Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Thanks @QueenJess, nice to know I’m not the only one who can’t make it to everything! 

Laughing at how popular a topic Ikea is 😂 I also don’t really drink tea. I mean I don’t mind it, but I drink about one cup a month, if that, and I wouldn’t buy a cup of it out 😂

Lovely sunny afternoon here, after a not-so-promising start. 

I took Bambi down to Monkey’s school an hour before pick up to go to the lovely big park nearby, which I mean to do every Friday but always run out of time for 🤦‍♀️ she was whizzing about confidently on her pedal bike, which was lovely to watch. 

I can’t remember if I said on here, but I wanted her to learn to go her bike in the Easter holidays so I made a little tick chart for her - she got a tick each day she did 10 mins practice and I told her if she got 10 ticks she’d get a special dessert. She moaned about it for the first three days (because it was hard) but day four she “clicked”, completely got it and after that she was reminding me about doing her cycling because she now loves it 🥰

I do feel the mum guilt about swimming (neither DC has had swimming lessons and we are lazy about taking them) and reading is (understandably) slow to develop here, partly because of deferring both of their school entries til age 5.5 and partly because of them being in bilingual education. So it’s nice that both have at least learned to cycle their bikes quickly, early, well and with no drama, so I have one win to celebrate 😂

After we picked up Monkey we nipped into the school canteen as they have just begun doing a monthly preloved uniform stall there. I got 2x branded jumpers (one in his current size as he’s lost two jumpers, and one in the next size for next year) and a tie for £11 which I’m pleased with. 

The school is a little old fashioned and uniform is meant to be full shirt & tie each day. Irritatingly they do v neck jumpers for boys but cardigans for girls which limits the ability to hand stuff down, so I just donated Monkey’s old jumpers today. All the more reason for buying things second hand! 

After getting the uniform we went to the school playpark where we happily bumped into my friend and her daughters and spent ages with them. 

All in, between the two parks and then having a BBQ for dinner I spent about four hours outside which is brilliant 🥰 had a really productive morning tidying up the whole house too which I’m happy with. 

beanielou

They will most likely go swimming with the school.

Bluegreen143

@beanielou unfortunately it’s not compulsory for schools to offer swimming in Scotland and apparently many don’t and the number of kids who leave primary school unable to swim is therefore fairly high (I saw it was nearly 50% somewhere!). I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether our school does - I must remember to ask! 

I think what I’m likely to do is pay for 1 on 1 swim lessons at some point over an intensive period - that’s how I learned to swim, my grandparents paid for me to be tutored daily one Easter holiday and that did the trick. We then went abroad for a few weeks in the summer (they had a holiday home we went to every summer) which gave me daily practice to consolidate it.

Bluegreen143

Quite productive morning so far! As the children have become more independent, Red and I have fallen into bad habits of lying in too much. 

Today I got up at 8.15 (still a lie in but much earlier than I have been at the weekend!) and got the place all spick & span. Then made a really nice breakfast for Red & I - toasted sourdough with avocado (for me - normal toast without avocado for him!) with crispy bacon and scrambled eggs and a few pumpkin seeds scattered over. 

Decided to use the time when Monkey was at karate wisely and have filled up the car (just half a tank as Red will want to fill it to the top before going on holiday next week anyway) and taken a bunch of stuff to the charity shop. 

I keep forgetting that I’ve resolved not to use this charity shop again - it’s SO handy as it’s in the tesco building, so easy & free to park at, and it takes EVERYTHING, not just clothes, so it means I don’t need to make multiple trips. But the volunteers and employees are often quite rude and they have a few policies which are frustrating. Fairly often but randomly they’ll put up a sign saying “no donations today” which is so annoying when you’ve wrangled two kids and a huge batch of donations into the car and then out at the other end (you can’t see the shop from the car park). And a strict policy that stuff needs to be bagged up. Once my bag burst literally outside their door and they refused to take the donations because the bag was burst and I had to try to carry it all back to the car, without a bag, while holding the kids’ hands in the car park 😡

Today I’d forgotten they won’t give you your bag back (which the other charity shops do) and I’d accidentally packed it in a favourite reusable bag with a lovely pattern. When I asked if I could just please get it back as I really like it the answer was a flat no ☹️ 

Plans for today 

Need to head back over to pick up Monkey now, then we get a couple of hours at home before the kids have an afternoon birthday party. It’s 3-5pm which is not my favourite slot, as it’ll be dinner time by the time we get home and the whole day will be gone. I need to stay at the party too as Bambi is going plus it’s far enough away to not be worthwhile coming back. I’ll take my knitting so I can be productive while there! Will incur a £10 spend, I’ve not had a chance to shop for a present so will just pop £10 in her card instead. 

Bluegreen143

Had a lovely time at a children’s party this afternoon, which was really well catered, so I’ve decided to freeze the salmon we were going to eat tonight as only Red wants dinner now 😂

Red & I have been continuing to have lots of talks about plans for the next few months and what we want to prioritise. We’ve come up with the below:

SUMMER SPENDING

1. We’ve agreed our absolute priority for having a lovely summer is to enjoy water-based fun as much as possible - beach trips, trying out an outdoor swimming pool, splash park, paddling in the river, paddling pool afternoons at home. I was disappointed last summer we didn’t go to the beach much. Indoor attractions and forest walks can happen any time of year, but there’s such a finite window for playing in water in Scotland! Luckily most of these things are free or cheap, but it’s just about making the time. We’ve literally circled on a calendar all the days in the summer holiday we’re both off, and agreed that if any are sunny we will prioritise going to the beach or somewhere we can play in water. 

2. August’s pay will be bad for Red, as he is taking two weeks unpaid leave again this summer to be with the children. This is an absolute priority for us. We’ve agreed I’ll pause contributions to the emergency fund on that one month rather than trying to scrape by (our emergency fund should hopefully have over £5,000 in it by then, so I’m reasonably comfortable with this). 

3. As discussed on here already, we’re very keen to invest in some camping gear. Obviously if we don’t buy it over the next couple of months, the window of camping will close for the year. We’ve agreed on that until July/August we’ll divert Christmas savings to the camping and holidays pots, but after that we’ll take a break from holiday savings for next year until we’ve built the Christmas fund back up.

4. Home & garden - Red is keen to paint the remaining slabs in the garden, which will be £250ish, and also to buy another chiminea, but the latter he’ll pay for from his own money. I also have a few spends left to finish the kids’ room & playroom, but only about £120-£150 max. 

5. Groceries - I want to keep a handle on waste, but in the summer I want cooking to be fairly easy. I know myself well enough to know that I find it hard to be motivated to cook when it’s warm & sunny! So hopefully the budget won’t increase too much, but it may if we switch to more barbecues and salady meals. 

I spoke to Red about how we fund this and we’ll probably reduce our personal spending pots down a bit over the summer to help fund the above priorities. 

NEXT PRIORITIES 

After the summer I’d like us to prioritise saving for the following:

1. A wood burning stove for the conservatory 
2. A replacement wedding ring for me
3. Red & I going away for our 10 year wedding anniversary in spring 2024 - ideally we’ll do a city break type long weekend abroad, which we haven’t done since before I got pregnant with Monkey eight years ago!

WORK

Not really related to the above, but something that’s been on my mind when we think about future planning. My work are making rumblings about “hybrid working not really working out” and that it’s going to be reviewed this summer. If we need to start going into the office every day it may mean a change to my working pattern or childcare arrangements or both as the hours I do at home can’t be done in an office within the childcare I have, due to the time the commute takes.

Not going to worry about it til it happens, but it’s something to monitor. 

beanielou

Blimmey changed days on the swimming.

The charity shop I volunteer in would never treat people like that.
We are grateful for everything, bagged or not & would happily give people bags back if requested.

Bluegreen143

Morning all. I’ve got an unexpectedly free day today, because my dad has caught a sickness bug and can’t come to visit. 

This means I need to do a meal tonight now, but happily we can have the salmon I was going to cook last night so that works well. 

My plan is to use the time well (after lazing about all morning til now!):

- sow some seeds
- do a bit of weeding
- bake flapjacks with the kids to freeze for school snacks & maybe muffins too
- use up a candle making kit I got for Christmas, Monkey is keen to help 
- go for a walk this afternoon

Red wanted to go to Go Outdoors to buy a tent pole to repair his brother’s tent, because it’ll be a bit cheaper than buying from Amazon, but Go Outdoors is really far away and obviously we’d end up buying other stuff. We need to save up more in the camping pot before we can be let loose there! So I’ve asked him instead to just order it from Amazon as I think overall it’ll end up saving us 😂 also frees up this after for for him to join us on our walk. 

fionaandphil

hi @Bluegreen143 I was in Aldi earlier and they have some camping gear in like roll mats, crockery etc. It might be worth a look for things which will get you started until you know if you want to carry on longer term.  I've bought a few things there for scout camps.

Bluegreen143

Thanks @fionaandphil, there isn’t an Aldi that close but Red often passes one when driving about for work so I’ll ask him to check.

Got candles made (super easy craft and Monkey was fascinated by it!), flapjacks baked, seeds sown and kept on top of the tidying so I’m pleased. 

We also went down to a spot at the river we’ve not been to in a couple of years. The kids asked to take their wetsuit shoes so I took mine too. So much fun paddling! It wasn’t a hot day but the water was fine once you were in. The kids also spent ages making “potions”, throwing stones in the water etc which Red & I chilled out. As ever, I wonder why we buy them toys 😂 we then walked down the river a bit and by going off the path found an amazing wee clearing where a huge old tree had been struck by lightening. The bit left standing looked very dramatic, all hollowed out and blackened. There was lots of blackened wood on the ground which the children enjoyed drawing with too. 

Spent just under £23 today on an Amazon order of sticker books & workbooks for the children (to take on holiday) and £16 on wetsuit shoes for Red, who saw the sense in them once us three were all in the water but he couldn’t join us! The place we are going on holiday is on the beach, but it’s a very stony/shell & seaweed covered beach so it’s not enjoyable to paddle barefoot. Red unfortunately has size 13 feet so these things always cost more for him as not all brands go that high, mine were £6 from Lidl when I got them 😅

Bluegreen143

Weekly spending round up

Not as spendy as the last two weeks! Below list doesn’t include bills. 

Groceries £104.87

Household £8

Holiday £67
Booking deposit for my weekend away in September 

Birthdays £10

Petrol & parking £48.93

Camping pot £40
Tent pole for repairing BIL’s tent, plus wetsuit shoes for Red

Kids £63.82
Wetsuits for both kids, some preloved uniform plus a few sticker books & workbooks 

Me: social £9.64
One hot drink & cake in a coffee shop with colleagues and one drink in the pub with a friend 

Me: hobbies £7.99
A Kindle book 

Me: other £5.99
A TV subscription I can cancel after I’ve finished watching the series tomorrow 😅

TOTAL £366.24

EDIT - I forgot to include the £11 spent on preloved uniform as it was cash. I’ve amended the totals above.