Account of my mortgage free efforts

MoneyQueen

Hi Zeddy,

Welcome to the board. I will be reading your diary with interest

Cheers
MQ

Zeddy

MoneyQueen wrote: »

Hi Zeddy,

Welcome to the board. I will be reading your diary with interest

Cheers
MQ

Thanks MQ.

Today is the September date for our mortgage to come out of the current account, so £1242.35 has hit the mortgage account, this is our standard payment, which includes the maximum overpayment that we are allowed (payment £1,035.29; op £207.06). The mortgage is now £144,640 and last month we were charged £711 interest.

Am quite excited this morning as little miss Z swimming 'lessons' start for the autumn term today. I say lesson, but it's much more of a fun class where she gets used to water. As part of the class she's been going underwater since she was 6 weeks old, this along with other things we do is meant to teach her automatic responses in case she fell into the water and also give her water confidence. These classes fall under the 'enjoy life' heading, as I know we could go to cheaper classes, but I find that the extra cost involved really is worth is.

Zeddy

Had a good day yesterday.

On MFW front

- only money spent was on postage of an ebay item, which was covered by postage charged to the seller.

- opened A & L savings account for the £20 cash back from quidco, will put the £1000 in from another account as per Martin's recommendation

- rejoined the National Trust through TCB, we were members a couple of years ago, but let the membership lapse. We live only 15 mins from a lovely NT stately home, which has great gardens, which are lovely for a walk and also a lot of the car parks on the coast near us are NT - so we will be able to park in these for free again. This will mean more 'free' trips at the weekend and save on carparking. Subscribed by DD too, so got 12m for price of 9m. After cashback and DD discount it will only cost us £2 each per month - which we would easily spendon the carpark alone.

- also had another cheap veggie dinner, which Mr Z cooked while I was feeding little miss Z, which was delicious, he made enough for both of us to have for dinner tonight too.

Today, I went for a swim first thing as Mr Z is on a late shift, so could look after little miss Z. As I had time I spent 10mins in the jaquizzi for the first time and have made a deal with myself that if I go in the jaquizzi, I wont have a bath at home - which have become a bit of an oasis for me, but obviously are increasing heating and water costs.

Also had to go up to Royal Mail to pick up post where the postage was underpaid - had to pay £1.17, I could see when I got there it was a card from my mother in law - it was our wedding anniversary. Nearly didn't bother taking it, (I'm not that fond of mother in law and knew it would be a tacky card, where she would just sign her name, so no sentiment) but thought better of it.

Am off later to a shopping centre, it's my birthday on Thursday and Mr Z has given me some money to buy presents from him with and he'll wrap them up. Sounds a little strange I know, but it will mean I'll get things that I want, wont end up overpaying for them and save him a trip when I know he hasn't got time. Plus its a good excuse to get out of the house.

SmlSave

Hi Zeddy, I've just caught up with your thread and thought I'd say hi

Zeddy

SmlSave wrote: »

Hi Zeddy, I've just caught up with your thread and thought I'd say hi

Hi - thanks for reading!

In the post today was info from A&L - that's super quick, am very impressed with them. I may consider moving my current account to them at this rate, especially with the sweatner they offer.

We went out to the cinema today to see the baby screening showing. It was my first time and was a reasonable success. What it is is a morning showing of a film, this week was 500 days of summer, where you can take your baby in, so everyone there has a baby, which means you don't mind when they make a noise. It was good to do something different. Little miss Z seemed fine through out, I basically fed her and then she slept for most of it. The film was good, it's been so long that I've been to the cinema though I would probably think most films were good! I didn't spend any money on refreshments which I was pleased about.

Then spent the rest of the day at home, I need to clear up and clean the spare room as I have friends coming on Friday for the night but haven't got far as little miss Z keeps crying if I leave her today. Think I'll try and do it tonight when Mr Z is home.

taxi73

Just wanted to say Hi and wish you luck on your journey.Please do have a look at the tax credits payments as I'm sure that you can get it for a baby under 12 vmonths if you have a income of less than £66k...there is a benefits board on here with more info.As your chilcare will be high I guess you'll get even with quite a high wage.

Zeddy

taxi73 wrote: »

Just wanted to say Hi and wish you luck on your journey.Please do have a look at the tax credits payments as I'm sure that you can get it for a baby under 12 vmonths if you have a income of less than £66k...there is a benefits board on here with more info.As your chilcare will be high I guess you'll get even with quite a high wage.

Hi Taxi

Yes, you are right while little miss Z is under 1 year you are eligible for income under £66k, I think this tax year, we'll just be under that, so will get something, but from the calculations it doesn't look like much, although anything is better than nothing. At the moment they're basing our assessment on our last tax years income, so we are not eligable as its quite hard to estimate Mr Z's income. As I don't think the money will be much we'll get a retrospective assessment for this tax year based on our actual income.

On Thursday it was my birthday, we didn't do anything that special, except all spend the day together and it was a lovely sunny day. We did take little miss Z swimming, which is always good fun, she was so tired afterwards, she just fell asleep in my arms, which is quite rare for her, but lovely for me.

I was lucky to receive almost £200 in total in birthday money, I think I'll use this to go towards some new work clothes as I can't see myself fitting comfortably into my pre pregnancy work clothes.

On Friday we sold our Wii and Wii fit for £180 which is handy - we've completely ran out of room (and time) to play it, so it wont really be missed.

On the spending front, we've not done too badly, especially considering it was my birthday. Although we have agreed to buy a new car, which we needed and was budgeted for. I have no idea about cars, but think we got a good deal. Hopefully will pick it up on Friday, but do need to sort out new insurance - will make sure we get cashback too if it works out cheaper.

Today we went to a National Trust garden near us. We took a picnic of French stick and cheese, which is a common Sunday lunch in our house, so were pleased that we didn't go overboard on picnic food which we've done in the past. It worked out really well as didn't spend any money, in the past we would have eaten in the coffee shop. It also meant that we could just lay little miss Z on the rug and she was much happier than leaving her in the pram. It also meant we could have a lot more playtime with her. She's currently lovely being thrown up in the air and gives the best giggles everytime I do it.

Also have done well on dinner tonight, yesterday we went to a BBQ, where everyone was meant to bring some meat, but people seemed to bring tons, I assumed we were all just having the meat we took along, so just picked up some simple food from Tescos, but it all ended up as a help yourself to anything kind of thing and not all the food was cooked. At the end of the party the host was going through some of the leftovers and gave us some really fancy sausages, so we're having those for dinner, which is a bit of a treat!

SmlSave

Sounds like you had a lovely weekend Zeddy I think you're doing wonderfully and belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Zeddy

SmlSave wrote: »

Sounds like you had a lovely weekend Zeddy I think you're doing wonderfully and belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I certainly did, thanks and thanks again!


Had a good day yesterday, taking little miss Z swimming. I can never tell how much she enjoys it though, she always looks quite ambivilent during the lesson. I'm sure I'd know if she hated it though!

Was really pleased as managed to get her to have three naps yesterday as was told recently that the key to good night sleeping was to fit in enough naps during the day - well last night was the worst night ever - she woke every hour from when I went to bed! Fingers crossed for a better night.

On the money front have sold 2 items on ebay in total for £9.98. Also agreed on picking up the car on Saturday and declined on all the extras that they wanted to offer us. Spent some money in the supermarked on swim and normal nappies, using vouchers for money off, which was good. On the not so good front though I picked up some extras for lunch, which weren't needed and made me feel so sluggish for the rest of the day, which is not good!

setmefree2

Zeddy it's a very long time since I had young children but 3 naps sounds like far too many for a toddler. I don't know if you blogged how old your daughter is (I may have missed it) but timing naps is difficult (this much I remember!)

I recently bought a book for my S-I-L called "the contented baby" which had nap routines in it. I think there is another one called "The contented Toddler" too. I used Christopher Green's book "Toddler Taming" which had recommmended nap routines in it.

I never used to let mine sleep after 3 o'clock. If they did fall asleep I would wake them up and they were never to happy about that!

Good Luck

SMF2