My mortgage-free journey

LannieDuck

We've had a lovely weekend. Not too much to do, sunny weather, managed to get some jobs sorted, happy kids (mostly!). We had a great lunch out on the patio today - bread and nice cheeses (and ham and salad) from Lidl. It felt quite mediterranean, it was cheap and healthy, and one of those moments where you feel the whole upheaval of a house move was worth it

DD1's just been chasing a butterfly on the other side of the garden: "don't fly away butterfly, I'm your friend!". In our old flat we'd have been inside today or at the park - there was no accessible garden. It's lovely that she (and DD2) can play outside so much.

Finances-wise, we're doing better this week. We managed to get to the end of last week with only a small top-up shop (about £30 or so). Then OH spent £100 of our £150 weekly budget at Lidl on Friday, which this time included everything we need for meals this week. Much better I did an extra shop at our local farm shop on Saturday - £12 for loads of fruit and veg and some bread, and OH spent another £22 today at Tescos on drink, cupcakes (so DDs could have a teaparty with their toys... and cos I fancied some cake :P) and metanium (DD2 has terrible nappy rash).

So we're at £135 or so for the week so far, leaving £15 for a top-up during the week. OH doesn't feel as if he's been deprived of shopping trips or any particular food/drink, and I'm much happier

LannieDuck

I've gotten a little lacksidasical about finances in the last few weeks. I didn't blink when we spent £200 at Tescos this week in a big re-stock. Mind you, I did at least make sure we had food for the week covered, and the cupboards had been pretty bare beforehand.

I think our finances are a little better than they were a couple of months ago. Unfortunately work messed up my paycheque this month (didn't reduce me to 4 days' a week pay, despite me having filled out all the forms etc), so I've had to guess at how much to put aside to cover the inevitable short-fall this month, and I'm still not certain exactly how much our 'new normal' monthly income will be.

We're still ploughing on with sorting the house out. Our old white goods got plumbed in this week, so I've got to freecycle the lot that got left behind by our vendors.

Really need to get rid of my old car, but I'm having trouble letting go of it.

We just seem to have no time, ever, to get jobs done. I need to update YNAB, but i'm so exhausted in the evenings that I can't summon up to energy to do it!

No overpayments made on the mortgage yet, but I think it's sensible to work out our exact new in and outgoings before we start to increase our outgoings voluntarily. I also want to build up a £5k? buffer again - we tried to keep one during the house purchase, but an emergency new boiler plus my new car completely wiped it out.