MeandO's mortgage-free musings

MeandO · 4 January 2018 at 12:54PM

I've received a refund of £19.90 received from an item sent back before Christmas. It'll sit in the bank account for now as the categories are looking a little low with three weeks to go until payday.

I completed a few more surveys yesterday, I'm not far from another £5 Amazon voucher, so will try and keep at it over the next few days.

I've brought breakfast and luch to work; tonight OH and I are going out for dinner with a groupon deal we bought before Christmas, so there'll be nothing more to pay.

Not much else to report, I think it's going to be a long rest of month until payday.

greent · 4 January 2018 at 3:14PM

MeandO wrote: »

I think it's going to be a long rest of month until payday.

Yep - I share your pain.. Jan is always financially more difficult - and manky weather makes people feel glum as well

MeandO · 5 January 2018 at 10:14AM

Very true Greent.

YNAB all updated today. 84p in interest added to the account, I'll try not to spend it all at once...

OH picked me up 6 packets of 8 tortilla wraps for 5p a pack last night as DS loves them and I use them weekly. Quite a saving, as they're usually 95p a pack. :T They've been tucked away in the freezer. He wouldn't take the money for them either, so free to me!

I collected the items I'd ordered for birthdays/christmas and they have been put away for later. Had them delivered to store to avoid a delivery charge.
I also bought DS another birthday gift yesterday. It was half price at £12.99, but I had a voucher for the shop so it didn't cost me anything.

Groupon meal last night was quite nice, although I wouldn't have paid full price for it, glad it only cost us £10 for the two of us including drinks. OH oredered and side order and we tipped the waitress so spent an extra £2.50 from my purse.

I've brought breakfast to work and grabbed a little portion of pasta from the freezer for lunch on my way out of the door. It's surprising the money I've saved since not buying lunch daily.

MeandO · 8 January 2018 at 10:47AM

Just ordered a £50 Amazon gift card from the central heating cover I took out 2 months ago. I have some items saved in my Amazon basket at the moment for DS's and OH's birthdays in February so that will go a long way towards those. :T

MeandO · 9 January 2018 at 11:14AM

I ordered some presents from Amazon last night with the voucher, cost me a grand total of 36p. :j I also placed an online grocery order for delivery tonight which will cost around £45. This month's budget is now absolutely depleted and there's over 2 weeks to go until payday.

I think I will end up having to transfer some cash from the savings to cover it this month.

I'm feeling really down and a bit beaten by everything today. It's been creeping up on me this week and today I just feel physically and mentally exhausted. There's no particular reason for it, just the usual stream of worry - my Mum, DS, money, work, the problems with the house and now, really worringly, OH is showing some really concerning health symptoms and I'm trying to convince him to see the doctor.

I just wish life was kinder and a little easier once in a while.

MeandO · 10 January 2018 at 11:57AM

Lots of surveys completed this morning and I had enough points for another £5 Amazon voucher.

I'm going to save these up to buy some presents for OHs birthday next month now.

Mr T delivery came last night, so we're well stocked up for a good while. If I'm resourceful, we should be able to manage until next payday in a couple of weeks, just topping up with some milk and bread etc.

I was looking throuhg my recipe books last night and I really need to get back to baking and batch-cooking. I'm going to try and earmark a few different recipes to try for DS as I'm aware he eats the same meals on rotation. I need to get him trying new dishes, although I'm expecting resistance from the little person about that.

:(

I've brought some HM soup to work with some bread and salad stuff to make an open sandwich to go with it. Dinner for DS will be something quick from the freezer after his swimming lesson. OH is coming over for food tonight, so I've got us one of the YS bargain dishes out of the freezer and have lots of lovely veg to go with it.

Still skint, still waiting for payday, still exhausted as DS was up coughing several times last night.

MeandO · 10 January 2018 at 1:55PM

I have an old iphone at home that broke, annoyingly, last year and couldn't be fixed. I've been considering selling it on ebay but have been thinking it's probably not worth the hassle - just looked up a few mobile reselling sites and it looks like I can get £65 - £85 for it, even in its broken state! You know what I'll be doing when I get home...

I sorted all of DS's clothes out a couple of days ago and have a bag full for the charity shop, a couple of bits were thrown out and I have a pile I've put aside to put on ebay. Think I will wait until next month to list them - hopefully people may have a bit more money to bid on things by then.

One pair of DS's school shoes are now too small for him too. Thankfully, I had a 'reserve pair' which my parents picked up in the sales for me which fit him, but I don't think they'll last that long as they're not a sturdy make. I'm hoping they last until after payday though. He also needs bigger school jumpers which I'm hoping to pick up next month as I can't afford it this month. They work out at about £10 each and he will need a minimum of 3; 4 would be prererable, but we'll see if I can stretch to that. I may need to ask DS's father to contribute a little more next month which won't go down well, but I'm not sure I can afford it all myself, unless I can find him some sturdy shoes in the sale. I might take him to get his feet measured this weekend and see what size he's in now, hopefully we'll find an absolute bargain in his size right in front of us too!

MeandO · 11 January 2018 at 11:35AM

I've completed the old phone trade in online and there should be £65 gained from that, I just need to pop it in the (free) post tonight.

I probably could have got more on ebay or a few different sites, but this one seemed the easiest and most reliable way of trading it in, so that will do for me.

I've completed two surveys this morning and am one or two surveys off another £5 Amazon voucher, so am hoping I get sent a few more surveys today and can cash my points in for another voucher today or tomorrow.

I have packaged a parcel up of clothes to return that I bought in a january sale on the credit card. I'm pretty desperate for clothes, I don't have a lot that fits me

, but I really didn't like any of them, so they will be returned (free) tonight and the money will be credited back to the card. The smart move would just be to lose weight so that I can get into a lot of clothes I have, but I don't seem to be very successful at that.

:(

No changes in the bank account. No-one has dropped a large (or small!) sum of money in for me unfortunately, although I do keep checking just to make sure...

:rotfl:

MeandO · 11 January 2018 at 2:38PM

I just realised I'd made a mistake on YNAB which, thankfully, is in my favour! I had an extra £102.80 that I'd accidentally put into next month's income rather than this month, so, things are not as brassic as I thought. However, I've decided to top up the fuel and grocery pots a little - I have £40 for fuel now and £20 left for groceries which will be plenty until payday and the rest I've decided to split between the savings (£10) and made an overpayment of £60.93 to the mortgage. :j
It's not all good though...

after refunds of £96 there was an outstanding balance of £166.96 on the credit card. Once again, I've taken the money from savings to pay it off. I just can't bear having debt on the credit card these days, BUT, I'm constantly dipping into savings to pay it off which isn't good. So, I've just deleted the card from my amazon account and will be taking it out of my purse when I get home and putting it in the attic... I don't like going in there and will only do so if absolutely necessary.

Either that, or I'm just going to cut it up... I think the latter may be the better idea.

So, totals now:

Savings: £1090
Mortgage: £78099.07

Goodness, that 7p is bothering me!

MeandO · 11 January 2018 at 3:04PM

My OP aim for 2018 is to overpay my mortgage by a MINIMUM of £100 a month. I know this isn't a lot to some people, but to me, a single Mum and working part time now, it's quite a lot to find sometimes whilst balancing everything else out. I'm hoping to be able to make it much more than that when I can, but it's a good starting point for me to aim for every month. It would also mean I would clear my mortgage 6 years & 7 months earlier and save me £9377 in interest! :eek:

So far this month, I've managed to overpay by £92.19, so I have another £7.81 to find which will be no problem.

As I won't be paying council tax for the next two months, that sees a saving of £81 a month to me. (Less than half of what I was paying in my last property which was over £163 a month WITH single person discount!!!:eek:). I shall be splitting the £162 between the savings and the mortgage - £80 towards the savings, £82 OP to the mortgage. Gosh, this overpaying lark gets addictive doesn't it! :rotfl:

MeandO's mortgage-free musings

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