SeriouslySeekingtoSave strongly strides straight into slaying her mortgage!

cha97michelle

Great OPs going on. I think Iris was a bit mean about the length of your travel post. I think she has seen a longer post when i did my pantry list. :rotfl:

What we need is an MSE'rs holiday. When i met up with littlebit and the kids, we both were pretty frugal with our HM pack up, although we did get some ice creams. However, she is more frugal than me. We got a voucher to spend in the cafe, and she insisted on going to spend them. I wasn't going to bother as i didn't want anything, but we got some drinks to take home.

I agree, i don't like eating out all the time, and i hate even more when you are forced to chip in for a horrendous shopping bill when on holiday. When we went with the ILs a couple of years ago, The ILs went food shopping, and 4 of them spent £600 on food for 7 days. I was furious. I never spend that much. Even more so when we then played host to my FIL, girlfriend and 2 teenagers for the week at one meal time at least, and then as it was a 6 hour drive home we couldn't even bring anything back with us. What a waste.

Sepa74

I can definitely recommend greece as a destination, although I hear Turkey is fantastic too.

We visited Greece just in the off season (May) so it was a bit cheaper and a lot less busy than it would have been. There were three of us, so we were able to get triple rooms in pensions on most places. I don't think we hosteled it as triple rooms were about the same price.

We got public buses and the ferries everywhere, except between Crete and Rhodes where we were able to get cheap flights. We spent three weeks, and could easily have spent another week there, as we didn't get to the north of the country at all.

Delphi, Epidavrus, Crete and Rhodes were all highlights. Santorini is amazing, but a bit too touristy for my taste. For Epidavrus we centred ourselves in Nafplio and saw Mycaenae as well. Nafplio is a lovely little town.

We didn't get to Olympus or Sparta, either. Greece is fabulous!

But as you say, I suspect Turkey is probably cheaper, and I know several people who say Turkey was their favourite trip

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

If I do head to Greece it won't be a traveling holiday. I mentioned it to my friend but it is too short notice for him to get holiday (I only found out that I had the time off two weeks ago) so I have been checking single package holidays available - more expensive going alone but it would be even more expensive booking flights outside of a package now I think. Anyway a week of lazing in the sun somewhere would suit me down to the ground! I have been to Crete before (and Athens on the way), spent a week travelling around the west side of the island which is meant to be the non touristy/party side. Loved it I must say; my favourite bit was a campsite that my friend and I went to for a couple of night; right on the beach and breakfast served there every day.

The island of Kos is looking good for this latest holiday, and then it's a short ferry trip over to Turkey to visit the markets or maybe a day trip somewhere. Who knows .

Know, I must get up off my lazy butt and get outside into my garden. The lawn really really needs some attention!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Well I sort of slew the garden beast. Gave it a good thwacking anyway!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

It was quite a good weekend moneysaving wise, although I didn't go grocery shopping so I need to make sure I do that shortly, it should have been tonight but I forgot to bring my wheelie case into work so I'll go tomorrow.

Wasn't feeling the greatest on Saturday so I didn't go hiking, had already bought my ticket so that was a waste of £10 but it would have cos me extra anyway. Never mind, it was better to just relax at home, my hikes are pretty intense and often knock me out.

On a completely side note is anyone else driven nuts by people who sniff constantly on the train!? I've shifted twice but someone has just sat down and started doing it again! Does nobody ever bring something to blow their damn noses on!? It sounds sooo disgusting!!

SmlSave

On a completely side note is anyone else driven nuts by people who sniff constantly on the train!? I've shifted twice but someone has just sat down and started doing it again! Does nobody ever bring something to blow their damn noses on!? It sounds sooo disgusting!!

No, you're not the only one. It's why I always have something to listen to so that I can drown the sound of people sniffing out.

Well done for getting out in the garden

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

I've had my leave approved by my manager who got back from India today so I'm taking a good break. I did some searching last night using the 'I don't care where I go just make it cheap' and Rhodes came up for a single 7 day, flights and hotel, at £208. Of course there will be extra charges but I'm selecting a place close to the main airport so I don't have to worry about hefty transfer charges and I've checked out the reviews online which are pretty good so I know what I'm getting in for. Looking forward to it and because I'm booking at the last minute I don't have too long to anticipate!

Now I've just got to figure out how to get to Stanstead for my earlyish flight. I've been looking at getting a hostel central city so I can take the train in but it's looking problematic - read 'total PITA'. I may end up having my first 'night' at the airport! That is something I've never actually done...

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

SmlSave wrote: »

No, you're not the only one. It's why I always have something to listen to so that I can drown the sound of people sniffing out.

Well done for getting out in the garden

I think that is why it really drove me nuts this morning, I normally do as well. I usually listen to music or, at the moment, listen to my Italian lessons. I didn't do it this morning, must have been too tired to think of it!

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

I've just been working out the daily interest rate on my mortgage. Well the (originally) £75,000 tracker as I haven't touched the other £25,000 fixed so it won't have dropped by anything more than a few pence or so.

When I first started my Daily interest rate was £6.14 (although I never actually paid that because I made a £3,000 OP on the day the mortgage opened) and now, with all of my OP's and standard mortgage payments also nibbling away at it, my daily interest is £5.21 or in other words, that's £0.93 less I'm paying in interest nearly every single day!:j

Next mini challenge, get that up (down) to a round pound

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

Today I thought I'd leave the headphones deliberately off to ‘see’ if I could hear the snotty nose brigade.

Straight away there was a guy sitting in the seat behind me with a good loud phlegm enriched SNORT. Long pause. SNORT. It sounded like it was right in my ear.

Then another chappy sat opposite and he had a more gentle but far more rapid sniff. So it sounded like sniff, sniff, sniff. Short pause. sniff, sniff, sniff.

To round it off someone else further down the train started with the coughing.

In the end it sounded quite musical:

Cough cough; sniff sniff sniff; SNORT; cough cough; sniff sniff sniff; SNORT; cough cough

Sooo I pulled out my headphones and spent the trip listening to the sound of rain and thunder which is the app I use to block out noise and send me to sleep. How people manage trips without them and don't end up killing anyone I just don't know. I also noticed that the two main snorters had headphones so they didn't have to listen to their or anyone else’s noise. Unfair!

What does this have to do with money saving? Absolutely nothing. Never mind