The Fantastic Frugalleers Meander into May.....

[Girliefriendlikesflowers]

Thought it was about time I started a new thread

ipsos I'm going back to accupuncture and I know the lady I'm going to see knows people who can show me meditation techniques. I've been pinteresting and found some in-shower meditation. Basically imagining washing the stress away.

I'll let you know what I discover.

For now though, I'm trying to get more sleep by completely exhausting myself. So have walked to and from work and have gymmed. Better sleep. Proper sleep. Healthy body. Need to sort my busy mind now.

Am in bed. Flight is at 7am.

We used those air flow bumpers, Eva. They were really good, they attach to the cot with Velcro and are thin, breathable fabric. They also crumple if older babies try to stand on them so they can't use them as leverage to climb out! I think they are called Air Wraps???
Didn't manage an NSD after all as DH was working from home and I had such a shit morning (nothing awful just a collection of minor irritations!) that he bunked off a bit early and we went for coffee and a cake and a run round the park with DD which cheered us all up no end.
This evening we have begun to sort out the spare room. It is at least tidy enough to get in there without falling over anything now!
We have 2 huge storage boxes of CDs which we keep saying we are going to sort out, Ipod any songs we don't already have on the pc and then sell on Music Magpie but there are hundreds and I'm not sure it's worth the effort when we'll probably get pennies for most of them. Do you think it's worth trying a car boot?

Topcashback can't be taken as Tesco clubcard points after the end of July 😡

Hate Tesco.

Oh no! I bet my pending amount won't clear by then

Thanks for the advice Purple and Eastmids, will try to figure something out over the weekend.

Thanks for the advice Purple and Eastmids, will try to figure something out over the weekend.

Sorry you had a bad journey Audit, hope the holiday is better and you are not flooded.
Just seen about the terrible flooding in France and Germany . Feel bad now complaining about the rain.
LSD here...just some eggs.
Planted some more veggies...now have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. Dwarf French beans, courgettes and butternut squash and leeks.
Need to make some more veggie beds so can plant some runner beans. ( ans wash the kitchen floor because half the mud from garden is now on the floor.
Busy selling stuff to save the money.
Hope everyone is enjoying half term with DCs.
Saved nearly £1000 for building work but it is soooo hard being frugal all the time and saving.

Place marking

Well nsd today for me. Dh will pay later when we go to the races I got up at 5:30 to do the shred off to work in a sec then off out at 3:30.

£10 today on ds football camp

Your veggies sound lovely trying. I have strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, a raised bed devoted to herbs and then carrots and fennel just sown in the last one.

Have a lovely time wrecked.

It is a shame isn't it Ipsos re our young neighbours. We haven't had the rain, and I think it's due to warm up again over the weekend thankfully. I agree, it's tins of paint, bags of compost, material etc that can really add up.

We are going off again this afternoon, I need to buy a few provisions and fill the box up for this today.

Lovely to hear about other people's veggie patches. I'm doing them in containers this year.
So far I have troughs of spinach, spring onions and radishes; hanging baskets of strawberries and tomatoes; a window box full of herbs plus a few pots on the patio; 2 tubs of beetroot and bags of carrots and potatoes. Also raspberries and blueberries in large pots on the patio and rhubarb in a bed. Over the weekend I'm going to plant lettuce seeds, more carrots and potatoes and maybe get some runner bean plants although I am running out of space!

Where do you get the energy wreck??!!

Fairly spendy few days as we have some work going on at the house and I've been spending a lot of time in cafes avoiding the dust! Oh well, I'm consoling myself that all savings pots are ahead of where they should be so this month giving myself a 'spending pots holiday'!

Following on from my question earlier in the week about future planning I e been having a look at the MSE 'mortgage free wannabe' boards and think this is the way forward for us. It may not happen immediately but at least when we stop paying childcare in a few years we've agreed that we will take that amount (likely to be around £800pm) and pay that straight off the mortgage. Would be interested to hear from anyone else who is overpaying

I over pay in a slightly different way Ursula. I have an offset mortgage to which Iput old childcare money into and then round up my mortgage payment to the nearest £100 per month. We have knocked 8 years and counting off our mortgage. I like having the instant access to the money just in case v but it still works for us to reduce interest. When we finish childcare altogether in a few years that's going in a travel pot so we can show the kids the world

Or we might use that money to move house. Who knows what 5 years will bring

Ursula we have overpaid since we first got a mortgage in 2007 it was £900/mth!! and we paid £1k a mth slowly that reduced with lowering intrest rates and obv paying some off we continued to pay the same and had we not have moved would be mortgage free now but that's now some distance future more due to our childcare bill being near on £1k/mth so we still overpay although its now capped - I would advise when you are next due to remortgage have it over the shortest term with payments you can afford ie- when our last deal ended they wanted us to do 20yr term but we wanted 12yr term so agreed 15yrs as just had to prove we could pay it.

Basically anything extra we have goes to overpaying we don't have luxury holidays kids won't remember when little can have those when older also we know teenagers are more expensive than little ones so want to be mortgage free in 8yrs when ds1 hits teenage yrs.

Thank you! Feeling quite excited to have a plan now! East we've had our mortgage since 2007 and started off paying £900pm - can't imagine paying that now!! We now pay half of that; just imagine where we'd be if we'd carried on paying that amount? Oh well, life changed and the extra money in our pockets has been essential since having DD. Babs it helps to soften the blow of a huge childcare bill to see it as a future lump sum to do with as you please! We've just re-fixed our mortgage for 5 years. I need to dig out all the paper work and see how much we can overpay. Our childcare bill should come to an end in August/September 2019 (as long as 30 free hours goes ahead) so I want to work out what we can aim for before then.

Your lender might have its own online calculator, we overpay £26 a month and it knocks 9 months off.

When the sofa finishes I'll add that to the mortgage.

Fluffy it's figures like that which make it all seem so achievable - I probably spend that amount on Greggs lunches a month through being disorganised!

If I increased it by £4 I'd knock another 3 months off. I must do that.

£43 to change my car on my car ins. £25 of that was an admin fee and I did it online so how do they get away with charging that?.

I have complained.

I have ^possibly* complained to the wrong CEO but it's a start.

I am going with Aviva next time.

We really really need to remortgage on a better deal and then overpay. It's just finding time when DH and I can both go to the bank and my mum can babysit!

Ursula remember the free 30hrs will be term time only and the childcare provider can set the sessions usually when already iin a nursery they let you keep same hrs and deduct the amount they get for free hrs if just do free hrs sometimes thats fixed to say 8.30-11.30 and 1.30-4.30 and they charge for middle bit plus lunch .

My cynical thinking tells me 30 free hrs will come in after a yr it will be realised it doesn't work and becomes means tested and iit will be those of us who really need it but earn just that
Little bit to much who miss out.

When we bought our house the broker came to us. London and county do it all over the phone.

Yep I will remain cynical until I see the 30hrs in action! We currently have to use a separate childminder for nursery drop offs and pick ups as the 15hrs don't fit with work! However I do work term time only and my school have hinted at opening a childcare setting so that would help enormously! Do you think we'll be able to use 30 hours with a childminder?