Mortgage Free ASAP

Queen-Bee_2

Further to my mid-month post re MWF Things To Do, I resolved to make a list and log weekly progress on various maintenance/repair projects required around the house.

Since then, I’ve been beavering away to get the best deals for my savings and investments, but not doing much on the DIY front. Basically, this is because when it comes to stripping, sanding, painting, and anything involving a screwdriver, I’m the mistress of deferral. Give me a keyboard however, and I’ll tap away for hours…

OK… Enough procrastination. As of today, the list includes:
• Painting the outside of the conservatory to weather-proof it for the winter
• Painting the window frames and sills (where the wood’s showing through) in:
1. my bedroom
2. the sitting room
3. the main bathroom
• Replacing the misted-up double-glazing units in the room I’m thinking of letting
• Replacing the carpet in the en-suite bathroom for the room I’ll be letting with vinyl floor covering
• Sorting out the loo in the en-suite bathroom (it seems to rock about a bit on the floor when you sit on it :eek: ). It’s one of those horrible ‘chewing toilets’, so I’m extremely careful to take good care of it!
• Repairing the broken light in the downstairs loo
• Doing something about the step between my hall and the kitchen, where the cat’s decided to shred the carpet into terry toweling

OMG. That looks such a long list. And the thought of doing it all on my own is daunting!! But small steps are what’s required here, so I’ll post an update within 48 hours to kick start the process…
QB

Queen-Bee_2

For the last three weeks, I’ve been making a note of my electricity and gas meter readings in order to calculate my usage. I am on a dual fuel British Gas Price Guarantee 2009 (fixed till December).

The scores on the doors are as follows:
- Electricity: 17th August, 13677; 24th August, 13750 (73 unit increase); 31st August, 13794 (44 unit increase)
- Gas: 17th August, 17; 24th August, 19 (2 unit increase); 31st August, 20 (1 unit increase)

I entered the readings on the imeasure web-site but couldn’t work out how to enter the tariffs, as it only gives the option to enter a single tariff. So I rang British Gas who helpfully explained exactly how its charges are calculated (I’m charged at a higher rate for a certain number of units every day and a lower rate for any units above this threshold), and then I set up a spreadsheet to work out the price of everything.

Any of you who have read my previous posts will know that spreadsheets are not my forte, so I’m feeling quite pleased with myself, especially as I’ve set it up to convert my old imperial gas readings to kWhs!

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I’ve calculated that including 5% VAT, but excluding my dual fuel discount, my total electricity and gas costs for last couple of weeks are:
- £13.72 for 17-24th August
- £8.66 for 24-31st August

Obviously it’s summer at the moment (though looking at the driving rain outside this afternoon, this is difficult to believe) so my energy costs will be lower. However, the figures compare favourably with the average weekly spend of £20.44 I worked out for last year. And of course, keeping an eye on costs will encourage me to unearth my jerseys rather than flicking the central heating switch when I start getting chilly!!

setmefree2

with the energy reductions. Looking forward to reading about your progress.

Queen-Bee_2

This is my third posting of the day - clearly, I'm getting addicted to this diary business. Not that anyone will be particularly interested (apart from me I suspect), but this afternoon, I checked into my new Haliax reward accounts and saw that my £5 'rewards' had been credited to all three of them (ie £15 in total).

I promptly moved the money back out again into my newly opened high interest A&L account, ready to recycle through them again during the course of September.

A big BOO to Abbey though - crediting the Halifax accounts before the end of August at short notice meant I had to take £3k from my Barclays account, which left it a bit short (from this month onwards, I will be passing the same £1k through each account in turn).

To make sure I didn't go overdrawn, I sent extra funds to the Barclays account from my Abbey one. Abbey stopped the payment and I received a phone call from the fraud detection unit checking if I had made it - now that's all well and good and I am all for prompt fraud detection, but having satisfactorily answered all the security questions and confirmed it was a valid instruction, they still stopped it (but didn't think to tell me) AND suspended all viewing of my internet account.

No apology from Abbey when I rang up to find out what the problem was of course!!! In fact, the operator told me that even if they had sent the payment as instructed, it would still have taken 3-4 days to arrive in my Barclays account, because they don't operate a Faster Payment system...

The difference in service quality between the banks is massive. Abbey constantly falls short in comparison with Barclays!!
QB

SmlSave

Am very impressed by your organisation QB Would you like a discipel?

Queen-Bee_2

Money is clearly of the essence at the moment, so I'm keen to pursue any opportunities available to boost my (currently rather limited!) income.

Much to my surprise, these opportunities have the potential to add up quite quickly. Since documenting my MF journey, I've accumulated £230 in cashbacks and a couple of focus groups. Actually, it's £245 if I include the £15 from moving my cash in/out of my Halifax Reward Accounts in August.

It's all being put to good use. Not to reduce my mortgage for once, but to replace a couple of faulty double-glazed units in the room I'll need to let when I become a student, buy a dressing table and chair for it from Ikea, and replace the carpeted floor in its en-suite bathroom with vinyl.

Actually, these items come to £309, but the £230 will help off-set it, and I'm going to start e-baying like fury for the last £79...
QB

SmlSave - thank you for the compliment. It's amazing how much this diary has helped me develop my organisational skills, and I hope there are ideas in it that will help inspire other MFWs - I get a lot of motivation from reading other people's (though I'm not sure that many MFWs read this one!!)

Pea-pod

SmlSave wrote: »

Am very impressed by your organisation QB Would you like a discipel?

Me too please :T

Zeddy

Wow, I've just read your whole diary and its so impressive - I hope you carry on at the same rate of success - your diary is really motivational.:j

Queen-Bee_2

Thanks Zeddy - now I feel extra motivated!

Queen-Bee_2

A few days ago, I posted a list of the maintenance/repair projects needed around the house and promised an update within 48 hours. The main objective behind the posting was to galvanize myself into action…

Today was perfect decorating weather, but friends of mine moved two days ago, and I’d offered to go round and help them with a few bits and bobs. I’ve only just got back!! So… no work done on my own projects!

However, progress to date has as follows:
• Painting the window frames and sills in:
o my bedroom – Sanded, primed, undercoated and top-coated both sill and window frames. Had to borrow a ladder for the top bit and believe me, it looked a long way down when perched up there with the electric sander!!!
o the sitting room – Have washed down the paintwork, but nothing more as yet
o the main bathroom – Will progress tomorrow

• Replacing the misted-up double-glazing units in the room I’m thinking of letting – Called several companies for quotes, using my Nectar card and got 50 points each of 5 calls I would have made anyway (ie 250 points in total). I’ve chosen a local company (competitive but not the cheapest) that guarantees both units and workmanship for 10x years. Hopefully the work can be done within the next 8 days or so

• Replacing the carpet in the en-suite bathroom for the room I’ll be letting with vinyl floor covering – Done! Carpetright had a sale with 50% off vinyl floorcoverings. I declined their offer of a fitter for an extra £45 and did it myself with the kitchen scissors! Didn’t realize how horrible the old carpet was until I rolled it up and carted it off to the tip. The bathroom now has a much more hygienic, water resistant floor and looks much lighter – and all for the princely sum of £13.98

• Sorting out the loo in the en-suite bathroom - A screw fixing the cistern to the wall has rusted away. All I need to stop it rocking around are another couple of long screws or to wedge a small block of wood between the cistern and the wall behind it (though I’m not sure about the block of wood idea… I’d have thought it would be better to have some kind of proper fixing there?)

• Doing something about the step between my hall and the kitchen, where the cat’s shredded the carpet – Tricky one this, as the cat is resistant to any attempts to stop her doing what she likes. Until now it’s been goodbye to the carpet, but this can’t go on… My solution? Silver/grey Gaffer tape along the top ridge of the step. I know this is a quick fix, but it hides the shreds and doesn’t look too bad on the slate blue carpet… So far, it’s stopped her using it as a scratching post. Fingers crossed she doesn’t decide to turn her attentions elsewhere in the house!

• Repairing the broken light in the downstairs loo – This broke when I was trying to replace the lightbulb and unscrewed the plastic fitting in the ceiling, rather than simply unscrewing the glass ‘jar’ from the plastic ceiling fitting. The plastic was old and terribly stiff, which explains why I unscrewed the wrong bit. I think I’ll be able to mend this, but need to ask Dad’s advice, as I don’t really know what I’m doing. Before I do anything at all however, I need to make sure the power’s switched off at the mains. Actually, that’s another action point… I don’t actually know where the mains switch is…

• Painting the outside of the conservatory – Less said the better about this. But I shouldn’t give myself a hard time about it, cos I’ve worked so hard on everything else

And finally, another item for the list:
• Changing the lights in my kitchen ceiling – The existing ones look like they’ve been there since the 70s and are literally falling to bits. I’d like to replace them with similar track-spots, as I’ve the rest of the ceiling to think of – it’s papered in a heavy duty covering with a raised design painted white. Otherwise, replacing the lights will mean repapering the ceiling, and my DIY skills aren’t up to that…

So to sum up, there’s still lots to do, but I’m happy with the progress I’ve been able to make so far.
QB