Our £20,000 Life

Cinny91

Has anyone seen the movie oddsock eaters? It would appear our home has been invaded by all-sock eaters. LO has been working on a steady rotation of 4 pairs of socks as it seems the rest have sprung to life like a scene from bedknobs and broomsticks and made their merry way to the coast to fight nazis.

To do list today is to find said socks hiding place! A few months ago I’d have just gone and bought more, but not today.

TT of £1.20. DH has gone to get the new radiator for LO’s room so that’s £57.99 on the CC to be paid off which will impact how much we can save tomorrow. But it’s a good radiator with the capability to heat the room properly rather than having to set up separate heaters like we have done these last 2 winters so I can’t really complain. Be an extra place to hang washing on wet days too

Going to get the fabric today and have our old sky tv box / router to return. We should be getting £50+ back from sky at the end of the month too, alongside not having had any broadband bills for a month things aren’t looking too shabby. Internet should be back on Monday but I’m very tempted to keep LO off any internet based telly as his mood is so much nicer since he doesn’t get upset seeing there’s so much to watch and us not letting him watch certain things. A shelf of DVD’s he’s free to choose from is giving us much calmer evenings. Although he did insist his bedtime buddy last night was the Jurassic Park trilogy so.. swings and roundabouts

clearmydebts

Good luck with the sock hunt. Think it's a mystery in every house!

The radiator sounds like an essential spend and not a bad price too!

Cinny91

Socks have been located!

Very true CMD, it was 20% off with free fittings and double the BTU’s of the old radiators combined.

Put a return in for one of the plugs we order for the room decoration, as ever with Amazon we’re getting a refund but don’t need to return the item. £5.58 refund and a double plug socket I’m sure we can find a home for in another room.

Also mended one of LO’s toys that a wheel fell off of. Have a whole train to mend too but I’ve not felt bold enough to take that on. It’ll be a lot of super glue!

We’re down to the last wall and chimney breast of the bedroom. One socket has been changed and I feel the end is in reach! LO is out on Sunday so I’ll have time to paint the radiator cover, give the floor a good scrub, clean down his bed and be set up to move back in. Poor DH has been camped in there on a single bed for weeks now!

OP pot is now over £200. I paid £18.50 of 5p’s that DH’s grandma gave to LO in, and rounded it up to £25 to put into his premium bonds account. So the balance was “off” for a £3.50 TT.

Cinny91

OP pot now stands at £433.01 :j

Had a cheque in the post today, finally got a refund on my road tax... £6.66 :rotfl: so I’ll be paying that in tomorrow and adding it to the pot when it clears.

Actually had a NSD today! Only just realised. Actively avoided town for anything this morning, and made tea from the fridge/cupboards. I’ve cut the pieces for my sisters quilt and realised I can make a good sized blanket for my friend for Christmas from the excess fabric.

Have £17 in my purse to plan to see how long I can stretch this. £120 in the bank and while we do need to do this food shop my only planned cost so far is my eye test next week. So we’ll see how I get on!

clearmydebts

Cinny91 wrote: »

OP pot now stands at £433.01 :j

Had a cheque in the post today, finally got a refund on my road tax... £6.66 :rotfl: so I’ll be paying that in tomorrow and adding it to the pot when it clears.

Actually had a NSD today! Only just realised. Actively avoided town for anything this morning, and made tea from the fridge/cupboards. I’ve cut the pieces for my sisters quilt and realised I can make a good sized blanket for my friend for Christmas from the excess fabric.

Have £17 in my purse to plan to see how long I can stretch this. £120 in the bank and while we do need to do this food shop my only planned cost so far is my eye test next week. So we’ll see how I get on!

My goodness that's an amazing amount in the OP pot. Fair play to you!

Cinny91

Thanks CMD hoping to be able to save a little more through the week in bits and bobs, goal would be to pay £1000 extra of PM but LO’s room renovations - although cheap in comparison to what it would be if we couldn’t do most of the work ourselves - has taken £250 from our sails. But we have cash flowed it. Mental note to not mention any wants to decorate ANY rooms to DH after the saga me wanting to paint a few walls turned into working hard to counterbalance the spend as it’s not a very MSE way to start things! Getting into the next k bracket seems more attainable!

Need to spend money today, however. DH needs medicine from the chemist which I think will be about £5, DH was also chuntering about a takeaway after working hard on the room these last few weeks so I’m going to budget £5 at a supermarket to buy something to bridge the gap. LO is complaining of an upset stomach so it’ll be a sofa day today.

Putting a loaf in the bread maker and cracking on with the quilt

Tesco_points_addict

Radish72 wrote: »

Hello TPA, welcome back


Apologise for hi-jacking your thread Cinny91


I haven't posted on my diary for about 2 years but last week became mortgage free


Gally girl and Tilly (also MF) are living it large abroad, so don't post as much


Radish x

Fanblooming tasic news Radish!
Lovely to see some more familiar faces

Cinny91

At 57 and 58, 3 children flown the nest and 2 grandchildren to fawn over my parents are now living the dream. Sitting pretty, mortgage free! I'm so incredibly chuffed for them, proves that slow and steady does win the race :money:

And with that, a TT of £2.11 brings our OP pot to £435.12.

LO went out with my parents yesterday so I used the free day to tick some things off the to do list, including getting to the end of the next "step" in my Sister's quilt. Hoping I'll get it all cut and put back together on Wednesday morning so I can move onto the final quilt for Christmas.

Had stew with doorstep chunks of bread and butter for tea last night. Tonight's tea is more of the same only with Yorkshire pudding and mash then tomorrow will be... more stew with yet more potatoes and dumplings. Always find I can make food go further in Autumn/Winter over the other months. When I bought the meat for the stew I cashed in on a meat deal and got a pack of sausages too so we'll have cosy toad in the hole on Wednesday (the "cosy" toads are pigs in blankets as we have some bacon to use up) I'm at my Sister's for tea on Thursday and then we'll have some variety of sausages on Friday - I might just be lazy and do a tray bake. Always serve everything up with two veggies, although I'm just doing fresh sliced greens with the stew. Giving myself a £10 grocery budget for this week, which I feel will be plenty.

clearmydebts

Brilliant about your parents being mortgage free. Mine cleared theirs in their early 50s and both took early retirement. It really is an incentive isn't it?

Cinny91

It really is, and heartening too. My parents haven't always had it straight forward with their finances, my Dad's work had unsteady patches where they had no income and had to live off of savings for a good while but still paid their mortgage off early. My mum had a last minute PPI claim too which pushed them over the finish line.

Had a NSD yesterday. Today however, not so lucky. LO brought a cold home from nursery that has spread as far as my Dad (who never gets colds) so on my way to work today I bought cough sweets (60p) and some fizzy water (37p).

Stew didn't stretch as far as I hoped so we're moving the menu forward one night. Will do a food shop on Friday instead while LO is at nursery, his school are collecting Aldi tokens so that's the final push to get me to switch to them. Will do a loose meal plan and write my list Thursday night when LO has hopefully gone to bed as DH is away for work.

Started work on a braided rug for LO's room last night, I always save any old blankets/duvet covers/sheets so they're all coming in handy now. I'm hoping to have 2 medium sized ones when they're complete, I've also got a scrap rag rug I've been working on through summer which I'll be able to put down too. I'm hoping these with the new radiator will keep his room toasty, it already feels cold at night - last night he had his duvet, celluar baby blanket and old pram blanket layered up on him before he declared himself "toasty and cosy snug" :rotfl: