Five year plans for my little family

enjoyyourshoes

Have you double checked your calculations on difference/savings over the Term to July 2018 ?

£8K on fees seems particularly high for both ERP and new loan.

haggis4

This could have been written by me so I'll be subscribing and following your progress!!! My DS is now 9 months and we have decided to smash our mortgage as soon as possible. I'm not returning to work after my year maternity leave so it will be interesting but I find I do spend less since having him and am working hard to raise extra funds through survey sites and decluttering. No-one warns you how much space you need for a baby!!!!

Good luck to you

ZoPig2016

Thanks haggis4! I will be returning to work although I'm already dreading leaving my little one. Will make extra effort to make the most of mat leave. Do wish I could have longer.

Sat down today to calculate 80% LTV deals to remortgage now but the fees outweigh the gain. So that at least answers a very valid question, thanks enjoyyours for the food for thought.

Been surveying at all opportunities today, good chunk of the way to vouchers for both sites so hopefully 15 quid soon to add to my garden budget.

Ordered next week's shop online, thought hard about meal plan and using up freezer food, also cheap lunches for me. Spend of 50 quid instead of last weeks 130. Bought a chunk of baking stuff too to make my own puddings as planned. So double hit on the plan front! Good steps in the right direction there.

Just hoping that the referendum result doesn't shoot my plans in the foot of property prices are hit and rates go up. All remains to be seen now...

EatingTheElephant

Hello and welcome, you are off to a good start with your plan. Eton mess is always a popular dessert in our house at this time of year and very quick to make as well as brownies.

ZoPig2016

Brilliant idea Eatingtheelephant, can use the whites from my custard up with this, double win!

ZoPig2016

Busy weekend with family over yesterday and as baby was tired and sleepy today, caught up with naps and housework myself. Feeling good.

Weighed and parcelled up some old gold to scrap, 60 quid or so promised there. So that's a nice chunk to overpay when it comes in. Just need to get to the post office.

Ate a freezer tea too and had a lunch eating up bits and bobs.

Also cancelled a 20 quid a month subscription that I finally admitted to myself I'm not using and tidied up the direct debits.

DH's pay came in and while there was a chunk missing for pat leave it wasn't as much as I thought so bonus!

Overpaid 21.29 today, the subscription saving and a Tilly Tidy to round the account to a pleasingly round number. When I first read about Tilly Tidies I didn't really get it but now I'm a bit addicted!

96.48 paid so far, 675.72 to go!

ZoPig2016

Busy few days with baby but finally made it to the post office to post the gold, so money due on Friday.

Made us some jelly and some crispie cakes this week and started munching on the freezer food too!

Sat down last night and worked out, over the last month, what we actually spent and compared it to the budget. I knew we had gone over on food and random items for the baby and for me so I wasn't surprised. Good motivation to do better this month.

So saving is going well so far, feeling positive. ��

ZoPig2016

Money in for the gold, minus postage made 56.54 which I've overpaid today.

153.02 paid so far, 619.08 to go.

ZoPig2016

Yesterday, saved 15.50 by spending a Tesc0 voucher on lunch and bits and pieces needed. Overpaid 19.08 just now to bring the goal total down to a round 600!

Another online shop ordered at 67 quid, still nice and tight. Enjoyed a pizza from the freezer last night, still felt like a treat but cost nothing!

ZoPig2016

Baking so far has been very successful and so enjoyable. I've made raspberry jelly with rasps in it, chocolate crispy cakes, a peach upside down cake up use up some tarty fruit that wasn't very pleasant to eat raw, mandarin jelly (an old fav of mine) and marshmallow crispies. Bought some pastry to make a blueberry pie later this week when existing supplies have run out and rocky road ingredients.

Made a good dent in the freezer stores and planned this week's freshly cooked meals around cupboard supplies.

eBay is my next money making plan, need to gather up the stuff I can flog ready to list. Also occurred to me that I have some vinyl records that I have been hanging on to, thinking one day I will buy a record player - however 15 years later I don't have one and don't have room for one so they can go to a specialist shop and someone else can enjoy them!

Hoping to get isay and swagbucks up to 10 quid each for Amazon to buy garden supplies with too.

Going strong. Feeling much more happy and human having got outside six out of seven days in the past week. Baby is also starting to smile at me now which is just beautiful!