The 9 year plan...hold onto your hats and here we go!

EssexHebridean

A reasonably productive day - I still can't believe that I've made a start on my christmas shopping and it's only October! I blame you lot! I got a few more bits for MrEH's "Year supply of" box today, plus some bits for our young niece and nephew in Sainsbury's half price toy sale. Went to the market this morning to and came away with - among other things, three mini boxes of celebrations choccies which I have squirrelled away to add in to christmas pressies.

I have sorted out the banking - as from November the main amount will go from the joint account into savings rather than travelling to my account first - I have still been able to set up a healthy amount going from my account into savings as well though so as soon as my Season ticket becomes due for the speedway (In mid January, probably) I should have the money there for it. I got my CC statement for the Tesco card and it definitely has another month to run on the 0% so that's good. I also made the discovery earlier on that we have a nice christmas present heading our way on the mortgage front as the December payment will take us sub-87k! :j It's really starting to make me feel like we're making progress now - and to add to that we had a chat earlier on about how to proceed from here and have agreed on a strategy going forward of increasing the OP in January 2010 and then aiming to make several extra payments equalling the amount of the interest for that month through the year. I have told MrEH what difference that would make and he is suitably impressed!

Other spends today include a fairly restrained Tesco shop at just over £15, and £8 to get some walking trousers I've had for a while turned up - I did a temp job on them for holiday last year with that iron on hemming stuff, but the time has come to get them done properly! Now I have those back I can put both pairs through on a wash with the specialist detergent.

Lemon_Tree

hi EH, i tried to do some chrissy shopping today but i was either in the wrong mood or the wrong shops because i just didn't get anywhere. Did pick up pressy for OH's nephew and some for OH so at least that's a start but usually i hope to get it all done in one day.
I sat and worked out how our mortgage should be looking and that's now in my accounts - all hypno's fault! lol can't face adding it to my signature yet, but it's pursuaded me that once i can get the loans paid off i'm going to halve the snowballed amounts between my mortgage and the m&d loan. they won't mind and it will help when we go house hunting

EssexHebridean

LOL - I'm blaming Hypno for making me focus on our mortgage again too! Seriously though as soon as you have the ability to OP get on and do it - we wasted so much time thinking about it is breaks my heart to think of it now - we could have been so much further on than we are! Our OP is based on "money we didn't know we had" - so savings that have been made in various places, pay rises (few and far between for the past few years!) and changes in the tax rules which have left us with a few ££'s extra. One of the biggest contributors is getting the electric bill under control - once I started reading the meter I realkised that we were drasticaly overpaying - in the space of the last 18 months we've gone from paying over £80 p/m to paying only £47 p/m - and I think that can come down a bit yet too!

EssexHebridean

Woop! I've just booked flights for myself & MrEH to Dublin two weeks after new year - just a weekend, but it's somewhere I've fancied going for ages so it'll be nice to do it! We usually try to have something planned for Mid January as it's something to look forward to after al the excitement of Christmas & New year. Not a bad price either - Ryanair are clearly in a good mood as we got the flights inc all charges for £63.98 - or effectively £15.99 each way, each. Next stop will be looking for the best deal on getting to and from the airport and then a decent but cheap hotel in the city centre..... :j:j:j I'm excited - can you tell?!

yukkibear

Dublin will be amazing you'll have a fab time. I love it there, so many happy girly holiday memories from when I was single lol.

gallygirl

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Next stop will be looking for the best deal on getting to and from the airport and then a decent but cheap hotel in the city centre..... :j:j:j I'm excited - can you tell?!

Try HERE EG. The Aircoach is a great way to get into town, I think it's €5 and quicker than queuing for a taxi anyway. According to the link they are doing an offer with a city bus tour included, a great way to orientate yourself if you've not been before. For hotels try https://www.hotelscomparison.com - it trawls all the main sites and you can get some bargains. I used to stay round O'Connell St area, the BW Royal Dublin, BW Arlington (?????) and Isaacs are all nice & you can get some good deals on that website.

Am just about to book some Ryanair flights to Spain for next year. 3 cheers for Mr O'Leary:

Hip hip
Hip hip
Hip hip

boredofbeingathome

Sounds like a lot of fun EH.

EssexHebridean

Brilliant GG - thanks so much for those links!!

Lemon_Tree

dublin was lovely when i went. We did the bus tour and really enjoyed it.
would love to go back and explore it with OH but will wait for an anniversary or something.

taxi73

Looks like it'll be fun and great price on the flights..good news on the mortgage too