Lovethymini's Offset MFW Diary

lovethymini

Anyway.
Had a weekend at home and had a NSD on Sunday (makes up for the washing machine purchase on Friday. Well, not really, but every little helps). Made a lovely nasi goreng with enough for 2 meals, and some veggie pasta sauce for the freezer. Also made 5 birthday cards with DS which he loved doing. I shall be finding glitter for weeks! No need to buy birthday cards any more, it was so much fun letting DS loose with our craft box, or, as DS puts it, the "afts and crafts" box.
Ebay stuff didn't go for as much as I thought - I think it's because of the high street sales. Never mind, £20 in Paypal now. I'm at £32 with Onepoll and £46 with Yougov (I've been doing YG for 4 years and this will be the first payment at £50!) MySurvey, Toluna and Valued Opinions all looking close to payout, Pure Profile, Ipsos and Maximiles still a way to go. I think I'll redeem this month's Topcashback money as an Amazon voucher which is worth a bit more, and buy DS's birthday present with it. Doesn't look like Quidco will send me anything this month, but my visits to Halfords and B&Q have tracked so maybe next month. Payday on friday made the graph on One Account look nice, the mortgage is 202k albeit for a few days before CC payments go out.
Just remembered July is the month Amex pay us our cashback...£150, although I think we've had to pay £20 to them in interest over the last year - oops.

lovethymini

Happy Friday!

I've been really good this week, made a big batch of curry for the freezer to add to all the other hm goodies, and I did a Sainsburys shop and down-branded to Sainsburys basics range for a lot of things. Still managed to spend £112, but the boot was full of food. I did splash out on one of those cold compresses you keep in the fridge after DS's fall in the park though, it looks like he's taking after me with his two left feet. Of course, despite being 3 he is still showing strong male tendancies to exaggerate his injuries by telling DH there was "blood and bones everywhere" (where did he get that phrase from?)
We've got friends over on Sunday, planning to make a chilli in the slow cooker but I think the weather might be too warm! Quiet weekend otherwise, so intending to have a NSD tomorrow.

Three cheers for Minky customer service who sent me a replacement ironing board after my 4 month old one went rusty :T. And it's the posh one with all the gadgets. 4 Days till the new washing machine turns up. We saved £9 on having the old one removed by giving it away on freecycle.

Hope some wages come through for my job - looks a bit precarious at the moment, company is struggling.

Target: to drastically reduce CC by 1st August.

lovethymini

Hmmm bit of a slow burner, this diary - exactly one month since last post.

Thing is, it doesn't feel like we can do much overpaying at the moment; we're on one wage still (no wages for me yet but haven't lost hope), increasing costs with everything domestic, and a whole house to refurbish. should I carry on with this? It is helping me though, and influencing my financial choices daily.

Our car has cost us £1,000 to fix in the last month - cambelt change (this was done before we bought the car but badly, so it needed doing again - grrr), and new brakes. As a result, I will park the mini in the garage and delay his MOT till September, to give us some breathing space. We really need to keep the Renault going for as long as possible to get our money's worth!

Struggling not to go clothes shopping - diet has gone well, but nothing fits me because I'm now size 13. Had a weak moment at the weekend and compiled a list with Next Directory, but deleted it -:A DH was mightily impressed. I have also been out on bike rides more this month (probably why I'm size 13) and have used my TCB commission to buy a pannier bag for food shops after dropping DS off at school - it's downhill and a piece of cake. (cake, did someone mention cake?)

moggitymog

only just spotted your diary, but will read with interest as we also have quite a largish mortgage and i am a size fifteen!

Twiddy

Just caught up with your diary LTM and will follow with interest as you have a Oneaccount mortgage and am thinking of taking one out ourselves...Don't give up on this, I'm sure all MFWs have slow months where nothing really happens then all of a sudden WHAM you're back in the game....have faith player!!

lovethymini

Thanks for the supportive posts

Yes I'm hoping we have some money just arrive out of the blue, I really want to do this.
Feeling more optimistic about being paid for working - the company has had a good week and things are now looking up. It's been vague up to now because they suffered from a warehouse fire, they're only a small company and it takes ages for insurance payouts to be made.
Had a surprise email from B&Q - seems we've won a bathroom design from the lovely George Clarke! Can't afford a new bathroom, but I could put the picture on the wall. I think they took pity on our peeling terracotta wallpaper You know you need to update the bathroom when the three year old is sitting in the bath and redesigning the entire room right down to changing the door around. I think he's watched too much Sarah Beaney.
And now for something completely different - DH has decided to sell the Scenic and buy a new car. Well - nearly new. He gets car allowance and has to have a car of a certain age, which the Scenic definitely does not comply with, so I begrudgingly agreed. Anyway, we pick it up next week, and it's a Honda, so it will hopefully have a better residual value at the end of three years. I wonder if my husband can keep the same car for three years :rotfl:
No wonder OP are nigh on impossible. This is, after all the man who at the ripe old age of 40 is riding his 38th motorbike.

getmore4less

Just noticed the CC are not on the SOA.

It is probably better to have debts/savings itemised as weel

At the end of the say it is net worth that matters

You need to be aware of interest rates no point in offsetting at mortgage rate if the CC are at higher rates.

I think you may also need to consider manageing the car only based on the allowance or at least look at what it is costaing against the allowance, might be better off mot having the allowance and claiming mileage for company use of personal car. the problem probably is the allowance is taxed at 40% so there is a lot less to run these new cars that it first appears.

lovethymini

getmore4less wrote: »

Just noticed the CC are not on the SOA.

It is probably better to have debts/savings itemised as weel

At the end of the say it is net worth that matters

You need to be aware of interest rates no point in offsetting at mortgage rate if the CC are at higher rates.

I think you may also need to consider managing the car only based on the allowance or at least look at what it is costaing against the allowance, might be better off mot having the allowance and claiming mileage for company use of personal car. the problem probably is the allowance is taxed at 40% so there is a lot less to run these new cars that it first appears.

Thanks Getmore.
Yes I need to update the SOA - things have just crept up for the last 6 months. I've asked DH to be more involved with the financial side of things as I think it would help to have two heads on it and help keep me more focussed.

DH gets £6k/year car allowance, and after the taxman's been at it we've got £300 per month. The new car is costing £308 per month for 3 years, on a deal aimed at car allowances. The allowance is part of DH's package. He has also considered changing to having a company car but we would not do as well financially waht with the tax and the choice of cars available (he doesn't like any of them). We will, however be able to claim mileage on the new car, which he does a lot of. the last car we got was £18k, so we were out of pocket for it. the new one is an '09 reg and costs £13.5k. DH drives clients and directors sometimes so it needs to be "suitable" for his position, ie not a small economical town runaround. I just hope that mileage claims will cover the increased price of diesel.

I'm paying £1,600 onto the CC each month. When/if I start receiving wages I will be putting all of that onto the cards too until all is clear. £2k of it is on 0% but the rest is an Amex and a Capital One cashback cards - we've had to pay a little interest recently so very keen to get it all sorted.

We should be doing 400 miles less per month from now on as I'm not needing to drive DS to pre-school any more, we're walking to the first school from next month. That will probably save us about £60 in fuel.

I have a blister on my finger from all the potato peeling I did yesterday - talk about batch cooking.

lovethymini

Grrr that's the second loaf of bread I've made that's been flat, serve me right for trying a different yeast. Still - house smells nice.

Dh has cancelled car order. Honda was disappointed, but I'm relieved. We're now considering cars that don't cost all of DH's monthly car allowance. I'm writing off any hope of being paid, now and in the future. Anything over that is a bonus.
We're looking at 2 year old Astras, i30s, Golfs,308s, C-Maxs and Focuses. On paper the i30 is winning. I'm very surprised DH is looking at cars this small but very pleased too.

I'm also writing down all our purchases in my diary, using the spreadsheet is good for long term but not short term monitoring. As we're paying £1600 into the CCs per month, I am analysing the average spend per day on the cards to ensure we're reducing the balances, which is also having an affect on what we're buying. This week's shop was £64 which I used the One Account for. That included buying some wellies and socks for school - I'm pleased with that. I'm also finding lots of Sainsburys Basics ietms that the in-house testing panel are giving the thumbs up for!

Only spent £11 today - diesel for the Renault. No point filling it up if we're selling or part exing it soon.

lovethymini

I have found out why my bread has been like bricks and I made enough dinner to feed our cul-de-sac last night.
I prepaid for the postage of an Ebay parcel after the scales told me it was 1.75kg, and at the post office it weighed 2.3kg - miles out! So I'll try a different battery, and use my faithful old blue Woolies one for now. Luckily I managed to get a refund through the Royal Mail website.

Selling some more bits and bobs on Ebay. Got a shirt from Ebay yesterday, possibly the smallest ever size 14 in existance or maybe it's actually a 12 - listing said 14 and seller cut the labels out. looks nice not done up with a vest top underneath but undecided on my feedback.

Leftovers for dinner tonight - pasta bolognaise made with hm sauce and donated soya mince, so meat free too. I wonder if DH will notice! Ds and I had it for tea yesterday - it was absolutely delicious. Obviously the gas is turned off as soon as the pasta water is boiled :money:

No looters here - perhaps there's only responsible parents who live in this neck of the woods, keeping their teenagers indoors at times of strife. Or maybe no-one wants to loot antique shops and estate agents.