Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

Friend has just postponed dinner as she's not well, so have postponed some spending there (probably a good thing this month). Still need to go out this evening to collect something from Mum's, so will probably do all the other bits I had planned. Can come home to a nice bit of salmon and something for dinner though

The post brought a £5 WR voucher from Shell yesterday, so that'll help to eke out the balances on gift cards until Christmas... Had vouchers from Sains this morning, but don't think I'll use them as all need a minimum spend of £20 and that goes against my plan!

Work was quiet yesterday, so started on Christmas cards. Also soaked some chickpeas and cooked them off this morning - will be nice to make a curry with some. Will freeze them in the meantime (if I don't munch too many as they are!). Had leftover squash for dinner last night and am on operation fridge use-up between now and Christmas - there's too many jars of things lurking in there! Work has picked up today, so focusing on that as it's the best way to pay off the mortgage!

Have been super-focused with work so far today - am impressing myself and probably giving my client ideas about how fast I can work that I shouldn't be! The other person that was supposed to be working on the project has dropped out because of family issues, so I should get to take all of the work, which is great - December/January can be quite quiet, so it's nice to have something solid to be working on.

£12.07 from £co had arrived in current a/c, so OP fund now at £202.80

Thermals were working a bit too well - got a bit chilly about midday, used thermostat to check temp and discovered it was only 12 degrees! I hadn't noticed. However, I don't think it's great for the house to get too cold, so popped it on for an hour. It's on again now for another hour. We replaced the ancient boiler in the summer, but I don't think we can afford to have it on all the time, even now. It's so hard to get the balance between not being cold and not being miserable when I'm at home all the time (and sitting at a computer, not doing stuff).

ETA: Have now popped out to WR (Mum now coming for dinner) and used my Shell voucher and some of my survey giftcard balance - there should only have been a max of £25 on each card, but the one I've just used (typically yet another fresh one, rather than finishing one off!) must have had £50 on it, which it definitely shouldn't have done! Survey co must have made a boo-boo there I'm never going to get the damn things out of my purse!

Ebay parcel posted... think I'll have made the grand sum of 50p once all fees are deducted, but it was a part for a car we no longer have (and nor apparently does anyone else as it has been listed for months) so it needed to go. Will transfer monies less postage to OP account though (ebay fees will have to come out of current a/c at some point). Found 2p on the floor while I was at the PO though! Promptly pocketed that and it will make its way to the sheepbaaank (sorry!).

Bought stamps for Christmas cards whilst there to save queuing up twice, so all sorted for them now, just got to finish writing them!

Thanks KK! I love how you all think I'm organised - it's a good job you can't see my house!:rotfl:

Laptop arrived yesterday and I managed to get Windows and anti-virus installed and then got bored! In fairness I had work to do and a headache and a plan for TV viewing in the evening as DH was away, so it's still not in use yet. I have got a couple more things installed on it this morning. It's not a terribly exciting purchase as I have to have it for work and I'm not entirely convinced about the keyboard layout. It's also not purple like my current/old lappy (was a customised Dell and I'm very fond of it!). I don't like change, can you tell?!

Cats are enjoying the giant cardboard box it came in though!

Did the money shuffles yesterday and managed to settle giant cc bill, in full, which is nice, as I'm no longer stressing about it and clothes company refund still due, so will have a credit balance. Hoping between that and the WR vouchers not to have much of a bill in Dec. Christmas presents are all budgeted for elsewhere and we've got some money put aside for city break - flights and hotel are already paid for so it'll just be food and a couple of train fares.

OP fund stands at £316 this morning as I transferred some of my business savings to it as I've now hopefully got another 6 years before any large cap ex. Also cancelled next week's veg box as we won't need it and have transferred the money I would have spent on that straight over. A TT and a couple of other bits make up the rest. DH says I can have a couple of hundred from his MB profits (he finds he needs quite a bit of liquidity to make it work, so this is the first profit that will make it to the OP pot! :j ). That takes us over the £6K mark for the year and hopefully there'll be a couple of little extra bits - when I finally finish a WR voucher I'll transfer the balance from my current a/c, and I've got to order some car bits from Am, so will transfer voucher value from car maintenance fund - am waiting on this as a client often sends a £50 Am voucher as a thank you at Christmas (she's lovely) and I'll put this towards it too (if it happens, I'm not counting chickens, just don't tend to buy from Am, so this would be a good use of it).

Next milestone is sub £100k :j According to our spreadsheet, without any more OPs this wouldn't happen for another year (Jan 18)! Safe to say that's not happening... I'd love to get it down to five figures by March, which is the anniversary of us buying the house, but I don't think that'll be very feasible - I'll still be paying £250/month into my TSB RS (5%) until then. It'll depends on how strict we are with ourselves! It would be amazing to be in five figures! That would mean we'd have paid £32k off in 4 years (and two of those not even trying )!:eek: