Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Yesterday was SO rainy, like horizontal heavy rain, except between 3-6pm when it was sunny, then it heavy rained again 🤷‍♀️ 

So Bambi and I chilled at home as we couldn’t really go to the park… normally I’d take her out somewhere indoors but I didn’t want to spend money because we are doing climbing and softplay today. For some reason going to one of the museums (which are free) didn’t occur to me 😂 but actually we had such a lovely day at home.

I baked twinks hobnobs with Bambi, read to her and just had time to be a little playful with her (pretending to chase her with the hoover which she loves for example!) instead of trying to rush everything needing done. 

She sat and drew some pictures while I was doing computer stuff and helped me tidy a little and she is pretty good at playing on her own, so I did get quite a bit done in the house. Mainly just tidying because my starting point was every room being messy 😂 but by the time I finished, every room was tidy (especially the playroom and the kids’ bedroom, which I like to be spotless before a playdate), both bathrooms wiped down and the whole house hoovered. 

As for the computer stuff, I’d been disappointed because my papa gave me his old laptop for Monkey’s homework (because we don’t have any devices except our smartphones and my work laptop), but it’s just past it. Several keys don’t work intermittently, the battery doesn’t charge, it won’t “see” my keyboard when I plug it in and I can’t get it to connect to the internet 🤦‍♀️ I think some of these problems are fixable but it’s not worth spending money getting the keyboard fixed because it is really quite old.

My papa had also given me a windows tablet to give my sister so that he was treating her the same. As they have a computer/gaming room set up in their house (separate to her work from home office - they don’t have kids!) with two gaming PCs I was wishing I’d taken the tablet to start with!! So I screwed up my courage to text her and let her know the laptop doesn’t work and ask if she really needed the tablet. Result, she’s happy for me to keep it! 

After school I picked up Monkey’s best friend as well as him, we had a short visit to the school playpark then I took them home for a playdate at mine. The mum currently works full time so I’m happy to occasionally have him for her. She’s dropping a day a week from Jan which is nice, we do get on well so it’s quite nice when she comes on the play dates too! Plus she might be able to pick up Monkey occasionally on the that day if needed, it’s always good to have a network of people to ask. The three kids played soooooooo nicely, they always do, and it was no bother at all having an extra one there 😅 and I got a quick chat with the mum as she came in for coffee when she picked him up. 

Meals
B - porridge for everyone 

L - toasties & fruit/veg for Bambi & I

S - Monkey took HM flapjack & peppers/cherry tomatoes; after school all the kids had twinks hobnobs, bananas and satsumas. I mainly snacked on twinks hobnobs and also bought a big sharing bag of crisps for the evening for Red and I 😱

D - HM fried chicken, chips, coleslaw and corn on the cob - SO good!!

Will update spending later as I’ve bought loads online!! But frugal wins include getting that free tablet, and the HM fakeaway as Red wanted a takeaway since he got paid yesterday. And having a day in instead of spending money, no heating on yet either.

Bluegreen143

Such a speedy weekend so far 😨😱 all within budget, but still feels a lot: 

£44.50 - a pair of fleecy lined, drawstring top winter wellies for each child from Next (inc delivery) - we found these well worth it last winter 

£52.06 - groceries 

£6 - tickets to Monkey’s school ceilidh 

£29 - direct debit for Monkey’s football 

£3.50 - parking today at the climbing/soft play place (actual price of going paid earlier in the week)

£35.50 - birthday gift, bag & card for Red’s best friend’s little girl (bit of an overspend but they are having an awful time just now with a close family member very ill in hospital and have covid so had to cancel her party so we wanted to treat her/them)

£22 - got food from Greggs to drop off with Red’s best friend’s family as a treat since they can’t go out, and also bought ourselves lunch at the same time 

£3.23 - shoelaces for Monkey as his have frayed

£68 - tickets to a lightshow around bonfire night**

** I wasn’t going to do this, as I think it’s outrageously priced. But Monkey was VERY keen because we went in 2020 and he loved it. And we do have money in the activities pot as my dad tends to give the kids £20 each when he sees them and with their agreement we save that for outings and activities. So I asked him if he’d give up two weeks pocket money towards the cost - I find this is a good test of whether they really want to go - and he says he’s ok with that so we’ve decided to use some of the activities pot towards this.

I’ve also bid on two winter coats and a pair of boots on eBay (for myself) so more expense if I win them - but a fairly cheap way to fill that need as each would be under £15 inc delivery. And I have zero weather appropriate clothes right now. 

Meals
B - cereal for all of us

L - a greggs 😆 pasties and doughnuts, woops

S - Red bought us all Freddos at softplay 😆 plus kids had fruit… I’ve also had a lot of crisps today 🤦‍♀️

D - chicken pesto pasta with peas and tomatoes 

Bluegreen143

Red has been paid and my emergency fund now stands at £1,507.

My big aim is to get it to a whopping £12,000 as this will be 6x our basic monthly needs covered (well slightly more but thought I’d aim for a round number). So it’s going to take a while 😆 keep your fingers crossed for me that we stay emergency free for a while to get there!!

Emergency fund progress = 12.5% 😆

savingholmes

Great progress. Result on the tablet

sunshineli

I’m new here and have got lots of inspiration from your diary! The daily meal plan helps me think of new recipe ideas and love the frugal wins. £12,000 of emergency fund is an impressive goal

Bluegreen143

Ah you’re so kind @sunshineli! Thanks for dropping by 🙂

Today we had a chilled out morning then Red’s mum took us out for a late lunch (along with his older brother, his brother’s fiancée, his adult nephew and nephew’s girlfriend). It was for his nephew’s birthday actually. Delicious and we were TOTALLY stuffed so no need for dinner.

Meals
B - kids had milkshake, I had yoghurt and chocolate chips

S - potato scones as Red made some with his cooked breakfast… kids had a potato scone each with ketchup and declared them delicious, which is a huge win as they’ve never eaten them before

L/D - I had breaded mozzarella, Cajun chicken pasta & focaccia and birthday cake + ice cream - all delicious! 

Spending

£38.69 - I won two winter jackets and a pair of boots (for myself) on eBay. Great value as one of the jackets is a proper Regatta waterproof walking jacket type thing that you can zip a fleece into. The other is a puffer jacket with cosy fake fur hood. So I should be warm and cosy this winter, and it would have cost me £40 minimum buying just one jacket new from a supermarket clothing range so it’s like I got the Regatta jacket and boots free. 

£20 - in the card for Red’s nephew’s birthday

Frugal wins

1. The heating is still off… though tbh it’s been a good bit warmer the last two days again. Or else I’m just getting used to the cold 😆

2. Washing hung on the line and I hung the second (towel wash) round the house rather than tumble dry 

3. Had five chicken drumsticks left in the pack from Friday’s dinner so roasted them in a nice spice rub and that’ll do a couple of lunches for me this week 

4. My mum gave me some sourdough starter this weekend so I started a loaf tonight 

5. Red’s mum treated us all to lunch today and also bought the kids a nice mountain warehouse jacket each which was kind of her (I had JUST bought them both new winter coats last week so was a bit miffed she hadn’t mentioned to save me getting them, but actually the new ones are lighter than the ones I bought so will be good for just now and then again in spring rather than replacing their winter coats)

Bluegreen143

What a day 😆

Started well - I was very good last night and was in bed by 10.40 despite the fact I went out (one of my friends hosted though and I didn’t drink so I could drive). So I was up in time for the gym at 5.30 💪🏼 

But it unravelled a bit from there. Work is MAD busy just now and stuff kept coming in faster than I could handle it.

Then the school called asking me to pick up Monkey cos he’d a big bump on his head 😨 he’s fine, but it meant an hour out of my work day by the time I’d driven to and from school, found a parking spot, got him home & made him lunch etc. Then I was frantically working all afternoon with frozen planet 2 on in the background at Monkey’s request 😂 plus he was seriously chatty despite me repeatedly telling him I was working, bless him.

Picked up Bambi at 3, still totally frazzled, and had a headache within half an hour because the kids would not stop fighting 😱 normally they are so good and play very nicely but they were both highly strung today. 

I am quite proud that I mustered all my patience and did some coaching (“I hear you felt angry but is it OK to push your brother? What do you think you could have done instead” “Monkey, tell your sister how you feel and what you want from her” 🤣). Which actually worked really really well and they played nicely after that, but I then had zero patience left and when Red got home from work I had to tell him I needed to decompress and not to talk to me 😂😂😂

BUT I did manage to turn it around and make a very tasty chicken/bacon/tomato/cream cheese pasta bake for dinner and cut up a bunch of veg sticks for the fridge too. 

Spending
I don’t think I’ve spent anything today?! Must check bank account 😂

Frugal wins
Eh, survival?! Everyone is fed and alive and nobody resorted to a takeaway today 🙌🏼. My washing is in the tumble dryer and I’m not sorry. Heating is still off though 😆

Oh and my pasta bake made enough for my lunch tomorrow AND I cut up the rest of the pack of chicken and marinaded for tomorrow’s fajitas 🙌🏼

savingholmes

Your frugal wins was my fave portion of your list!

Baileys_Babe

Well done @Bluegreen143 on remaining calm, something I'm not very good at. It might have wiped you out physically and emotionally at the time but it will pay you back time and again in the future.

Bluegreen143

@Baileys_Babe I used to get really triggered when they fought but I once read a tip to reframe it in your head from a bad thing to “yay, an opportunity to connect with them both and teach them something”. Which sounds SUPER corny and ridiculous but I have honestly trained myself now using this to think of sibling fights as a positive, and so I don’t usually get triggered by them (this is after A LOT of practice and doesn’t always work, of course!!)… but yesterday was particularly tough of course, cos I was so done in myself 😆

My current bugbear which I am finding it harder to remain calm with, is Monkey losing/forgetting stuff. Today he left his backpack in the car when we went to the bus stop, luckily he noticed in time for me to get it before the bus came. He lost a jumper at school two days ago which I made him promise to look in lost property for today. He’s forever leaving water bottles, his tie, jackets etc at school and we mainly get the stuff back but not always. So frustrating! School branded jumpers are £30 each so I hope he does get it back!!