Discount Duck’s Quest For Mortgage Freedom

Jessy103

Happy New Year! All the best for 2021 😃

Baileys_Babe

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2021.

riotlady

Happy new year

DiscountDuck

I submitted my masters dissertation, yay!!! I’m so proud of myself! Life is good right now
Work is busy but my boss is awesome and the kids made me lunch today! They did us all chopped up squares of cheese, carrot, cucumber, pepper, and cream crackers. It was lovely, like party food. They can both make a cuppa too now which is just awesome. Having kids who can make a nice brew makes me very happy. 

We got this great animal families game off ama**n for £2.40 with free p&p. It’s like Go Fish but grouping mammals, crustaceans etc. It’s been fun. 

We are back to playing more board games as we can’t go out of our village to exercise for fear of being arrested for being out of area, but our village is flooded so we can’t walk across the fields or along the roads near us either.  We’ve got a great selection thanks to previous car boot bargains collected up for when we go caravanning. 

I hope you’re all doing ok in lockdown 3. Spring is coming soon, it won’t be long. And everything feels better when the sun shines. It’s coming. 

VintageHistorian

Congratulations on completing your dissertation! I remember the feeling of relief after handing mine in.

caeler

Wow big news on submitting your dissertation!  @DiscountDuck I also remember the feeling of thinking, I'm done!  

DiscountDuck

Thanks @VintageHistorian and @caeler 😊 I’m really relieved it’s done, and pretty proud of myself! 

Our hens have started laying again and the kids are at their dad’s this weekend so I’m going to treat myself to a lie in and scrambled egg on bagel for breakfast on my first homework free weekend in years! 

The Hoover stopped sucking and won’t put the fluff into the see through bin, and in the best silver lining ever, it turns out it has a five year warranty and they’ll fix it for free or replace it if they can’t! I was chuffed to bits. It does mean that in the meantime the house has Wild West style fluff balls rolling around as my giant pupster moults ridiculous amounts, but a free repair is not to be sniffed at! 

Top cash back paid out and I used it to buy the kids some books off ebay from the dragonsitter series. They’re really good and DS loves them, but we only had a few from the set (probably a car boot or charity shop bargain) so I’ve got him the four missing ones at £7 inc p&p. DD got a set of funny Greek God books off Books2Door and they were 62% off plus 8.5% topcashback. I don’t usually buy books new, but needs must as they’re reading like mad this lockdown and no matter how skint I ever am, it’s so important for them to have things they’ll love to read. The rest of the money is going into overpaying the mortgage. One of these days I will be mortgage free and living the dream! 

caeler

Hurray for homework free weekends, admittedly it was 2006 when I submitted but I totally remember loving the moment when I realised I didn't have to hit the books for a few hours each Saturday morning!  Enjoy a well deserved break.  I wouldn't have had it any other way and maybe it was preferential to me just working at the weekend now! @DiscountDuck
PS. Sorry to hear about the vacuum cleaner, I hope it can be fixed.

DiscountDuck

The kids and I are having a go at re growing veg as a bit of a science experiment, the end of the celery is re-sprouting! 

Pandemic school is not much fun at the moment but we are getting through the stuff school ask for and then playing board games and getting snuggle time too. It’s full on with working but loads of the clients have met my dogs and cat and kids now and been lovely about it.

Banksy, our ex-feral cat, is becoming increasingly cuddly. We’ve had him years and he’s a nice lad but he’s never been a cuddler. He’s taken to sitting on DD’s lap under the table while she’s doing her online learning. It’s adorable.
In the front garden, some of the hundreds of bulbs I planted are starting to peep up. I can’t wait to see them all, or the ones the squirrels haven’t dug up and bitten anyway. It’s such a joy having the little shoots pop up, like promises of spring and beauty just round the corner. 

Our village is going to be flooded in by tomorrow but have everything we need in so it won’t matter. 

We have a new favourite dinner too. It’s a Jack Monroe one, so a bargain dinner and absolutely delicious. It’s called pastitsi and it’s like a Greek lasagne/macaroni cheese hybrid. Sounds horrible, tastes incredible, had hidden veg in and we all absolutely loved it. It made loads and it sliced and reheated brilliantly the next day too, plus froze well. What a superb all rounder! I’d highly recommend it. 
I hope you’re all staying safe and well, I’m following lots of your diaries and love seeing your lives and successes. 

DiscountDuck

So today is rough. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I was on a real high yesterday as I bought a campervan with my savings. It’ll be much easier to manage as the lone adult than the caravan and while it will delay my mortgage free plans slightly I want to have adventures with the kids. 

I was high as a kite about it. Then, ex boyfriend messaged and said how much he misses me and regrets the outcome of our relationship. My head is wrecked. I’ve done so well to get over it and console the kids, getting all of us through that loss while working and finishing the masters degree and pandemic schooling and trying to care for mum. He only had to look after himself while he was dealing with the breakup. It might be unreasonable but I’m a bit angry at the selfishness of him sharing his upset with me instead of someone else. Anyone else, actually. Then that lack of compassion makes me feel guilty. The upset became tension headache which became migraine and I’ve been throwing up all day with headache and !!!!!! vision. 

Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe it’ll hurt less tomorrow.