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

Idreamofplants

your picture chart is ace! I have one for the mortgage but I have made the squares £500 each so it's not v motivating! I think I need to work on smaller goals - feeling inspired!

debtfreewannabe321

Ah thanks all 😊 🙏🏻 
KK we both have £200 pocket money every month. After checking where his has gone though it is mostly on petrol and eating out for us two. So alls forgiven 😂 he'd been using his cc to pay for fuel then paying it off on payday but had switched to his usual account I think just this month.

Yesterday I took DD out on our girly day to watch the new bridget Jones movie, collect her kallax unit from IKEA (after failing to find one on FB since I started looking) and we went shopping and had lunch. I'm exhausted today! Lots of steps and my foot thankfully held up as I put on my arch support trainers instead of usual boots. 
I split the day up in to manageable spurts of walking as I knew my foot was misbehaving and being very sore after too much walking. So we did ikea- laser guided straight to the bit we needed. In and out in record time for us, around 20 mins and that included trying to find the right bay for what we wanted....ended up having to ask staff to show us and it was in a completely different part than it said it would be...hmmm no wonder I couldn't find it 😆. £50 spent there.
Then we did about an hour and half of wandering around meadowhall shopping.... nothing bought. DD and I were totally underwhelmed with choices ...I felt at some points I'd been transported back to my '90s clubbing days with what was on offer. Including a very nice suede style crop top and bell bottoms in brown. I picked them up and DD was like omg that's awful 😂😂 I was like ummm yes but in 1997 this was my favourite outfit with my tiny belly poking out between crop top and trousers. 😂🤣 We both agreed it was actually awful though and even though I've fond memories I won't be wearing it again. I also did the same to some tie dye things I found and a leather skirt 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️. I remember my mum saying they just recycle fashion and things I used to wear she'd also worn in the '70s....lol..
Then we stopped for lunch. I let DD choose where. She chose the harvester. We got the last table which I was chuffed about as it was very busy. However my vegan burger came out and looked and tasted remarkably like real meat and looked nothing like the exact same burger I'd had in a different harvester only a couple of months before.....I ate a quarter and left it. The chips tasted like they'd been cooked five times and we're dry and inedible. The hash brown and 'cheese' were sickly. I complained. I didn't pay for mine. But I felt a bit sad that this was the second meal out in a week that I'd not enjoyed. DD ate hers but admitted it wasn't great either. We won't be returning there again....I also had a rather unfortunate tummy upset immediately after consuming it which concreted to me, something was not right with it!! £25 spent there on DD meal, drinks and a small tip as the waitress was very helpful and kind to my complaint. 

Then we spent another hour shopping before going to sit in the cinema. The tickets had been purchased through my cashback site and were only £4 something! So cheap compared to our local! However when we sat down we realised why they were cheap. The screen was over on the right and we literally had to turn our heads and body to see it 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️. Another family sat in front of us and said the same....I said to them, we're moving once the lights go down. They agreed to do the same 🤣 cue the lights going out and five of us scurrying like little mice across the aisle to the central bit- which was almost empty- and finding new seats. DD said she heard people laughing as we did it...and I thought how many people do that in a day? Probably all of them if the cinema is quiet enough 🤣.
After that we carried on shopping for about an hour and I found some new jeans and omg they are stretchy - I am in love. 😍 Think it was from a shop called vanilla or something like that? They are wide ones which I haven't worn since, yes you guessed it, the '90s 🤣 and I loved them then... albeit those ones would never fit me now, I've expanded -ahem- a little -ahem-. I also bought some nice trousers from primarni and a new top & a belt that actually fits me. Think I spent around £80 in all. DD got no new clothes but bought a belly ring which she made me put in 🤢 and some posters. A good day overall and a good idea to split up shopping with food/ cinema etc as my foot isn't too bad today especially after wearing my Skechers with the arch support. I think I will have to wear them all next week to get my foot back to not hurting again.

This morning DP told me the window fitter needed more money than we'd already paid. As we'd asked for a few extras like trim and different style to the basic. So guess where the £300 I requested out of my savings pot has gone this morning 🙄🤣. Nevermind. The windows look great and all in the three windows were less than £2k and two out of three are quite large ones. So I think we've done alright. And no debt from it all paid in cash so I'm okay with it.
Carpet loan lives to haunt me for another month though 🙄🤣.

We are looking at cheap holidays abroad for the four of us and debating how best to do it on a very tight budget. We want heat, sun, beach and some activities and some cultural things to see would be fab. But our budget is lemonade and we would love lemonade with a splash of champagne please 🤣....so we will keep looking and researching. The thing is with kids and a job in college is we have to go in the most expensive part of the year. 

Today DD has her optician appointment for contacts. I suspect she needs new glasses too 😏😩. DP hates his new glasses. He can't seem to get on with the verifocal lenses ...I've suggested he take DD to her appointment and speak to the optician today to see what they say. I'll be annoyed if they get relegated to a drawer for what we paid for them. So hopefully they can either give him some advice on moving to verifocals or do something...

My jobs today-
Sort through the fridge and make as many meals as I can from it. 
Make up the kallax unit.
Rest my foot. 

DP and DS emptied out the carport yesterday! It was FULL of old wardrobe and other bits we've taken out since moving in..it's huge in there now. DS has already claimed it for his gym which is fine. It is a good use of space. So DP and DS are doing tip runs today to clear the driveway. DP only has two days booked off this week and so far he's spent it emptying the carport, waiting around for windows to be put in and he took DS back to the pool place as I think he was secretly gutted he missed coming with us...they played snooker and he gave DS some tips on Playing. Today though I hoped to do something with DP even if for just a couple of hours! Otherwise we will do something tomorrow I guess as we have the weekend before work on Monday 😊.

Right...I'm off to get started! Hopefully I can report a NSD later I will need a few now to make up for yesterday! 

CrazyBee787

It all sounds good, enjoy the dayXX

Watty1

Your Pool game sounds charming.  It is so lovely to have money for "fun" isn't it.

debtfreewannabe321

DP & DD back from opticians and DD prescription has changed, we have reinstated the contact lenses for her with new prescription. And DP brought back his glasses and has had a chat with the optician. They have been changed from verifocal to bifocal I think? Well...in the process of changing. And the bifocals are actually cheaper so we should have less to pay on the small loan we took out with them. He had to pay for 3 months contacts for DD though - I had £44 put aside but it came in at £85.......money is leaking away at the moment. I think we will find something free to do this afternoon together rather than tempt ourselves out and about. 
DS asked me to show him my budget- he is interested in accountancy as work experience/ possible career my face was like this  👏😁 and yesssss come sit down!! LET me show you......he ran away after about half an hour of me blathering on but he was interested!

All the driveway has been cleared - 4 tip tuns done, 1 scrap metal person collected the scrap metal and 2 druggies knocked on the door and asked if they could have our washing line. They were off their heads but I said to them - are you sure? It is broken??? They were stood there swaying and smiling (at least they were happy eh) and said nah duck we can fix it, so I said of course you can have it and off they went with my broken washing line (totally irreparable )  

debtfreewannabe321

Free afternoon turned into £17 spends but we have a picture for our fireplace now and I have a book too. Nice few hours spent wandering round antique shops. I am having a go at a few surveys now before dinner. MOP stand at £115 so far this month. Hoping the rest of the survey money becomes ready for cashing out soon to send that over too. 

debtfreewannabe321

DP & I have been plotting how to help pay the mortgage down as well as continue to up our life/ fun/ work balance simultaneously. I was telling DP how I showed DS the budget/ overpayment calculator/ surveys I do for a few extra quid etc etc and DS had asked how quickly the mortgage would be paid off if we paid £600 into the mortgage extra every month...it more than halved the term so I showed DP this morning....My child maintenance is £560 so we put that in to the calculator and it took off 9 years!!
So our plan is to pay off all CCs (we don't have much between us maybe £500 as the dental work will be paid by DP health plan with his work?) the small loan (£484) and then work out the budget again to see if we can use ALL the maintenance every month to put over to the mortgage (it's still within our 10% overpayment allowance).
I think we should get used to living without the maintenance anyway as in a year it will stop for DD so it would be a good use of money in the mean time. So let's see if we can get this to work and actually do it. Step one is to cancel all small subscriptions that have snuck into the budget- kindle, now tv, some hosting costs for DP, and a couple of others I can't think of atm, then pay off the loan, CC and we immediately have hundreds back into the budget anyway every month. I still want money available for holidays, pocket money, decent grocery budget and skiing, xmas, driving lessons though as that is 'living/fun/experiences' I won't compromise those for the plans. So I will report back with a plan soon  

slm6002

It is very much a balancing game, trying to enjoy life as well as wanting to pay off the mortgage or debts asap.  Good luck in finding the right balance for your family.

Also thank you for the idea of the playing pool with your teens, as I would have never have thought of this.  To begin with I thought you meant swimming pool, as I am used to going there when they were younger, but then realised not that kind of pool.  Now trying to find somewhere other than a pub that we can go to have a game or two.

debtfreewannabe321

slm6002 said:

It is very much a balancing game, trying to enjoy life as well as wanting to pay off the mortgage or debts asap.  Good luck in finding the right balance for your family.

Also thank you for the idea of the playing pool with your teens, as I would have never have thought of this.  To begin with I thought you meant swimming pool, as I am used to going there when they were younger, but then realised not that kind of pool.  Now trying to find somewhere other than a pub that we can go to have a game or two.

We go to the pool club in the city! It's full of every age there from 10-90! We saw young kids playing with siblings or parents and older friends playing together. It was a nicer environment than the local pub where we used to play. They had darts, snooker, American and English pool and a good menu with plenty of choice too and I think it's a fair price. We spent less than £30 on drinks, membership and entry for two hours on a pool table.

I used to take the kids swimming all the time when younger but they'd rather go with friends now than me 🤣 thankfully as I never enjoyed being splashed in the face a million times anyway! 

We also have a cafe here that does board games. You just buy a drink or whatever and think you pay a small fee for a table but can play any game that's available. Mine weren't really bothered by that but both like the pool 😊

skint_spice

I am currently at a similar stage DFW, I was throwing all my money at the mortgage but I have decided I need more balance so have eased back a bit to allow more holidays and fun times.