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

debtfreewannabe321

Spends today £1.10 on potatoes. I've updated signature. Still under budget for the month!

I have put £50 cash into DP account to cover some of the fuel that will be deducted next week from his pay. We could do with putting another £40 in really to cover the whole month of 'extra' trips as we do have it in cash. But we have held it back for now, I don't think we will be short and I have extra pay going in from overtime.

Cupboards are beginning to look a little bare. I made vegan pancakes today from flour, chickpea flour, milk and water for lunch. It fed everyone well and used up a lemon that was in the fridge (well two halves that were beginning to look a bit beyond their best) and I also used the plain vegan yoghurt I had bought and divvied up portions in small gu ramakins with a topping of jam for a sweet treat. They actually tasted really nice so I think I will do this from now on, it works out much cheaper than the usual ones we get. 

I have done the s'burys shop for next Thursday, quite a big spendy one but we're out of lots of essentials in the store cupboard. Still hoping to keep it under the £500 for next month. I always do one big one on pay day and fill cupboards and freezer and then bulk cook in that week and the next and then use the bulk meals to eek out weeks 3 & 4 so smaller spends then. 

We popped into the new local Mr M... they had some 2gd2go bags was quite excited to see them our little town never has much excitement like that. I went home and signed up for the app and will maybe try one next week. Depends on what is in it to whether I bother again. DP & I are fully plant based, DD is veggie, DS2 is omni so I guess he could have whatever we won't eat but might be a waste of budget. I will try it though. 

I did a survey earlier and now have a £5 voucher for the shop I use so happy about that! Might get myself something on payday as I have had a few things in my basket for a while now (that is progress eh, I didn't actually check out!)

Washing is drying, I will do one more load tomorrow and DS wants to do his own washing so that will be a third for the week. Anyway I have a new book I picked up whilst out (free!) so I might go make a cuppa and have a read one way to distract myself from all the emails of sales vouchers I keep getting eh! 

redofromstart

Something that may help, when we were at the peak of no money whatsoever I set up a second email address, and that one gets all of the 'selling' emails. Unsubscribed from everything in my main email.  If I have a genuine need to buy something from X retailer then I check that email for vouchers. I only check if I need something so I don't get sucked into 'but it was a bargain' for things I don't actually need.  Works well for us.

debtfreewannabe321

That's a great idea redo, I actually have a few dormant email addresses, perhaps I could use those. I have had my main email since the AOL days of dial up and have thousands of emails come to me from all sorts of places weekly. I am forever deleting them, so now every time one comes in I unsubscribe. I have noticed when I sign up for things I get a surge of them so someone is selling my email address every now and then which annoys me.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, 

Well I had the most bizarre 3am ...I woke up like I usually do several times a night (thanks bladder and hot flushes) to a voice in my head talking to me about wastefulness and consumerism and boxes that we live in, look at, read, scroll on, and long story short because this went on for a while, it was a bit of an awakening, this voice was like, did you enjoy spending all that money making your box look pretty? Did you enjoy slaving away to make the paper to pay for it. You know we all leave in the same size box, don't be so concerned for the box size you live in. Step outside of it and make some memories elsewhere once in a while hmmm. It makes me more determined to get out of the debt system and pay off this mortgage (death contract) one way or the other. (Yes I sometimes have random voices talking to me, no I am not schizophrenic). It made me realise we have spent so much money on doing this box, we live in, up to a good standard that we had no spare money to get through the month sometimes, and certainly none left to have experiences! 

I am super glad it is all done in the house (well the big stuff) and that we can focus on more exciting adventures and goals now I am in awe at those on here doing the house up whilst still keeping focused on the budget! It was beyond my ability I am afraid  

Anyway another NSD, DP wanted to go to the boot fair and I said no, this is our punishment, this week of doing nothing.....for spending all our money in the first week of the month I said, I won't let it get to this again if I make myself stay in all week and do nothing, it kind of hammers it home to me when I go cold turkey like this and makes me do better next time round. 

DP has some computers to fix anyway, I have jobs to do in the house and the dog to walk. Sometimes it's good to be bored and have nothing to do, it allows you time to think and process and have voices able to come through at 3am Anyway that's all for now

redofromstart

Sometimes the 3am voices are useful. I've tried to train mine to talk to me about nice things like garden plans rather fretting about things I haven't done. 

Hope you have a productive day.

debtfreewannabe321

redofromstart said:

Sometimes the 3am voices are useful. I've tried to train mine to talk to me about nice things like garden plans rather fretting about things I haven't done. 

Hope you have a productive day.

haha yes it was quite welcome in the end. We are most receptive in that half awake state for sure. 
We had a lovely walk today in a local village in an area of outstanding beauty. Had a nosey at the prices of houses and I don't think we will be moving there any time soon that is for sure. Houses were three times the amount of our town which is about 4 miles up the road. Absolutely crazy! Anyway a NSD for me. 
DP made £50 on FB MP which he has put in his cash pot. We're not sure what we are doing with that money yet, it is building up quite nicely, we have maybe £200 in there atm, but he also uses it to buy bits and pieces for his new side hobby (which he mostly sells on after a bit anyway). We have spoken about holidays and marriage so perhaps we could start up a fund for one of these  

Cottage pie from the freezer for dinner and I made some random chickpea nugget recipe which I totally hashed because out of the 6 ingredients I needed I only had 3 so had to make the rest up but actually they tasted very close to some veggie nuggets we had bought before so not a failure. I will try them again with oats instead of flour next time though! Perhaps this could be an alternative to fake chic'n meat burgers which we still occasionally buy. We have plant based alternatives for mince so making our own chic'n burgers would save money and be healthier for us. I have thrown away three toiletries today, 2 empty and one half used but I think it was off it had all separated and smelled funny. Have spares of all these in the cupboard or on the way with our s&s from amazonia on Friday!

Just a few more days till pay day...still limping along... 

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all in MFW diary land, 

I have been paid some child benefit this morning, and as the saying goes, it came in one hand and went out the other within two hours.

DD asked if she could have some money on her dinner account at school so I put a small amount on. Then I needed to go to T supermarket as we are totally out of fruit, salad and bread and loo rolls and a few other bits. I was good I made a list, I stuck to it and didn't pick up anything extra. I got to the till and as it was scanning through my heart was in my stomach, it went over what I had in my account I haven't been in this situation in a long time! However that is usually because I would ask DP to take from his OD and send to me to cover spends and I wouldn't stick to lists. So i was preparing myself for what to put back when the man on the till says, you haven't scanned your c1ubcard yet! I scanned it and it took it down to me having £1 leftover ! PHEW!!!

I came away muttering to myself, MUST NOT _ WILL NOT EVER GET INTO THIS SITUATION AGAIN!!!

Many years ago when I was a single mum with my eldest this would be my default state at a till until it became such a regular occurrence it didn't even bother me any more saying, can you take X, Y, Z off please. However my eldest is 25 now, I really should do better, know better. URGH. Anyway crisis diverted. I got to keep the crisps (the treats would have been the first to go). 

So we have enough food hopefully now to get us through to pay day on Thursday. I already had enough dinners but the kids being home have been hard on the last week as they haven't stopped themselves at any point and thought, should  I not eat all the treats and fruit at once and perhaps leave some for another day? Nope they went right ahead and ate the lot. 

Anyhow....moving on....I am at work usual time today. I have dinner out on the side ready to be prepped, cooked and ready for a quick reheat later and some pasta making with it. It is veggie sausage surprise. The surprise being whatever veg is lurking at the bottom of the fridge being turned into a tomato sauce concoction with chopped up sausage and pasta mixed in. 

Dog has been walked, washing up has been done and I slept better last night so feeling a little more energetic. I have stopped taking my herbal supplements for perimenopause.....I actually think they were causing the hot flushes in me! I had an intuitive thought a couple of weeks ago that something may be causing these flushes because they only came on at night after I had taken my tablets. So i stopped everything I take (I don't take prescription anything don't worry) so that was msm, biotin and these gingko ones for peri-m. I also take a prebiotic but I have carried that on since last week (took one week break) and that has been fine with me so far. I am adding back in my biotin today as well. And will keep an eye on whether they return (flushes) but I think it is the gingseng ones. I also stopped taking magnesium a while back I was told to take it to help me sleep. I had dizzy spells, weakness, heart palpitations, stomach cramps. I couldn't figure it out till DP said he thought it was the magneisum. Sure enough when we searched up side effects I had a lot of them. They stopped after I quit the magnesium. So I should go on my s&s on Am@zon really and cancel all these supplements. I think our bodies for the most part know what they are doing without any interference especially if you eat well, exercise and keep your body in decent shape. 

I will update the signature in a mo for the food budget. 
I am trying to decide what to do with the mortgage OP. I have two of these Christmas saver accounts at 6% one for me and one for DP. I could max them out with the OP and withdraw it all by November and make one lump sum then with an added 6% bonus. Or I could pay it straight off the mortgage which is 2.49%....it would be satisfying to see the amount come down every month but i think it makes more financial sense to pay it into a savings account until it matures?! I don't know whether interest it top loaded onto a mortgage or whether it is calculated daily/ monthly/ yearly. I should ask really. If I decide to use the savers accounts for the mortgage I will put the Christmas money into the cah00t savers account I have which was 5%. 

DP may have struck up a small side hustle that could bring a small pot of income in regularly, I think he was up all night pondering it We will see though I won't add anything to the budget because it will be up and down to start with and he may need to spend as much as he is earning at first with it. I have asked that he pay the money he uses for the diesel to pick up these things he buys back into the account though every month so we are not out of pocket in that respect. 

Going to have a little nosey on some others diary's and some blogs I found, and also my bank to see if I can figure out what to do with the OP. 

debtfreewannabe321

Okay I've done some reading and played about with the mortgage Vs savings calculator. It makes more sense for me to save the money considering I am on a low interest rate. So with that in mind I am using the YBS account to save the amount I was earmarking for OP anyway. So £300 will be spread over the two accounts and once matured at the end of the year, I will pay that to the mortgage OP. Along with any interest. 

I will put the Christmas budget, EF, birthday budget, clothes and anything else we are saving for into the other savings account as there is no penalty for withdrawing from there. 

This budgeting lark is hard work when you first start it up but I know it will pay off so I keep playing around with it and the numbers to make It work for us. Excited to get paid now and move some money around and make It actually work for us for once. I've made a list for payday for how much needs to be transferred to each account. I've opened four new accounts for DP & I since starting up on MSE again 😆 at least this is less than the amount of accounts I used to have on my DFW diary am sure I had a dozen at on point all for different things. Going to try and be organised this time and leave all the savings (aside from mortgage OP) in one account and just keep a detailed account of where I'm at with each pot in that account.

Okay lunch time and need to cook dinner before work. Organising money and budgets is hungry work. 🤪☺️

LadyWithAPlan

Sounds like your new 'ynab' version is working for you - though the grocery shop experience sounds difficult. The grocery challenge thread suggest dropping down a bit per month so £750pm -£700 over a few months and then keep sliding down to £500 as you get used to the new constraints. 

I love the new ynab especially as its on my mobile as well  plus the toolkit for ynab on desktop but then I never knew the old one   but if what you are doing is working for you then great. Sounds like you are focused and will get there.
For me $100 a year (and i have this year free as I have a student card)  is nothing compared to me taking the time out to have to build dashboards and spreadsheets, and the speed of bank transactions all  being pulled in  automatically and being able to reconcile easily means  time is saved and the absolute  in your face - if you overspend here you will have to take it out of there ...  plus I am catching extra dd's quickly

debtfreewannabe321

LadyWithAPlan said:

Sounds like your new 'ynab' version is working for you - though the grocery shop experience sounds difficult. The grocery challenge thread suggest dropping down a bit per month so £750pm -£700 over a few months and then keep sliding down to £500 as you get used to the new constraints. 

I love the new ynab especially as its on my mobile as well  plus the toolkit for ynab on desktop but then I never knew the old one   but if what you are doing is working for you then great. Sounds like you are focused and will get there.
For me $100 a year (and i have this year free as I have a student card)  is nothing compared to me taking the time out to have to build dashboards and spreadsheets, and the speed of bank transactions all  being pulled in  automatically and being able to reconcile easily means  time is saved and the absolute  in your face - if you overspend here you will have to take it out of there ...  plus I am catching extra dd's quickly

I had trouble reconciling my accounts with YNAB last time I trialled it so I had to manually put everything in. It was the first free version though, perhaps they were just kinks that needed ironing out?? Hmmm...I might try it again if it all becomes a bit overwhelming on paper but i've always preferred paper and pen over everything with a battery and password but it might be worth taking another look at it.

I probably should have done that with the grocery budget, this is how I did it before but I was super annoyed at myself and just knew I didn't need to spend as much as I was and wanted the money for the OP. By not spending £800 per month on food and only £500 that is my £300 OP right there *d'oh*! ...I wasn't meal planning or bulk cooking or anything due to new job, DIY and total overwhelm. This year feels easier already, I am used to the new job's hours, and also DIY has massively slowed down to a point where we can pick up a job and have it done in a weekend rather than two months. I am truly amazed at some of the diaries on here managaing to bulk cook, budget and rip down walls and have their house in total disarray whilst decorating I was only able to do one thing at a time.