Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

:rotfl: thanks Michelle, another £33 spent another one made though, not exactly what I would have plannned but made use of the leftovers. The kids are doing their usual, "what the h*ll is that" "how much did that cost" and my favourite "mother, why? , just why?" The joy teenagers bring is never ending :rotfl:

Thankfully though I have a dd who is slightly less offensive and had some positive comments

Dinner cooked, dd is at work but her boyfriend and his dd have come over to do pumpkins and watch diary of a wimpy kid love these autumnal weekends.

smallholdingsister

Well done for finishing it. I would not have managed that.

newgirly

Not happy today, I've just spotted next doors house up for rent on rightmove she rented it once before and we had noisy neighbours, she has since built a "games room" in the garden -translation a building you can sleep in with separate toilet. Bit worried about who we will have there as both sides are currently super quiet and often not there so we are spoilt! It's also smaller than ours and only 3 bed and it's on for £1500 pcm, ouch!

We are having the staircase measured today, I think I may have to adjust what targets I've set for the rest of this year, I'm not sure how realistic it is sticking to a tighter budget when it's our most spendy time of year and we are doing bits around the house to make it look better.

Will have a thorough look later today.

edinburgher

We are having the staircase measured today, I think I may have to adjust what targets I've set for the rest of this year, I'm not sure how realistic it is sticking to a tighter budget when it's our most spendy time of year and we are doing bits around the house to make it look better.

We are also in a period of debt reduction/belt tightening. I agree that there's only so much that you can do in the very short term. My current goals are to get on an even keel (i.e. a balanced budget), keep making minimum payments and overpay any extra money that we make.

It's going ok so far, this will be our second month with a balanced budget, so I guess we're more successful than the government.

newgirly

Lovely of you to pop in Ed, hope all is well with you all. A balanced budget can be a challenge sometimes here

michelle09

That sucks. Hopefully the tenants will be better than the last ones?

newgirly

Hope so Michelle, I am probably worrying over nothing

Happy Halloween everyone 🎃 Today dd and I are off to the Harry Potter studio tour (again!) followed by a cinema trip tonight to see The shining :j apart from petrol it's should be a low spend day as I'm trying to resist the studio shop goodies and we have a packed lunch to eat there, cinema is free and I'll take drinks.

Oh, I also need to buy a red balloon for the window, I'm going for a rather lazy "It" theme today , I'll do the full decorating spooky thing Friday when we have family over.

themadvix

It's good to know I'm not the only one for whom balancing the budget and managing debt is the main focus at the moment!

Enjoy HP today - it's the only form of Halloween I enjoy, so I bet it'll be awesome there!

newgirly

Thanks themadvix, we had a great time, the great hall had lit pumpkins in the night sky!

Not such a low spend day as we lost dds sandwich (possibly one of the boys ate it!) so £7.95 on a burger for dd, £6.95 on butter beer and plastic cup, £8 chocolate frog, and £13.95 on a hogwarts express xmas treee decoration -I had to! but a great day

Can't believe it's November tomorrow :eek: I'm getting worse and worse with tight budgets the further the year progresses. The savings pot is doing ok though, in the last couple of months I've saved £1000 for our Xmas market break in Bury and the 4 night cruise spending money for November. Xmas presents are 2/3 done, carpet budgetted for, 4x dining room chairs ordered to go with the 8 we already have (need more now we have another table extension!). I've managed to keep hold of the same end date of April '18 but only by the skin of my teeth and I've already raided the car insurance pot a while ago and thats due in November

Next dilemma is whether to order m and s food for Xmas, never done it before but fancy it this year as we are having a posh dinner party Xmas eve and a huge family meal Boxing Day. If you spend over £85 you get a free bottle of wine, I could do food much cheaper, and usually do, decisions decisions.......

themadvix

Don't do it NG! Save it for when you've actually paid the mortgage off... otherwise you'll add it to the list of things you want to spend on every year and that end date will just keep getting further and further away! You can buy a bottle of wine for a lot less than £85!