Our Mortgage Free Journey

Grogged

As we're Covid antisocial and try to shop fortnightly, we buy our eggs in 15s.
They then either last 5 minutes or we have 14 left over... We can never work out why! 😆
It's funny with box packing, we still have a few that we've not unpacked after 14 years...
... maybe they'll be our suprise fortune on antiques roadshow!

Ami-Rose

@gemmm I used to budget and do still have a mental idea of what we spend where, but since Little came along it's been too much to try and track every purchase in a budget in the same way I used to. I've never had the patience for inputting all of our transactions, haha. Thanks for the recommendation though! When (if?) life gets less hectic I might try and get a tighter hold on things.

@Grogged that's basically the same for us, although it's 12s and we were having a weekly delivery so only ordered if we needed some. Then Little dropped to one nap and we needed activities to fill the extra time. What started as just picking up fresh milk and produce turned into regular shops, only more frequently and always with extras! Working to cut it back down again.

Just ordered a pack of 10 boxes for £18, they are not cheap! We have 5 from our last move and a bunch of plastic storage boxes too so I'm hoping we won't need any more. We only properly unpacked when Little was on the way because we needed the room for a nursery! 😂

For Christmas we are doing children gifts only, so that's Little + 2 others. Ordered the gifts for the others last night/today, so just Little to go. Managed to support a small business with one, but there was a specific Amazon request for the other. Still undecided on what to get for Little, but need to get a move on before delivery gets more expensive!

Ami-Rose

Decided to ditch the matching Christmas pjs and just go for whatever cheap but nice ones I could find. Currently sitting in mine that were £13.50 in Tesco! Very cosy. Now need to look for Little and OH.

Speaking of Tesco, went way over today and had to dip into FF. This was brought on by OH spending £88 at the dentist this week! 😳 But luckily he has health insurance through work, so that should be refunded by the end of the week and I'll reimburse the FF. Food audit is still going well, so I need to go through the receipt and see what my downfalls were. Probably the pjs, a damp trap thingy + refills and maybe too heavy a leaning towards junk food. 

OH is on annual leave for the rest of the week so hoping to make a dent in some packing. Suffering really badly with a migraine today though so don't feel like we're getting anywhere. Calling GP in the morning to try and get to the root of the endless headaches and migraines.

TT last night was abysmal - 1p! But still adds up I suppose.

Ami-Rose

Today, in 'what else can the week throw at us?' Last night saw a trip to the out of hours doctor for what we assumed was a nasty flare up of eczema on Little (our GP was on a half day). Apparently she does have a flare up, so they prescribed an antihistamine, but she also has hand, foot and mouth! The only place she has been that isn't home is the supermarket trolley, so someone has been slacking on their disinfecting routines! Poor thing has been out of sorts all week and now we know why. She's in good spirits, as long as we keep the snacks and the E45 topped up!

Finalised our Wills tonight and we're making a decision between two life insurance policies, so feel one step closer to being a proper adult. Turns out it's not as straightforward as 'give it all to Little' - who knew!

We've dented the FF purchasing packing and storage supplies, but I think a fair bit of it will remain in use once we move so I can't be too mad. One week to payday and I can do some shuffling. Also getting more and more likely that I'll get my wish of a December completion. Just wish we had a date now so I could be more confident in our preparations.

Ami-Rose

This week/month has taken a nosedive and the FF is now £120 lighter. £88 will be going back in as soon as OH is reimbursed for his dentist visit, but the rest has gone on packing supplies, overspending at Tesco and electric running out sooner than expected. Not to mention supplies for Little who is having such a bad week.

We were back to out of hours yesterday because her eczema is getting worse despite the antihistamines and cream. Now she's on steroid cream, E45 in the day and a thick emollient for bedtime that feels like buttering her up for roasting. 😂 Then to top it off last night she was helping OH stir dinner and burnt her finger so off to Tesco for minor burns supplies (after another call to out of hours for advice).

House move just seems further away by the day. Called for an update this week and apparently we're NOT just waiting for a certificate. They haven't received our mortgage offer from the lender yet and pretended not to know we had our copy, despite me calling them the day we received it asking what to do next. 🤦🏼‍♀️ They're also waiting for some bits from the seller's solicitor. Getting very overwhelmed with it all now.

How do you pick yourself up when you want to pack it all in? I'm not used to not having a buffer each month and knowing each withdrawal is less money for furniture is seriously stressing me out. OH keeps pointing out that our outgoings will be less in the new house so it's a short term pain, but that's really not helping right now.

helensbiggestfan

Hi Ami....still reading along.  Sounds like you're just having one of those weeks.  

Just hang in there.....it will all come right in the end.   Once you are in your new house things will all fall into place.  Hope your little ones excema clears up soon.   Horrid.  Do you know what triggers it. 

When my youngest son was a baby and had a nasty flare ups I discovered it was eggs.  We just left them out until he was a bit older and he was fine.  

Ami-Rose

helensbiggestfan said:

Hi Ami....still reading along.  Sounds like you're just having one of those weeks.  

Just hang in there.....it will all come right in the end.   Once you are in your new house things will all fall into place.  Hope your little ones excema clears up soon.   Horrid.  Do you know what triggers it. 

When my youngest son was a baby and had a nasty flare ups I discovered it was eggs.  We just left them out until he was a bit older and he was fine.  

Thanks for the encouragement. She is really suffering with so many different things and it's just so hard to keep my cool and comfort her when she's screaming all the time. 😞

We have no idea what is causing it. It just flared up out of the blue and got really bad, really quickly. She's had dry skin in the usual places since very early on, but it didn't really turn into full blown eczema until about a week ago. Now it's spreading everywhere (currently both ankles, backs of knees and spreading to thighs, wrists, elbows and upper arms, armpits, a ring around her neck and up the back into her hairline and her cheeks) and I just don't know what to do. We haven't started her on anything new food-wise, we've never used baby products in the bath/moisturisers etc and we've had the same washing products since before she was born.

I don't think we can even start to eliminate anything until we get on top of this flare up because we wouldn't know where to start/if it's working.

On the financial front, did a small £15 Tesco shop for milk and essentials and now hoping not to spend anything until payday on Thursday.

helensbiggestfan

Poor little sausage.  Hope you get on top of it soon.  

Ami-Rose

Payday tomorrow! Can't come soon enough right now. 😂 Had to do another small £15 shop last night, I don't know how people spend so little in the grocery challenges! Although we're definitely leaning more heavily on convenience ingredients, if not entire meals (eg lazy garlic), and junk food since Little joined us so that's probably half the problem. OH's dentist cost has finally been returned too, just in time for half of that to go towards the Will service. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Things are marginally less overwhelming this week. The steroid cream has almost cleared up Little's eczema now, she's clearly been sneaking in a few new teeth and the burn on her finger is healing (did I even mention that one?). She keeps pointing at it and whimpering, poor thing.

On the house front, after a very sh*tty email, they finally have our mortgage offer and fixtures list, so we really are just waiting for this regional certificate now. We were told the delay is 6-8 weeks but I'm pretty sure we're past that now. Just got to cross our fingers I guess!

Using up cupboard food is going well so far. Have had some really odd snacks and meals lately, haha. OH even bought some cheap lemonade to use up the dregs of strawberry liqueur we were holding onto. 😂 Going to keep it going so we have less to move when the time comes.

Grogged

Glad littles on the mend, must be such a relief!
Sounds like (slow) progress on house front, fingers crossed for the certificates.🤞
Creative meals are fun, always surprised by what comes out of an empty cupboard!