Five year plans for my little family

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!

Muser1

Good luck with your journey! Baby smile talk is making me broody

ZoPig2016

Having been adding up the spending vs the budget as we go this month, I can see we will have a good surplus this month so I have overpaid £150 today to cheer myself up! £450 to go for my target.

Hoping to find time this weekend to raid the house for saleable items for eBay, to bring in some extra pennies and clear some room!

DH is on holiday next week so looking forward to a helping hand with with the small one. However may be difficult to keep spending down as we will want to venture out and he doesn't like a budget home lunch, I imagine a bit extra going on my grocery bills! Perhaps time to dust off the bread maker?

ZoPig2016

Another quick check today on the accounts and having succeeded in another cheapish shop, we're well ahead. Also got news from work that I will be getting a cost of living pay rise backdated to June so a little extra due in this month's pay for me.

Still not managed to raid the house for stuff to flog but thinking about it. There shouldn't be loads as I had a thorough raid while I was pregnant and raised £300 for the small one's things, but I am thinking that there will be a few odds and ends.

Bought some bread flour and yeast, going to crack the breadmaker out of the cupboard and get baking some nice loaves! DH likes his fresh bread and turns his nose up at slicey supermarket own - which in itself isn't a massive expense but the issue is more if he goes to the supermarket, the odds of him coming home without a basket of treats is slim! So I think there are savings to be made there.

As we're coming towards the end of the bills before payday and there's clearly extra cash in the account, paid off £250 today - i chose this amount because my mortgage calculator showed that this would allow us to cut one more whole month off the end of the mortgage, which made me happy!

Payday next week on the 22nd for me will be my last month at full pay while I'm on mat leave, I'm then on three months of half pay. As such this month's intense focus on saving hard has helped me to get into the mindset for this. Feeling positive! :j

So just £200 to go on my goal for this month, chuffed with myself! :T:T:T

Still plugging away at the survey sites, both are so so close to a payout so I can get my garden supplies. Although one says that the voucher I want is out of stock - grrrrr!:mad:

Tim_Mullis

Love to hear more about how you get on with the survey sites. Is there anything out there worth doing.

ZoPig2016

Personally I would say they're slow going but as I have time on my hands in the night I do ok, they are a bit tedious at times. I get a bit of spends here and there but not a fortune.

EatingTheElephant

Well done on knocking another month off and good news on the pay rise :T

ZoPig2016

Thanks ETE, all steps in the right direction.

Finally cashed in both SB and isay for 10 quid each, awaiting delivery of one, will buy my long awaited garden supplies. I'm starting to feel like I might have the energy to tackle a bit at a time now and tidy it up - weather permitting, it's not cooperated so far! £20 saved there to be overpaid.

Thinking about my remaining 200, I have a standing order for £50 a month on payday so that leaves £130 left to find, which should be about the amount of my pay rise with June's backpay. So low and behold, I've done it! Hurray :beer:

Which got me thinking about new goals. When we bought the house, which of course used up our savings as deposit and fees etc, we started spending money getting it set up and then decorated and so on. It is now pretty much finished, including the garden - there are a few areas I would tweak to perfect but the big stuff has been done. We also had a bit of a blast last year and went on a few holidays, a sort of pre-baby hurrah. Then of course the little one needed lots of things and so there was expense there too. As such the last three years have been a cycle of putting things on cards, paying them off and doing the next thing. I just managed to clear all of the debt before she was born so now we're square.

So now I'm thinking about an emergency fund as we haven't been in a the position to build one to date. Three months of one of our wages is about £5000. I would hope that the odds of us both losing our jobs at the same time are slim and we discussed that the bigger the fund we build, the less we can slash off the mortgage, so we decided that this felt about right. I have a 123 account, both wages and all expenses come out of it, nice and simple. It's a good rate so I will leave it in there. I will measure it each 22nd, the day before payday. Eventually anything over £5k on that date will be my overpayment.

I need to start thinking about shifting some weight now, we're eight weeks post partem so I feel that it's a good time. I'm going to invest in some nice sports kit, and see about getting or borrowing a Fitbit, I'm inspired by ETE's diary there with her step count! Walking, a post natal workout DVD I already have and cutting down on eating should see me through. I'm breastfeeding baby too which helps to the tune of about 500 calories apparently. So need to take advantage of this! To make it fun and to keep up the MFW element while posting and saving for the emergency fund, I'm going to say for every lb lost I will overpay £10. Weigh in every Sunday morning. That's enough to entertain me but not so much that it will prevent building the emergency fund.

So onwards and upwards! :j

ZoPig2016

Forgot to add, I will need to refresh my work wardrobe before I go back in Nov, intending to fund some of it with vouchers earned on SB. So aiming for £100 voucher, included the points required in my signature with other goals.

EatingTheElephant

ZoPig2016 wrote: »

see about getting or borrowing a Fitbit, I'm inspired by ETE's diary there with her step count!

thank you i love mine, I'm not sure I would have justified the expense myself, hubby bought it as a present, it really is great!