Thirty something dreaming of not paying mortgage

kaycastle

South_coast said:

Good to see the breakdown is getting you thinking, and the guided tour sounds interesting. Plus the furniture sale means really only £50 has come out of the bank 👍 

Would it help to split out things like the slippers and ironing board cover into a different category, so the "weekly shop" amount just identifies what you are spending on food/toiletries/cleaning? Just thinking aloud, as 20% of the cost of my Lidl shop this morning was actually on dog treats rather than things for me to eat (and it's not even my dog 🤦‍♀️!)

Thank you! I think that sounds like a good idea, I'm going to see if my OH still has receipt, if not will just look up the prices. Ooh yes with the furniture money that's a great way of thinking about it.

And yes pets...my kitten has her own spending category in my spreadsheet.

I've just had a whirlwind of an afternoon, my engagement ring had fallen off somewhere. I spent the whole afternoon trying to find it. I even went through the bin, searched top to bottom. I eventually located it in the freezer......so relieved 

Also sold some of those random impulse amazon buys that I never used for £20 on fb just now so pleased.

I'm almost close to earning £10 in tesco voucher from my bing searches...was worth switching my default search engine for this hahaha

Edit:
Also the guided tour was from this guy, I've been on them in real life as well, and his fantastic: https://www.meetup.com/guided-walks-in-BrightonandSussex/

kaycastle

We have a burst water pipe noticed water coming out the wall suddenly last night and have a plumber coming today.
That will be where the cash made from selling items has to go  wonder what the spend report will be like Saturday 

powerspowers

Oh no! Hope it’s not too bad KC 

kaycastle

powerspowers said:

Oh no! Hope it’s not too bad KC 

Thanks powerspowers
I think it inspires me to improve saving money and selling items I no longer want or need. 
I've been researching the vanguard stocks and isa shares a bit, I think I'm going to start doing this and try to follow one of the examples that escapeartist demonstrates.

debtfreeoneday

hope not too much damage is caused and the bill isn’t too much. 

kaycastle

Thank you for all your well wishes
Spending 9th March - 16th March 

1. £69.80 - weekly shop
2. £140 - Fixing burst pipe ( but could have been worse! ) Just got to do some patching up and painting this week, hopefully with some paint we have somewhere
3. £60.11 - B&Q for a brilliant garden project that will create a proper raised bed area in the garden. Was going to work on it this weekend but weather has been rubbish 
4. £3.46- Online quiz site subscription which we've had a lot of fun on during lockdown but have cancelled this now as have been playing less as the weather improves/lockdown eases
5.  £33.85 - restaurant-style takeaway (woops! but that can be our monthly one and it was so lovely!) 
6. £61.40 OH's lunch/misc spends/petrol. Some of will be expensable at work

Total spend: £368.62  
FB selling: +£40
Combined: -£328.62
My thoughts:

• Bit closer to the the average £383 weekly spend before my new frugalness and quite a bit higher than previous week's £90.31 total spend
  
• Without the burst  pipe the total spend would only be £228.62 and might not have been fed up enough to order a takeaway if it wasn't for this either!
• Still avoiding amazon
• I don't mind the b&q spend as I'm really excited about what we're going to create from that which will be lots of value to us and improve the garden immensely - will require some hard work later this week which I like to think of as free "gym" membership    
• We probably shouldn't have done our one and only takeaway of the month so early but determined to stick to that
• Have some time off coming up so I expect we'll get out and about and have some spending next week but I'm really excited to have a bit of fun
• Have listed some more things on FB today so will see how that goes for next week

kaycastle

Good morning all
I had an exciting day yesterday, got out two horrible stumps from the garden. And got to use a mattock and sledgehammer which was very exciting. Very exciting tools and we borrowed them so no cost.
Despite the weather, we cleaned all the windows outside and it's made a huge difference. And started taking up the turf for a new raised bed area...very hard work as garden is full of stones.
Did so much my fitbit detected almost 10000 steps just from gardening.

The wind sounds even crazier today so not sure what I'll be able to do today

Chiglepig

kaycastle said:

Good morning all
I had an exciting day yesterday, got out two horrible stumps from the garden. And got to use a mattock and sledgehammer which was very exciting. Very exciting tools and we borrowed them so no cost.
Despite the weather, we cleaned all the windows outside and it's made a huge difference. And started taking up the turf for a new raised bed area...very hard work as garden is full of stones.
Did so much my fitbit detected almost 10000 steps just from gardening.

The wind sounds even crazier today so not sure what I'll be able to do today

Sounds like a brilliant day, and you'll be reminded of it everytime you move today! I love a bit of extreme gardening!

debtfreeoneday

Sounds like good progress. 

kaycastle

Thank you @Chiglepig and @debtfreeoneday
Posting my spend analysis a bit late as have been busy in the garden, despite the terrible terrible weather!! Its just been so bad, I'm so proud of us for getting anything done.
We even got an old compost bin up and running that's been lying around since we moved in almost 4 years ago so yay free compost at some point and less rubbish for the bins

Spending 17th May - 23rd  May (also why did I put March in my last post?! ) 

1. £87.48 - weekly shop
2. £104.9 - I did 0% finance for the first time ever a couple of months ago for some bedroom furniture - it was well worth it as its the first proper wardrove and matching furniture we've ever had and should be all sorted by end of the year. And technically has cost me nothing extra - I just didn't want the money to leave my account all at once but I'm still sad it increases my weekly spend so much.
3. £4.80 - Pint at the pub. Had to be done this week
4. £181.50 - Wickes landscaping supplies for our garden project
5. £3.00 - Virtual talk about the bedlam hospital which was really interesting
6.  £19.00 - a proper takeaway. This was so bad of us, and it was so disgusting I couldn't finish it. Its our first greasy takeaway in a very long time and it was definitely silly of us. Lesson learned.
7. £150.08 OH spending. Some of this was for gardening project as well, some petrol etc,

Total spend: £551.48  
FB selling: +£105
Combined: -£446.48
My thoughts:

• Well its well over the average of the £383 weekly spend! But we are doing a big garden project and I like to think making the house nicer adds value on it, not only in ££ but in the fact its nicer to spend time in. Also its for a massive raised bed area, I've never had such a proper space to grow things, I'm so excited. Still got to finish it and have a few more supplies arriving today and tomorrow. All in our costs for the project have come in just under £500
  
• Quite pleased with our facebook monies - although we're about to spend £160 of the cash we've made on fb on some garden supplies.
• I didn't include that we got a £100 anniversary gift from parents as I'm going to spend that immediately tonight on a meal out with them - I don't like to spend gifts just on me and seemed like a good opportunity.