Drip drip drip feeding the mortgage

tjp70 · 4 April 2011 at 2:36PM

Hi everyone.
Onecoincloser – I love your name – that’s great.:) Good luck with the food shopping this week. I only hope that your cupboards and freezer are well stocked. Today, I have resisted the urge to pop into Mr A’s to pick up the little things I need. I can live without them, I am sure.
Hi BFM – I already have a slow cooker but my DS absolutely hates stews, or anything with gravy in fact. He loves spag bol and curries and things like that but I don’t tend to make them in the SC. I just need to get organised and focused and then we will manage to stay on track.
Well the monthly payment has gone onto my mortgage account (I love the fact that I can look at the mortgage account online). So at the moment, the balance is showing at £63180 outstanding, but that will gradually increase as the interest is added each day. On a plus side though, the daily interest amount has reduced by 2p!! :j
The weekend was very costly. I placed an order for a new carpet for our bedroom. DS & DD are going away on Saturday to France with my parents for a week, and we are going to take advantage of the empty house to decorate our bedroom and the cloakroom whilst they are away. The cloakroom just needs a freshen up so won’t cost too much to do, but our bedroom needs a lot of attention. The furniture is ok, but the carpet had seen better days when we moved in eight years ago. We also borrowed some curtains from my Mum eight years ago to tide us over and they are still hanging in the bedroom. We went to Ikea and bought some new ones. DH is not too keen on them as they are quite plain but the window is really wide and ‘proper’ made to measure curtains will cost approx. £400.00 and I am not prepared to spend that sort of money. I bought two packs of curtains from Ikea so we will have two curtains on either side. I did this in DS room and it works really well. I need to choose and buy the paint soon as we are getting started the moment we return from dropping the kids off on Saturday morning.
The dog I looked after at the weekend was a little sweetheart and I really hope we have him back to stay again soon. I also have an additional dog walk to do this afternoon so that’s an extra that I hadn’t accounted for.
Being tight-fisted as I am, err, sorry, careful with money as I am,

I play games on King.com but I never play for money as I get enough enjoyment without parting with any cash. However they have freerolls and I play those and occasionally win 2p or something. Last week, I noticed that my whopping 28p balance meant that I could play a ‘pay’ game so I entered a tournament and came 6th. So I have entered a few more and have amassed over £10.00! (It was a fluke – I am really not that good). Anyway, I withdrew the £10.00 and when that arrives in my bank account, it will be sent to the mortgage. I was so pleased about it – probably because it felt like money for nothing!!
The ebay items still have no interest, so will probably get relisted. And M0pay have sent me an email reminding me to send them the phone – I sent it to them ages ago, so can only assume that it has been lost in the post – gggrrrr! I will wait a week to see if anything happens.
Off to walk the dog……….
tjp70

tjp70 · 6 April 2011 at 10:23AM

Well, the funds from Paypal have finally arrived, £43.70 which I have rounded up to £45.00 and sent to the mortgage account. Hopefully that will show on the mortgage account online in a couple of days. Still no sign of the M0pay money and the funds from King.com take a staggering two weeks to hit the Paypal account. Two of my ebay items didn’t sell, so will relist later today. But two items did sell and I have a bid on another one that finishes today. Only 99p for each that sold but it all helps.

Also, I just had confirmation of a dog sitting booking for over this weekend so that’s great. Two lovely little dogs that are very easy to deal with.

Bookkeepingwise: It is payroll year end and I am struggling to get motivated today. I only have today to process three companies payroll so I don’t know why I am sat here typing this – I should be getting on!

OK, I am going now…… :rotfl: Have a good day all.

tjp70 · 7 April 2011 at 6:23PM

Woohoo!!

Payroll year end is done. The M0pay money has finally arrived. Our usual monthly overpayment of £175.00 is winging its way towards the mortgage account. Ebay sales paid for and ready to post. Plus a new enquiry for a daily dog walk! Fantastic sunny weather so three loads of laundry washed and dried in no time.

What a great day - just going to finish off with a relaxing evening, maybe with a glass of wine.

tjp70

Radish72 · 7 April 2011 at 7:41PM

:j What a brilliant day

Onecoincloser · 11 April 2011 at 9:10AM

Well done you!!!:T Hope you got your bedroom done..........:D:eek:

sarahevie · 11 April 2011 at 3:12PM

have you considered saving into a higher interest account as your mortgage rate is 2.5% - first direct had one at 8%- then paying in a lump sum.

tjp70 · 14 April 2011 at 3:13PM

Hi everyone.
Thanks for all of your comments.
Sarahevie – I can see the sense of putting the overpayment money into a high interest account but I would lose the fun of logging onto the mortgage account and seeing my balance decrease daily!!!! Sad or what??:rotfl:
Onecoincloser – we are still doing the bedroom! :eek: The plaster fell off of the wall in one place and we tried to get a plasterer in a hurry but to no avail. In the end we made a decision to repair the plaster, and wallpaper the wall as a feature wall, on the basis that wallpaper covers a multitude of sins, but it has been a trial. Now the wallpaper has not laid flat. Frankly I have had enough of it. I am fed up with living with the upheaval. I have been painting every day (and sometimes, night) since Saturday and I just want it finished now. The carpet arrives tomorrow morning and DH & I shall spend Friday evening putting the room back together. Then we will take a big breath and decide in a few weeks whether the papering is too bad to live with. Hopefully once the room has other things in it, the creases will not look so obvious. That’s the plan anyway.
The kids are having a blast in France, today they are spending the day fishing in the lake at the house. They sound happy and it is lovely to hear that they are spending time having fun away from the tv and the pc! They are back late Saturday night.
Other than decorating, I have been busy with both businesses, there has been enough dog walks, cat visits and bookkeeping to keep me so occupied that I have hardly missed the children. I thought I might get a break this week but it hasn’t worked out that way. There’s always next week…..
Workwise for DH, things have taken a strange turn. There is a chance he could be sent to New Zealand to work for two months for his current employer. No additional income for us sadly, but a chance of a lifetime for him. They are waiting to hear about visas etc. We will miss him dreadfully as we are not used to being apart, but it is too good an opportunity for him to turn down.
All my overpayments have finally hit the mortgage account so we have paid off £226.00 extra this month so I am really pleased about that. The money from King.com still has not materialised, but the two weeks is not up yet. The last few ebay items did not sell, oh well!
Bye for now,
tjp70

tjp70 · 17 April 2011 at 4:19PM

Happy Sunday everyone. It is a beautiful, sunny day here on the South Coast.

The children have returned from France today (having stayed a day later than planned), happy and full of stories of the great time that they had whilst they were there. We collected the children this morning from my parents who had cooked a yummy breakfast for all of us.

The bedroom is finished, the wallpaper only has one large crease in it so we can live with that. The long curtains from Ikea need trimming but that’s a job for next week. We need to buy a new lampshade for the ceiling, but have decided to save money and keep the two bedside lamps as they are. They don’t look ideal but they will do the job for the time being. I have started painting the cloakroom now and hope to have that finished this week whilst DH is at work. It’s only tiny and I was hoping to paint it the same colour as the bedroom with the leftover paint from the bedroom, but there may not be enough….Fingers crossed.

DH is still waiting to hear about working in New Zealand – they are still trying to sort out the work visa – it may take 4 – 6 weeks. He definitely is going, it is just a matter of when.

Mortgage-wise, no news on any overpayments. I am still waiting for the King.com money which should be here next week. That will get added to the ebay sales money sat in the Paypal account and sent to the mortgage account. It won’t be a huge amount, approximately £20.00 but it’s £20.00 less to find (plus interest) at the end of the mortgage term.

This week’s challenge is to keep the children amused, whilst spending as little money as possible. They will probably be happy to chill out at home for a few days after their holiday in France. I have promised them swimming which is fairly cheap, and the local tennis courts are free. DD loves baking with me so we will do that too. DS loves his PS3 but I try to limit how much time he spends on that.

Business wise, we have a nice dog coming on Thursday for 4 nights which is good. I am looking after some cats at the moment too. I may have also picked up some additional dog walking today. Let’s hope this run of work continues.

Off to spend some more time with the kids.
Bye for now,

tjp70

SeriouslySeekingtoSave · 17 April 2011 at 4:57PM

I'm a kiwi so if he wants any tips on where to go when he goes (:)) I'm happy to help

.

The only trouble is it sounds like he will be going when ol NZ is heading into the winter, and depending on where he goes it could be just as horrible a winter as you get in this country. I'd hate to leave a lovely Spring/Summer here and head over to the rain and cold that we spend the warm months trying to forget about!

tjp70 · 17 April 2011 at 10:49PM

Hello SStS. Thank you for the info. Sadly DH doesn't get to choose when he goes, plus he will be back by August at the latest so will see some of the summer. He is still waiting to find out where in NZ he will be sent. Probably Auckland or Christchurch. Hopefully he will get some answers this week.

We told DD & DS about the trip tonight. DS took it in his stride as we knew he would. DD cried this pm and cried this evening. Not great.

Drip drip drip feeding the mortgage

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free