The 2 Year Freedom Plan & 2015 Beat The Budget Challenge

I_want_a_baby

Afternoon!


Thank you to DawnW, Lubava & In need of direction for my 'thanks'.


So today we have an update as the first regular payment of £300 has been taken for the loan by standing order.


We also added £47 to the debt as our contribution towards house insurance. Ill have to cancel the contents insurance I took out.


There was £1.53 trf'd into savings which was save the change.
Also £10.62 was trf'd from rounding down my budget columns to the nearest £1 or £5.


The £65 from selling the TV was allocated as £50 to give to our friend who let us borrow the digger for two days and the other £15 went into savings.


This brings the totals to:


Current total debt £12566.00
Regular Payments £300.00
Savings to pay off debt £1294.93
Balance still to pay £10971.07!


And my mini challenge target stands at:
£245.78/£271.21 = £25.43 to go! However this is now skewed due to the fact that I added an additional £47 to the debt. So to get to £10,899 I need £25.43+£47 now!


Anyway I will need to go shopping again soon.
I am going to write an absolute essentials only list and stick to it. Hopefully sticking to this principal for the month will mean that I can save some of the food budget too.


Off to cook tea now and do the bedtime routine!


IWAB x

roomontheend

Just read through your thread and you are doing really well. You seem to be rather focused. I am trying to get through November by eating store cupbaord and freezer food, and only buying fresh such as milk and veg.

I_want_a_baby

Had a good day today.

Our drain was blocked from the loo to the outside pipes. My husband had tried two different plungers to try and fix it, tried putting the hosepipe up the pipes from the outside and poking around with a metal pile but there was no shifting it. Eventually after contemplating getting a plumber out and paying £100+ we went to screwfix and bought some drain rods for £22.99. After 30 mins or so of poking around the blockage was removed and all was well again!

When at screw fix we also paid £7.99 for a chimney sweep brush. This attaches onto the drain rods so we can sweep our own chimney!

Then we decided to buy some coal for the winter. Our first port of call was our local supplier which charges £7.50 per 20kg bag and you have to collect. 20 mins of searching around and sending a couple of emails and I managed to order 10 x 25kg bags of coal for £7.25 delivered saving a whopping £21.25 against the first price!

We have budgeted £100 for coal and chimney sweep so the rods, chimney brush and coal added together come in at £3.50 over this. However next year we will have no expense for chimney sweeping at all so can save the £25 budgeted straight away!

It's amazing how a little effort can mean big savings. We have saved over £100 on what we could have spent today easily.

I am currently working on some challenges for 2015. When I have decided exactly what we are doing I will share with you!

Right I must get back to painting our garden room. We really need it finished by tomorrow as we have to get the house ready for my sons birthday party. (By ready I mean tidy and with space for games!)

Speak soon

IWAB x

MrsSave

Hi! Subscribing!!

We owe a similar amount, and I also aim to pay it off by Christmas 2016. Our first step is building our £1000 emergency fund, which should hopefully be done by the end of this year, and then attacking these debts.

We have one ds, but would really like more eventually. I'd love to be out of debt by the time I go on maternity leave so we have our aims

Best of luck with your debt repayment, your new baby and home!x

I_want_a_baby

Thank you Mrs Save!

We have the same idea in terms of when we want it paid off by too!
We currently have £800 emergency fund but we are lucky in that our debt is to our in laws so is interest free. Therefore we are saving up to pay them off in full, should an emergency crop up in the mean time we can use these savings.

So plan of action today is:
Finish painting garden room DONE
Put skirting on DONE
Put bookcases in place DONE
Empty boxes onto bookcase
Clear paint tins etc to clear room DONE
Clean floor DONE
Prepare party food DONE
Prepare party games DONE
Prepare party bags DONE
Tidy up DONE
HAVE ALSO - Painted woodwork in bathroom, finished painting kitchen.

And finally update banks and budgets and transfer something to savings even if it is only £1.

Happy Saturday everybody xx

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

Evening all,

Had such a fab day!

My little boys party was such a huge success.
Here at home, homemade games, homemade food - we saved a wad of money and more importantly it was more fun and unique than soft play! Highlights were the obstacle course, hook the duck, the ballput challenge and the blindfolded drawing competition.

In the afternoon we watched a new DVD my son got for his birthday and finished off the party food. The only things left were cherry tomatoes, grapes and cake which are all in the fridge.

For tea I made a cottage pie, using turkey mince which needed using up, leftover mash and half a bag of frozen mixed veg. This was served with soft broccoli and bendy carrots, using up both.
The plus side is it was gorgeous, there is leftover of cottage pie and veg for tea tomorrow and another dish of leftover cottage pie mix for the freezer :-D

I have also done three loads of washing which is on the airer in front of the open fire to dry.

Tonight's goals

Tidy kitchen
Do mealplan for week
Update banks and budgets
Put washing away

I shall report back, I didn't do banks yesterday so I will try and find at least £2 to save tonight.

IWAB xx

I_want_a_baby

Morning all,

I've updated the banks and budgets and was very pleased to find a little more than I hoped to scrape into savings:

2.61 save the change
19.21 rounding down lots of different budget columns
2.50 cashback
These bring the savings account to 1328.04

Current debt figure 12777
Less regular repayment 300
Less savings 1328.04
Balance left to pay 11,148.96

I feel a little deflated as we had the last builders merchant invoice for £211 added and £47 towards the increased contents insurance.

This means my original targets are unachievable.

However *touch wood* we should be able to complete most if not all of the rest of the renovations without adding to the debt!

So I am going to set a revised mini challenge of getting to £11,099 by the end of the month. Meaning I need to save £49.96 which is going to be a squeeze.

I have £28.55 left in my food purse to last the end of the month and £25 left in the fuel budget in total to cover both cars. As long as I don't spend much from other budgets I may be able to skim a few more £s from them so we will see.

I am off now to do a meal plan to our payday on the last working day of the month. So it needs to cover 12 days. Clearly I am going to have to be organised if I am going to make the £28.55 last!

Speak very soon

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

Morning all,

Just a quick post from me!

For the end of November to keep me focused and get me organised I am going to do a weekday challenge. Each day I will post a list or task I am going to do to get me organised for Christmas and hopefully save me money at the same time.

Feel free to join in!

The dates and challenges are:
18th - fridge/freezer/cupboards
19th - toiletries & medicines
20th - cleaning products
21st - toys
24th - clothes
25th - Christmas non food essentials to be organised
26th - winter prep - outside
27th - winter prep - indoors
28th - winter prep - cars

Each day I will post a more thorough list that I (and you) can tick off. Anything that NEEDS to be purchased will go on a list and be purchased on the last day which is our payday.

I will do the first challenge in a separate post.

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

So today's challenge is to list all the food in the house.

The aim is to have a master list so that during the last few days of November we can use up food that need eating up, you know those things that have been lingering in the freezer for a bit too long.

This should save us money by not buying food that we don't need and also clear space for incoming Christmas food.

When making this list, also write down a shopping list of any essentials that are getting low, these are obviously more of a priority than Christmas treats that are often snacks and not proper meals. So these will need to be purchased on payday before any Christmas food is purchased.

So I am going to list:

White freezer
Silver freezer
Fridge
Drinks cupboard
Food cupboards
Pet food

I will then highlight anything that has been lingering a bit too long and do a meal plan to payday using these first.

I will report back later x

I_want_a_baby

Meal plan written:

18th - tomato pasta with chopped sausage
19th - filled jacket halves with salad
20th - pizza with added ham/pepper & last few chips
21st - chicken biryani & naans /kids fish fingers & wAffles
22nd - pulled pork baguettes
23rd - chicken roast dinner with frozen veg
24th - chicken chow main
25th - chilli nachos
26th - homemade chicken pie, mash & veg
27th - Cornish pasties
28th - PAYDAY - cottage pie with frozen green beans

The only thing I should need to buy for these meals are potatoes, lettuce & carrots. This plus a few breakfast/lunch items are all I should need to buy before payday from the £28.55 in my purse.

I have also written a list of things I need for the stock cupboard.

First day is a success!

IWAB x