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

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all! Not much to report today but posted those shorts off have dinner out the freezer and am waiting for my friend to come round. She has cancelled on me three times already though, I feel like she's still processing her diagnosis and isn't ready to see people so if she cancels again I will understand. The drs keep cancelling her appointments and also telling her her scan results have been lost, then found, then lost again as they move from one place to another. As if she hasn't had enough to deal with already I told her it was mercury retrograde and to just sit it out. Thankfully she is like me and believes in energy forecasts too so did chill out a bit after that we both had a laugh, because sometimes you just have to laugh or you'd cry.
I have nerve pain going down my leg today and I'm unsure what has caused it, it is on the leg that wasn't causing me any issues so this is new Chiro next week so I will talk to him about it. He helped the pain I had on the other side last time so perhaps this is a pain that has always been there but been overshadowed by the other bigger pains I had. 
It is grey washout skies here today, tiny bit of blue poking through but it is cold and I wish it would hurry up and warm up. I would love to do some gardening but won't do it when it's cold and wet. nothing else to report so I will be orf for now  

debtfreewannabe321

Morning, well my friend did turn up and we had a good catch up. I'm feeling really bad for her as she has to wait two more weeks for her prognosis..after she left I went to bed and had a nap, haven't done that in a long time! I had a headache and nerve pain so took some anti-inflammatories and ibuprofen and slept it off. I had the weirdest dream which led me to searching on the internet about these symptoms I am having, and apparently after a chiro adjustment you will experience detox symptoms (to varying degrees) and all of a sudden a lot of my weird pains and flu like symptoms were making sense. I went to bed really early last night and feel a lot better today  
Not much planned, need to pop to the shops though there is no way we will make it to pay day with the lack of food we have in. Kids have demolished almost everything they could get their hands on over the weekend. So definitely not a NSD and I don't think I will make it to 15 this month. My friend bought over a load of vegan sausages for us though so that is part of dinner today, I think I will make it an easy one, chips and sausages in buns just in case I fancy another nap later  
Happy enough with what's left in my bank account though. If I can spend less than £20 I will have almost £50 in there. In the run up to payday this is usually unheard of! Anyway, off I go, need another cuppa- it's cold!

debtfreewannabe321

We decided to go to the big shop in the big city as DP had to pick something up from there anyway. Needless to say budget well and truly blown! Nuff said I think....
Will tally up overspends and see just how much I messed up the budget overspends this month 🤦🏻‍♀️

Edit: £611.14 for April 👀😲
Overspent by £111.14! 

Some of this is due to me adding in the toiletries and cleaning stuff rather than keeping it separate. So I think if I do this next month I will have to up the budget. But I think I've still over spent by £62 thereabouts...eek! Another reason was this was a five week month and I didn't budget any extra for it. I will remember to do this next time. I meal planned for enough dinners but not enough snacks, fruit, lunches and breakfast....

beanielou

Don’t beat yourself up. As you say a 5 week month. 

HotDog2020

debtfreewannabe321 said:

We decided to go to the big shop in the big city as DP had to pick something up from there anyway. Needless to say budget well and truly blown! Nuff said I think....
Will tally up overspends and see just how much I messed up the budget overspends this month 🤦🏻‍♀️

Edit: £611.14 for April 👀😲
Overspent by £111.14! 

Some of this is due to me adding in the toiletries and cleaning stuff rather than keeping it separate. So I think if I do this next month I will have to up the budget. But I think I've still over spent by £62 thereabouts...eek! Another reason was this was a five week month and I didn't budget any extra for it. I will remember to do this next time. I meal planned for enough dinners but not enough snacks, fruit, lunches and breakfast....

Like beanie says not to worry, you have the money these things happen, no harm done, you tried bulk buying it didn't work out, it was a five week month for me it was 4 as I count the Fridays!  Everybodys journey is different. For me I have spent more money then I was suppose to however I got some stuff done, bought some stuff if I can keep the EF the same balance as last month I will be happy - that is enough for me. I guess we are all here on a journey, everyones wills be different look for the positive. For me..And I still have yet to achieve this is that the EF if I can keep it the same it will still be an improvement from the month before....£62 over spend is very good...I am still a long way from that. Wishing you prosperous times. HotdogX

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, thanks for popping by Beanie & Hotdog, Yep it's all a learning curve. I am indeed just grateful that I have money still in my account in the run up to payday in fact I would still have £200+ if I hadn't moved my wages over to EF already so I am delighted with that!

Today is another grey miserable day, I walked the dog in between heavy showers and had my woolen jumper, winter coat and scarf on and was still cold My poor spring flowers, blue bells, tulips, amongst others are all battered feel sad about that.

I have a banana bread in the oven baking, the fridge is relatively full again after our shop yesterday. I think DP and I were all up for a challenge but when you open the fridge door to be greeted with some limp celery, a couple of carrots, old guacamole, and not much else and in the food cupboards I had two tins of soup only and most sauces were depleted to the point I threw most of them into my cooking the other night and chucked the bottles it is at that point we admitted defeat......WHICH is a vast improvement.

We would never have let our stores get that low before and would have far more wastage so actually this is good news although it sounds like a moan and a whine, it's not, it is awareness that we ate everything else, and made random concoctions before going shopping!

So anyway I am staying in today, my aches and pains have all but disappeared and I feel good  *yay* I will enjoy this until my next chiropractor appointment on Friday

I had a few quiet days on surveys, I didn't have the laptop on very much to be honest so hoping for a few today, I will leave it open as I do other things. I have already done one today for £5.60 I think it was, they are being slow to process though. I do have £9.73 ready to draw out now though, I will leave to the end of the day and see if it goes up past £10 otherwise I will transfer it out later. 

I also spent £22 on a gift for a friend yesterday but that came out of the appropriate pot, very grateful to have these pots even if some are a little empty now. The EF hasn't been touched and that is great.

I am thinking about budgets for the month ahead, I really struggled with toiletries/ cleaning products/ food being £500 but it was a 4 week 5 day month (from food shop point of view) and we had Easter hols in there too so I am wondering if to keep it at £500 and try again. I managed it every other month this year under budget which allowed me to think I could add the toiletries/ cleaning products in.  Hmm...Yes I think I will do that, but I will keep £50 somewhere as a back up in case I go over. And if I go over 3 times in a row I will then admit defeat and raise the budget  

DP is off out in a bit, I think he is hanging around waiting for banana and sultana bread to cook personally although he says not. 

I planted some seeds from my organic squash and peppers I bought from the SM, they are all sprouting ....not sure if I will get any fruit on them though I have done this before and never got any actual veg or fruit from them. They will be indoor plants for now to see how they go and then I will move out to the conservatory and then outdoors if they don't die.

Going to do the meter readings and submit them, and also have a monthly round up on my budgeting as although food went over I think everything else is good, so would like a more rounded view on it before I say it all went t*ts up will report back with that one .... 

debtfreewannabe321

OMG it is even worse than I initially thought
I got hold of DP banking app and tallied up his spends in SMs and grocers etc and we have spent £675.12 on food, toiletries and cleaning products this month.  
YIKES. 

So looking forward and also looking in my cupboards, freezers etc we do not have a lot in. Although we went shopping yesterday it isn't for much more than basics. 
Has food risen in the last month? Or did I just get it really wrong.

ANYWAY MUST TRY HARDER NEXT MONTH. Sticking with the budget I set myself above £500 for May as well as £50 buffer. 

Some good news for the MONTH END APRIL:

Savings pots-
EF-    £1537.75
MOP- £307
Bday/ Xmas- £405
xmas saver: £1200
DIY/Clothes/ Health- £176

NSD: 14/15!! happy with that!

AND even with overspends we are not in any overdrafts nor have we compromised the EF  or mop so overall I am pretty happy with the month. 

NEXT month's goals- MAY 2024

EF:- £1750
MOP:- Leaving this empty for now.....may put some across if I reach £1750 in my EF and have more to put away....
Xmas Saver :- 1500
BDAY/ XMAS:-150
DIY/HEALTH/ CLOTHES:- 0 (I already have chiro booked so budgeted the money there, and I need to pay for my N3xt bill for DD suit)
NSD 0/15

debtfreewannabe321

Another day and another survey has cleared - a biggy this time. $20 and a couple of smaller ones so once converted to £, I managed to send a payment of £18 to the EF this morning. Not bad for the day before payday!
EF Goal 2- £57.75/500 

WILL be a NSD though I have barely any money in my current account. Crazy to think of the hundreds and thousands squirreled elsewhere but if you were to look at my every day account it is fast nearing £0.00

DP and I were on RM again today (somebody take our phones away from us please) and we saw a beautiful house in exactly the location where we wanted to move to originally but we couldn't afford............. hm.....it is not a big step up in price either because it doesn't have enough bedrooms currently. However, there is a separate dining room which we were saying could be used for now as a bedroom until we got up into the loft or built an extension.......we will think on it. It might not hang around long anyway and we haven't even got our house valued yet. But location location location.........I wish we had held out for the right location to begin with but we'd have waited years until we had enough capital so sometimes a side step before going forward again is the right thing to do...

Sun is trying to break through so I will wait until it does and then walk the dog. Raining one minute and not the next. WHERE is Spring? I understand April showers but I do recall we at least had some sun in between those showers last year. 

Sweet & sour for dinner with rice. DP kindly said he will do it for me as I am always cooking them nice stuff and I deserve a break awww  

debtfreewannabe321

okay copy and pasting my signature for my monthly reset and ponder on what I want to achieve next month.

END of APRIL sig:
 MFW 2024 #17

OP straight to mortgage - APRIL £307/ 206.88 (ytd £640) working towards owning 50%
MOP savings account 1200 / 3000 to be paid later this year
Mortgage balance 01/01/24 £99224.13 01/02 £98,833.7201/03 £98,928.18

01/04 £97,646.20

Baby EF done £1.5k.Working towards goal 2 £55.75/500

Food Budget - JAN 484.44/500, FEB 488.59/500, MAR 439.33/500, APR 675.12/500

Goals I think need to be a big re-focus on the GC. I am yet to finalise my meal plan still for May so will do that today. 
I have been through my bathroom stores and we have enough Shampoo, conditioner, soap, shower gel, to last at least two months.
I have enough cleaning products and washing capsules for clothes for at least a month.
I have hand soap on order same for toilet rolls so I will put these in with food budget once again rather than separate.

Baby EF is done but I would like to aim for £2k overall. Don't think this is easily achievable in May so will aim for £250 of that so hopefully I can reach £2k in June. I already have £55.75 towards the next goal of £2k,  so I will put £300 as my goal for May. With that projection I should reach around £3.5k by the end of the year if my math's is right and IF I have no emergencies obviously. If I reach £300 in April-May I will send any extra over to my MOP. I am enjoying seeing the biggest debt of all coming down even if it is a few quid only. Even £50 overpayment a month will cut 2 years and 2 months off my mortgage apparently (doesn't sound right but I put it in to the mortgage calculator this morning and that is what it said so yay that will be my small aim).

Other news DP says he has income protection at work and through insurances and critical illness cover and other things like this (can't remember them all) so we are wondering if rather than aim for 6 months expenses I will aim for just 3 months basic expenses, so £4.5k EF is my overall aim...does anyone think I should still aim for 6 months with that in mind? If so I will carry on saving. But we are desperate to have this mortgage paid off early, we don't want DP working until he is nearly 70 just to pay for the mortgage....we would like a life where we can use that money to do things we can't afford now.....guess that is why most of us are here though eh.

Okay so my new signature with next month's goals:

MFW #17
EF- £55.75/300
NSD 0/15
FOOD & TOILETRIES BUDGET 0/£500
MOP- 0/50

MORTGAGE BALANCE  JAN 1st £99224.13 ~~~ MAY 1st £

beanielou

I would go for 3 months EF.