Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Lovely day yesterday.

Got most things on my list done (except mopping but I’ll catch that on Friday!).

Took the kids to local community owned green space after school then a very quick 5 mins at the playpark down the road then zero waste shop (spent over £12, £8 of which was olive oil) - all these places are a very short walk from each other and from nursery & the school bus stop, so it works well now to get out after school.

When we got home, we realised Monkey had left his backpack somewhere 🤦‍♀️ it was 5pm, the kids were hungry/cold/tired, I had to make dinner, get them in the bath etc and of course Red wasn’t there so I decided not to go back and retrace my steps over three places dragging two tired kids with me. I did go back this morning after dropping the kids off and found it in the community owned green space we went to first ☺️

Had a lovely evening with my friends but we lost track of time and they stayed till 11.45! And so I didn’t get to bed til midnight which is a bit late on a schoolnight 😆 we weren't drinking either, my friend just brought a selection of speciality teas. Clearly just had a lot to say to each other! It’s so soul-nourishing to have a really good routine of seeing friends (this group usually meets every second Wednesday) - most of them I went to university with so we’ve grown up together. Thinking of trying to set up monthly drinks with Red’s two best friends and their wives too, I think having a bit of a routine helps so much in fitting in stuff like this.

Red got home at 9pm which was lovely but a bit unfortunate as he had previously said he’d be home in the middle of the night! So I don’t think he was delighted at getting home from an 8hr drive to a houseful of women, woops. 

Today is gorgeous weather again (but frosty) but alas I have to pop back online for a meeting at 3.45pm so can’t do the park today. Actually we were meant to be doing a library visit but won’t be able to do that either. 

Today’s focus after work and looking after the kids is to try to get some of the upstairs hoovered/dusted/cleaned - anything I don’t get done I’ll tackle tomorrow though. 

Thursdays are always wraps for dinner so going to make beef burritos - need to go defrost the mince actually. And a busy evening as have 90 minute Zoom Gaelic class (totally hurts my head after a day at work!!) and another zoom call with a mum support group type thing following that. 

MissRikkiC

Hi there @Bluegreen143

Ive not caught up fully yet but really enjoying your diary, I too am in my 30s with a little family, soon to be 1 extra and enjoying the real life updates you’re posting. 

I’m on the DFW boards (although more of a reader than a poster!) but hope to be following in your footsteps at a point in the not too distant future

Baileys_Babe

Glad you found the backpack.

Sounds like a good evening with your friends.

Boo to after school pickup meeting.

Good luck with your evening Gaelic class. An hour and a half seems like a long time to need to concentrate. I'm going to my Scottish Country Dance club tonight lots of laughter.

themadvix

Ouch, 90 mins of language on Zoom must be hard going. I used to have 1.5 hr language evening classes in person but once we switched to Zoom they became an hour and I find that that's plenty! 

Sounds like you had a great night last night - hope it's not catching up with you too much now!

Bluegreen143

Haha it is a little bit intense but at least keeps my brain working!

Budget-wise we are doing fine so far.

Groceries this week:

Tesco: £58.58
Milkman: £8.91
Zero waste: £13
= £80.49 which is a lot less than we’ve been spending!

Also spend £10.95 on pets but that’s a separate YNAB categories. All on cat food and litter I think. 

We have had £19 come off for a new veg box I’m trying out, but it’s not coming til Monday so I’m counting it as next week.

Red spent £100 on his mum’s birthday but that mainly came from the Birthday sinking fund and I borrowed £25 from the Christmas one too. We have a lot of birthday spends Jan/Feb so this always happens but the Christmas fund catches up a bit later in the year as we don’t have any spring time birthdays in our family.

Nice day today - took Monkey to the school bus, read Bambi stories, did my housework while she watched some TV, then went to a local park for half an hour. Came home (I really needed a pee 🤣) but then spent an hour in the garden pruning and tidying which was satisfying. Could only coax Bambi out for a bit but she was happy enough playing with her toys inside so that was fine. Beans on toast for lunch and just got chocolate chip cookies in the oven to take along to the play date we are going to after school 😊

Bluegreen143

Had a great time at our playdate yesterday ☺️ Not had one with this little boy before so I had a good gab with his mum while the kids play. She’s friends with another mum from the class who I’m also good friends with, so we were talking about planning in drinks and inviting another couple of mums from the class who we all know, which would be lovely! It’s working out well as this little group of mums are all lovely and their kids are the main kids Monkey plays with in school too.

In the evening I had my first meeting with my personal trainer - it wasn’t an actual workout/paid session, he just checked over my goals/injury history/whether I could do various stretches etc. It’s going to work out a bit more affordable on this months budget than I thought, as given I only want to go to classes twice a week after the onboarding session, he’s recommending just one PT session a week to serve as a way of ramping things up slowly given I’ve not worked out in years. So instead of having six to pay for in one pay month as I’d thought, it’ll be split over six weeks/two pays. 

He’s also going to train my friend who is joining together with me which is lovely/more motivating and while it’s not half the cost, he will knock some money off because it’s not one on one (basically it’s normally £45 a session but he’ll do the two of us for £70). So that’s cheerful as I thought the PT sessions were going to use every penny of my personal spending this pay but it won’t. He’s really keen for me to see this as a process of gradually regaining my fitness and not trying to throw myself all in on the first week which I totally agree with too. I don’t need to pay the gym membership fee either yet til after the onboarding as I’m not allowed to join any classes til I’ve done them. 

Did order a rug for the living room yesterday - it was £80 and had £75 in the “home & garden” budget, so Red paid the other £5 from his personal budget 🤣 it’s not to replace our rug, it’s the same one again and I want to put them together so it looks like one big rug. Basically our rug is too small and we have to have it in a stupid very off centre place to hide a water damaged part of the wooden floor, but if we put two rugs together it will look like a more normal placement 🤣 previously that part of the living room was the kids’ play space so it looked ok as the rug looked like it was there to mark out that play area, but now all their toys are in the playroom it just looks very random!

MissRikkiC

I’m in the process of accumulating some more mum friends, for me mostly but also play dates with my little now that she’s at an age where all she wants is interaction. I think that’s been born from reading your diary and realised we don’t do it enough. 

PT sounds great and a more ‘life style change’ vs the usual approach they often take. 

I’d like some new rugs too however we’re making do with mats for the little which double up as ‘rugs’ for now 🤣

Bluegreen143

Good luck @MissRikkiC 🙂 I’m a real extrovert and need regular injections of social engagement or I wither away… so I must confess the playdates are often more for me than the kids 😆 my 6yo who is in primary 1 is now at an age where he wants to see his friends a lot though.

Got another two hours outdoor time today which was really lovely. A mum with a daughter in Monkey’s class suggested I meet her in a park because her eldest son had a birthday party there so she’d be there with her daughter hanging about. Then it turned out another boy in Monkey’s class was there as his sister was at the party, so we all hung out there for 2hr. I was amazed the kids lasted as it was pretty cold and my feet were like icicles 🤣 normally Bambi complains after 10 mins but I think she was loving playing with all the big kids so much it kept her going.

Spent £6 at the ice cream van today. In 6.5 years we have never done this as he usually comes about 5.30/6pm and we eat dinner at 6. But he was late today, and MIL was here so I treated everyone to an ice cream. £1.20 per cone seems soooooo cheap to me as I’m only used to ice cream vans at the beach which are double the price 🤣

Bluegreen143

Meant to say our meals:

B - cereal for kids, toast for me

L - tuna sandwiches and crisps

D - made homemade KFC - jointed a whole chicken into 10 (2x thighs, 2x drumsticks, 4x half breasts, 2x wings), seasoned, floured and fried them, made HM chips and HM red cabbage coleslaw. It did use a whole chicken but fed 5 of us well and comparing the price of a chicken and a few potatoes and coleslaw ingredients to a KFC sharing bucket its not too extravagant. 

Not sure what to make for dinner tomorrow as I have another chicken in the freezer so was going to roast it, but I’ve just remembered I’ve not taken it out to defrost so it’s probably too late now 🤦‍♀️ Will investigate what else we have in the freezer.

Cat is turning up her nose at the food so may nip to Tesco tomorrow to get some other stuff for her to try 🙄 it’s been years of her refusing any other food except this stuff but she’s now decided to go off it… cats are a pain!

Baileys_Babe

If you put the frozen chicken in a large container of cold water it will safely defrost quicker. When we need to do this we use the washing up bowl and then give it a good clean afterwards to remove any contamination.