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

debtfreewannabe321

DP is doing a fab job of putting the pergola up ...I will get a pic when he's finished it. 
I've done some cleaning and sorted the washing out and also went and bought a pizza (used 50% off TC) for us and DD out of my pocket money. He appreciated the food and has carried on happily 😉😆. 

I'm just going through the budget again as we've had most income in already, I'm just waiting on my maintenance payment now. 
I've got £20 due from my CB site too but they're doing maintenance on it so I couldn't access it. That will go towards my CC though. 

This months savings have gone to the planning department 👎🏻 but it's okay we had the money so it just delays savings goals by a month. We are waiting on the quote for underfloor heating and flooring too still. Hopefully our visit earlier will prompt the email to be sent this time. 

Yearly spends that need paying for in June are the green bin at around £40 - need to check exact amount, and the boiler service at £155 (I think he said). I've budgeted the green bin out the monthly budget but the boiler service can come out of the yearly bills pot. - I am mindful the car will need servicing around July and also insurance renewal around Oct so need to make sure the pot is sufficient for both of those. 

I have a little money left in the garden fund to get some compost and hopefully the rest of the wood to do the pergola. Think there is around £40 left in that. 

I've budgeted £300 this month for entertainment so if we have any left - which I'm hoping we do- I will send it to my savings. Otherwise the months money is looking okay and I hope to get to next payday with nothing on the CC aside from budgeted spends which will mean we've lots of money next month to save (pretty sure I say this to myself every month though and something crops up 🤣). 

debtfreewannabe321

Oh and also I am splitting my monthly money into weeks. So our £700 food budget and my pocket money £200 pm will be broken up into weeks. 
So week one starting tomorrow I have £175 for food and £20 left for pocket money as I've already spent some today. 
I think this might feel more morale boosting than a monthly budget. If I go wrong I can try and correct it the next week rather than going wrong on the monthly one and then feeling demoralised for the rest of the month. 

Queen_of_the_Hive

debtfreewannabe321 said:

Thanks @beanielou we had a great day out 😁 
@greenbee did you not get much aubergine from them? If this one fails to produce much I probably won't bother again. 

We went to the garden centre and as we were visiting one out of town we decided to make the most of the quieter tip there. Quieter- we were the only ones there!! Saturday morning 😳 prime time at our local one and we'd have queued an hour at least at that time!
The garden centre proved to be a bit of a waste of time though as the pergolas I'd seen last time had all sold out 😭 they were perfect but wasn't meant to be. Anyway we priced up bits separately and realised we could make it for a similar price (the pergolas were pretty cheap hence why they sold out so quick). So we drove back home a little deflated. Decided to pop and see the guys doing our extension as we've not heard anything - I was purposely leaving it to be honest to make sure we had some savings in place for the extras and also the appointment with the mortgage people isn't for a couple of weeks. So anyway we had to pay planning costs. So we popped in and spoke to the manager and he said we are quite literally next on the list to do 😬😁🥰🥳🤯 🫰🏻♥️ which created a whole host of emotions like those inside me 🤣. I said to them we've got a mortgage meeting in a couple of weeks and they seemed fine with that as we have the back up finance if we can't get it (we better do) sorted elsewhere. Soooo we should have ground broken by end of June 😁😁 how exciting! 

Anyway then we went on to w1ckes and spent £200 (5% CB so a tenner back) on pergola bits. We still need to buy more but were arguing about the size of what we needed 🤣 so we've bought the main structure and DP will put that up and paint it then we will see what size will look best for the smaller slats. Right off to pot up a few 50p strawberry and tomato plants I got at the garden centre 😁.

Exciting times. Good luck with mortgage company

greenbee

I've never had that many aubergines, and they're generally small. But I still try  

KajiKita

I think your garden is going to be magical by the end of this year …. 😊

KK

debtfreewannabe321

Thanks @Queen_of_the_Hive 😁
@greenbee there's a few on the one I bought but it was kind of cheating as I didn't grow it from seed like I did before 🙈😆. Perhaps that is where I was going wrong. I should just buy baby plug plants instead.
@KajiKita I think so too! I'm pleased we decided to put effort in out there rather than inside (although we've done a bit inside but nothing like the effort and time and money that we did on our last house in this amount of time). The pergola is looking fab but I said to DP not to finish it today and just leave it as he looked absolutely done in this morning poor thing. We bought the rest of the wood needed and it's safe and dry so it can be cut as his leisure and then put together perhaps next weekend now. 

Today I went shopping to Mr L to get half a week's shop. I was feeling a little dizzy and not great and so half a shop was a good call I was in and out in no time. I got home and chilled out for a bit before starting on the bulk cooking.

I've made two lots (2 dinners Worth) of spicy salsa bean burgers, ratatouille ( one and half portions) and spaghetti bolognaise as well as curry. Curry was supposed to be for tonight but ex is taking kids out so I've scooped out a bowl for DP and I to have on top of a jacket potato. So I have curry for another day now. I have spent just over a hundred quid (£116.68) on Mr T and Mr L today - DP had to pop out to Mr T as I'd forgotten a few bits. I reckon I can probably do with just a very small top up of fruit on Weds and make do till the weekend. 
Hopefully I've enough dinner for Mon- Fri with what I've made today. And all cooked from scratch 😇 feeling very virtuous after all the rubbish foods we've consumed lately. Including pizza last night 🫣.

I've bought enough for lunches too so ideally we have minimal spends this week on food (extra to today obviously). 

DP has done all the ironing for me too so we've nothing to do this afternoon aside from chill out. Which is a nice thought 😁. It has started raining though so I've come in. Think I'll put a movie on and have a hot drink (rock-'n'-roll eh). 

My June is shaping up to be very busy and I'm feeling a bit nervous about the fact I've over committed myself and will be too tired to do it all now 😕.
I've got three concerts, one weekend camping, an open day at uni for DD, and obviously I'm working all month too. I'm telling myself if I can get through it all though I'll be fine as I have the very long summer break to rest and recuperate after. Exhaustion was supposed to be gone by now (in my mind) after starting HRT but it is still here, ugh. Good news is everything is paid for so aside from a bit of spending money for each thing I've not had to budget massive amounts out for it. 

I've a mini goal this month to make £50 from sales of things/surveys/ cash back. I like to have something to work towards, and it would be good to have something put away in the savings this month considering the £700 earmarked for savings is now with the local planning department 😑😏.

Oh DS is home...I best get DD ready to go out and meet them. 

debtfreewannabe321

I got a Pic of the pergola mid way so you can see what a fab job DP has done. It fits way better than the pre cut ones from the garden centre too - there will be another one to go up on the other bed at some point ☺️.

The beds need another coat of paint and the pergola will also be painted the same colour. 
😁👏🏻

slm6002

They look fantastic

beanielou

Looking amazing. 

KajiKita

That looks absolutely lovely ☺️ I really like the way it frames the seating area at the top of the garden - makes it really inviting 😊👏 Well done DP for the execution and you for the vision 😊

KK