Courgette resets her sights

wishingthemortgaheaway · 4 February 2018 at 10:09AM

No idea why my apostrophes are being munched by gremlins, but someone else is having that issue too, or so I have read recently.

Wish.

newgirly · 4 February 2018 at 11:34AM

I can see how it might get you down not having a car, especially in winter and with young children in tow. Do you have good public transport where you are?

edinburgher · 4 February 2018 at 11:41AM

C25K feels like a stretch for the first 4-5 weeks. Once you get over the 20 minute hump it's all plain sailing.

Courgette · 9 February 2018 at 6:25PM

Forgive me MFWers for I have sinned.....found a fabulous playmobil castle in a charity shop for £15. Just couldn't resist. We're at peak playmobil time here and I just love it so much. DS3 absolutely delighted!

Also bagged a load of great quality school uniform for £1.20.

Half term now. Need to keep focusing on building up eBay sales plus of course having a lovely (frugal!) time with my boys. Got some free activities booked in at the local library and parents in law coming down for a visit.

On the spendy side, we have decided to block a door up and replace with a wall and window. Will look great and it's really made the downstairs of the house 'click' but......£1000. Ooooooffff!!!!!!

beanielou · 9 February 2018 at 7:21PM

Happy half term

Courgette · 10 February 2018 at 10:14PM

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Depending on where you live, have you thought about going in a car club scheme? Usually they are in big cities, so it might count you out. But the cars are left in designated places, you hire for a certain amount of time and then return to where you found it.

Also, looking on groupon and cashback sites etc might get you a standard car hire car for a reasonable amount. Some places, that cater for the business market do 3 day!!!8217;s for the price of 1 or four for the price of two over weekends.

Might not be an option, but just a thought.

Thanks wishing. We do actually have a drop off point just round the corner from where we are. I don't quite get it though, as in I can't work out how it's supposed to be cheaper or more convenient than getting a taxi. Standard cost is £6pm membership, £5 per hour rental plus 20p per mile. Then you also need to get it back for a specific time which I think I would find quite stressful. Like, what would I do if I was in the car on my own and stuck in traffic? How could I go online to renew? Late fees seem fairly steep too but I can't remember what they are. It's a shame because it seems like such a good idea. I just can't work out the cost aspect of it though.

Courgette · 10 February 2018 at 10:38PM

Tried to do a multiquote thingy, have totally forgotten how to do it. Been away too long! :eek:

Anyway, you asked for it, so here it is! (Not that thrilling really! :rotfl:)

First started posting about 10 years ago. When I first started posting on this board I felt absolutely certain I'd be laughed off it. I was a single mother at the time and had just graduated my MA. I bought a house on minimum wage (long story, but persistence pays off, like it says down there!). For various reasons home ownership has always really mattered to me, not home ownership as in mortgaged, actual home ownership so I made a lot of sacrifices along the way. Anyway, you lot are the awesomest people pretty much on the whole internet and no one laughed at me ever!

Over the course of my diary I qualified as a teacher, worked as teacher, hated it, left. I met, married and reproduced with a lovely man, and came within one month ONE MONTH of being mortgage free! One flaming month!

I left teaching with nothing to go to and out of fear started working as a private tutor, something I appear to be very good at (I was rubbish at classroom teaching, too introverted so it exhausted me). I also started an eBay business 3 days before DS3 was due, as you do. I felt certain that tuition would dry up for me with 3 kids and no longer working in school but that hasn't been the case.

A couple of years ago DH realised he hated his low paid high stress job and walked ( a few days shy of his 40th birthday, any link is purely circumstantial - no mid-life crisis here! :eek::rotfl:). He was at home for a bit running the day to day stuff of eBay and allowing me to throw myself into tuition. There was a point when I made more through private tuition than I had as a full time classroom teacher!

Anyway, he works 2-3 days a week in an easy, stress-free job that pays okay but not amazingly, I still tutor and we run the eBay business together. Neither of us love it but it has been brilliant for allowing us to put the needs of our growing family first. We have a plan to continue to grow the business for three more years then to sell sell sell and pay off the mortgage.

Oh - one month off being MF was because we bought somewhere new and our old place is now a BTL. We're accidental landlords rather than by design but it's been okay mostly. Really wish I could have got my MF badge like all the cool kids have!

Er, what else? Last year I published an eBook (about being a private tutor - party on!) and have made a grand total of about a tenner in sales. However, I loved it and I totally intend to write more. Perhaps market them a bit better though :rotfl:

Anything else? Is that enough?

Oh the second: I asked for all my old diaries to be deleted a while ago. I was recognised in a museum once while I was randomly breastfeeding DS2 and it scared me a bit even though I pretended to laugh at the time. My diaries were very long and had a lot of personal information on them including the births of two of my children, miscarriages, the rise and fall of my teaching career, the city I live in, my date of marriage, my birthday. Yeah, identity hackers eat your hearts out!

Anything else anyone wants to know?

beanielou · 10 February 2018 at 11:03PM

Thanks for sharing courgette

wishingthemortgaheaway · 11 February 2018 at 8:09AM

Wow Courgette, what a story. And I agree, the car club seems complicated. What a shame it is so.

Courgette · 11 February 2018 at 9:38AM

Goodness, do you know.... It's SO good to be back! Have just read betterthanever's diary. Totally inspirational! And this place is full of diaries like that! Will never squander hours of my life on Facebook again

Yesterday I spent the day clearing out and going through our eBay stock. Er, there's quite a lot of it! But it feels so much better for having had a proper inventory and a corresponding list of jobs to do. More to do today so will crack on in a bit. My plan is to turn DS1's bedroom into an office for tuition (he's traveling for at least a year) but to do that I'll need to make sure all the stock can fit in our downstairs eBay stock room

Hoping DH feels like doing a cooked breakfast. Will just lie here a bit longer and see who caves first!

Courgette resets her sights

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