Taking the plunge

Jelllibeanz

Thanks AMoT x


It's been a busy few weeks. The good weather has kicked in and the garden is in the process of being cleared. DS3 is preparing to go on his school journey next week - it's amazing how time flies. Can't believe my baby will be spending a week away from me. He's growing up fast.


Finally been up to the scrap yard and got some money back on some copper junk that was sitting in the garden and have also purchased a new car. Well new to us at least. Upside is that it is big enough for us to do a car boot at some point over the next few weeks if the weather is good and we can take the dog for cheap days out again.


The same old TT have been going on and in more good news... I've given up smoking!!! Well at least I've done 5 days clean so far!!! Have been putting the money I would have spent in another account just to see how much I really have been setting fire to. Downside is I am eating a little more. Upside is that I am drinking less wine. This does of course mean I still need to do more exercise. Oh well, the idea is there for the moment.


We are now in the £65s and looking forward to getting it even lower. This mission isn't going to happen over night. Best case scenario at this point is we will be mortgage free in 5 years time, approx. 12 years earlier than original end date. We could throw more at it, but that would impact upon our quality of life.


In the meantime I've started looking at frugal blogs. There's an American one that is the FIRE dream. Not sure we would consider as far as retiring early, but there are some inspirational stories out there. Perhaps we will re-evaluate after the wedding - we now have a date!!


That's it for now. Am off to catch some rays and a little well earned time with the family.


Toodles x

Jelllibeanz

Well it's certainly been a while since I posted and a lot has gone on. So here is a quick run down:


1. We've postponed the wedding. Nothing has changed between us, but we did decide to look for another venue. It was going to cost £12k just for the venue and catering. What was worrying me was the poor communication from the venue. So we will look for venues again in the near future.


2. I completely quit smoking and saved the price of a packet of fags everyday towards my wedding dress. However, where we've decided to postpone (and I have piled on the weight) I decided to ......


3. Buy a puppy! Yes we have a gorgeous little fur baby who is now 6 months old. She's not a very MSE kind of dog as she's a shih Tzu and needs grooming every 4 weeks. I would give it a go myself, but it's important she has positive experiences with grooming and the hair around her eyes is very difficult to trim and she doesn't sit still! I wouldn't change her for the world though.


4. We had a few difficult weeks workwise and did something that really wasn't MSE at all. We had a budget Sun holibob weekend away at a caravan park, which was great. What wasn't planned was us buying one! We can afford it and it is a lifestyle decision - definitely not an investment. But we love it. We've had it for almost a year now and spend almost every weekend and holiday down there. It's great as it is only an hour and a half away from home and surrounded by woodland, whilst being a 15 minute drive away from the beach. It is having a positive impact on our mental health and the kids love it too.


5. I've started an apprenticeship in management at work and am doing a degree as part of it. I've been a manager for years, but the opportunity to do a degree free of charge that will not only help me to develop myself professionally and potentially make me more employable was a no brainer. It is challenging studying whilst working full time and having a family. Having said that I'm enjoying it and not having to pay uni fees


6. I haven't been so good at putting money away for the mortgage, but it is still coming down. Most recent check on we are at is £61.5k!!! I'm very happy with this as I haven't put more than £15 a month across for nearly a year.


The good habits we developed are continuing. Mr J has got much better with his approach to money for instance we nearly spent £300 on bathroom furniture last week in the sale, but he suggested we reconsider as we are not ready yet to renovate it and would need to store it.


I do want to make more of an effort with the mortgage moving forwards and posting on here. Anyhow, must do some work.


TTFN x

Jelllibeanz

So we've had a bit of a frugal long weekend. We went away to our holiday home on the Thursday evening and even though the weather was hit and miss we still managed to have plenty of fun. We visited the local park, which is actually rather large with several lakes, ornamental gardens and P*kemon gyms. This meant everyone was happy including our fur babies.


It felt like we needed to blow away some cobwebs (it was very windy) so we also went to an English Heritage site with the boys. They had loads of fun looking at the castle ruins and improving their understanding of history. Actually we all did. There's nothing like seeing and touching things to make them more tangible. One of the best bits of course was the only thing we had to pay for was the parking as MrJ used his membership which was part of a package of civil service discounts


I also found some bulbs that I'd bought last year and planted them. Several were already shooting, hopefully they will take as I don't want to spend loads on plants this year. I say that, but there is a lovely older gentleman that runs his own nursery just down the road and he sells loads of awesome plants that would cost at least double the price if I were to buy them in a chain store. However, I am doing my best to remain disciplined. So I have loads of seeds that I picked up last year in W1lkos when it was the end of season and they were half price. Many of them are still in date to 2020. I want to plant some veggies in our garden (that is looking very unloved at the minute) and flowers at the holiday home.


In other news one of our neighbours at the holiday home is selling up. So she has kindly offered us some stuff rather cheaply; including a washing machine and tumble drier. We normally leave some clothes down there, but have been bringing back our washing. By buying these it will reduce stress of having to stay on top of the washing for every Friday and how much we need prepare. If we were staying down there for more than a few days we'd use the laundrette and that would cost £4.50 just to do a load.


Am being good today. Have brought homemade soup into work with me and coffee in a flask. And I have an eye test booked through work later today. I've been getting headaches when working and haven't had them checked for years. But busy day ahead, so best crack on.


Toodles x

Jelllibeanz

So for the next five days I need to be super frugal. It's five days until pay day and I don't want to break into my savings. There's approx. £20 and sufficient food in the house. I just need to be disciplined and creative.


As a result last night I got cooking in the kitchen to make the next few evenings a little less stressful. I found a bag of spuds that were starting to sprout and a few odd ones at the bottom of the fridge. So I spent ages peeling and mashing them whilst dinner was cooking. There are now four family dinners worth of mash in the fridge. Last night we had a homemade fish pie, which was delicious I think I'll use one lot tomorrow night with some mince that has been cooked through and frozen to make shepherds pie. I may put some in the freezer for another time. Never frozen mash before. Tonight we'll have egg and chips as we need to use the eggs that are going out of date in the fridge. I hate throwing things away and if it means I just need to buy a few bits for the weekend e.g. bread and milk I will feel a sense of achievement.


We made loads of carrot cup cakes last night and that will cover some snacks and the kids packed lunch. They were very yummy. We used an Ald1 packet mix and some 1rn Bru. I'd usually make cakes from scratch, but I have never used a fizzy drink in cake mix before and wanted to give it a go. Now I've done it I may look for a recipe that has one rather than buying a packet.


In the meantime work beckons and I'd better crack on.


Toodles x

Jelllibeanz

My few days of being on the wagon with minimal spending are not going so well. Yesterday I bought a YS plant for my office, but it makes me smile. And I've done the first thing in the morning A1di shop to pick up some 50% offers and a few bits for the weekend. Whilst I was in there I lost track of how many fab cheap bits I was putting in the basket and overspent by a few quid. Plus I still need to top up the petrol so we can go away for the weekend. Ah well, I will just have to break into the savings and top it back up again in a few days once I've been paid.




We're off away again for the weekend. It's good as we leave our stuff there and there is even food in the fridge and freezer. So I didn't really need to get quite as much as I did. I'm going to take one of the fish pies I made whilst batch cooking for this evening so I can put my feet up when we get there. Am hoping the weather will not be too wet so we can get out and enjoy the countryside some more.

Jelllibeanz

Well the weekend was interesting to say the least. We got there ok and everything was great to start with. The kids went off to play and dinner was in the oven. Then at about 7pm on the Friday night the electric blows. I figured maybe it was because I had too many appliances on.
So a quick check of the fuse box and nothing's working. A phone call to the Security Team to ask them to re-set the trip switch at the mains distribution board and they said it hadn't tripped. The guy came up and said it looked like the rcd in our internal consumer board was broken. No electricians would be on site until the next day. Mr J being super remembered a DIY chain store would still be open in town. So we whizzed down there and managed to locate an RCD that seemed to match. MrJ also wanted to fit it in the dark, to which I point blank refused. I want him in one piece and not in a box! Electrics scare the hell out of me. So we had an evening by candle light and no gadgets. The kids loved it. We did get a bit chilly, but the gas hob kept us warm.
First thing in the morning MrJ fitted the new breaker and then we had a tense wait for the electric to be turned back on. During this wait we found out that if we needed another electrician it would be £79 per half hour plus parts and if we couldn't wait until Monday it would go up to £109!! Even though it was just a few screws and wires given how long it was taken the park to go back and switch everything on it would have taken at least an hour. Anyway, the long and short of it is that Mr Super J fixed it All it cost was £22 on the rcd unit. So in my eyes that was £218 saved straight away as it would have come out of the savings account. All the work as a the electrician's mate when we had the house re-wired paid off


Another plus was we discovered the cable etc. from when the previous owner had a washing machine in the shed outside was still there. So that has saved another potential £100




It then meant we could enjoy the rest of the weekend with power and warmth. So we had another trip around an English Heritage site only this time we took the dogs with us and they loved getting treats from the staff.


The weather was so gorgeous yesterday we had lunch on the deck with our new patio furniture and I did some gardening on our lakeside bank. Our neighbours gave us some sculptures as they are leaving in a few weeks. It was difficult to leave, but we had a lovely drive home.


Plan tonight is to do some work to the garden at home. It's not had it's spring tidy up yet and is looking rather bedraggled. If I'm honest the mess is not good for my mental health either. It is going to take a few days to get it back to looking reasonable, but it's not going to cost anything.

greent

Sounds lovely, Jellibeanz - and well done to hubby for being such a money saving:money: whizz!:T:T
x

Jelllibeanz

Thanks Greent - MrJ is awesome


Over the past couple of days I've managed a couple of TT and created a spreadsheet to assist with managing the monthly expenses tracking. I'm trying to be good all round. Somehow it feels a little easier during the week.


I made some soup with left overs using pesto and broccoli stalks amongst other things and have put it into a flask for today's lunch. I could have re-heated it in the office microwave, but following a conversation with colleagues in another branch regarding office politics I decided this would prevent stinking out the office. Am hoping it tastes nice as there is loads for the next couple of days.


Last night we had a stir fry, but rather than buy a packet of mixed veg I used what we had in the cupboard. If Mr J hasn't used all the salmon paste on his butties I may give try the cooking on a bootstrap pasta dish with the family tonight.


I did manage to clear a small amount of rubbish in the garden, but didn't get nearly as much done as I had planned because I had a migraine. Hopefully I will manage to get a few more bits done out there over the next couple of days.

Jelllibeanz

The salmon pasta was rather yummy. I added some finely sliced broccoli and a basa fillet to make sure there was extra protein and vitamins. Also had to replace the yoghurt for crème fraiche. But it went down a storm.


And I found out I'd won a box of choccies on the work's raffle this morning. So they are going to be hidden and be our weekend treat

Jelllibeanz

My monthly budget has taken a bit of a hit this week. I'd forgotten that I needed to pay £100 off DS3's school journey. He's off to the land of mice with big ears in the summer and is really looking forward to it. He also hit me with another school trip letter last night. He's one of 3 kids in his class to be invited to go bowling as a reward for excellent progress. So that's another £10. I'm proud of him and am pleased he is doing well. If this keeps him motivated then it is worth it.


Yesterday I went along to the launch of a new collaborative working initiative, which was really positive. Every delegate received a plastic wallet filled with goodies including pens, a note pad (I'm going to keep this for my next module at uni) and some sweets that I am happily munching on.


Unfortunately I left my coffee flask at work last night. MrJ kindly popped my coffee into my soup flask instead. I don't think the flask had been washed out properly as it smells like a mix of the two!! So I am drinking herbal tea instead.


Thank goodness it's Friday. The weather is meant to be good all weekend and I can't wait to get away.