Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Cheery_Daff

Ha, good salty tip! Certainly wasn't me - I often cover mine with honey 🙈

Well done for chasing the school enrolment, and fingers crossed! 

I ended up with a planner last year, as well as my diary, and while it did get me into some good habits (it had little circles to colour in for various habits etc) it always ended up feeling I was doing everything twice, as I was only using it for planning meals, exercise, to do lists etc, not as a diary, but it had a weekly layout similar to my diary. 

This year I'm back to a standard week-to-page diary, and a separate notebook just with lined pages, and it feels far more freeing! 

Bluegreen143

Mmmm, I like it with honey too. I always need *something* with my PB (honey, banana, jam etc) or I find it clags up my mouth 😂 raspberry jam is my favourite though.

Just enjoyed a pleasant half hour choosing and ordering books for the children using their book tokens. 

(Have I ever mentioned my deep and abiding love of children’s literature?! One of the biggest pleasures of having children 😍)

Bambi is as of the holidays being read her first-ever chapter book at bedtimes (The Wishing Chair series, by Enid Blyton) and is now able to follow audiobooks. We’re still a couple of years off getting rid of our (extensive) picture book collection. But it’s time to draw a line and no longer add to it. 

So all chapter books today: Little House in the Big Woods, Finn Family Moomintroll, Mary Poppins and Pippi Longstocking. Cost £32.96 but £20 was book tokens so £12.96 from the budget. 

Red also spent £63 on birthday gifts for his mum and my brother-in-law (as in, my sister’s husband - Red knows better than me what he wants. They’re friends and actually work together). 

Baileys_Babe

Bluegreen143 said:

Been catching up on Cheery’s diary and loving the tip about sprinkling a bit of salt on the 100% peanut butter (was that you @Baileys_Babe?). I want to switch to the 100% stuff to avoid the palm oil & sugar in normal PB, but I don’t like it unsalted (and neither does anyone else in the house). Definitely going to try that! 

Yes, that was me. I buy 1kg tubs of crunchy peanut butter from Aldi, the only ingredient is peanuts. I also enjoy PB with honey as well as chilli flakes.

fionaandphil

Check online about passport, I've just renewed for DS as his runs out 6 weeks after we get back. It now has to be 3 months after. There is a government website you can check each country on. Really annoying as I'd hoped he could use it and then get an adult passport when he turns 16 in a few months. Having to renew now means he only gets a 10 year one. We did it all online and it came back very quickly

Bluegreen143

According to the criteria I shouldn’t have to renew as it is 10 years old one day after we arrive (it definitely states it’s arrival day not leaving day) and it’s valid until nearer the end of 2024. However I think I will just order a new one tonight as I’d feel too anxious they didn’t let me in! 

Spent all day on Zoom in training. It was interesting stuff but a full day on Zoom is somewhat intense!

Food for yesterday:

B - chocolate banana overnight oats 
L - leftover chicken soup & sourdough 
D - goats cheese pasta

Snacks - out of stress I did resort to some Christmas chocolate and did the same today 😨 keeping it in the house makes it way too tempting tbh. 

Today:

B - strawberry/banana milkshake 
L - leftover chicken soup & sourdough

For dinner, sister-in-law and Red’s nephew were here. I’d planned a korma, but had forgotten that SIL doesn’t do curry. So I made what turned into a really nice meal - chicken souvlaki with roasted veg, air fryer chips, lemon/coriander rice, hummus and feta, (shop bought) flatbreads. 

Sorted out the GHIC and travel insurance today so will look at doing the passport tonight. 

In the office tomorrow - have made overnight for breakfast (for the kids and for me too). I’ll get lunch from the van though - my manager messaged me to suggest we both get lunch 😆 we’ve agreed to cap it at once a week for the van though now though we’ll be going in twice. 

Bluegreen143

Really struggled getting out of bed today, but the day did improve later as it went on 😅

Worked in the office - while it is a pain having to commute and not being able to take breaks to do the laundry etc - I do enjoy being able to see the rest of the team so it was a nice day. We all got our lunch from the van and sat in the canteen eating it. A novelty, as I usually eat at my desk whether in the office or at home.

After the school run I was really efficient and got the downstairs all tidied, hoovered and both bathrooms wiped down 😇 refereed a conflict over who got the last yellow piece of paper (don’t ask) and did a phonics lesson with Bambi then read to her. 

Made dinner - a very satisfying “use it up” meal of chicken korma (using the last two chicken breasts from the freezer, opened chicken stock and opened cream, the end of the bag of green beans and some spinach etc). I served it with pilau rice made with yesterday’s leftover rice and I must say, it was sooooooo good, easily the best pilau rice I’ve ever made, and I just guessed what to put in it 😆

Monkey had karate tonight so I used the hour to get the weekend shopping. Did most of it in Aldi and then got the few extra bits at the M&S next door. Have to say, if I had won the lottery I would loved to have done all the shopping at M&S, so much nicer of a shopping experience than Aldi 😆

I’m not used to Aldi as we only have Lidl round near our house and I have to say of the two I do think Lidl is much better - you can get a full shop and the supermarket is laid out fairly normally so stuff is easy to find. In Aldi it basically appeared that someone had ordered a very random collection of items and then randomly distributed them round the shop - crisps and tins in the vegetable aisle for example. Sure all the food tastes fine though! 

Spends to report:

Yesterday:

£23 travel insurance

£4 Lidl (Red picked up flatbreads as we had guests for dinner and wanted to do a bit of a spread)

£3.49 Kindle book (my budget) - a learners’ Gaelic novel (something to work towards being able to translate and read!!)

Today

£5 lunch at the van at work 

£65 Aldi (got a bit extra this weekend as it’s MIL’s birthday, also includes a spray mop)

£23 M&S (olive oil, wholemeal flour, pomegranate juice for MIL, wrapping paper, birthday card… ahem… unplanned fancy crisps and dark chocolate…)

Baileys_Babe

I prefer Aldi to Lidl it somehow works better for us. The Aldi you went to sounds like it has a peculiar layout. 

Bluegreen143

Hello all! I can’t remember if I said, but I take an internet break on Friday nights and Saturday mornings so that’s why I didn’t update yesterday. 

Again struggled to get through the day on Friday 😕 got a headache after lunch that I struggled to shift. And I ended up going to bed at 9.30 to read but was so tired I don’t think I read for that long! BUT I’ve woken up with a tickly throat and have realised I’m coming down with a bit of a cold so that explains the mystery of why I’m so tired I think! 

Did have a nice afternoon as took the kids to one of Monkey’s best friend’s houses for a play date. All three kids played very nicely and I get on really well with the mum so had a blether for a couple of hours. 

It’s very sweet as the other wee boy puts up with Bambi following them about and plays with her just as much. The boys were playing chess for ages, super cute as Monkey has just started learning to play, and Bambi watched them happily then spent a while playing with the pieces that were taken and no longer required 😆 

Today we took the kids swimming which is a big win, we’re keen to do this weekly for now to give them both plenty of opportunity to learn. Red then picked up MIL as it was her birthday yesterday so she’s staying for dinner. 

She kindly watched the kids while we went to pick up our bows - the guy at the local archery range was getting them sorted with new strings. We got them for each other for Christmas but they arrived with strings the wrong length! We stayed to shoot for a while so paid for that too. So was £30 cash plus we bought the guy a very nice, expensive bottle of wine as a thank you.

I think yesterday was a NSD (racking my brains now!), today’s spending listed below. 

Spending today

£12 - swimming for all four of us
£12.99 - passport photo at Timpsons (tried and failed to take my own, couldn’t get one without shadows)
£13.98 - two board books for a 1st birthday party 
£18 - expensive wine for archery man
£30 - archery (bow restringing plus shooting session at range)

…

Oooh actually Red bought wood and a couple of grocery items yesterday! Will try to find out what he spent to update YNAB. 

smudge56

The secret to no shadows is to take the picture in the dark using the flash.  It’s the only way I could get my husbands photo without shadows. But the good thing about uploading the code is that it goes through automatically without any extra checks from the examiner 

Bluegreen143

Just reviewing my YNAB budget. Obviously the first category is “NEEDS” ie fixed bills like the mortgage, council tax, energy, internet, etc as well as groceries/household consumables and petrol. 

In terms of needs, I do review bills regularly and comparison shop for insurance etc, so short of drastic life changes, the fixed bills aren’t coming down in the short term. 

The only exception would be energy, and I know we could do better on this. We pay a variable DD, so just pay for what we use each month, making it very tangible how much it really costs! 

I could be making savings on groceries for sure, though I am very keen to keep buying mostly fresh, healthy food and not stinting on the health factor. 

Petrol is more fixed, especially as my office days are increasing, but it’s true the more I walk to local destinations, I will decrease the petrol bill at least a little? 

All this said, we do keep our needs costs under 50% of our income so according to the 50/30/20 formula it’s not too bad. 

Where we really need to do work is our “WANTS”. We’ve definitely been guilty this past year or so of not keeping a good eye on it. What I really want to do is monitor how much of our fun/wants spending goes to what we say are our priorities, and how much gets frittered on other stuff (some frittering being unavoidable, but it could certainly be reduced!). 

Priorities for our “wants” money are as follows, along with a list of more frugal ways we can stretch the budget:

ADVENTURES - holidays, days out, new experiences, dates, buying kit we need (eg waterproof clothing or camping/fishing gear) 

- holidaying in the U.K., self catering holidays
- making use of (gifted) national trust membership
- having mainly outdoor/nature adventures (eg the beach, parks or a hill walk)
- taking up camping
- thinking outside the “dinner & drinks box for dates and getting outdoors
- asking for experience gifts for birthdays
- taking picnics
- considering second hand for kit purchases 

CELEBRATIONS - making a fuss over birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Hogmanay, bonfire night, Halloween, Easter… celebrating milestones with our kids, hosting family and friends, gift-giving, marking things like the solstices, attending parties 

- making handmade cards and decorations
- being sensible about the amount of adults we buy for
- have agreed with friends we buy for kids’ birthdays but not Christmases
- reusing decorations
- hosting the kids’ parties at home
- hosting or going to others’ homes rather than out for dinner where possible 

HOME - making our home a warm, lovely place to be… putting effort into our garden, redecorating as needed

- declutter and clean so it looks good without redecorating, embrace minimalism
- use hobby stuff (books, musical instruments, bows etc) as wall ornaments rather than buying decor
- making own compost, growing edible stuff so the garden becomes more cost-neutral
- doing work ourself as a family rather than paying professionals 

LEARNING - books, hobby materials, kids’ classes/activities/sports, school trips, anything educational really 

- buy books second hand and use library
- encourage sticking with scouts, which is fairly cheap 
- don’t keep a yarn stash, just buy as I need it - I do way less projects than I think!
- teach kids to swim ourselves 
- use stuff we’re doing anyway as learning opportunities for the kids (teach them to cook, garden and do woodwork at home)

SOCIALISING - spending time with friends/family (both ours and fostering the kids’ social lives) - usually comes from our own 

- host or visit rather than meeting at pubs & restaurants
- have more alcohol free nights out (saves on booze, but also taxis if I can drive!)
- have pot lucks and games nights 
- meet friends and family outdoors (walks, picnics etc)

Now what is interesting is how much creeps into the budget which doesn’t actually fall into those priority categories. Clothes - we need those but could spend less. TV subscriptions. Takeaways. Getting caught up in buying “stuff” which doesn’t add to our quality of life. Electronics. It’s also interesting how much time we spend on stuff that’s not on this list - screens, busywork, shopping, needless emotional fretting over stuff we can’t control(!). 

Interesting thoughts. I think I need to pick one area at a time to really focus on and I suspect I ought to pick groceries first. I’m going to aim to get almost the whole shop on Sundays for under £115 and spend no more than £20 topping up before the weekend (fresh fruit/salad, milk and bread, maybe a treat or two for the weekend).