Here we go

Botherthatcat

Good Morning

Silence101 - As I am currently still trying to complete my assignment, I can assure you they are just as bad as you remember :rotfl:I do enjoy the studying, but trying to do it with two children, husband, house to run, work, etc is certainly challenging! I know exactly what you mean with regards to lifestyle creep. Mr BTC got a promotion last year and it was so tempting to dump all the MSE-ness that we'd become accustomed to, but then we had to remind ourselves that short term pain = long term gain. Especially after the news of interest rates rising this week - by the end of next year, we will have paid off over 20% of our mortgage by my calculations, what a difference that should make when we need to refix our rate :money:

Secretsavingsquirrel Thank you so much for your comment - Your diary is one of those that I read when I was a lurker and inspired me to start my own!

The last few days have been NSDs which is excellent. Today should be as well - I have no intention of leaving my kitchen table until I have a rough draft of this assignment. Have sent Mr BTC to swimming lesson with one child and have plonked the other in front of the electronic babysitter for the morning. This afternoon they are going to their Grandmother's so I have the whole day and evening to have a good go at it.

Tomorrow the reign of NSDs will come to an end, however. Am meeting with a group of friends in the morning to take the children to softplay and then out for a family meal in the evening. Realise it would have been more frugal to have people round and make something, but I just do not have the time this weekend and will probably be desperate for the change of scene after being stuck indoors all day today.

Botherthatcat

Well, excellent weekend of low spending. Only ended up spending £10.40 yesterday on lunch at softplay as DF decided to treat us all to lunch, which was very kind and obviously will be reciprocated next time.

This week hoping for low spends. Not feeling very well at the moment and still have assignment to complete so apart from a trip to get some fruit/milk I can't see any need for extra spending as I intend to not be leaving the house unless strictly necessary. The only other thing that is due to be paid is DS's swimming lessons for next term and DD's drama lessons. All these activites are adding up and I really need to have a think about scaling them down. The only thing is, on days like today when I have studying to do, it's quite handy to know that they're going to be out the house for an extra hour after school(!)

Botherthatcat

Good Morning!

It's been a few days since I last updated as I finally got rid of the dreaded assignment. Now to start the next one

Moneywise, looking like there's a lot of month left for the amount of money currently sitting in the account. This week, we've still been clearing out the freezer so food spends have been quite low, (£6.63 on fruit/veg and £12.08 on milk/yoghurts). Might have to dip into my salary account which I hate doing, but needs must. Have a feeling in the run up to Christmas it's going to be a nightmare as I'm going away for a weekend for a hen party in a few weeks which will be expensive and we've got some large household bills. But am trying not to stress about it - really should have started the diary in January with a clean slate, but at least this will remind me about all these expenses in the run up to the most wonderful time of the year :xmassmile

Had a meal out the other night with some old colleagues and one of them was telling me about their promotion (of which I was very happy for them, they work very hard and deserve it). They then made a throwaway comment about how I was going to start getting jealous because they were going to be earning so much more than me. Last time I meet up with them I think. Whilst my current salary will never match what they will earn, I work flexible (admittedly too flexible in that it's not very stable!), hours which fit around my family and am currently retraining to do something else when the DCs are older.

We're aiming to try and pay off our mortgage within 10 years so that we don't need to have highly-stressed and full time jobs to pay a large mortgage. We live frugally in comparison to many of our friends, who I know probably consider us to be tight, boring or simply odd because we are currently trying to become a bit more minimalist, avoiding buying things we do not need and making the most of what we have. It works for us because we don't want to be tied to a mortgage until retirement as one of our children is unwell with a condition that it going to impact their life quality and expectancy and we want to be able to help them as much as possible. It would be so easy to forget the long term big picture and allow life-style inflation to creep in, but in twenty years time I'm hoping this will all seem worth it.

Anyway, rant over. MSE-ness this weekend - Mr BTC is being very kind and taking the children out both days over the weekend so that I can study, so hopefully no spending at all. Whilst this qualification is expensive and time consuming it's worth it's weight in gold for stopping any unnecessary weekend spending Am planning on a nice night in tonight watching Motherland, which is very funny and so accurate. Trying to remember to be a bit more Liz!

michelle09

Wow... how incredibly insensitive is that? It's not all about money (even on an MSE board). Unless they have some other charming personality traits to make up for it then I'd not bother again either!

Starting now is good though, because in January it'll be so much easier so you'll see a bigger impact which will give you the push to keep going.

greent

Friend - or frenemy? Not a nice thing to imply - friends are happy for their friends, not jealous
(ok, we all probably have an occasional pang - I remember when I was up to my neck in 2 toddlers and my (childfree) bestie was getting a fab new job with international travel - but I'm not jealous of her in reality - just at the time I was struggling to see past nappies and such like!)

Good luck to you - you have a short term and a long term plan and sound happy Fab stuff
x

Botherthatcat

Thank you michelle09 and greent I generally don't discuss money with people in RL as everyone has such different priorities. The person in question is in a completely different situation to me, no children, lots of travel, but doesn't own a property. I know this bothers them, but they would rather spend thier money on their lifestyle, which is completely thier choice. Occasionally I am a little envious of thier situation (like this morning when I was woken up at 6am because of a big crisis over which child was going to play with the Lego first when they went downstairs - what I would do for a lie in!) but on the whole, now they are playing nicely and I'm having a coffee in the kitchen, I am very happy with my lot

Anyway, yesterday no spending and Mr BTC took the the children out all day so I managed to get quite a bit done. Also, total MSE sucess - he took one of the DC into a toy shop, asked what they wanted for Christmas and DC pointed at the exact thing I already purchased in the summer for half the price :money:

Made a horrible discovery yesterday, logged into mortgage account (very fiddly to get into) and realised there was a letter about the mortage. Had a look and despite repaying over 10% of the mortgage, the term has not reduced :mad: We specifically requested when we started the mortgage last year that we wanted the term to reduce when we overpaid. That is going to be a telephone call first thing in the morning.

Plans today - not a lot, continue the studying, clear out the spare room (as we are having guests to stay in the run up to Christmas and I don't think they'd appreciate sleeping amongst all our junk!) and cook a chicken curry. Normally at weekends we always have lots of plans, so it'll be nice to have a day at home for a change.

woodfired

It is always a bit of a minefield I find, discussing MSE ways in RL. Some people turn out to have very similar views and others think your'e bonkers. DH's brother & wife think we have lots of money because we don't have loans and CCs etc. but fail to see that we just spend far less than them! They spend hundreds on children's xmas presents and thousands on holidays where we are much more careful.
Interesting how they don't even notice that we are careful though, they assume we love having friends round for drinks/food rather than expensive meals out and tiny, cheap hotels rather than big, expensive chains. It hasn't crossed their minds it might be about money!!

Enjoying your diary, your situation sounds similar to ours, good luck on your journey!

Botherthatcat

Thank you woodfired - we're very careful around Christmas time too, I like to try and get my shopping for the children done as early as possible to make sure that I don't overspend. We used to leave it all until the last minute and would panic buy and it ended up costing a fortune.

Couple of spendy days - yesterday spent £19.20 and £17.18 in the supermarkets (but some of this was for food for DS's party at the weekend). Today I need to collect my two pairs of my winter boots which have been re-heeled. It was quite expensive to get these done, but better than buying two new pairs. Also have to get more stuff for party bags as not only have more people said they'd come than I was expecting, but I thought I'd been really organised bulk buying some items in advance from a discount store in the summer. Realised last night that a few of these items were unusable/damaged :mad: My fault for not checking the items straight away.

Spoke to mortgage provider who couldn't tell me how much of the term we've reduced of our mortgage but did offer to reduce our monthly payment. I did question why I would do that when I'd just told them that I wanted to pay off the mortgage as soon as possible :huh: Looks like we won't know anything until next year. I am going to wait until our new overpayment allowance begins in December and get the mortgage under the £200k mark and then speak to our mortgage insurance company about reducing the amount we pay. The original amount insured was £250k so we'll have reduced that amount by 20%.

edinburgher

Is your name a Mog reference?

Botherthatcat

Hi edinburgher - Yes, it is indeed. We are big Mog fans in our house and have read every single one ... apart from "Goodbye Mog".

(I do not feel I will ever be emotionally strong enough to cope with that one )