Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

CathT

Hope the play isn't too emotional. I well up just listening to children singing Christmas Carols never mind a leaving service! That's a great amount off the OD too!

newgirly

What a week! The boys leavers play was fantastic, ds1 was the male lead and was great, very funny. The party went well last night, but I think it was easier the previous week at dd's 14th and not so messy!
I've nearly finshed the big clear up, and we have had lots of family bringing presents this morning,we are off for lunch at tgi fridays soon, a treat for the boys' birthdays my parents are paying.

I have no idea where I stand with the finances at the moment, I know I have overspent though, I shall try and find some time later to go through everything, I am letting a big sigh of relief that the end of term / birthday stuff is almost over, I really am shattered.

The boys liked their presents today and got huge amounts of cash, from friends at the party last night they got a few presents, vouchers and £390 cash between them. That will keep them busy spending through the holidays I'm sure!

pammyj74

Wow you have had a very busy time of it lately! All these parties lol. I find it really stressful having it at home.

Are you definitely not moving now? I did have another sneak to see if there was any other houses similar to the one we looked at but there isnt. I still wait in the back of my mind until the sale of our 'new' house goes through before we know for definite. The thing is I can see us living there, its daft I know.

CathT

Try not to worry too much if you have overspent, you have had an expensive month!

Plenty of time to try and recoup some of the money back.

newgirly

No Pammy we are not thinking of moving (today!), I think I will always be on the lookout for houses even if we bought somewhere, after a while I would start looking again. The daft thing is that if I was looking for somewhere in my price bracket, I would love my house if it was up for sale, for the location and price it is a good size with a fab new log cabin.:rotfl:

I am finally in my pj's with the laptop, we had a nice lunch and then I came back and got in the hot tub with ds2 afterwards which was very relaxing, except for ds2 playing with his new dartboard dangerously close to us. DS2 also got a soda stream from my parents so we are all now a little gassy

I shall catch up diaries tonight, and maybe go through the finances to see whats what, definatly no surveys tonight though, i want to chill out.

newgirly

We all had a good day yesterday, I took my mum and kids to bluewater to spend some of their birthday money, ds2 has spent just over £100 on 3 lego harry potter sets :eek:, but its money well spent as my 2 boys have been happily building it since they came home yesterday with not a crossed word yet.

I have finished making a sock monkey for my grans 80th last night, just need to knit her a scarf to finish her off. I really enjoyed it though, and want to start making a christmas quilt, I bought a "dummies guide" book on quilts at xmas but have not started anything yet. I really need a sewing machine for this though, so am going to checkout ebay, I'm trying to be mse, but did see a fab pink one in john L yesterday for £99, resisted temptation though!

I am going to take back a couple of items of clothes I bought for ds2 in the sale today, and buy them some undies as everything is literally falling apart, and all their socks are too small now, primarni for those.
After that I need to do lots of work for dh this week, we were going to Lego L today but will go next week instead as they are quite happy playing with their new stuff at the moment, and I need to spread out the treats over 6 weeks, plus get some work done.

newgirly

I have been going through the finances , a whole heap of receipts from shopping with the kids for the last couple of days. I'd decided to pay off the O/D over 3 months instead of 2 , thus freeing up some cash for the 2x parties, 3x kids birthdays we decided to have kind of last minute.

All the extra from july's has been spent on these things plus i bought the boys a few summer clothes. I have decided to OP the £320 I have left from Augusts money as well, I know we may need some for holiday in devon next week, but i can stick stuff on the cc and pay it from the excess that will be left (around £350) in sept.

I think that if I take the cash from this month there is good chance we will get carried away on hol. , spend it and spend on the card as well. Dh has a bit put by to take , but I'm not sure how much it may only be enough for petrol.
It seems like we have spent an awful lot on the birthdays lately, so i want to keep the holiday a very cheap one.

The total now owing is £149,311 on the mortgage
£ 653 on the o/d
£4,419 on the 0%CC

Total outstanding £154,383

Total os at start (may2010) £170,936

Paid off in 14 months £16,456

I had stopped including the cc figures as I wanted to focus on the mortgage figure, but as I am putting a lot more to clear those early and not as much to the mortgage in the next few months, i thought it would cheer me up to show it all added together.:D

cha97michelle

I find when I do my month end stuff I really do need to see the 'what I owe the world' figure to get that wow moment and keep me going.

I hope you haven't left yourself short. I have made sure we had a quiet credit card month this month so we can afford to do what we want on hols next month. We'll not be going too mad, but it would be nice to have a few meals out without stressing about it. After all we work hard all year, and deserve some break.

CathT

We probably overspent quite a bit when we went away but I didn't think being frugal on holiday was much fun. We were sensible (as in I would go without an ice cream whilst DH and DD had one!) but I certainly didn't count the pennies. Petrol was certainly our biggest expense.

newgirly

I agree on the petrol! I need to ask dh how much is has got together to take, I can spend about £320 ish on the cc if we need to. We have been on hol to the same place nearly every year since dd was tiny, when we used to go when the kids were very small we could easily spend £1200 and not even do much really. Last time we went 2 years ago we spent £330, had a few luches out takeaway indian and the kids did watersports almost every day.

There is no point in not doing stuff when you are away to save money, however we did spend a lot when we went to butlins in may, and it was on things like fast food and machines, we will probably spend less on our main holiday as we will be on the beach/picnics etc. more free stuff to do really.

Michelle, I love the idea if "what I own the world figure"
However it would not be much different, we are not savers. Thats one reason we are oping , we have had 15 years of spending more than we had and running up debts, and the temptation to spend on stuff is still there! If I am saving for something in particular then its ok, but being sensible and saving for the future is a lot of temptation. At least with the oping, its going to good use, I think if we were not doing that we would still be spending every penny.:o