Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

Sunnyday

Newgirly, if you already have the white viewing card (most do) then you don`t have to pay the £25 to switch to freesat from sky.

I read about that one one of the boards here, when i rang i told them that i didn`t want to cancel sky (that can cause probs) i told them that i wanted to switch to freesat from sky and that i already knew that i didn`t need a new card as i already had the white one. Apparently they will always try to get you to buy a new card but you don`t need to.

Pammy - five usa and fiver are still viewable with the old sky card on freesat from sky but if you change the box to a humax one then there`s nowhere for the viewing card so you won`t get them.

TBH they`re the channels that i missed when we changed over to the new box, i could just wire the sky box up again and get them but i`ve found that a lot of the progs come on channel 5 so i set the new box to record the whole series when i see one of the progs on and i can watch them whenever i want to:D


HTH

SD

newgirly

Thanks sunnyday, our sky card is blue, I'm not sure what that means! I 'll wait and see what happens on Tues when the engineer comes.

we are going out for lunch today as its my mums birthday, (my dad is paying luckily), as since doing my SAO i've decided to take my food/ petrol etc. money monthly instead of weekly,so I've only got £60 left to cover everything until the 8th oct. when I start doing it all monthly.
I made my mum a sock monkey as part of her present, which I got off one of the threads on here and it went down very well , so I may have to make some more for stocking fillers for xmas.

Managed a couple of one poll surveys this weekend, but there don't seem to be as many as usual at the moment, also did a lightspeed for 80pts.

I went to the farm shop yesterday and managed to spend double what I spent last week, £12 which is not so cheap. I think I got a bit carried away buying fruit which is much more expensive than the veg. So I'll try and use up what i have in the freezer and cupboards in the next couple of weeks. The heating is on at the moment as well as i'm trying to dry some washing , plus have had family round this morning and didn't want them to freeze! But will have to cut down on having the heating on all the time like last year though, as our bills seem to be pretty high.
oh, the other thing that has made my day is my mum got a jam maker for her birthday, so am hoping to borrow that at some point to try out. I was just as pleased when she bought her breadmaker which now lives in my kitchen

[Deleted User]

newgirly
aw hottub sounds lush Ill be round for a go too if thats okay? my friend has one and its just lovely to sit and relax in -even in the winter!
cant give any advice re: sky Im afraid.. I have yet to give into the temptation tho would love it..maybe that can be one of my MF rewards!
good luck with the jam making- we have a bread maker which was given to us and Ijust dug out so that is my mission this week (to figure out how it works and make a loaf!) any tips welcome..
enjoy your lunchy

tyo x

newgirly

Hi the young one, pop round anytime for a swim!
With the breadmaker, I'm afraid I don't have a clue, I just follow the receipe book it came with. Does it give you a choice of loaf sizes? if it does I can post a reicipe from my book on here if it helps.

newgirly

Well, the two engineers from sky have fixed the problem, it was the outside wires which were ancient, so they have replaced them free of charge.
I have done my gas and electric readings as well which have come in at a lot less than they estimated, I tried to reduce my DD but they said no I'll have to wait until spring to get a review. I am currently £152 in credit at the moment, I'm hoping to just have the heating on when the kids get in from school for a couple of hours and see how it goes, last year it was on all day and eve every day.

I have worked out my mortgage bal for today, £14.72 per day x 21 days since the last check,= £309.31 interest this month.
standard mortgage payment is £1372 per month
Current bal now: £155,676.
I can make next months OP on friday of £274 , so I'll double check all figures then.

So have paid £5260 off the balance since may 17th when we took out the new mortage.
If I had not changed the mortage then we would have paid £3844 and only £684 would have been knocked off the balance. That really is an unbelievable difference. I'm pleased but also gutted that I let things go so far, when we bought our house 9 yrs ago our mortgage was only £93 k.

Anyway, I have been good with cooking this week, have baked lots of bread and made some homemade soup, and fairy cakes.
Still not many surveys though ,but lots of cash back showing as pending from all new insurance policies just taken out -hopefully another £110.

newgirly

Hooray time to update the figures:


I have just made octobers max OP of £274.52, so:



mortgage bal: £155,446.06

0%CC bal: £8368.23

total: £163,814.29

New interest per day is £14.60


Not doing too badly, but would like to get rid of that CC debt a bit quicker though, there has just been so many things to pay out for lately, DD came home with a request for £55 deposit for next years school trip yesterday, it had to be paid by today which I thought was rather short notice!

I have £25 left until next friday, so no food shopping until next week, hopefully I shouldn't need too much. I have got a few extra mouths tonight and a sleepover tomorrow, plus one for tea next week though. I think I'm going to do an iceland pizza shopping trip today for when we have the boys friends over, other than that its homemade bread and whats in the freezer.
I might go to the farm shop for some fruit if I can as well.

I really need to get some stuff listed on ebay as well, think I will try this weekend if its not too hectic.

newgirly

I have been doing a lot of workings out this morning, trying to find a way to give myself some money before the 8th oct (next time I get my monthly money for all food/spends etc.) and i have decided to use the new CC I got recently from the AA. (£23 cashback earned!) ,
When I activated the card I found out the date the statements are generated , the 11th, and when the payment is due by , the 31st.
So I have decided to draw out a small amount of cash for school dinners etc. and put everything else on the card. i think it will be easier to manage than payments coming out of the same account as my D.D. 's as currently happens, as I'm constantly checking the bank statements.
I have arranged a direct debit to take the full outstanding amount out at the end of each month. I just have to keep a diary of everything that has been spent. I usually pay myself weekly so it might be a bit tougher doing it monthly we will have to wait and see.

This should mean that I have a surplus of funds for the first month as the bill is generated on the 11th, I should not spend a whole months money by then, so there should be a bit left for OP's.

I am also doing very well with topcashback so far. I recently opened some halifax current accts and when (fingers crossed!) they
are showing, I should be up to around £415 ish, although some of this is still unconfirmed, its not bad as I only opened the account about 3 or 4 months ago.

I have passed the 1/2 way mark with one poll which seems to take forever to get anywhere, but as I've started I have to get to £40 now!

linz

Hi newgirly. Popped across to check out your diary. Can I ask how you work out your daily interest? I am totally rubbish at maths but i'd love to know how much my £500 overpayments are bringing down my mortgage. The rate is 5.44% fixed. Could you help me out please I wonder?

newgirly

Hi Linz , the way I work out the interest per day is I take the outstanding balance, x it by the interest rate, ie. mine is 3.43%, and then divide the total by 365.


I haven't posted for a few days but have been very busy being frugal. Nearly all meals cooked from scratch, bread in the breadmaker, lots of surveys and clicks on topcashback, searching out very cheap xmas pressies that everyone will like etc. To be honest I feel worn out.
I think its going to be difficult not having the heating on during the day, as the washing just takes forever to dry, I don't have a tumble , so there is washing drying all round the house constantly, I do about 3 loads a day, does anyone have any tips for getting round this?

The kids are a handful at the moment, and for some reason the dog has taken to barking during the night, I was up four times last night with her, I feel shattered, but I want to stick with doing my MSE bits and bobs as I think it will make a difference in the future, sometimes it just feels like a long way off though.

I thought I would set myself a target for the end of this year, to get under £160 k for the combined total of the mortgage and 0% CC. This should be achievable, but I'm also decorating the living room/hallway/stairs, landing and conservatory and we need new doors downstairs, and I haven't actually budgeted for any of this , but I really want to do it before xmas.

I think I might start decorating next week as my twins are off on their first school trip for 5 whole days :eek:. I think I need to keep busy as I'm really not looking forward to them going!

babyb06

Just had a read through your thread and gained some good ideas and inspiration - thanks!:T

One thing I wanted to ask about - your 3 Halifax reward accounts - do you need to use Halifax as your main account or do you just move a £1000 between the 3 accounts and then back to your main account? If it is the latter, how long do you have to leave the money in each account for to qualify for the £5?

Thanks:D

BabyB