Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

CathT

I have fond memories of my work experience placement, i loved it. I hope your DD gets a lot out of it. Your cupcakes do sound rather yummy!

pammyj74

I would love to have a dog to take on long walks, I would have to live near lovely scenery as well though first and work from home oh and live somewhere warm lol I can only dream!!
I wish I could bake too but just havent got the knack for cooking at all

I too hate buying things in shops unless I know its a good bargain that I cant get cheaper elsewhere, its a curse but a good one I guess.

lulabelle1

Loving the sound of Baileys cupcakes, nom nom

newgirly

Just wiped out a massive post.

Have been shopping at mr s today and spent £75 and still don't seem to have much to cook with , I really need to put more effort into meal planning and cooking more.

I've had the papers through for the new mortgage deal, it will jump from 3.43 to 4.29% which will add about £70 pm I think, we are still on IO which i will leave until we hit the 10% op per year limit as they charge £50 to change back to repayment.

In june we will have 10 years left on the mortgage, when we took this mortgage out in 2010 I reduced the term from 33 to 12 years. However since dh had a 10% paycut it means I will have to find £200 pm from my own extra money making to actual pay it off in the 10 years that are left.

The monthly payment will be around £1530 per month and dhs take home is £2092, plus £188 child benefit = £2280, so the basic mortgage payment without extra op's is 67% of the househols income, except extras i am trying to earn selling, surveys etc. its a bit worrying when you look at it like that!

brizzledfw

Hi NG

Eek..thats a whopping percentage of your income. My mortgage is huge (see the sig/diary!..we also dropped the term..its about 13 years to go and we are overpaying as I'd like to pay off in 10)..but its not that kind of % of our joint income. Best of luck with that one and if you have a few blips it sounds like you should NOT be beating yourself up!:grouphug:

We spend too much on groceries (lord if I had 1p for every time I have written that on here or said it:o) but the meal planning (and shopping list process) is so worthwhile and definitely working. Making LOs (or Use Ups!!) into a meal also helps..at least 2 meals a week are probably a variety of Use Ups from the fridge..I would try it. Its making a huge difference to us at any rate

Baileys Cupcakes..now you're talking!! I'll swop you the Nigella Choccie Cookies recipe for the Baileys one..that sounds yummy!!

newgirly

:jThanks for the post brizzledfw, the mortgage is stupidy large and its all our own fault! Thousands wasted over the years on cc's, re-mortgaging to clear the debts over and over, oh well at least we stopped before we lost the house so it could be worse i guess.:D

The baileys cupcakes were just choc fairy cakes ( sainsbugs value sponge mix) and cocoa powder, the a big blob of butter and lot of baileys and then lots of icing sugar to soak up the vast amounts of baileys as I used too much, topped off with grated galaxy. I shan't be making them again as they are too nice and when the personal trainer weighed me I had put on 1 1/2 llbs this week.:o

I am having a good day for freebies today, I used martins wheel thingy and have registered for tea bags, q10 face cream, jack daniels( not sure what for!) and a garden birds mini book. I also went on sky.com and managed to book 4 tickets to the new zoo film that I wanted to see with the kids, just need to get my brother to book an extra ticket if dd wants to go as the max amount was 4 , however she will probably prefer to either stay in bed or shop.

Had a long chat with dh last night who is hopefully going to try and give up smoking in the near future, yay :j its not the first time and things are not fun whilst he is trying but its a good thing still. The main reason is that he wants to have guitar lessons and will use that as a reward for himself with the money saved.
This also leads onto the fact he wants a very expensive guitar for his 40th, so will ask for money towards it. I think it will cost around £400-£600 ish :eek: so I will pay for some of it but not all of it, really wanted to do a cheapy night away as well.

newgirly

I have just put in a masive order at approved foods for £56, I was mooching around reading some frugal blogs and saw it mentioned , so thought I would try and order some flapjack mix which I'd used before. They did'nt have it , but I have ordered so much other stuff.

Huge bags of ;

pancake mix
toffee muffin mix
a few kilos of pizza base mix
ketchup/hp sauce
lots of seasonings/spicy meat rubs
plus some treats and lots of other stuff

Does anyone else here use approved foods? I have once before but dh was not keen on the idea of some of it being over the BB dates, this time I shall be more discreet.:D I found it to be very good quality and extremely good value.

I have decided to tackle the food budget as my challenge of the month, as I use the cc for this my month runs from around the 12th not the 1st. Its the only place where i can see room for savings. Petrol has been costing me £10 a day to ferry dd to her work experience, thank goodness it only for 2 weeks!

DD really does need some new clothes, she went out to a birthday meal with friends last night and I noticed both top and trousers was given by a friend, she is lucky as she is very sttractive and would look good in a sack, but I think its time to spend a bit on her.So maybe if i can cut back the groceries a bit i can treat dd.

gallygirl

newgirly wrote: »

I have just put in a masive order at approved foods for £56, I was mooching around reading some frugal blogs and saw it mentioned , so thought I would try and order some flapjack mix which I'd used before. They did'nt have it , but I have ordered so much other stuff.

Huge bags of ;

pancake mix
toffee muffin mix
a few kilos of pizza base mix
ketchup/hp sauce
lots of seasonings/spicy meat rubs
plus some treats and lots of other stuff

Does anyone else here use approved foods? I have once before but dh was not keen on the idea of some of it being over the BB dates, this time I shall be more discreet.:D I found it to be very good quality and extremely good value.

:j:j:j:j:j did you order the lucky dip box, did you, did you, did you :j:j:j:j:j

I haven't ordered for 15 months, I still have a few dregs left (which must be WELL out of date by now ). I was looking today and would like to order loads of the packs of couscous, but need to make room first. May have a raid on cupboard and do a stocktake.

Ooooohhh, so envious, it's like Christmas when it arrives :rotfl:

newgirly

Hi GG, no they had sold out of the mystery box , it was £1 was that the one?

I still have a few hundred sachets of vege cuppa soups from last time, its storing the stuff thats the problem.:D

gallygirl

newgirly wrote: »

Hi GG, no they had sold out of the mystery box , it was £1 was that the one?

Awwwwww