Mortgage Reduction Beginner to Novice - The Show Begins

gallygirl

Fabulous stuff, will look out for you in Sunday times Rich List any day now .

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

The £24 has appeared today... along with a sticker for my car reading "Police follow this vehicle" and some paparazzi.

Week 12 of consecutive packed lunches completed today.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice wrote: »

To do on the fiscal front:
Switch gas/elec done
Switch or barter with phone/broadband done
Call HMRC - letter saying I owe £xxx by January but my HMRC self-assessment balaence = £xxx!!! Also they're asking for class II but I have an exemption form. not yet done but plan to get all paperwork/passwords/letters together at the weekend and call next week.
Make doctors appointment done - if a little strange during the appointment this morning
List 3 items on ebay done, will parcel up on Sunday evening
Sort for car boot done but now it looks like it'll be rained off

And extras for the weekend:

More mortgage paperwork and find additional requested documents
Fix or exchange shredder
Sewing - repairs, finish dress for next weekend, make some Christmas presents
Thorough clean of the house - including all kitchen cupboards
Batch cooking: savoury muffins, sausage casserole, Jamie's meatballs
Top up food shop - with M&S vouchers, so free!
At least 1 hr on the sofa - what a treat.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

I fancy the savoury muffins :)

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

I fancy the savoury muffins :)

Can't decide whether to make 'chilli sweetcorn and cheese' or 'ham, pea and cheese'? Maybe I'll get keen and make both - they freeze pretty well!

elantan

Chilli sweet corn and cheese over here please

elantan

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice wrote: »

You lot are spreadsheet/mortgage calculator/online banking fiddlers after my own heart!

I've just finished reporting my 4 mystery shops for the evening - didn't get a G&T in the end!

Will report my food shopping spending tomorrow. It was coupon-tastic but still a big shop.

Can I ask where do you get your coupons? My shopping is the one bill I seem to really overspend on and can't get down at all, I'm curre y trying the £40 in asda to get £5 back but that's only good for a few weeks

Thanks

elantan

lulabelle1 wrote: »

I'm slight biased for reasons I shan't disclose (lol) but Nationwide really are fab. Not sure if you know, but they now have a rather super little iPhone app which is just brilliant!

LOVE their iPhone app, it's made my life so much better

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

elantan wrote: »

Can I ask where do you get your coupons? My shopping is the one bill I seem to really overspend on and can't get down at all, I'm curre y trying the £40 in asda to get £5 back but that's only good for a few weeks

Thanks

I seem to just acquire them!

I purchase a lot of fuel for my car, S@insbury is usually cheapest for diesel in my local area... they seem to want me as a supermarket customer so I get £4 off a £40 spend with my fuel receipt, but I find if I don't use it then after a week or so, I'll get a £6 off a £60 spend (best was £7.50 off a £50 spend!). Then I'll use it. While I'm at S@insbury's, Tesc0 miss me so they post me £5 off vouchers and other coupons (in addition to Clubcard coupons) so I go back to Tesc0 and the cycle continues. With Tesc0, I don't use vouchers for things I don't want/need/usually use. I ignore them. They seem to cotton onto this and send coupons for things I do use a few weeks after.

I always pick up free supermarket magazines - just for the vouchers inside.

That last shop was my biggest coupon haul for a long time - £8.90 in total saved plus 200 clubcard points.

elantan

That's a good haul .. I've discovered the joy of employer discounts my hubby works for a national organisation, they have the ability to purchase things from more4me which gives 5% off of asda etc best I've ever known was 10% off if b&q which was handy as we were redecorating at the time

But although the 5% helps I still feel we spend too much... Well actually I feel we get enough food so therefore don't spend enough, however when I see other peoples budgets I think wow that's amazing I wish I could get our shopping down to that

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Well the food shopping is something I've been focusing on for the last few months too. Here's what's worked for me:

First I just tried to stretch out the number of days between vising a supermarket... I used to be a weekly shopper, now I just go when I need to (about once a fortnight, less if OH away as I don't like milk). It's surprising what you can make with very few ingredients.

I've always used a shopping list but now I make that list based on essentials I've run out of and the bare minimum to make meals with what's already in the cupboard.

I'm a bit more savvy about using Costc0 for bulk buying basics (we have plenty of cupboard space - toilet rolls are purchased once a year when they have 40 rolls on BOGOF - so 80 for about £16!)

I include cleaning products, toilet roll and tissues in the grocery budget - but not toiletries. Me and MrMRN get our own toiletries from our own spending money. This has really reduced my nail varnish habit (none bought for 5 months now!) and MrMRN is less heavy handed with the amount of shower gel he uses.

I try to do one mystery shop per week that includes free food - I've been quite lucky with pizza assignments recently (bored of eating it though!).

I tend to use leftovers for lunch the next day which saves on bread and sandwich filling items.

I buy fruit, veg and eggs from my local market Saturday morning (they open at 6:30 am so no excuses even if it's a busy weekend!). It's so much cheaper than the supermarket and because it lasts much longer, I can buy enough for two weeks if needed (say if I'm away one weekend).