Our attempt at being MF!!

CathT

Well, today is the day! We have switched to FD. Mortgage has gone out as normal yesterday though to old lender so I will get that back in 10 days but need to double check with FD what date they are taking my mortgage payment out. I am hoping it will show on my online banking soon.

What else have I been up to? Well, i've been spinning away on SP and managed to redeem twice this week so that's £10ish headed my way this week. I've missed being able to send these small amounts as immediate OP's so ready to get back on track with that now we've done the big switch.

I've also upgraded my phone to a really snazzy model. Cost me £50 but i'm saving £5 a month over 2 years and I can probably get at least £100 for my old phone.

I'm still spending far too much money in the supermarket and need to rectify this! I think it will get worse as Summer approaches (unless we had our Summer last week?) as we'll be needing fruit and salad etc every few days. I have raspberries and strawberries growing in the garden but don't think they will meet our fruit requirements!

CathT

Have spoken to FD and discovered I can't view my mortgage online - thank goodness I have my spreadsheet! According to my calculations although I have extended the term for affordability I obviously want to clear mortgage ASAP so have set up a regular SO for an OP equivalent to what I was paying before the switch. This results in an automatic OP of £61.12 every month based on the original term. I still need to do some more calculations to see what extra can be OP'd.

museumworker

Yay! You've switched :j! I'm sure you'll love it. You can OP any amount, so can shove the odd quid here and there.

I got them to set up monthly mortgage statements, so get a regular check on my balance. There was no charge for this.

CathT

Thanks MW. I have set up a regular OP to match the £700 I am used to paying. According to my calculations that's about £210 but only £63 is a true monthly OP as we extended the term back. The extra £63 is based on keeping the original term and is the effect of dropping from 3.19% to 2.59%. I am getting 6 monthly statements which I guess isn't too long to wait between them. Might enquire about at least getting monthly updates though.

Another big baby item sold, it feels odd decluttering as we finish with it instead of keeping it like we did after DD! Anyway, it gives me another £40 for the OP pot and my GTM cheque should have cleared so i'll send £70 to FD account and alter OP amount.

Had renewal through for breakdown and quote was a lot but have decided to upgrade my account with Hal***x as they offer AA cover, mobile phone insurance and other perks. I've just had an i-phone 4 so it would be nice to have it insured!

Hope everyone is having a lovely Easter break so far, DS has celebrated by cutting a tooth today (Good Friday), DD cut her first Easter Sunday so it must be the done thing in our house!

CathT

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter. We had a lot of time at home as the weather was awful but it meant that the time didn't fly and it felt as though DH had more than 3 days off work.

Baby had a fab nap this morning (a whole hour!) so DD and I planted the tomato seeds I had free from getting the 'Which' guide. I have really missed having time with her on my own and that hour was very precious. Anyone know how much i'm meant to water them? I often drown plants never mind seeds!

Requested £50 from TCB this morning and think i'll pay it off the CC as we are still recovering from January. More SP cash due this week aswell, just missed out on claiming twice again this week.

summerday

Hi Cath, great news on your new mortgage. Hope you're still enjoying mat leave, I'm loving it!

Did you plant the tom seeds into seed trays? If so I usually water them a little every day, using a mist sprayer to avoid drowning them. If you don't have one perhaps you could use an old spray cleaner bottle filled with water?

CathT

summerday wrote: »

Hi Cath, great news on your new mortgage. Hope you're still enjoying mat leave, I'm loving it!

Did you plant the tom seeds into seed trays? If so I usually water them a little every day, using a mist sprayer to avoid drowning them. If you don't have one perhaps you could use an old spray cleaner bottle filled with water?

Thanks Summerday, yes it's lovely being off. I'm really wondering how i'll manage when I go back in two months though!

I was too tight to buy seed trays so they are in individual pots and i've saved some yoghurt pots to do more. I can't find my water sprayer which is annoying!

£6.14 from Superpoints to will add that to my TCB payment. Haven't check accounts yet so i'm hoping there's some spare cash I can throw at mortgage!

CathT

Found extra £100 in FD account which was my incentive money for joining. Have transferred that straight to savings. Have been thinking a lot about the house lately and have found a way to improve our layout without extending which can be done in stages. I think we have enough in savings for stage one so might get the work underway soon.

I recently ordered the free 'grow your own veg guide' from Which and it's fab. Tomatoes planted so think I might give courgettes a go aswell, possibly lettuce too?

pink_poppy

Ooh, house plans sound exciting, does it involve knocking walls down?! I'm desperate to knock a wall down to make our kitchen bigger but it's a load-bearing wall so a big job ~ doesn't stop me planning though!!

Do you know if the Which guide is still available?? I've started sowing a few seeds & I really want to get into proper fruit & veg growing.

Btw, I've cancelled my Superpoints account (sick of watching the same Puma video multiple times, lol) as I didn't think it was worth it for me ~ being a billy no mates meant it was going to take ages to reach payout

CathT

pink_poppy wrote: »

Ooh, house plans sound exciting, does it involve knocking walls down?! I'm desperate to knock a wall down to make our kitchen bigger but it's a load-bearing wall so a big job ~ doesn't stop me planning though!!

Do you know if the Which guide is still available?? I've started sowing a few seeds & I really want to get into proper fruit & veg growing.

Btw, I've cancelled my Superpoints account (sick of watching the same Puma video multiple times, lol) as I didn't think it was worth it for me ~ being a billy no mates meant it was going to take ages to reach payout

Yes, involves knocking a couple through and creating walls elsewhere to give us a huge kitchen diner but separate lounge. We're not knocking the walls out completely so hoping it won't be too costly.

I'm assuming the guide is still available, I rang the number on the tv advert but waited a couple of weeks for a callback but I'm sure you can do it online.

SP is fab if you can recruit people as you increase your spins and win when they spin but I can appreciate it would take a long time if you haven't signed anyone up.