Mortgage Free - so good they'll do it twice! Wynnvegas aiming for the big house

wynnvegas

Morning All,

The benefits of a lazy day are manifold - a long lie to 10am, watching crappy eighties movies on the couch (the karate kid and back to the future) with Moyra, breaking only for lunch before heading onto the remainder of season 13 of ER to get closer to finishing Moyra's latest DVD-a-thon. Would have been a proper moneysaving day excepting the good run we've had at Christmas shopping. Everything is looking pretty organised with only about 10 presents still to pick up. Most of those should get ticked off the list this week as we're shopping in Livingston tomorrow, Newcastle of Thursday, York on Friday and Manchester on Saturday. Everything else can get bottomed out on the internet next weekend. The weather has been particularly minging today so not going outside hasn't been much of a hardship.

We're normally more ahead of the game than this but we do have a ridiculous stock of shower gel sets which were intended for family presents this year which I've failed miserably in delivering which we'll manage to disperse a good number around friends this Christmas. Best laid plans gone astray which is a rubbish effort as we've barley gotten around 20% of the family. I'll have a good crack at doing better next year.

Tomorrow's job is going to be finding space in the house for Moyra's 30 new duck things. They're currently clogging up the living room but they're annoying me already. There is possibly room in the downstairs toilet for another 2 or 3 shelves which should go some way to storing them. We'll get the house tidied up and all the recent paperwork filed away. There's talk of a visit to Ikea to pick up the last remaining piece of furniture for the house (a tall Billy bookcase) which I'm doing all I can to put off. We're considering doing the floors and doors around the house a wee bit earlier than is currently planned but it's still likely that the kitchen, floors and doors will all be done whilst we're away in Vegas next summer. Definitely back to three weeks next year!

Hope everyone is grand and dandy.

Cheers,

Billy

Edit: Thinking I may as well make my early evening productive, I've just grabbed the latest deal from the co-operative bank. Well worth considering for anyone who likes easy money - http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206375355,CFSweb/Page/Bank

Brodiebobs

Thanks for that, i dont mind a bit of free money!!!

wynnvegas

Hi Brodiebobs,

Hope it goes well for you. I switched a wee while ago to Santander when they were offering £100 for doing so and it all went pretty smoothly. other than them being a bit pernickity over certain things, they haven't been that bad but neither have they been good enough to merit me turning away an easy £200. It's been approved so it's just a case of filling out the forms and getting a couple of things switched about at work.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Packed and ready for our mini shopping jaunt down to that England tomorrow. The aim for the next three days is to bottom out the Christmas shopping for everyone and to pick up a few new shirts and ties.

Had a snippy email from Sky about exceeding our internet usage so it looks like we'll need to upgrade that due to the iPad downloading we've been playing with in the last wee while. That extra £7.50 is annoying as it takes our normal monthly spend over £1,000. I should be able to offset that in the next month with my phone contract coming up for renewal. Moyra's is due for renewal in January and we're both happy enough with our phones (the 4s seems a lot of fuss about not an awful lot) so we'll just take the better deal with the same allowances and save £30-odd quid a month in the process. I might well have a fight with Sky about it just for the sake of it as it's surely been six months since I got my last half price deal from them.

Hope everyone is grand and dandy...

Cheers,

Billy

Brodiebobs

I did the switch to alliance and leicester, then back to halifax, then santander, then back to halifax... all for £100 each time!!!

My co-op has been approved too, thanks very much for that!!!

I found when we were with sky if you phoned up a couple of times a year they'd give you something for free, until i think they got sick of me and finally stopped playing ball, so i switched to virgin for the £140 cashback via quidco a while ago lol...

wynnvegas

Evening All,

I'm in shock! I refer back to my above post having learned the very hard way never to take Moyra on a 3-day shopping jaunt...

My shopping list consisted of shirts, ties, maybe a coat and a couple of gym things if I could find them. My shopping resulted in 8 shirts, 6 ties, four t-shirts, two pairs of gym trousers and some books we picked up at a church sale in York (which is really nice by the way - no idea why I protested so much about it!)

Moyra's shopping list consisted of a new white top (apparently to go with some other item of clothing). Moyra's shopping eventually consisted of:

Pyjamas (la senza) - £30
Cards (card factory) - £6.21
Makeup and Nail Varnish (boots) - £29.61
Christmas Decorations (Christmas Angels) - £18.41
Two pink tops, a jumper and a cardigan (H&M) - £51.96
New Cake Tins / Knives (ok, I'll accept partial responsibility for knives - 66% off though!!) (Lakeland) - £53.83
Shower Gel / Makeup (The Body Shop) - £55
Jewellery Drawers (Vintage York) - £39.85
Earrings (Lily Shambles) - £63
Jumpers / Shoes / Slippers (Next) - £115.20
Tops (black / green) (Gap) - £30.06
Jeans / T-Shirts (Bench) - £81
Shoes (Schuh) - £65
Books (Waterstones) - £28.97
Jumper (fatface) - £38
Scarf / Tops (Debenhams) - £49

and no white top!!!

And she thinks she's low maintenance....

Hope everyone is grand and dandy.

Cheers,

Billy

Tiggger

[QUOTE=wynnvegas;47982835

and no white top!!!

And she thinks she's low maintenance....

Hope everyone is grand and dandy.

Cheers,

Billy[/QUOTE]

Billy, have you not learnt yet that when ladies go shopping for something particular, ie a white top, they will NEVER find it, Moyra obviously shares my shopping mantra, get it when you see something because when you are specifically looking for something it won't be there!

I too love shopping in York, particularly at McArthur Glen, I always seem to get fabby work suits there.

Have a lie down and a beer, you'll soon feel better!!
Regards
Tiggger

wynnvegas

Hi Tiggger,

I think it's worse than that! It seems to me to be a carefully calculated strategy to keep the shopping trips coming. It's Braehead in the next couple of weeks (thankfully not with me) and then she'll be gearing up for the sales after Christmas. I'm trying to rein her in by reminding her that every pair of new shoes pushes our big house back that bit further.

Cheers,

Billy

wynnvegas

Morning All,

Another busy period as always. After returning to work, a few heads have been knocked together, a few fights have been had and a whole lot of action, reaction and resolution has occured - all for the positive and we'll find out how much better things have gotten at the end of next week. Month 1 of the Business Improvement job saw a 9% rise in SLA performance to 87% and a 3% increase in Sales and I'm hoping that we push it that bit further on those areas and I'll get the stats next Friday.

Somewhat more importantly, I finally managed to sit down with the boss today to talk about a salary review. Up £4,000 to £44,000 with another £4,000 to come if all the objectives come off in the next year. Backdated to mid-June so that will be a good time next month. Sorted the rainy day fund to £5,000 today so half way to the target for the rest of the year. Had a chat about the Saudi Consultancy gig earlier in the week so that's looking particularly promising for the next few months. Paid the credit card (£1,200 of Moyra's shopping although about £300 was me to be fair), put the expenses in which is another £350 to come back next week, should get £300 of debt repayments in the next week and a bit and the Christmas shopping is done bar a couple of wee things. I have to try and find some beauty therapy gear for my little sister as it's her birthday next week but I might take the easy way out and bung her £100 to start off her Vegas fund for next summer. She's trying to save £600 spending money so that will be a bit of a start for her and it gives me a bit more time to get the facial towels warmer / dispenser thingy that she's after. I've promised to take her to Alton Towers sometime soon as well but trying to find time is a bit of a challenge just now.

Cheers,

Billy

abouttimetoo

Hi Billy, I'm on a phone keypad at the mo so will keep it brief. I just wanted to say that I'd noted your plea on another thread... Never let it be said that we here are not supportive of your needs so just for you... :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:
:rotfl: