TYO's 2011 kicking the mortgage into shape...

[Deleted User]

Evening all
yay for Friday and for 3 day weekends!
On the MF front ....
£208 OP from amazon sales/payrise/savings ...
Have done well on the food shop- Lidl shop for £12 for quite a lot of stuff, loads of (really good quality) fruit and veg from market , Bargains in mr t's including 12 butchers sausages £2 and a whole chicken £2.50 - so some cooking to be done tomorrow! Will tot up the total after the weekend but reckon should come in under £50 for the month (with all the stuff we have in the cupboards!!)
have had a few meals out lately (mostly MSE versions) so need to get back on the shred! (plus have a goal to get back into my size 10/12 clothes by xmas - counted the weeks today and with 1lb a week wt loss should be doable!) In the spirit of this (and in being a loving OH) I have left 3/4 of a pizza leftover from dinner in the fridge for mrtyo
Have had a few viewings on the flat but nothing else.. am hoping not to have to lose money on it as to rent out again would be almost 2.5% higher interest rates! but merrily carrying on with the OPing just the same!
Managed to get some good grabbits - including free celebrations box with some xmas pressies (arrived today!) and an ikea duvet (mrtyo thinks its too flowery I think! but itll do for me) Also got a few clothes in the sales to motivate me with my "size 10 xmas challenge" ...oooo like the sound of that!

hopefully catch up on some diaries over the weekend, a few social bits n bobs so trying to keep the spends down...

Radish72

Is that the next challenge 14lbs by "the day that should not be named in August"

Ooo that felt a bit Harry Potter ish then

Think we might be going to a beer festival this weekend

cha97michelle

Deleted_User wrote: »

Thanks Michelle
Egg fried rice and veg sounds nice- mrtyo usually needs some meat tho!
I have a lamb stew to do tomorrow and a pack of sausages which I will do for sausage and mash then some cold ones for sandwiches ... next months plan will be sausage casserole....
Find roasting a joint and using the leftovers for different meals plus sandwiches works quite well for us - but trying to vary the meat!

Had a good de-clutter and sort out of clothes , put all the "slightly too small" ones into the bottom drawer ready for when my health and fitness plan kicks in! monday morning tomorrow! :rotfl:

sharing thread for recipies sounds a good plan - I know for us food was one of the biggest savings we were able to make ....

Just catching up from before I went away - shameful really. I do put meat in with the egg fried rice. A bit of ham, or sometimes value bacon bits from Mr T - I think it is 500g for 75p. Some fatty bits, but I just try and trim those out. Or anything you want.

Leftover sausages usually end up being sliced up really thin here, then going in an omlette, or on top of a pizza, or as the meat in a pasta sauce so a little bit goes a LONG way. ~Hope that is helpful to you.

[Deleted User]

Hey radish
Yep thats the plan!! Shred done this afternoon, jacket potato for lunch and pizza and salad for tea!
Yes I shall not mention the day but I tend to get very excited about it! :rotfl:

Thanks michelle
The plan is to make sausage casserole again and maybe cook a few to be sliced up for sarnies!

bit of shopping and pampering today - was lovely! got a few charity shop bargains too!

[Deleted User]

Evening all- cant believe how quick bank holiday has gone and back to work tomorrow!! am planning on a week of lazy evenings and quick dinners...!

In MSE style this weekend was looking through SOA and wondering how can save more....
the 3 things I came up with were:
1)present fund- currently budgeting about £40 p/m for £200 ish at xmas and £250 ish through the year for bdays ...wondered how well other people do as I tend to buy things as I see them so have no idea how much I actually end up spending or what comes out of that fund and what comes out of any other money I have lying around...
birthdays is approx 15-20 people through the year and xmas 10-12 people.
2) Car fund- currently £75 ish a month and out of this £350 for insurance, £300 mot/repairs (shouldnt cost £300 at mot but would rather overbudget in case of new tyres/clutch/anything else) £125 tax and £60 ish breakdown- have had a look and may be able to get free breakdown thru mrtyos work (Im letting him look into that! )
3)Contact lenses- dont really wear these every day but for a month worth of daily lenses am spending over £40 I know thats probably alot and includes check ups and with an optician I trust with my eyes....but thinking I must be able to get cheaper/more convenient (as an independent opticians limits when I can go etc..) does anyone buy theres online? and if so how do you make sure you know what youre getting??...
4) life ins - currently paying £32 p/m to cover outstanding mortgage amount (120000 ) for £6 a month I could get it to cover £50000 through another work scheme...my brain seems unable to do the maths on this but am thinking the £6 p/m may be better (though I couldnt increase the amount it would pay out if that makes sense)

ok that was 4 things! I shall eagerly await any words of wisdom!

Sepa74

Do you need to wear daily contacts? I have extended wear monthly lenses (OK for 14 hours) from SpecSavers for £14pcm.

The service is impeccable, both through the stores and over the phone, the contact lenses arrive like clockwork, and I don't have to worry about dodgy online quality. All the eye check ups and solutions are included in this price.

If you only wear yours for 10 hours a day, they are even cheaper, I think about a tenner a month.

My only gripe is that the specially designed posting box fits through normal mail slots, but mine is smaller than standard and the postie won't squeeze them through in case they get damaged, so I have to go and pick them up from the depot!

[Deleted User]

Hey Sepa -thanks for the tip!
I havent needed contacts/glasses for a long time so am still getting used to it all again! I dont think there's any reason to go for dailies over monthly /fortnightly other than convenience, tho I often find my eyes get irritated easily so may need to look into the best type of contacts ...
I will have a look into specsavers ...I like the idea of getting them thru the post rather than having to go and collect them too! Are they quite good with check ups? like I say I seem to be struggling with getting used to them at the mo (but too vain to wear glasses all the time- doh!)

Not much else to report on the moneysaving front- have avoided buying lunch most of the week and taken in pack lunches, dinner has been from cupboards/freezer and shall remain so over the weekend! Shopping bill still under the £110 mark for the month so hoping this will be my first month back on track with that one! quietish weekend planned though I may take mrtyo on a date somewhere (if he is reading this! ) trying to think of something frugal but fun! ....

Thought I had rounded mortgage off to a nice even number but it seems either not to have come off the figure or added more interest so shall wait and see what happens with that!

will also have a hunt over the weekend for anything else I can make money from - and look at the £10 a day thread to see if Im missing anything obvious! :rotfl:

Happy friday all- gotta love 4 day weeks!!

[Deleted User]

Mornin all
Have been baking and cooking and from our cupboards and freezer stores have created cookies (doubled recipe so have about 10, 0000 obviously with my xmas size 10 challenge I shall not be indulging in many of these!) pizza with peppers and chorizo and gonna do egg mayo baguettes for lunch!
All cooked out then so itll be freezer dinners for the rest of the week methinks!

Also ordered some bodyshop stuff with a glitch on grabbit, I really dont need anymore ...my cupboards really are overflowing and am struggling to know who to give it to!

Plans for today are chillaxing, but will try and do an exercise dvd this morning!... also gonna make a start on sorting (the day that shall not be mentioned) presents!...who gets what out of my overflowing present box! not sure if it has actually saved me money ! oh well :rotfl: also need to get onto the specsavers plan of hunting out cheaper contacts!...

have a good weekened all

Sepa74

Hi TYO, Sp3csavers are great re checkups. When I made the move from the 10hr wear lenses to the 14hr wear lenses I found them really uncomfortable. It took two tries of different types and shapes of lenses to sort it, but there was no issue about me walking in to the store and they checked it immediately, and gave me new lenses to try on the spot, so no waiting for them to arrive in the post.

They do assign you to a store, so you need to decide which store is best for you, but there is no problem with changing stores to whatever you find most convenient.

I think they're great, apart from the irritating ads

Enjoy your cookies

tootallulah

Hi TYO, it looks like you are going great guns with everything. I am copying your eating "what is in the house challenge" this month, I don't think I'll starve! Congrats on your progress.