I'm going to do a diary too :)

Queen-Bee_2

Hi Gerbiljo - just thought I'd pop in to see how you're doing. Your recording of your grocery shops is impressive... I keep intending to do this, but somehow never get round to it!!

Like the countdown in your signature. My MF date can't be confirmed as much depends on my income over the next few months, all I know is that I want it to be ASAP!!
QB

gerbiljo

QB, good luck, mine is a little dependant on the interest rate! I hope ur income steadily grows!! I wish mine could grow a little so I could put it to good use

gerbiljo

Rightio!
Shopping today was £39 and we did a good shop with a few treats. We have a wedding next week and I bought our daughter some new sequin plimsoles, I believe they will maximise her running-around-the-church ability!! haha
I got some handsoap delivered today for me to write a review on, I presume this will include some points, but more importantly I dont have to buy any soap for a while now haha. Not sure which surveys it was associated with.
Still not received the sky cashback...
Looking forward to payday this week, will be xmas before I know it.
One poll doesnt seem to have any surveys for me lately, there were two the other day then it crashed and theyve disappeared, perhaps its a ploy to not give me my £11.85!
Not much else to say, will update when I do a bit more paying off!

pammyj74

onepoll I am only on about £22 and seems really short of surveys too, and if there are any they seem to take ages to fdo for just 10p! I prefer the ones that are all on one page.

Xmas is shockingly closer then we think. September in a few days arrghhh! I have normally got a lot more things already but have been slack this year!!

gerbiljo

At least its not just me onepoll are hiding the surveys from... some of the surveys are stupid they say stuff like how old is your child (21 months) then ask me about the school holidays, some of them dont give the right options at all. I think some of the surveys have got longer lately...hurry on £40!
We are always rubbish with xmas, tho we are blessed with a small child at the moment that doesnt ask for anything and family that like to buy lots, so we will escape buying lots for another year haha we have some M&S vouchers coming from sky- we are relying on them for a selection of the usual stuff, I think as soon as we get them we should just spend them and cross that bit off, might start writing a list soon!
I really wanted to take advantage of ebays free listings but I dont have anything lined up so will have to wait til next time....
did buy a couple of bits yesterday 'treats' but it came to under £30 and i think with payday around the corner i can get away with it!:)
We might go to the farm today (still have our family ticket) so might let our daughter have a pony ride and feed the animals and that will only cost £2, then that'll be another weekend over, scary!
My shopping scanning wont let me upload my receipts so I hope I can still get my points grrrrr

gerbiljo

I am feeling very positive at the moment! One day before payday...

I seem to have fallen upon some recent freebies, 1) handwash from the other day 2) now received two nice smelling bottles of surf to review as well (no buying washing powder for a while) 3) 2 timmy time books have come through with 2 free episodes on dvd (dim recollection the MIL was responsible for that) and 4) tescos have sent us some shopping vouchers, since we have recently been at sainsburys saving our nectar points (after being steered from asda when then sent us some vouchers), we have received 4 weeks of £10 off when you spend £30, fantastic= £10 cheaper shop or £10 worth of yummy stuff! tescos it is for september

We have made some decisions lately, we are going to get started on the extension, it needs to be piled which is mega hassle and bucks but we have exhausted the alternatives. The only way we can avoid it is to get the neighbours to remove their leylandii conifer hedge. We have offered to remove them and replace with fence and give them some cash and will get a reply in a week if they are interested, which I expect they wont be afterall they can't be over the moon that we are building it in the first place. Anyway we have decided that this will be funded but the longest running 0% credit card which we intend to pay up on the final month. Hubby seems to be guarenteed overtime at the mo so this will be his thing to overpay. He is less keen with the mortgage and thinks we overpay enough and is not especially keen to speed it up so I think by him having the card then he can have his own incentive to clear. If it can't be cleared in time then I will just have to skip a mortgage overpayment or two, wont be the end of the world. We hope to start this in October...watch this space.

Other things is there's a very slight possibility that a family house may become available for sale in a few years times which has land, if we could afford this we have discussed stretching ourselves to buy this. Our dream was to pay off our mortgage then move to the country ie Norfolk and live happily ever after with land and basically a mini farm yard, this house could allow us this life but without moving away meaning we could still possibly have our fairly good paying jobs. This will be something to consider in the future as my aim was to give up my job and become a stay at home mum or for both my husband and I to work part time and have better quality of life and family time, this dream could be slightly delayed by taking on extra debt so it will depend how I feel about work and how broody I am and the debt that would be incurred. This has made me consider a few things like our other outstanding debts. I have a loan- I may find out a settlement figure at some point for interest (tho i think that rule of 78 applies and that I don't really save any money by paying it off?) which is why I've just ignored it really. Secondly whether we should keep our very good mortgage deal and save some money instead (which of course would be a mse advice with our deal) ANYWAY gonna keep going this year and have a reassess in the new year. Plan stands currently. However if it did happen it wouldn't be for 3 years hence the incentive to get the extension sorted so the house would be in the best state if we needed to sell it.

So generally very positive no cashback from sky tho they have allowed us another free month of movies and sport (which we have officially cancelled!), so looking at getting to £82200 for the next update which is exciting Will update after I've been paid!!!

vl2588

Well done mate!

gerbiljo

quick post...been paid, over payment of £2348... once our payment comes off on tuesday that should bring us down to £82200 ready for the update

Abyss

Just read through your whole thread - you sound very motivated, focussed and determined - well done! Making really great progress - good work!
Looks like our overpayments are quite similar - I too had my house on my own, then married (a younger man too! ) so now have double the salary coming in.
I've never been able to keep track of our grocery shopping bills - we tend to do a big shop which lasts for a couple of weeks, and I'll overstock on items when they are on special offer, so sometimes those last for months! Then top up with fresh fruit and vegetables whenever needed - so quite hard to keep track of. Would be interested in knowing what we spend, like you do! But I know I am good at being frugal with the groceries, I cook/prep 95% of the time, and only occasionally do we eat out.

What do you do to get the Amazon vouchers you have mentioned?

gerbiljo

Abyss wrote: »

What do you do to get the Amazon vouchers you have mentioned?

Hi haha hope u didn't get too bored at my moaning! I'd like to bulk but but I think I'd bulk buy every week:rotfl:

Well the vouchers are from ipsos (survey company), lightspeed (survey company) and tns shop and scan where I have to scan the shopping for research basically. Its slow work though (the scanning is best but you have to be 'selected') I feel like giving up on the surveys then discover I have a voucher but on a hourly rate its probably like 50p an hour or something!

This weeks shopping was £32.50 thanks to my voucher I managed to get my daughter a coat included in that, completely unnecessary spend so I missed out on a record shop of £24.50 haha so I'll have to try and beat that next week.

Gonna get some jobs in the house done over the next couple of weeks I hope, perhaps that will help to distract from the mortgage a bit leading up to xmas, it goes slow when I watch it so closely I need to forget about it a bit so I get excited again!!

oooh should go under £80k at end of the month