The 2 Year Freedom Plan & 2015 Beat The Budget Challenge

lubava

IWAB you are doing fantastic. Im definately subscribing and use some of your ideas.

I_want_a_baby

Thank you all for your lovely 'thanks' and comments.

So I'll start by updating you on my to do list:
Fire was light & washing done and dried by it.
I've written about 60% of my Christmas cards
I wrapped four peoples presents
Wrote the shopping lists
Updated banks/budgets
Sorted tea.

Bedding still to do.
Had one car battery fail to start for the second time. Also the other car was very slow starting. We therefore ended up paying £30 for two 'new' batteries from the scrapyard.

We have had a busy but not too spendy weekend.

Today I volunteered for the local 10k run and helped with registration.

We've just got back and I'm cooking a roast dinner.
Pork from the freezer
Leftover half a cabbage
Carrots
Roast potatoes
A sad looking cauliflower was turned into two dished of cauli cheese (one for freezer).
Also yorkies using up some cheap approved food batter mix.

Can't wait, it looks yum!

Only two weeks left of working until Christmas! Yey!

Will think of some more to dos for tomorrow but for now I am going to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon x

I_want_a_baby

Little things I have been doing.

Ordered the Christmas food for the meal plan (meals not snacks).
Finished the Christmas present shopping - under budget!
Filled the 2nd car up with fuel and still have some of the budget left which depending on our use over Christmas may be able to be saved.
Put a banana in the freezer that was nearly destined for the bin.
Stuck to meal plan/running down freezer.
Unsubscribed to 15+ emails - less temptation.
Started a spending diary - I need to be more accountable!

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

Hello All!


Well I have had a testing few days!


The roof on our rental house is going to cost £160 more than expected :-(


I have decided to use the end of the year to 'wipe the slate clean'.


In doing so I have transferred £500 out of our emergency fund and now we can afford to pay for the roof, get the brakes and tyre fixed on the car, cover my husbands paternity leave and buy the final baby bits.


This takes a great weight off of my shoulders and I can now plough on and try to save the emergency fund up again.


So my goals for 2015 are:
Increase emergency fund from £300 to £1000 (£700 needed).
Decrease mortgage from £87116 to £83999 (£3117.21 needed).
Decrease debt from £10662.40 to £4500 (£6162.40 needed).
A TOTAL of £9979.61 needed.


Less approx. £2500 from standard mortgage payment.
Less £3600 from standard debt repayments.


A TOTAL of £3879.61 or £323 per month.
This out of a single income household with me as a SAHM to two children and one joining us in March!
Its crazy but a challenge it is! I am hoping to be really frugal so I can save as much from our monthly budget as possible!


To start with Christmas seems to be coming in at approx. £100 under budget, lets hope it stays this way and I can transfer this to savings on the 31st!


Its nice to set my dreams high and feel like I have a real challenge to get my teeth into!


I will of course update at every opportunity!


IWAB x

Moneywhizz

It's great to have financial goals and if you carry on this way I'm sure you will meet them. The way you stick to your budget and keep account of every penny is nothing short of amazing. Not many people can be that disciplined. Well done and keep up the good work. :T

roomontheend

How well do bananas freeze, I never tried before. I brought three punnets of mushrooms a couple of weeks ago at 8p each. I slides them all and dried most in the oven but left some undried to see if it makes any diffence. I then froze them in portions. I have only used one portion of dried up to now but will let you know.

jodles16

Just wanted to say it sounds like your doing a great job with everything! Good luck!

Jodles

I_want_a_baby

Thank you for your lovely comments!

Money whizz, I kind of see it as my role as sahm to make sure I manage the budget well. My husband works very hard and it's nice for him to know that the bills are paid, we are making savings and we have a bit of spending money each.

Roomonthenend - bananas freeze very well, just take them out of their skin and freeze in a bag or tub. You can eat them frozen like ice cream apparently. When they defroze they are very mushy but perfect for banana cake etc.

Thank you jodie16.

So another NSD Today. Doing quite well considering it's December!

Christmas still seems to be under budget which is good and we still have money in the fuel budget and half a tank of fuel in each car!

I've worked out I need to save approx £55 per month to reach my emergency savings goal, £45 per month to reach my mortgage reduction goal and £223 per month for debt savings

I am going to save the £45 and £55 first each month and then save as much as I can on top of this towards the debt savings.

It feels good to have a plan!

IWAB x

I_want_a_baby

What a lovely Christmas!

Had a lovely time, seeing family, eating lovely food and just relaxing!

I did our banks on Christmas Eve and we came in under budget for Christmas! I will come back with exact figures on the 31st and will update this post then.

Little frugal things I've been doing over the festive period:
Clipping any opened packets of crisps and moving any biscuits to Tupperware to keep them nice.
Freezing lots of food before it goes bad including leftover mash, turkey and gravy, Yorkshire puds, cauli cheese, stuffing. Pigs in blankets and veg.
Drying the washing on the airer.

We we still finding our rhythm in our new home and settling in, working out what furniture works where and how we use the space we have. We have an office with no heating and a garden room that is unused. So we were going to build a desk in the garden room to house the computer and store some of our paperwork on the bookcase already in there. This would free up space in the cold office to store homegrown fruit/veg over winter which is currently in the very warm utility and goes off so fast. In the spirit of make do and mend however it seems that two tables I have would go together perfectly to form a desk! So no money needed!

There is still lots of sorting and decluttering to do, still lots of areas to tweak until they work right but 2015 is our make do and mend year so hopefully it will all be done free or very cheap!

I am looking forward to reporting my savings which will count towards my 2015 targets as I know I have already got enough for the emergency savings, the mortgage overpayment plus some for the debt repayment savings :-)

IWAB x

roomontheend

Being doing my sums and it looks like we will be entering the new year with a bank in the black. The first time in many years. It was around the £4500 mark. I fully intend to manage the money in the black and pay a cc with the usual overdraft fee. This fee used to be £25 but recently moved to £3 per day.