Our MFW Adventure!

Needhelpsaving

Just popping in very quickly this morning to copy over my progress on annual goals in Feb, the last couple of weeks have been challenging personally (for details I won't go into via the internet), and this is likely to continue into next month as we deal with a situation as a wider family.

However, I had made a dent in my goals at the start of the month, so here goes;

Goals Completed   
1. 4/4 Family activities completed. I have removed the goal of a jar a family activity ideas, as we seem to be working better with a numerical goal and it's making us actively look for things to do/places to go. 
2. I made a very small mortgage OP of 7p (I am not counting the £925 we put in from OH income as I track that from the family budget as opposed to my personal goals). It's  an incredibly small amount, but it's an OP so I'm counting it as a win. 
3. I have decluttered/sold 128 items over the course of February.
4. I read a book called the Mistletoe Seller by Dilly Court.
5. I continued to work on my financial education and personal development (Journalling, a free online course and I watched an interview on Financial Independence). 

Goals I made progress on 
1. I increased my exercise this month, I didn't hit the goals I set, but I have completed more exercise than January. 
2. I increased the amount of hours I tried to earn additional income from home by 5 hours. 
3. I have continued to work on the redecoration of both DD's room and have a few minor tasks to complete it. 

Goals not completed
1. I didn't add any money to emergency savings (again outside of those from OH wages) or bought any new PB's. 

savingholmes

I love celebrating progress including the 7p OP. It all adds up - and as you've said you've shown that between you - you can also do  bigger OPs.

Needhelpsaving

   We've just had a letter from the mortgage provider confirming that after the £925 OP, our mortgage term has reduced to 9 years 8 months! Happy Days!

greent

Well done!

Needhelpsaving

Finally, some sunshine! 
I always feel better when spring rolls around and the weather improves. Once the festivities have gone, winter just seems to drag.

Sorry I've not been posting much in the last couple of weeks, we lost a family member and needed some time as a family. I'm just trying to focus on the positives, that the person had a good life and is no longer in pain 

So, this last few weeks have seen additional spends here and there to get us through, but the March budget has been amended to make sure that all the essentials have been covered and we won't finish this month over budget. I cobbled together a World Book Day outfit for DD1 at a cost of £2.45, so happy with that. 

Moving forward this month, it is very much a food shop only kind of month. The bills are paid, I have cash set aside for the window cleaner, I have petrol for any car journeys (although trying to walk where possible or batch errands) and the upcoming family birthdays have already been sorted and are ready to be distributed. 

I have listed some bits for sale online as part of the decluttering aim, mostly DD's outgrown/unwanted toys and I have sorted 8 more items to be listed today 

Needhelpsaving

Busy-ish day today. Cleaning, sorting and listing bits and pieces for sale. 

I sold an item last night on ebay, so that was taken to the post office first thing and the money made after fees and postage was moved to my sinking funds as I have two that are currently in the negative (I spent more than I had built up at that point). 

My sinking funds are currently £5.43 off where they need to be and so that is my next aim, to get £5.43 made and moved into there before starting to look at saving money to buy more PB's. 

5 items have been photographed and listed, I have 5 more to be done so will do these in the next hour or so. 

OH and I updated our net worth tracker - I find this helpful, as sometimes we only tend to see what we owe, and not what we have saved/invested in etc. Net worth is increasing steadily, and our only liability (debt) is our mortgage, which has just gone under £50k  I was unable to update OH pension details as he gets a manual statement annually around June time which details 01/04-31/03 of the previous year. We have increased his contributions, but it would be helpful to have it accessible online.

I have also signed up for a focus group, so fingers crossed I'm picked as that would be £70 (gross) in the pot 

Needhelpsaving

I'm feeling frustrated today, we've had 3 things break/need replacing, the bathroom light, the fridge freezer has started to leak and build up ice (it's meant to be frost free) and we've also gained a leak on the back chimney breast. All things that we can deal with, but I just feel frustrated that as soon as we start hitting the mortgage they all decide to rear their heads 
Does anyone else find that as soon as you start gaining traction everything suddenly needs replacement/breaks???

greent

Definitely - in Nov and Dec both our WM/ TD and DW died and needed replacing - in fact, we still need to replace DW. And in early Jan the kitchen lights blew the fuseboard - turns out 2 had wiring in the ceiling totally burn through - burning the plasterboard ceiling - meaning new ceiling, wiring,ceiling  lights - and new fuseboard…… (AM ignoring the fact all outside lights trip everything - that can be a job for later in the year!)

savingholmes

Definitely some sympathy with that one - we had to replace our fridge freezer recently and currently only 1 of our 4 gas hobs rings is working....

Sympathies on the loss of your loved one.
Congrats on the OP. 

Needhelpsaving

Thanks for popping by Greent and SavingHolmes - it's just rubbish that it seems to work that way isn't it?

I've ordered a new Fridge Freezer which should be delivered next Wednesday, the one I chose was on offer and has cashback through Quidco. Boiler service re-booked for next Thursday, so just need to get onto an electrician and roofer next. 

We've pushed our house moving desires back 12-18 months as we're expecting another bambino. Lots seems to be going on at the moment and it's just a matter of keeping moving foward and hitting that mortgage amount to put us in good stead wherever the future takes us. 

I had an interesting trip to the supermarket today which involved multiple people wearing masks and stockpiling goods. It was like watching some sort apocalyptic food shop. Sure, I got a couple of extra store cupboard bits, but these guys were loading whole trolleys with stuff and talking about getting torches incase the national grid is switched off? Weird day.