My son then came in with his work jeans (he is 5!) that he wears outside when helping hubby, both knees had huge holes. A quick rummage later and I found some cath kidston cowboys and Indian material so I've patched those up too!

Lunch was using up the leftovers and no one was really hungry for tea so a good day food wise.

Tomorrow should be much of the same :-)

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

What a gorgeous morning!

Husband has been clay pigeon shooting and the kids and I watched a film. I continued knitting a baby blanket that I started a year or so ago! Feels good to stop procrastinating and get on with it.

I made a loaf of bread and we had a delicious lunch of bacon bought from the market, eggs from down the road sandwiched between my homemade bread. Was lovely!

Now we are off outside to do a few jobs! Namely checking the oil level, removing some pond weed and chopping some logs.

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

Oil level is still ok, about 4-5 inches left, we need to get down to 2-3 so we can lift the tank up and put it on blocks and then get it refilled.

Pond weed was removed, left about 40% in there but now there are some areas that just have water in rather than a whole pond of weed!

Logs and kindling have been chopped and hubby even had time to make a start on the framework for the log store :-)

I did some more on the baby blanket and made some very make do and mend cookies from jack monroes book - it used up half a jar of peanut butter we don't like and the ends of three jars of jam/curd. Plus they taste delicious and now have homemade treats for the week ahead. I also made 6 bread rolls for hubby's lunch box as we used up most of the bread I made in the morning.

Plans for today include:
Mealplan and shopping list for thurs-weds.
Manicure & pedicure - do my own
Sort eyebrows
More knitting
Half hour sorting office/the pit of doom
Put washing away
Prepare roast dinner for tea.
Plan daughters birthday (friday) and make sure we have everything we need.

Better get son ready for school.

IWAB x

Muser1

Hi!

I spent over an hour tidying up old emails on Tuesday and came across some from your old blog! Do you still blog?

I_want_a_baby

Very sadly not Muser :-( I miss it a lot but unfortunately people in real life were reading it and then using the information (in the wrong context) against us in family arguments! It's easier to hold our cards close to our chest and there I just have a diary here as an outlet.

I have a financial update coming tonight and I've increased our % saved again :-) happy bunny!

Muser1

I'm quite secretive too with our plans! Totally get where you are coming from. x

I_want_a_baby

I am happy to be open as I find sharing keeps me accountable, I learn from others and sometimes people learn from me too.

However I also know that 100% that our intentions are good, that we would never 'do our inlaws over' and that we intend to work hard to get where we want to be and not sponge off the inlaws because we live with them. Some family members can't seem to believe that we are genuinely honest above board people (which I think says more about them than us!).
Which is why our plan is to pay the inlaws back ASAP (to prove a point), we pay all the council tax, TV, phone and internet and 70% of the electric, water and heating and we will secretly build our financial security.

Financial update coming soon...

I_want_a_baby

Lots of good little things happening here:

£100 halifax cashback received (trf'd to emergency savings)
£5.32 topcashback requested
Mum gave me a bottle of shampoo she used once but didn't like (put in toiletry stash).
Bought £21 worth of sun cream for £5.75 factor 50 for the kids.
Stuck to meal plan.
Bought two huge bags for life of fruit and veg for £9.62 from the market.
Bought food shop for rest of month and still have £20ish left of food budget, plus stocked up on a few things.
Planning daughters birthday party - almost all food we have already, frozen birthday cake is being made free (bartered 3 pairs of jeans for them).
Then on Saturday we are having a birthday treat of a trip to soft play which we have a voucher each for the kids so shouldn't cost a lot and then we are going to use a £5 love to shop voucher and let the kids choose something for tea and pudding from Iceland.

With the addition of the £100 halifax cashback (topcashback not counted as not received yet), the total saved is now £1110.43 against the total for this years target of £7862.40 which means we have so far saved 14.12% :-)

Very happy with that, may have a tiny bit more to add if I can come under budget for fuel, food and daughters birthday too!

IWAB x