Goodbye Mortgage - the beginning of the end!

I think it's right about the offsets being the only ones we can view online. It's really annoying, but hopefully it won't make too much difference. It would just be nice being able to log in and see it going down!

I haven't got much to update on the MFW side of things, although it's been an expensive few days. I had to take the dog to the vets this morning as I spotted a lump between his pads last week. Although I've been bathing it in salt water it's not changed. They've prescribed him a weeks worth of antibiotics as they think there's something in there. If those don't work then he'll need to be sedated and have it lanced. They said it's likely he'll need that and I should claim on his insurance if he does, which I'm dreading as we've never claimed before so have been able to cancel our policy and take out a new one every year to keep getting the introductory discount. I also came out of the vets £65 lighter, he's worth every penny but it's still expensive for what it was!

I've got a couple of hours of paid training this afternoon for work, then about 11 days straight as I've taken on some extra shifts. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but it's worth it to eat away at that mortgage!

It does seem to help doesn't it!

Now, I wish I had a fantastic and productive report to make, but it's actually quite the opposite. At the end of last month I divided our money up, and put £600 into savings (split between Mortgage OPs/OH's New Car Fund/Savings) with the intentions of adding our leftovers at the end of the month. I've now had to take money back out, and have generally gone to pot a bit. I've gone over my £200 food budget by about £20 so far, and that's with sticking to my meal plans and buying cheaper things that I would have bought previously.

We're also having a bit of bother with British Gas not being able to register my Nectar Card due to some 'fault' on my nectar account and them 'working on it', which could take months apparently (while we're on expensive standard tariff, of course!). I was hoping to have it done so I could change tariff (or supplier), but I think I'll just have to do it and loose the potential nectar points as we had to submit our meter reading online and I was shocked at how much we had used. Our DD was estimated at £36.50. Turns out we used 787 units in our 2 months of living here, which I think is insane. They calculated our bill and we now owe them £32.94 extra meaning we're really spending about £52.97 per month. I'm trying to look at the tariffs and different suppliers on the comparison sites but everytime I do a comparison it throws up totally different results and I'm a bit confused if I'm honest.

So a big aim for me is to keep electricity consumption down and get my head around the crazy lists of suppliers/tariffs. We had a key card at our old house, and although it was expensive I'm embarassed to say I think the simplicity was almost worth the extra!

Today's meter reading is: 2261.7

I've just had a good read of that and of todays article on Scottish Power deals, and have run through each of the comparison sites. They all seem to say British Gas Online Variable August 2013 is the cheapest options for us. I'm not really a fan of locking into something, but it's only got a £30 cancellation fee if we ever did need to change. Plus, I'll get cashback for switching, a free energy monitor which I'm sure will keep me entertained, and the my nectar points if they ever get round to sorting out my card's 'fault'. Am going to go through confused.com and Quidco, as the other comparison sites couldn't give me the energysmart option online. I hope it goes smoothly!