Jellie wobbles into her MFW journey

*Jellie*

Primula wrote: »

Ok, had a read now, the dresses, yes lady dresses.........two of them?!!!!.......look gorgeous, :j now no more looking at any wedding dress shops for you!

I drop in and out of the diaries much more briefly than I used to, still reading my favourite few, but farmville kind of took over, however, I have given up my cafe world and neglected my farm now! enough was enough! We were on holiday for a week and surprisingly enough we both managed without internet and tv so it can be done! Had a lovely holiday and now back on the stop wasting money wagon, I was finding old habits were sneaking back in. Last month was good for us though, we have overpaid our mortgage for the last quite a number of years and we are down to £200/£300.......thank the Lords. I can tell you, it's the best thing we did though overpaying, and every few months we would do a wee calculation and get all excited....I kid you not!! Not paying it all off though until the end of the year as we will get penalised if we redeem now, it's a fab feeling though, mind you, we still have rent, bills & food to pay for DD being at uni, but hey ho, glad we can do it.

Anyway, enough about me, how have you been and how is life in your lovely new home with OH? Oh and for getting out and meeting new folk, have you thought about joining a dance class? Usually great fun with a friendly bunch, and not too expensive.

Don't worry- I have enough other things to find without looking at any more wedding dresses When my sister gets back tomorrow we'll need to chat about colour scheme for her Bridesmaids dress! Since I have pink and silver in my wedding dress I hope she'll be ok with one of those. She has hopefully had one of the colour consultation things done while she was away so that should help.

We also had a week away with limited internet access. I made a deliberate effort not to use it even when I could!

Well done at your amazing efforts with the mortgage. :T
Settling into the new house thanks. I've just been on my walk today and stopped off at the library to change my address. Have put myself down on the waiting list for the reading group.

Dancing is a great idea. I did Salsa for years and met my ex there. Haven't really been since we split but I might give the local class a try and see what it is like. I also did Ceroc for years but have got out of the habit in the last couple of years. The problem is that they all run on week nights and end a bit late for me to cope with now!! However, I think there is line dancing up the road which could be worth a try and I'm also searching out local pilates and yoga groups. I am still struggling to decide whether to join a gym again.

Lovely to catch up with you x

sassyblue

Hi Jellie! I love.love, love the dresses, l echo Queen-Bee the first one will look fab with veil & flowers etc.

Do you mind me asking how you stay positive with the size of your mortgage? I guess you both have good salaries, our mortgage is £70k and it feels like a mountain!

*Jellie*

yukkibear wrote: »

Hi Jellie - found yooo

Lovely dresses. Stop looking! I got my flowers on ebay, very reasonable, if you're getting fake then send me a pm and I'll give you the link.

Thanks Yukkibear. I keep changing my mind on flowers at the moment. I like the idea of fake as you get to keep them! I'm also thinking about trying making beaded flowers so that could be a possibility if I enjoy it and am any good. However there is a lovely lady at work who does flowers and has offered to help so I guess I'd be silly not to chat to her further. Especially as she'll do them cheap as a friend.

The flowers at the church are done by the team there so I'm really looking at bouquets for myself and sister plus buttonholes. We'll be having drinks at home after the service so I'll probably just kit the place out with flowers from a supermarket or something and make an effort to get as much stuff blooming in pots in the garden as I can. We're then going for a meal at our local restaurant. They have bud vases with flowers on the table so I might just stay with whatever they've got or I might chat with them about using their supplier to get something to match my scheme. At the moment I'm considering leaving it at that to save money.

*Jellie*

missymoo81 wrote: »

Jey Jels happy new diary, looks like you've had a lovely warm welcome from people over on the MFW thread!!

OOOh wedding dresses, I really love the first one, and as for buying 2, a girls got to have 2 dresses!! I did and loved every second of wearing them.

Right I'm off bed, will catch up tomorrow.

sleep tight

x

Thanks Missy. I feel a bit decadent but the first one is really not going to be suitable for the restaurant. It was important to me that in the church I feel like a real bride though! As my second marriage I also wanted to make sure it was different from the first!

*Jellie*

greent wrote: »

Hello again Jellie - love the dresses - esp the 1st one. They look lovely (and dying the 2nd one for re-use is a really good idea!!)

gt x

Queen-Bee wrote: »

Beautiful dresses Jellie, especially that first one - with veil, tiara and flowers etc, you're going to look gorgeous!
QB

Thankyou both. I feel much better about them now and I will hopefully get to show them to my family in the next couple of days which will help!

*Jellie*

Thanks Froggy.
Your advice and encouragement has been really helpful.
I'm sure I'll be asking for lots of help! I'm trying to get my head around how to keep track with us offsetting rather than overpaying. The fact that we'll be paying everything into the offset and then using money from it will make the figures yo- yo quite a bit! We have 3 offset accounts though so hopefully we can set aside one which is a 'don't touch' account. We might decide to use money from it for any major stuff on the house but other than that we'll hopefully just watch it increase!
I need to find a way to do things as I did when I was a DFW to keep motivated!

*Jellie*

sassyblue wrote: »

Hi Jellie! I love.love, love the dresses, l echo Queen-Bee the first one will look fab with veil & flowers etc.

Do you mind me asking how you stay positive with the size of your mortgage? I guess you both have good salaries, our mortgage is £70k and it feels like a mountain!

Thanks Sassy.

We both have decent salaries and also have a fair chunk of equity in the house. I think the fact that the bank would have allowed us to borrow so much more helps as we know we are at a level we can comfortably afford. We are also fixed rate for 5 years so at least we know exactly what will be going out in that time!

It is a mountain but then our budget suggests we can knock it on the head in around 10 years and still allows us treats.
With house prices so high down here we get used to these kind of horrendous figures!!

I'm sure I'll have lots of wobbles trying to do this but with such motivating and encouraging people on here I think we can manage it!

We love this house and can't imagine moving in the next 10 years so I think I just need to think about fully owning the house everytime I'm tempted to buy things I want rather than need! Speaking of which I almost bought a crafting book earlier in the week but have just borrowed it from the library instead.

Right- time to clear out more clutter!!

milann

Jellie - it sounds as if you are approaching the wedding with the right attitude - it is a very special day but so many people seem to equate that a special day means being ripped off by spending silly money on things.

I was at a friends last night and we were talking about wedding cakes - she made a fairy princess cake for her friend's daughter birthday and including buying the plastic turrets it cost about £40 plus her time and cooking costs. A website we'd been told about had the virtually identical cake for £955 - we were both gobsmacked. Yes there was a bit more detail in the one on the website - but they'd have bought the ingredients at cost price and £900 for a bit of filligree icing - makes me think I'm in the wrong business......

It is our anniversary today - 32 years. We had a great day - and it was done on a shoestring budget - story of my life really - a shoestring budget but it's done us ok and I don't believe in being ripped off!!

Better get my buuummm into gear and carry on sorting out my wardrobe bottom!!


Milann

*Jellie*

Hi Milann
I am currently decluttering some files by scanning them onto the computer. It means I may as well stay on here or I miss reloading the feeder!

Thanks for the comments on our wedding. I'm trying really hard to make it special without going overboard. We're happy to spend a chunk of money on it but want it to go on the things we feel are most important.

The price of that cake is unbelievable!! My SIL is going to make ours as a wedding present. I think she is a bit nervous but I'm sure it will be great! I'm just going to tell her the colour scheme and then leave it up to her so it can be a nice surprise!!

Hope the decluttering goes well. I think I could spend most of the holidays just scanning these folders!! It's a great feeling putting the out to recycling and seeing space start to appear though! I guess it will be onto bills and paperwork after that!

*Jellie*

I've been searching around on here but need some help finding a calculator or spreadsheet for offset mortgages. Can anyone recommend one?