Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, well I popped on to my sw@gb^cks account this morning and as I had reached 1000sb points it had triggered the MSE bonus and I had 2000 points added so 3000+ this morning. It took a while of messing about trying to get the rewards exchanged for vouchers but I got there in the end. I think I needed to allow cookies and pop ups (I pressed so many buttons in the settings though it could have been something else). So I exchanged the 3000 points for £30 worth of am@zon vouchers. Not bad for a few days work of playing games here and there and the odd survey I also got my credit score checked which paid me I think 500 SB or something like that. I will save these vouchers for birthdays and Christmas as I have only put aside £50 per month for Birthdays, and when the kids always seem to ask for expensive gadgets these days it doesn't go very far. 

Should have been a NSD yesterday but I needed some supplements that I have run out of, and whilst I was there I thought I may as well order the toilet rolls and toothpaste for next month too ( .@mazon again) I also ordered the box of walkers crisps from there, they are £4 which the SMs were doing for £3.90 up to a little while ago but I haven't seen them for less that £4.90 lately. So I now buy them from @mazon instead for £4. I will take all these spends out of next month's money & budget though as the only thing I actually needed now was the supplements.

Yesterday I blitzed the house as DP was out at work (in the garage in his office but still at work) and DD was back to school. Everything got dusted, bins emptied, everywhere hoovered and plants all watered (I have so so so many house plants that is a job in itself lol). I also mopped and refilled all shampoo and soap dispensers and loo rolls (that's what triggered me to buy loo rolls we are nearly out). I had my incense on, a compilation CD 'soul greatest hits' or something like that and I was in my happy zone for a couple of hours lol 
I also meditated, did some writing and exercised. And after my first shift back yesterday I had a lovely dinner already cooked by me a few weeks ago, a nice bath and a book. Lovely first day of term. Usually it is stressful and makes me want to hide away. Work yesterday, we had two new starters to train so I got there late and the other supervisor had already chosen who she wanted out of the two. She got the one who spoke English, I got the one who had little English. I could have guessed she would choose that way, I wasn't bothered too much though. The new lady was lovely and a Ukrainian refugee and we had limited conversation but enough to establish that we were both mums just trying to do our best lol. She was nice, so I look forward to working with her again today. The other supervisor has a guy who is local to the area and he seemed nice too, so hopefully they will both stick around. It saved me having to listen to other supervisor moaning about her housing situation (which if I were to tell you about you'd just laugh because it is like an episode of Eastenders ) 

SO today I am declaring a NSD. I don't need anything and I have hardly any money in my current account anyway and I do not want to steal from pots for things I do not need. DD asked me to buy her friend a present online so I did that last night so that I could declare today a NSD it was only £4 but my DD brought me a five pound note down bless her, I told her not to worry about it and keep it. It is so nice to be able to do that so close to payday. We are usually into the overdraft by now. I don't have a lot left but I have everything I need in so that is a nice feeling.

I am feeling really nauseous again today, there are bugs going round here and DD was sick (as described in previous posts) the other day, and I thought I had already had it...but I am not feeling good this morning. I can feel a headache looming and waves of sickness. Hoping it just passes.

I have a pie mix out of the freezer, basically it is cooked butternut squash with onions and peppers, seasoned and then frozen. I will defrost it, add some freezer mix of peas, sweetcorn and carrots (bought for the kids as then they will eat the pie *rolls eyes*)  and I will add gravy to it all and put in an oven dish and cover with pastry. I only have shortcrust though so it will have to do. I used all the puff pastry. DP peeled and chopped potatoes for me yesterday as he got confused with what yesterday's dinner was it was a spag bol, but it could have been a shepherd-less pie to be fair with a bit of tweaking, so we still have those in water ready to be cooked with the pie. I might do some cabbage on the side which I have left from the roast the other day. 
I am debating making a banana cake with the leftover bananas in the kitchen, but I need this sickness to pass first otherwise I don't think that will end well.

Garden bin collection renewal letter is through, £44 for the year. Next month is the last month of my Now tv subscription if they offer me a deal when I go to cancel I may renew but we don't honestly watch very much on there, so...I need to take meter readings on Thursday to trigger the bill for Friday. And I need to do that meal plan so I can do my first online shop for the weekend. My sister's birthday falls in March and this next pay run so I am going to give her a gift card for @mazon I think. I have budgeted £100 for glasses and opticians appointment for myself for next week as I haven't had an appointment in about 4 years oops, and the glasses I have I don't think are right any more for me, I think I may need a stronger prescription now. I can't think of any other one offs for next month, so I am hoping there is none...but we all know that never happens. But that's all for now anyway... 

debtfreewannabe321

Okay this is a quick meal plan and it may be subject to change once I run it past everyone else. They all like variation whereas I would quite happily eat the same 3 or 4 favourite meals every week
So next month I have 28 meals to plan, payday to payday. 1 is a takeaway night. So 27 left to plan and i've divvied it up as follows...

* 4 Jacket potato meals (toppings can be leftovers, cheese or beans with salad)
* 4 Random freezer/ cupboard meals as we have quite a lot in the freezers and the cupboards
* 2 Veggie lasagnas (will freeze one)
* 2 Shepherd-less pies (will freeze one)
* 2 Mushroom Wellingtons (will freeze one)
* 2 Irish stews with dumplings and mash ( weekend dinners where I have time to prep and cook fresh)
* 2 Tofu dishes which will be random marinated tofu or in sauce with rice and salad
* 2 Sausage, mash and veg
* 2 Burgers & chips (probably a Tues or Fri dinner as kids have air cadets)
* 2 Chilli / Spa bol lentil and mushroom mixture which I can variate between anything that usually require mince (freeze one)
* 3 Dahl/ curries (freeze two portions)

So adding them up I should have 6 meals that are batch cooked, 4 random freezer meals, and the burger and chips are freezer too so that is 12 freezer portions which means I should be able to have a couple of cheap weeks of food shops again like this month. We are liking having meals planned as we both work through usual dinner time and want to eat as soon as we get in. It also helps the budget if I batch cook a lot in the first week or two of the month. Okay, with those meals in mind I will go save myself a slot online for this weekend's shopping. 

ladybird1106

Great meal plan
Love 🐞

debtfreewannabe321

WHERE MY FINANCES ARE, JANUARY 2024.


I started this month with £95 left on my next account to pay off from Christmas as well as usual monthly expenses.

This is my outgoings each month as it stands currently:
Mortgage                           £515 
Council Tax                        £140 We have two free months, both these will be sent over to boost my new EF

Gas & Electric                    £245 (this one makes me mad and I will be doing something about this one!!) Really happy with my progress on this one just by buying a meter reader which tells us how much each item is costing when we plug it into it. Some were quite surprising. We cut off £80 just on the water distiller alone a month new bill is approx £130

Water                                 £61 (this one also feels like a lot to me?) I have cut this down to £52 on my online account. It also tells me I am in credit there by a few hundred but my bill is only made once a year? I'm not sure I understand why but I am leaving it at £52 for now. £61 was too high in my opinion.

Mobiles x 3                         £21 Cut this down to £18 for three. 

Talk Talk                             £24 DP changed the DD on it to the new bills account and they signed him up to a new deal which is a £1 more. I was a bit miffed as I would have gone down the comparison sites and cashback route but it's done now. £25

Insurances                         £40
Kids activities & expenses £62
Maintenance                      £208 (possibly ending in June)
Carpet loan                        £93 (0%)
Dentist                               £125 (0% but a lot each month so we would like to pay this off to have the money to put                                                 elsewhere) Paid with DP bonus so we have £125 back into the budget every month.
Now Tv                               £7 (cancelled it but have to pay until March)
Amazon Music                    £10
Plex                                     £4
TOTAL                                 £1555 £1164 a difference of £391! I know we have the council tax to add back in soon but even with that in there it's still approx £240 difference!



This is an update on my second post on this diary, I am finalising the budget for next month and thought I would do a comparison here, I have been at this since the beginning of January but we have only had one full pay run with the budget, as we were paid just before Christmas so by the beginning of January we were technically half way through that pay period.
So I paid the NEXT off and also requested a refund- haven't heard anything since they collected my parcel though. 
We paid off the Loan in full which might have been silly really as it was 0%, but I wanted to put that money into an EF and earn interest on it. Not forgetting I have also cut my food bill down from a shocking £800 to less than £500 for two months now         
DP & I have basically used these cold horrible damp months as a bit of a reset, we haven't done very much at all fun wise. But I felt it was kinda necessary as we might've had too much fun last year (at least this is what the state of my bank accounts tell me happened). DP is itching to get to the antique centres- 'just for a wander' a wander always turns into big spends so I have put him off several times. I enjoy them just as much you see and I would go along with, 'let's just put it on the overdraft/ credit card' But our home is decorated now, we have bought all the furniture we need (mostly from antique centres oops) and all the nice antique ornaments to garnish the decorated home that we need for a while. I want to wait until the boot fairs warm up a little as we have a huge one near us but on a Sunday morning right now they are cold, damp, dreary and the stall holders think so too. We are usually late there by boot fair standards as it's a half hour drive away and they're all packing up by 10am. so we can hold off a bit longer. 

Things we did well this month:-
Stick to the food budget.
Stay in the black on all accounts
Buy a few luxuries (such as DP jacket, my new summer dress and some pretty bowls etc) and have money for them
Manage to pay for some unseens such as DS glasses (no pun intended)

Next month I would like to get the EF from £500 that is sits at to £750. I intend to do this with £140 from the CT free month. £100 that is already budgeted for the EF. And I will TT until I hit £10. Then all TT for the month will go to MOP (mortgage OP) 
MOP which is what this diary is really all about I want to pay £400 this coming month ideally. So £300 is already budgeted for which goes into a high saver account as our interest rate is low on the mortgage, and £100 to be found elsewhere from either saving it in budgets or selling stuff or some other way. I would like to find £200 ideally to eliminate what we pay in interest every month but I don't think we can afford to next month. 

I have budgeted for these extras:-
opticians for me, take away, toiletries and cleaning products (I ran out of clothes washing liquid and toothpaste and toilet rolls!). Money will still be going monthly into a clothing budget, birthday, christmas fund as well as pocket money for the kids (their snack money) and for DP & I. Food budget I will keep at £500, we're pretty close to that anyway and I like to have a bit extra in case we want treats etc. Unless we need to pinch pennies any more I think I am happy with the budget now compared to my shock at the beginning of January when I looked at it I like to balance frugality with feeling like I have everything we want and need and work hard for. 

Ways we would like to earn some extra money- DP new side hustle although I am yet to see any money it is all going straight back into the side hustle/ hobby, at least it isn't costing anything though. I have also listed some items on Etsy for sale, need to perhaps work on the marketing of that and look to make some more bits to sell on there. Oh and I have someone coming to collect some items today from FB MP, hopefully they turn up as that will be £20! 

Anyway guess that is all for now, budgets done, meal plan done, money in the bank still (and one more pay day for me technically in Jan month so yay), warm house, clean house, and nearly all the washing done. What a good day so far  

beanielou

Blooming awesome. 🤩 Be proud. 

debtfreewannabe321

ladybird1106 said:

Great meal plan
Love 🐞

Thanks 🐞☺️

debtfreewannabe321

I've been inspired by other diaries to do a visual goal reminder / progress chart to show where I'm at. Colouring in is not my strong point 😆 but here it is in case it inspires someone else to do the same. I got the idea off another diary but I've read so many I've forgotten which one 😦 so if it's your diary I've stolen the idea from please feel free to claim credit! 
Here's my savings, MOP and rainy day fund tracker

debtfreewannabe321

Copy and paste from the MFW thread

I'd like to change my target 🎯 please if I can? #17

I am allowed to pay off what I stated as my goal before but I want to save an EF and a few other pots alongside paying the mortgage off so with that in mind I'd like to reduce my yearly sum to

£5,520.

That is made up of £3000 going into savings to be paid later in the year, and £2,520 which is £210 a month- that's the amount of interest I pay monthly so I'd like to pay that as a minimum if I can. Thank you 🙏

~FlowerPot~

Thanks for sharing your savings drawing. You seem very organised.
In Jan I spent far too long looking for something i could print out but couldn't find anything that would work for me, i think i will just have to make my own like you have!! 

debtfreewannabe321

~FlowerPot~ said:

Thanks for sharing your savings drawing. You seem very organised.
In Jan I spent far too long looking for something i could print out but couldn't find anything that would work for me, i think i will just have to make my own like you have!! 

I also searched for a printable! Couldn't find what I wanted but I came across something similar on here with a pencil drawn house and squares and thought ah-ha! Yes! That'll do lol....I have the garage, house and conservatory on the back 🤣