Marginal Gains

Cornish_mum

Thanks for the belated birthday wishes 

enthusiasticsaver

Love your diary and impressed by your long term saving and mortgage overpaying. Glad you had a nice birthday.  I am in Cornwall too. 

Cornish_mum

Hi

unfortunately I am not in Cornwall anymore 🙁.  I had to move away for Uni and work; not many opportunities in my line in Kernow. Only thing I don’t miss is the mizzle!

MrCM and I are both in abit of a funk because of over-work, and the awful weather. So I have decided to do some thankfulness to cheer away the blues.

Thankful for our jobs, which our pretty compatible with working from home, secure and well paid. That when we work we are securing our financial future and not just managing. 

Thankful for our lovely kids, that are handling the whole situation very well and not being whiny or awful currently.  

Thankful for the garden and that some of the seeds DD and I planted have already germinated.  Even thankful for the endless rain which means all the plants will grow super well.

Thankful that our parents are all well and getting out and enjoying themselves.

Thankful for preschool reopening on Monday for DD and that DS was offered a slot at holiday club for the whole summer.  

debtfreeoneday

hard sometimes to think of the good stuff isn’t it. 

Cornish_mum

Spends

Groceries came in at £138 ouch! I bought meat for batch cooking and beer for MrCM.

DS summer holiday club was £800; the price is up 40% compared to last year; I had enough childcare vouchers to cover the cost.

I needed a prescription for my regular meds and bought face masks, hair bands and a nail brush at the local pharmacy for £24. 

I ordered the school uniform DD and DS needed, a new dress, and pair of shorts for DD; all in it was £165. Just school shoes, trainers and wellies to go.

DS really wanted a new computer game as his lockdown homeschool treat; it is £50 but we decided to go ahead as he has been trying so hard at his work and to help with his sister.

Frugal things 

MrCM fixed the pigeon cage, it took forever, as the end pegs on all but one of the poles had all sheared off when it blew over. He had to fashion new ones. 

DD and I took cuttings of clematis, lavender, rosemary and verbena and sowed basil and planted out lettuce into gaps.

We harvested some chard, kale, a small courgette, salad leaves, herbs and a handful of strawberries this week.

We harvested a few gooseberries and blackberries from the community garden and I used them with a pack of frozen raspberries to make non-churn ice-cream.

I made homemade beef and veggie fajitas and guacamole on Saturday, batched cooked bolgnaise on Sunday and made chard & kale creamy pasta for MrCM & me.

Trip to a nature reserve on Sunday for a family walk; free parking. 

Cornish_mum

Another week gone by; MrCM is still very down about work and I just have too much to do and too little time for it all.  

On a positive note my work has given all staff bonus holidays this year in recognition of our hard work over the pandemic and we are now getting weekly emails to tell us to take our annual leave. No news on our annual pay rise. 

DD started back at preschool but she has found it difficult to adjust. We are going to keep her in as she needs to get used to being with other children again for school in September. I am really hoping DS finds holiday club ok.  School finished for him on Friday. 

Spends

Groceries were £135, 3 bottles of wine plus mainly store cupboard items.

That’s it no other spends.

Frugal things 

I mended my slippers again and a cuddly rabbit.

Harvested the final strawberry (just the one), lettuce, chives, basil, chard, kale, beetroot, 4 runner beans, sweet peas and cornflowers.

Planted out lettuce into a shady flower bed.

Pricked out Kale. Parsley and new basil has germinated. Put strawberry runners into pots of garden soil to increase our stocks.

Picked up free cooking apples from the local library garden and blackberries on a country walk (prep’d and put into the freezer).

Dishwasher came up with an error, I managed to sort it out and then cleaned it and ran a hot service wash. 

Cornish_mum

Month End Totals

Mortgage capital reduction £895, no MOPs this month. We now owe £186030.64.

Ed-fund cash improvement £1878.93. Now we have £37,892 saved.

CM AVC pension +£1166 (mixture of growth and my monthly contribution of £715. Haven’t checked MrCMs. 

Spends for last 2 weeks - we were pretty spendy!

Groceries £200 for 2 weeks.

Post office restocking stamps and sending parcel of hand me downs £20.

Childcare for DD £436 (hopefully this is everything we owe for her remaining time at nursery).

Automatic watering system for the garden £92.

Family games for our ABnB holiday £45.

Gifts for August birthdays £140 (very spendy for one friend who has big birthday in August).

Drive through M@cDon’lds £3.77 for DS holiday treat.

Fish n chips take away £15.

So was quite pleased that despite so many outgoings we saved pretty well, though we did save less than my take home pay. Work has been slightly calmer and we are both on annual leave next week and off on holiday.  MrCM and I have been on a diet (no snacks, no pudding for the last 2 weeks) and walking or cycling for 1-2 hours every day. I have lost 1kg so far. We just decided to pause during our holiday but hope to increase the amount of exercise then will restart when we return home. 

Frugal things 

Went blackberry picking as a family and harvested 1.5kg of fruit.  I puréed and sieved it and used about half to make a batch of blackberry mousse, the rest I froze. MrCM really likes the mousse but I found it too sharp and heavy. It was basically frozen blackberries without much sugar or cream. 

Neighbor gifted us wind-fall plums, pears and apples. I prep and froze them (1kg prep fruit).

Mended magnetic letters DS had managed to pick apart, using super glue, was quite pleased as MrCM had binned them but I fished them out and saved them. 

DM kindly sent us a lot of homemade face masks. 

I harvested courgettes, runner beans, kale, chard, lettuce, salad leaves, basil, chives, sweet peas, dahlias and cornflowers from the garden.

DD and I pricked out 20 parsley seedlings, hopefully this should keep us in herbs for the winter. Cuttings of verbena, Rosemary and lavender have rooted but only one clematis looks like it has survived. I will have to try again.

We attend a remote family cub camp for DS, he absolutely loved it.

Thankfulness

I am really thankful that MrCM is feeling more positive about his work. 

After a rocky start back to nursery for DD and holiday club for DS both of them are enjoying it more and starting to build up their social confidence again. 

I am especially thankful for all the teachers, play workers and cub leaders who are spending time with our kids and helping them develop. 

I am very thankful that my employer has suggested that I should work WFH until January 2021 and I have a week of annual leave next week. 

Other money things 

No news on pay rises (I suspect we won’t be getting one).

No news on Ryanair flight or season ticket refund. 

PurpleFairy26

All looking good there. Enjoy your holiday. 

Cornish_mum

Thanks for stopping by Purple Fairy.

Back from our holiday by the seaside and back to work tomorrow. It was lovely to be off but the break felt too short. The weather is really hot here and the afternoons have been a bit of a right off; so this morning I got up early to clean the oven and then baked (bread, banana cake and cookies) for the week before it was too hot. 

We managed to harvest quite abit from the garden just before we went away and also when we got back.  The automatic watering system worked really well and only a few plants died (some because of overwatering!) Though given all the gardening related expenses this year, I don’t think it’s been very money saving but as MrCM just told me ‘it was a cheap way to stop you going crazy during the lockdown’. 

We didn’t spend much when we were away. Two takeaways (£50), top up treat foods (strawberries, ice cream, pizza, crab, bakery bread and pork pies £55), a new pair of beach shoes for DS (£10), £4 on merry-go-round rides for DD and £53 on petrol. We went to the beach, National trust woodlands/gardens and played the games we bought for entertainment. 

Regular groceries were £62 and MrCM had a work related bill to pay £118. We ordered DS a new water pistol for holiday club (water play Fridays) (£10) as his old one is broken and bulk bought hoover bags (£36). 

I managed to finally declutter the homeschool area which is now messy again with crafty stuff for the kids but it was tidy for a short period. Found the kids library books which can be returned next week as library has opened for drop off returns.

Season ticket reclaim was paid - £3904.. 😀. It’s currently sitting on my CC. We are thinking of getting some windows double glazed so I think I will spend it on the deposit for that. We won’t be eligible for the government scheme but have decided to go ahead anyway and we will use some of our savings plus the season ticket refund money.  It’s looking like I will be asked to WFH until spring 2021, so I have time to rebuild a season ticket fund. 

Picked up some free cooking apples from the library garden which I need to process and freeze for the winter.

Kids are very grumpy as MrCM built them a den in our bedroom but I have decreed they won’t be camping in it tonight. It’s too hot to take them outside or even go in our south facing back garden so I have setup the playmobil aquarium in the shower.  DS is in charge of water and not creating a flood...😂. Mr CM is going to set them to wash the car when it’s cooler. They are still young enough to think washing the car is fun.

Cornish_mum

It’s been busy in the CM household, my parents visited for a week and we visited MrCM’s family too. It was lovely but very tiring as we didn’t have much annual leave left (as we need it for DD’s phased start to school); so I hosted while working full-time.  

I was given a bonus day off on Friday, DH had to work and I had already booked childcare so I had a nice home-day doing chores and gardening. I replanted bulbs I had saved in late spring and seed grow parsley and kale plants. I also washed and mended all my gardening gloves. 

I’ve also been collecting windfall apples from the community and library gardens and frozen them for the winter.

I found and cleaned an old pair of wellies of DS’s for DD.

We had a moderately spendy end to August, groceries were quite a lot (~£350) because of having visitors and we had a few takeaways too. I also bought the kids back-to-school shoes (used topcashback) and a new school bag for DS.  DS and I thought his old one was fine but MrCM wanted to have a new one, as he remembered having hand me down bags (etc) and it being miserable.  

DD didn’t get a place at the school wrap-around care, so we are trying to find a child minder but it’s not going very well, people keep cancelling before even meeting the kids.  Oh well, I will keep plodding on with looking for someone. 

Month End Totals

Mortgage outstanding £185109; capital reduction £921. 

EdFund savings £41,213 increase of £3321.76; plus I have £3038 of credit on my credit card from the season ticket refund.

CMs AVC pension £18,242 increase of £821, this was mainly my monthly contribution rather than growth. Haven’t checked MrCMs.

I put the double glazing order in yesterday, the deposit will be paid next week. It will be nearly 14k in total the firm were really good when we used them 4 years ago to do 2 windows and are offering a discount currently, the money will come from savings.