Our 'Mortgage Free By Forty' Dream - Truly Madly Hannah

EatingTheElephant

The allotment sounds like a lot of fun (and hard work). I love the idea of making a free chicken house.

trulymadlyhannah

EatingTheElephant wrote: »

The allotment sounds like a lot of fun (and hard work). I love the idea of making a free chicken house.

:hello: We signed up for the allotment shortly after our lightbulb moment, and when we decided to become debt free. It was one the things on the checklist of everything we could possibly do. When we were offered one years later (just before we became debt free!) and decided to take it on, we had no idea how much work it would be!

It is very rewarding in other ways, it gets us all out of the house and away from distractions (like mse for me, reddit for the DH and minecraft for the kids:rotfl:) and its a brilliant experience for the little ones. I get the exercise (16000 steps and 2 hours and 40 mins in the fat burn zone yesterday!) and we get cheap, healthy food. Win Win Win :T:T:T

I did look like the crazy wood lady with a front garden full of pallets for almost 9 months because DH had a slipped disk and I was pregnant (and ill with the pregnancy) so neither of us could do anything about them:rotfl: (Our local town bonfire was cancelled due to H&S and DH's dad suggested that we could take the wood, it was completely worth looking like a crazy lady for a free chicken shed... I think:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)

We spent this morning at the allotment again, the base for the chicken house was almost finished but was slightly unlevel, so DH reworked it and added some more posts and supports. DD3 was unsettled and it forcast rain (which annoyingly hasnt arrived!) so we returned home.

I am making homemade chicken & bacon pizza for tea tonight, but have just managed to have a hour break while the eldest 3 reaquainted themselves with their computer, and the littlest napped. This is rare, and has been very nice!:T

Happy Easter all

castlelough

Happy Easter Hannah!
Very inspired by your story! What a lovely family you have! I hope for 4 children, we are currently ttc #2.

Enjoyed reading about your hen house exploits! We have 3 hens and they really are very little trouble and bless us with eggs each day. Always something to eat around here. Dd (14 months) loves banana pancakes (1 egg, 1 banana, a handful of porridge oats, whisk/mash together and cook dollops in coconut oil).

Looking forward to following your progress. Am still a dfw but will be joining you over here in 2017.
Castle xx

selloptape

Lovely positive diary, and so fab that you're debt free, sounds like you'll get the mortgage down in no time

Happy Easter x

coxj2901

Hi Hannah,

I am slightly jealous of your allotment as I have had my name down for 2 years and I'm still no nearer getting one!

Children can be expensive but I agree with you that the best memories are ones of spending time together. Things like hiking, visiting national heritage sights and just having fun together are priceless.

Best of luck with your journey and I will follow with interest.

trulymadlyhannah

castlelough wrote: »

Happy Easter Hannah!
Very inspired by your story! What a lovely family you have! I hope for 4 children, we are currently ttc #2.

Enjoyed reading about your hen house exploits! We have 3 hens and they really are very little trouble and bless us with eggs each day. Always something to eat around here. Dd (14 months) loves banana pancakes (1 egg, 1 banana, a handful of porridge oats, whisk/mash together and cook dollops in coconut oil).

Looking forward to following your progress. Am still a dfw but will be joining you over here in 2017.
Castle xx

Thank you Castle. :hello:

That recipe sounds gorgeous, I will have to give it a try tomorrow with my little ones, thank you

Good luck with TTC , I grew up with my grandparents, but my auntie had four children and their house was always full of love and laughter. I always wanted four children, its hard work :rotfl: but very rewarding and amazing to see their relationships grow.

Good Luck with your DFW Journey too

selloptape wrote: »

Lovely positive diary, and so fab that you're debt free, sounds like you'll get the mortgage down in no time

Happy Easter x

Hi Selloptape :hello:

I hope so I worked out if we sold the car and cut back more we could be mortgage free in 5.5 years :T:T DH says I am not allowed to sell the car :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:, and it would probably be too far limiting, this is all a bit addictive though!

Happy Easter to you too

coxj2901 wrote: »

Hi Hannah,

I am slightly jealous of your allotment as I have had my name down for 2 years and I'm still no nearer getting one!

Children can be expensive but I agree with you that the best memories are ones of spending time together. Things like hiking, visiting national heritage sights and just having fun together are priceless.

Best of luck with your journey and I will follow with interest.

I hope that you get your allotment soon, if not you could always have a wonder around and see if you spot any abandoned looking ones and give them a call to ask where you are / offer to take said abandond one on? I am on a few allotment facebook groups and a few people have reported success from this, it lets them know you are still interested too

We love walks and have a woven wrap so we can carry the littlest. We have national trust membership too and we love going out for the day to explore and take a picnic, its great for a low cost day out and they have fab playgrounds and events for the little ones, I agree its priceless. We take hundreds of photos too and they children love looking back at the things they have done.

Thank you coxj2901

I left Easter egg shopping until the last minuite and had to visit 3 supermarkets on Saturday:eek: Luckily I managed to stock up on value basics and managed a few yellow sticker fruit and bread bargains too. Spent just under £40, but had a huge bags to show for it :T:T

I have worked out that we now have £114.36 to last just over 5 weeks. Thankfully, I dont think we need to buy a great deal except fresh fruit, frozen veg and bread/milk.

DH built some staging today, it looks fab! :T:T

I managed to plant some of my onion sets, garlic and repot some spinach. I normally plant onions straight into the ground but our allotment is still too damp (read:flooded :rotfl:), so I thought id try getting them started at home. DH is going to build the same thing again from the other side of the greenhouse tomorrow while me and the kids do some more planting.



To Do Tomorrow:

• Nip to @ldi for more compost & binbags, might see if DH will go as hes better at sticking to the list than me!
• Bake a chocolate fudge cake for dessert for family visiting for easter dinner
• Update my blog
• Sow tomatos, peppers, lettuce & possibly pumpkins.

Happy Easter All

mrsp1987

How did you get that photo up? Please tell me. I can't figure it out!

trulymadlyhannah

You have to upload it to the Internet and link to the upload. I think somewhere like Flickr would be easiest. You can sign up for Flickr free and download an app for your mobile to automatically sync your photos. To link you would have to browse to the image on your Flickr account and save the Web link, then add to your post by linking on the 'add image button' (the yellow square)

Hope this helps.

castlelough

Thanks Hannah for encouragement. Can't see any photos. Must be because I am on my phone.

mrsp1987

I'll certainly give it a go!