The mindful MFW: A healthy, happy journey to a mortgage free life!

museumworker

Thanks all for stopping by with the get well messages. I was too wiped out this morning to make it to work but have managed to eat some vegetables and a piece of toast today so am hoping to be ok for work tomorrow.

As mentioned my main overspend last month was clothes. Having totalled it up it looks as if I spent £90, as have £100ish to reurn. This covered:
Mr S: two pairs of light trousers for holiday(£16 and £18) three long sleeve tops at £8 each, plus two pairs of pjs for DS (£10 and £12)

Charity shops:
For work: Two gorgeous dresses for work (one Autograph) £3 each and a blue stripy £2 h&m blouse.
For holiday: fcuk denim jacket £3; light zara trousers £2; uniqlo as new vest £2 (super soft, will stock up on these next summer!) h&m light jumper £2.
Plus a next dress and top for DD2 at £3.

Most of the clothes were for me. As mentioned before I've gained a lot of weight in the laat few months, mainly due to medication. I've probably put on a stone and a half, but refusing to weigh myself as it makes me want to cry! Having tried project 333 and konmari'd my wardrobe I don't have a huge amount of clothes, am happy to rotate 5-6 work outfits but now they are mostly too small, and it's really getting me down.

Having tried on a heap of stuff in charity shops I now realise my shape has changed so I need to dress differently. I have been wearing more modern straight cuts (like Kin) but now suit tighter things to highlight waist and emphasise hourglass figure. The great news is when I found the right things I think I look really good in them, and slimmer than squeezing into my now too small clothes. What would make the biggest difference at the mo is decent magic pants, stomach toning exercises, good posture, sleep, hydration, and making a bit more effort with my skincare, hair and makeup. Not much then :rotfl: but actually much of this is free or cheap or can use things I already have, rather than needing a whole new wardrobe. This weekend I will write an action plan, which will include packing up my too small items and just having a small capsule wardrobe that I feel good in.

That's sadly not the end of the spending either as I definitely need the following to get through winter: control pants (any recommendations??), sheerer tights, camisole tops (to replace 4 year old ones!!), another bra fitting with poss 2 new bras, and one pair of jeans that fit as all my current ones are now too tight . Oh and one yoga/cycling outfit as ditto on the too tight Thats around a £180 spend :eek: but luckily I have next, M&S and JL vouchers,! as well as Mr S points so it would be great to use these up where possible to keep the costs down.

I do have the two dresses I bought the other week, a fancy whistles dress I bought for my interview for posh events and three-four skirts that will go with the new blouse/tops so think I'm good for work clothes for autumn/winter now, although a heavy weight pencil skirt in a dark colour would be very useful.

Sorry for all clothes talk, writing it all down helps me think a bit staighter.

The main issue is my poor self image I realise and if I start to invest a little bit of time on my appearance that might help me feel better and not need to buy as much.

Any hints on personal grooming, especially on the cheap, will be much appreciated!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Pleased you are feeling better MW. I'm not one to help on clothing I'm afraid, but you seem to have it sorted, and writing it all down does seem to help things out.

Keep getting better

Pooky

Mr S have a double up event in November so a good way of getting value from the points. I think you can only use 4000 points in each section but that's £40 worth of clothes for £20 worth of points.

themadvix

Glad you're feeling better. Afraid as I work from home, I live in jeans and have no advice to offer on the clothes front!

museumworker

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Pleased you are feeling better MW. I'm not one to help on clothing I'm afraid, but you seem to have it sorted, and writing it all down does seem to help things out.

Keep getting better

Thanks wish, back at work today although feeling exhausted and definitely still a little further to go recovery wise.

Pooky wrote: »

Mr S have a double up event in November so a good way of getting value from the points. I think you can only use 4000 points in each section but that's £40 worth of clothes for £20 worth of points.

Thanks for stopping by Pooky. I have at least £11 (when you double up) of Mr S vouchers from the weekend where they give you free points. Will use those towards an exercise outfit as I hear their workout gear is pretty good.

themadvix wrote: »

Glad you're feeling better. Afraid as I work from home, I live in jeans and have no advice to offer on the clothes front!

That sounds like bliss! Although I have no jeans which fit me either so I would just be sitting in my pjs all day :rotfl:

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

I agree that the capsule wardrobe is the way to go. If you have enough for a week for home and another week of work clothes, that is enough. Less clutter and you will be washing once a week no matter how many things you own! Then if you lose or gain weight, it isn't much stuff to throw out and replace either.

museumworker

So true squirrel! Limited choices also makes getting ready in the morning super easy as I know everything goes together and there’s only a few options!

museumworker

[STRIKE][/STRIKE]It’s Friday - yay!

Just had meeting with DD’s nursery, now having some breakfast and preparing a to do list.

The absolute !!!!ers at Hertz have taken £1700 off our credit card for ‘damage’ and will provide details of this ‘damage’ in 2-3 weeks. Am spitting mad as we definitely did not damage the car. We had an issue with a flat battery whilst away but that was fixed and we were told by the Hertz rep there was no charge for this. Even if they have charged us for it, it would not be that much! Have spoken to the agency we hired through who are lovely and they have sent an email to Hertz asking for an invoice, but not sure we’ll get any further with it today. Am trying not to worry about it as I know we’re in the right and we have photos of its exact condition before we hired it but even still is a bit of a worry. Wondering if I should call Hertz in Morocco myself to speed things along or just leave to the hire agency.

In better news we have finalised our exchange to Finland and have now booked the flights! Luckily that doesn’t involve car hire... flights were £452, so still £548 left in next year's holiday budget, and we have £100 of Mr T vouchers that can go up to £300 of Chunnel costs - one trip is £180 so nearly have enough for two trips :j! The flights cheekily added on £53 of flexi Insurance but called and had that refunded straight away.

Anyway, today’s ta dahhh list:
* mindfulness
* [STRIKE]tidy house ready for cleaner[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]free cookery class (wk 1) - all about cooking cheap meals for your family[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]collect parcel x1[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]see friend for coffee[/STRIKE]
* return broken headband (£9)
* [STRIKE]update YNAB[/STRIKE]
* update Postal survey
* [STRIKE]collect kids[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]try not to stress about car hire![/STRIKE] got there mostly by then of the day

wishingthemortgaheaway

What a nightmare about the car hire. Surely they would have noticed the damage when you returned the car? Not over a week later.
They are trying it on.

Hope it gets sorted quickly.

museumworker

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

What a nightmare about the car hire. Surely they would have noticed the damage when you returned the car? Not over a week later.
They are trying it on.

Hope it gets sorted quickly.

That’s part of the problem, there was nobody there to collect the car and no answer to the 24/7 emergency number either. :mad:

No reply yesterday so will call again on Monday.

Had a lovely day yesterday, got house ready for cleaner, took 2 bags to charity and one bag in recycling.

Spent £9.50 in charity shop for an M&S tunic shirt which can wear for work or home, a H&M Black cord skirt (ditto) and a toast bottle green sweatshirt. Plus found DVD been looking for for kids for 50p, had an alert set up on camel camel camel for when it dropped to £5 so a good saving off something planning to buy anyway.

First class of a cookery school, teaches how to feed family for less than a pound a head. A brilliant mix of people, from the homeless to pensioners, the demonstration was a little slow but really enjoyed the practical where we cooked the two dishes and sat altogether to eat it. Now added lentil dhansak and chicken a la king to my repertoire, both on this week’s meal plan. The class was completely free to including the lunch :money:, have three more weeks to go.

Met dear friend for coffee afterwards in town, she treated me which was a lovely surprise, and had a really good catch up sat outside whilst the sky treated us to some beautiful sunset colours.

I did a bit of YNAB work yesterday evening and realised we are now on target for OH travelcard, the tax payment in Jan, our breakdown renewal, and all of our insurances next year :j! We have already covered all of our expenses for the month plus have a £50 budget for unbudgeted items. You can set up targets for certain funds and it tells you how much you need to put in this month to be on track to meet your targets. It’s been a revelation, I feel so much more on top of my finances with YNAB and will be paying for the annual subscription.

Today I’ve had a bit of a lie in, washload now on, swimming lesson done, OH dispatched to shops with Mr S returns and this week’s shopping list. Am hoping for around a £30 shop, as we did £105 last week that would bring us under budget for a 2 week shop.

It’s raining but hoping to take kids out for a play for a few hours this afternoon, maybe use the free museum membership I got back in July as OH hasn’t seen the place yet.

Today’s ta dahhh list:
* pay for YNAB sub
* pay music school and email over confirmation
* update Postal survey
* mindfulness
* contact amazon about accidental audible download
* have some quality family time
* 2x washload
* make healthy flapjacks from meal plan