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

ladybird1106

Miss giddychops is a GOB with other dogs, especially young ones. Can’t stand them jumping in her face. We did contemplate getting another dog as I miss walking longer distances. The other day she refused to continue further and insisted we go back up the road to home. She’s certainly feeling her age although that has not affected her hollowed out legs.
love 🐞

debtfreewannabe321

ladybird1106 said:

Miss giddychops is a GOB with other dogs, especially young ones. Can’t stand them jumping in her face. We did contemplate getting another dog as I miss walking longer distances. The other day she refused to continue further and insisted we go back up the road to home. She’s certainly feeling her age although that has not affected her hollowed out legs.
love 🐞

He has a beard. And well, pup thought it was fair game to be chewed on 😂
Aw this exactly the same with FLD he can't go far. It seems to be since he became ill the last time. His ages seems to have just crept up on him and I can't walk him further than about two miles now without him complaining. Before he'd happily hike all day with me and the kids. But I guess that was a few years ago now and he's 12....hate to think of him getting old he's like my fourth baby. ❤️

redofromstart

The packing thing has to be slow and steady I think, or you go quietly mad.  I think we would do the short term storage rental too.

HotDog2020

redofromstart said:

The packing thing has to be slow and steady I think, or you go quietly mad.  I think we would do the short term storage rental too.

I agree...good luck with it...It is great that you have made a start...you can easily do a little bit each day and very soon it will be done. This is what I did to move packed everything non essential in the run up - I was nearly unpacked by the 3rd day when I moved in. Also do what you can to protect the more antiquey bits...good idea with short term storage ... it will be a weight off your mind.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, 
Yes the more I think about it the more I'm thinking peace of mind is worth a few quid, and let's face it we have saved over £300 on the removals with this quote. DP double checked the quote with the man who came to give it, the reason it is so low is because he's a new business although he's been in the business a fair while I think. He's not VAT registered yet so with this in mind, a storage locker is the way I am definitely going his reviews are all excellent on trust pilot though so I trust he will do a great job.
I collected some sturdy boxes this morning from a lovely gentleman just round the corner. They are all plastic most with lids so this is a big help for some of the delicate bits, I am also going to see if we can get our record collection in some of them. I need about 7-8 more banana boxes for my books. I have over half a dozen filled with books already  

Isn't it funny how we as humans love routine. It takes us a while to get a new routine going sometimes but once in it it is like a habit that is hard to break. I am talking specifically here about food budgets and shopping so usually I have 4 adults at home and the dog. So £500 spending for that. The first week I did spend most of the budget - on ynab I have divided the budget up into weeks - so first week I spent £124.06. This last week I have only spent around £66. DP is out with the car all week now catching up on meetings so I thought I would do an online shop. I went on there mindlessly and started adding our usuals which we would absolutely get through with 4 of us home. And then right as it was hitting £120 I was like- hold on- STOP! And I have come on here to wake myself up out of that little trance and bad habit

Instead I am going to meal plan every day (I am at the end of the food really that I bought last week) to eek it out as far as possible and eat cupboards down before moving. So I went in the fridge, we still have an entire box full of potatoes (thank you £2 box ) OH- I didn't tell you when I went to see my friend she sent me home with perhaps 12 trays of sausages, 8 boxes of burgers (all vegan) that she didn't want. They currently reside in the freezer and need eating really. Now I don't really support eating fake meats often, I think they're full of rubbish, she gets these from a butcher though and they taste amazing. But still not great for you. I have a dilemma. I can eat them down and save a fortune on food over the next few weeks- effectively saving enough money to cover ALL overspends in other categories on my budget and probably get a bit fat and spotty, or I can go and buy other foods and these may go to waste....so with that in mind I found a huge brocolli and some carrots in the fridge, perfectly fine to use still so we will have those steamed with Jacket pots for dinner and a couple of these burgers (they're quite small, think mcds hamburger size)....I will try and eat the freezer down and save the money but if I get sick of them I may have to give in on this idea. 

NSD today now as I have closed down Mr T and will not get any food today.
My YNAb is telling me I have 10 days on my age of money although I don't really understand what that actually means yet. It sounds pretty good though?

Today's jobs-
*finish packing delicate items- I have some teapots left then  I am moving on to lamps.  I didn't realise how many lamps we own. Oops. They are all weird shapes too so unsure what to do with some of them yet. I should have bought some of those packing noodles it would be easy then but I was trying to be frugal on packing stuff, getting what I can for free, and no one has gifted me any packing noodles yet

*I am also going to do a run through the kitchen and pack up stuff we won't be using in the next few weeks- like we can pack away the soup maker, large bulk cooking pans and extra plates, cups, glasses etc. My dining room is my packing station so I am putting everything on the table in there and packing from there. The kitchen looks an overwhelming job to me as it is much bigger than my last one and I seem to have collected an awful lot of stuff to fill it.

 *Perhaps a declutter whilst I pack as the new kitchen doesn't have as much storage.

*I still didn't sort the corner of the garage out. I went out took one look at all the webs in corners and came back in. I know- wimp. I need to do this to store boxes.

*I guess I should email solicitor again and see if we have any movement on these enquiries being tied up so we can set exchange dates.

*Need to go out to freezer and actually count how many trays of food I was gifted and see what else needs using up too. 

*I will message DD see what date they are planning on coming back. I believe their camp starts next week and would you believe we still have NO kit list?! 

I think that's all the jobs really. I want to do some stretching too my back is sore- and get my steps in on a dog walk. Aiming for 10k plus every day at the moment. I have used up 3 bottles of half/ quarter filled shampoos/ shower gels over the last few weeks so they were decluttered into the recycling bin.

Right I will make a start on those jobs and possibly be back at tea break time. 

debtfreewannabe321

Solicitors emailed ✅
Freezer checked ✅

Not achieved much else to be honest aside from scouring the house for delicate items to be put on the dining table ready to pack. I decided I wanted lunch instead and FLD got up to give me a cuddle and on the sofa we've stayed for the best part of an hour huddled under a blanket 🤣.

I forgot to say that the YNAB is getting slightly easier to manage and understand now (it's changed so much since I first used it). I think the thing that was tripping us up was constantly shifting money from one account to another. I.e we'd purchase dog food on DP card so I'd move the dog food out of the budgeted pot saving account into my current account it's attached to then out of there to DP account to cover the spend. For almost every thing it was meaning at least one transfer somewhere along the way and I was having to add all these transactions onto YNAB and where the odd one was getting lost along the way all the accounts were showing wrong amounts. So DP had a look on his starling account and he'd set up a joint account for us ages ago. I don't even have a card so we must have got as far as setting it up and not done anything with it. He's ordered new cards. Our plan is to have one big 'pot'. The YNAB should tell us how much we have left to spend on each category that goes in there so if we have £1000 in there we know £500 is for groceries, £100 for clothes, £20 for the dog, £100 for home maintenance etc etc and these will be our day to day spends. The long term expenses I'm saving for like next year's prime, Christmas, birthdays, big DIY jobs or holidays will stay in their current pots/ accounts separate from this. The day to day spends is needed continuously through the month so it makes sense DP and I both have access to it rather than him asking me to transfer X amount before he spends it. I hope this will work better...it's worth a try anyway!

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, well we had those burgers last night and I thought they were disgusting 😆 not to be too blunt. DP thought they were okay. So I've said we are going to keep them for now, I will base my meal plan when the kids are back around these and sausages 🤣 and whatever burgers are left we are chucking out. Seems such a waste but I can't really offer them up for free to others as they're around eight months OOD which didn't bother me but I wouldn't want to risk it with anyone else. Perhaps that's why they don't taste so great 🤔
Anyway so that's what I will do with those. We haven't a lot else in the freezer we've run the bread down to the last loaf out yesterday, couple of garlic breads, I also have all the sausages also OOD, and a few ice cream tubs, some vegan some for the kids. So that won't take too long to empty out.

My duvet turned up yesterday and one entire side of it they forgot to stitch 🤣 I am really not having much luck with internet purchases this month. I've emailed them online to see what they are going to do about it. I've said to DP if they offer some money off I may accept it and stitch it myself. 

A friend is home in the county today for a visit with her mum so she's going to pop over one day - excited to see her as she's been abroad since last year! Thankfully I can still make coffee and we have somewhere to sit amongst boxes 🤣

I may have sold something on FB they're coming to inspect at the weekend. It's a ceiling light so I need to get DP to take it down...it is coming down regardless as we will move it with us if she doesn't want it. 

More packing today I think and make a meal plan for when kids are back. I'm wondering what I can do with all the burgers..... perhaps some sort of Bolognese, burgers in buns, burgers rice and veg, burgers on a roast 🤔🤣 hmmm I will have a think and maybe search the internet....

Hopefully a NSD again haven't got anything planned I think we've enough food in still for just DP & I. 

Right off for now....need a second cuppa...

ladybird1106

I’d chop them up and bolognaise them to hide the flavour. 

Love🐞

beanielou

I would shove them in the food bin.  Sorry.

debtfreewannabe321

beanielou said:

I would shove them in the food bin.  Sorry.

🤣🤣 No need to be sorry that's what my thoughts are too!