Thirty something dreaming of not paying mortgage

kaycastle

Got another £20 from fb marketplace yesterday

Also did do a fair amount of tidying. And managed to do a proper meal plan for the week and added a few items to my tesco order for tomorrow. 

All inspired by getting up to date with some of my favourite MF diaries.

I've been eating a lot of biscuits and chocolate etc. since being pregnant - more than I ever usually would. My goals for this month are to:
- Get really into the habit of meal planning - (get a list together of recipes etc. and maybe try some new recipes for inspiration)
- Bake some cookies etc. at weekends to eat homemade treats instead of my many treats from the shop

kaycastle

Changed the title of my topic as I'm not in my twenties anymore and updated my first post  

Lovely sunny day and thinking of going out for dinner as a nice treat (had put it on meal plan as well yay!)

South_coast

Happy belated birthday 🎂 🥳 

kaycastle

South_coast said:

Happy belated birthday 🎂 🥳 

Hehe thanks my birthday was a while ago and I realised I forgot to tell anyone here I'm now thirty and have been for a few months!

kaycastle

Got all expensive and essential baby purchases done

Work is so boring and meh at the moment, will be very nice to be away from it all. Wish I didn't have to go back. How did families make it all work years ago when it was normal for only one parent to work , know I'm massively generalising here but seems to be getting harder to do that 

Baileys_Babe

kaycastle said:

Got all expensive and essential baby purchases done

Work is so boring and meh at the moment, will be very nice to be away from it all. Wish I didn't have to go back. How did families make it all work years ago when it was normal for only one parent to work , know I'm massively generalising here but seems to be getting harder to do that 

After maternity leave with my first I went back part-time, initially 30 per week then after about 9 months I reduce my hours to about 19 or 20 per week. When I had our second we decided I was going to be a stay at home parent. 
It needs to be a joint decision as it will the entire household, less money coming in but more time to manage the finances, reduce spending by cooking from scratch, no child care costs etc.

I know plenty of 2 parent households where only one works, in some of them the other parent has a very small self employed income.

kaycastle

Baileys_Babe said:

kaycastle said:

Got all expensive and essential baby purchases done

Work is so boring and meh at the moment, will be very nice to be away from it all. Wish I didn't have to go back. How did families make it all work years ago when it was normal for only one parent to work , know I'm massively generalising here but seems to be getting harder to do that 

After maternity leave with my first I went back part-time, initially 30 per week then after about 9 months I reduce my hours to about 19 or 20 per week. When I had our second we decided I was going to be a stay at home parent. 
It needs to be a joint decision as it will the entire household, less money coming in but more time to manage the finances, reduce spending by cooking from scratch, no child care costs etc.

I know plenty of 2 parent households where only one works, in some of them the other parent has a very small self employed income.

I love to hear what other parents have done. I'm meeting up with some mummy's for the first time as a mum to be in a few weeks and I'm so eager to listen and see what they did 

If we didn't have to save for a loft conversion for a 3rd bedroom it would be okay but I think I'll need to go back and do 4 days condensed into 3 to save enough for that. I think I'll have to stay at home after second as no way childcare for 2 would make sense financially for us. 

Self employment could work really well for me too, might be able to earn a fair amount 

Baileys_Babe

It is worth thinking of various options.

When I was working part time we both worked a compacted week which greatly reduced our need for paid childcare.

kaycastle

Through generosity of family putting money towards some big baby purchases, packed lunches for OH and meal planning which we've stuck too and monies from fb marketplace I'm ahead on savings schedule by 1 month which I'm really happy with.

Savings now at 24k which is brilliant so should have 31k saved at least by the time money starts to go down during mat leave. I'm determined to try really hard not to dip into this now and even try to save during mat leave - that would mean we are only about 15k away from loft conversion target

I think all the expensive baby purchases are done now and its just minor stuff which can be soaked up easily and also due to get a bunch of clothes for free from friends.

I did get some wool for some baby knitting projects so I should really start those as it won't be very MSE if I don't :P

South_coast

I didn't realise you were knitting the baby! You'd better get cracking, all those fingers and toes found be tricky and you want it done in a few months 🤣!