Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

newgirly

Hi Vix, free pastries noooo! I can’t buy anything like that anymore as I’ll eat the lot 😂
Hi mfd’s hope you are well, I think going fast is ok for the shorter term, like a couple of years but any longer and I want to factor in holidays etc. Your dd’s are very lucky to have you helping them out 😊

Not much to report, I spent the day cleaning and washing. Checked in to tcb and there was £16.37 payable so I have requested it and op’d it in advance. 

newgirly

I did two online shops last night and then cancelled both, they were too large and I don’t know who is around this weekend so lots might go off too quickly.  So this morning I’ve done a large basket shop at the local tesc@ express, more expensive than the supermarket but I bought a lot less - only the essentials, so I count it as a win 😆 £38 spent.

Today I’m eating very well, meeting two friends for our first lunch out in ages and then a curry round mums tonight. Aside, from that spending I’m feeling quite motivated today to pay the mortgage off. It sounds silly but it’s all been a bit meh lately, the backwards steps due to giving the kids money is both a relief (that it’s a decided on figure now and dealt with) but also a bit deflating as we have a mortgage £15k higher than we would have had 😩

So I had planned to use all the rent money to pay the mortgage (£1500) and budgeted £250pm to pay for the remainder of the cruise holidays , plus some from the next couple of months. However looking at the spread sheet I could knock a further 8 months or so off I pay for the cruise over the next few months instead of the mortgage and not budget the £250pm. This means no holiday budget at all but a possible end date of oct 2025. With two cruises fully paid for next year (one rebooked and one for dhs 50th) we would potentially only have 2023/2024 without holidays. 

That seems pretty doable or more likely I could make it an ongoing challenge to make enough on the side to pay for something 😁 I’m also hoping to go a bit more “oldstyle”, time is one thing that does help that along I have found in the past and I have plenty of that at the moment 🙄

South_coast

You did well to fit £38 of stuff into a basket - you'll be buff before we know it 🤣!

newgirly

😆 or it’s just a bit pricey in our mini tesc@! 

Nice curry last night, and strange being at mums inside for dinner finally. Today dh is waiting at work for a machine to be delivered for his own private work and I have an empty house! The boys are on their way to Wembley to watch their local tiny team play 😬

I’ve just checked my Xmas list and budget and there’s a surplus of £10.05 so I’ve overpaid it. After checking my accounts I’ve noticed that my nationwide credit card has no cash bonus earned 😱 strange I thought so I googled it and there was an article on mse about this ending last year ☹️ Luckily I’ve a tesc@ cc I can use instead, which I guess earns clubcard points so I’ll start using that instead! 

newgirly

 Quiet couple of days here, I’ve cooked up lots of things that needed using up ASAP. made a couple of bags of roast potatoes, a veg and lentil lasagne and some aubergine and garlic pasta sauce. Also got a few yellow stickered bread bits from M&S yesterday which are in the freezer. 

This morning I took the plunge and dyed my hair all over 😱 it’s been growing out for the last couple of months from platinum blonde, doing it myself has ruined the condition and I’m not paying hairdressers prices any more! So I’m now (well semi permanent) “iced latte” which is more or less my natural colour, I’m sure it will wash out quickly but it looks even at least now and hopefully will be in much better condition not bleached. It probably seems a bit irrelevant on a mf diary, but at £130 for a cut and colour it’s a huge saving long term 😬

greent

£130! Where's the blue shrieking smiley?? 😜 Definite saving there - well worth doing (I'm very low cost for hair - had a dry cut for £20 start of Nov last year and before that it was Feb 2020 and I just embrace the grey streaks! 🤣 - it's more laziness than anything else - I admire people with lovely hair but that's never been me! 😂) xx

themadvix

Same here greent - a £15 trim once a year from SIL. It amuses me when we come out of lockdowns and everyone dashes to the hairdressers and it’s a topic of conversation!

 Sounds like a wise move NG. All the cooking sounds good too.

South_coast

I was definitely one of the rushing crew. Mine is in a bob, and with lockdowns and then unemployment last year it just got longer and longer. As soon as I got the new job I was in the salon getting about 5" chopped off - and then it was so upsetting when they were closed again at the beginning of the year and it just got longer and longer again 😥! There's a reason I have it in a bob - it doesn't suit me long!!!

LadyGnome

I am debating what do to do with my hair.  I currently have highlights to blend in the grey but I am not sure how many more years that will work for.  If I have an all over colour then its more high maintenance than the highlights.  At some point I am going to have to embrace the grey and tell myself its fashionable.  Hair appointments are not cheap either.

newgirly

£130 is the cheapest locally as I did a lot of looking around before I settled on them when blonde! It’s hard, I used to be very dark and dye and cut my own long hair, my natural colour is light brown (now with some grey) so not wanting to get old with very dark almost black hair I had to spend a few hundred to strip it all down and then gradually went blonde. Now I’m not sure what to do! It’s in terrible condition and been breaking off after a year of lockdown home bleaching 😱 

I’ve just used a castings semi permanent over the whole lot as the blonde was growing out and I felt a state 😆 I guess eventually I will see how grey I am as it fades. I have been good the last few months since the damage and not used any heat or brushes, washing less and using a masks twice a week so I’m trying to improve it, the damage has stopped but I’m not getting a cut until it’s grown longer so I don’t have to have a short hair when bits have broken 😩 I also have a Bob but it’s a bit shabby right now! 

Lady gnome would you dye your own hair if it wasn’t blonde? I never had any problems doing that until I used bleach 😱 when darker it was easy and covered well and I could just do the roots in twenty mins every few weeks?