Mortgage Free by 50???

Muddy_Walker

Hi! I am stupidly wide awake at this time of night and have just read your diary- love it and your very wholesome outlook! 

Keep going you are doing marvellously!

browneyed_girl

Congratulations on making it to January payday without major incident!  Have just caught up on your diary - it has given me the urge to start baking and (more importantly) eat more cake!  Unfortunately, I never seem to find the time anymore and got horribly depressed when stumbling upon a very neglected piping set that had seen better days

I think it's amazing how much you contribute to the household whilst also working - your OH is very lucky!  I know how hard it is for DH working part-time but taking on the bulk of the childcare and housework due to my demanding job - hats off to the both of you! 
 

Cara_

I've just ready through your diary. You are doing really well with budgeting/saving. I'm impressed with how organised you are and everything you do - love that you are darning your socks.

Good luck with the budgeting.

Cara

hatch_five

Thankyou for all the lovely comments, its nice to see that people are actually reading my waffling! Well last weekend I fell off the wagon quite spectacularly! I spent £54 on 54 DVDs (so £1 each)- they are specialist DVDs that normally retail for £15 each new and about £8 each second hand on eBay, I didn’t have any of them and I will watch them, but its still £54 I feel a little guilty for spending. I then went into town to go to the model railway show, I had budgeted some spends, but then spotted a ‘bargain’ and ended up putting an extra £19 on my debit card, so I have spent an extra £75 I didn’t budget for! This will have to come out of my emergency fund and I will have to put extra back in on the next payday to cover… definitely feeling a little guilty about it but heyho. Being good all the time is hard, especially when you have a lot of hobbies and you see a ‘bargain’! I still have a few other things budgeted for this month, so I will try and bring them in under budget and claw a little money back to make up for my lack of will power. On a plus, a friend has asked me to help him lay a carpet on Saturday and said he'd give me a tenner for helping- I would have helped for free, but this side of payday the £10 will be very much appreciated and hopefully I won't have to transfer as much money from the emergency savings as I had planned!

hatch_five

Busy weekend- I helped my friend get his carpet down, I hate laying carpet but we did a reasonable job and the worst bits will be hidden by the bed! He gave me a tenner for helping which was much appreciated. I also collected a box of model railway engines to clean and service for his brother (plus a bottle of ten year old Jura single malt as payment which will be greatly enjoyed although it will probably last me five years as I am not much of a drinker). This morning I did a mass of baking- lemon iced fairy cakes, rolled oat macaroons, shortbread and a coffee cake- so the cake tins are filled for the week. I also got the kid's homework sorted out. DS's maths is always a right pain. I am pretty good at maths (but it was 25+ years ago) but even I was struggling with the angles homework he had this week, OH took one look at it and said we were on our own! We got it done in the end, but it was painful! 

I got serious brownie points yesterday as I found a My Little Pony t-shirt for DD in the charity shop for £2, it was the 1980s one that OH used to watch as a kid and still has all the toys for so they were both over the moon with my find. This afternoon I have the joy of painting some Animal Crossing figurines I 3D printed. DS wants to give one to his g/f as part of her Valentines gift, but its fallen to muggins to actually print and paint the thing...

hatch_five

Half term week and I have taken a couple of days off work- yesterday was taking the kids to the dentist which was an expected spend and taking Thursday off to have a day out to the Media Museum with the kids for a computer gaming event (not my thing but OH and the kids are keen!). Luckily OH is paying for this day out and lunch out (only Maccy D’s but its nice to have a meal I haven’t had to make!) as I am clinging on until payday next week! I have half a scuttle of coal left so I am eeking it out until next week when I can order some more. Luckily I have plenty of wood left, and the weather is warming up for a few days, but I will feel a lot better with some coal back in the bunker! I can only afford to order 2.5cwt but that should see me through this winter and I will finish filling up the bunker later in the year ready for next winter when funds allow. A full bunker will usually last two winters so it lasts a long time and saves a fortune on the heating bill (the stove has saved our bacon a few times over the last few years with the rising energy costs!).

hatch_five

Well last night's tea was very money saving! I went rooting in the freezer and found a couple of salmon fillets I had picked up before Christmas which had been knocked down from £5 to 25p. I went in the cupboard and found a packet sauce mix for creamy baked cod with dill I had bought for 10p somewhere. I figured cod and salmon were close enough that it would still taste nice. Made up with some single cream it was very delicious. It was only once it was in the oven that I checked when the sauce mix's best before date was...2013!!! I don't usually bother with best before dates, but even I was a little surprised it was twelve years out of date! Well it tasted very nice and we haven't felt ill or thrown up so I think I got away with it...

hatch_five

I want to cry! Was in a meeting this afternoon when all of a sudden the power in the house went out completely. After checking it wasn't a power cut I reset the breakers, and the sockets in both the house and kitchen kept tripping the electrics instantly. Spent ages trying to track down the fault and in the end had to call out the emergency electrician. After a lot of hunting he managed to discover it was down to a damaged extension cable that was short circuiting. So that has cost me all my emergency savings, £150 on the credit card and I owe OH £50 back next week when I get paid that I had to borrow out of the housekeeping. Definitely feels like every time I take a step forward I get knocked two steps back. On the positive, at least the house hasn't burnt down or the kids gotten electrocuted so in the end I suppose that's what counts and I can start building the emergency fund back up again next week when I get paid.

vampirotoothus

Oh, how frustrating for you! It will get better....keep going. Good luck V x

hatch_five

It never rains but it pours...OH was making porridge in the microwave this morning and it began to smoke. We have had it since the kids were babies, so its had a good run, but would rather it hadn't gone today after all the money I spent out yesterday! Its had to go on OH's Argos card, but as we use it every morning for the kid's breakfast its kind of a necessity. Anyway off out for a family day out so at least today is going to go better than it started (fingers crossed)