A blissful home - mortgage_girl's MF diary

gallygirl

mortgage_girl wrote: »

Hope the sun is shining where you are,

MGx

Yeah, well, you should have hoped harder as it's not :rotfl:.

Hope you're doing ok.

mortgage_girl

gallygirl wrote: »

Yeah, well, you should have hoped harder as it's not :rotfl:.

Hope you're doing ok.

Nope it's still not here either :rotfl: I did manage to muster a little ray of sunshine with my wishful thinking at about 4pm yeasterday but it fizzled out after about 5 mins - think that say's it all really :rotfl:

So I was up bright and early this morning as i'm have a telephone interview in a couple of hours for a friend whose doing a HLTA course. I was just about to get in the shower and the scaffolders turned up to take the scaffolding down, so I threw some clothes on and rushed out to move the car, made 3 cups of coffee and that's as far as I got. I'm hoping they finish soon so I can go and get ready but they've not even finished taking down the scaffolding at the back of the house yet! I could go and get a shower but don't really fancy it knowing that they're on the other side of the window.

In other MFW news, i've just had another £5 voucher credited to my account from sw@gbucks so i've transferred that to the op pot. I've got a couple of ebay listings ending this week with some bids, they've also got a few watchers so i'm hoping that there'll be a last minute bidding flurry and i'll make a few pounds.

Ooh good job I didn't get in the shower as there's just been a knock at the door and i've been asked to move my car even further away!

So todays to-do list is:
-Do phone interview *done
-Take sick note into work and pick up report info *done
-Work on reading report *done
-Pack parcels ready to post *done
-List 1 item on ebay *done

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the sun comes out today, it's very dull and cloudy so far!:(

MGx

mortgage_girl

One of my ebay listings last night sold for a grand total of, wait for it, £1.67! I have another one ending tonight so i'll post them both off together. I have also sold a book through Amazon so i'll send that at the same time. Hopefully, i'll make at least £5 to go in the op pot and every penny counts at this stage.

Today's to do list is:
-Complete marking assessments *done
-Write 10 reports (thankfully not full ones!) *done
-Declutter the living room *done
-Declutter the bedroom *done
-Tidy up and actually plant something in the herb planter! *done

Still waiting for the sunshine here!

MGx

mortgage_girl

I seem to have lost my MFW mojo recently as i've just felt exhausted and a bit fed up with everything. I think it was probably due to being off work and feeling a bit out of the loop with everything. Thankfully i'm back at work now so i'm hoping to get a bit more oomph back into my bones.

I recently had a pretty decent cheque back from the tax office as i've only just found out that you get tax allowance on union subscription fees, so that'll help build up my emergency fund again after my roof spends. I've also just received another £5 voucher from Sw@gbucks.

I've had a quote to have a porch fitted. It's not too complicated as there's already an open porch, I just need to have and external door and some panneling fitted. I was rather impressed with my haggling efforts. The initial quote was just short of £4,000 but the salesman knocked himself down to just under £2,000 by applying various 'offers' etc. I told him I was actually expecting it to be cheaper than that, so he told me to name a figure. I was hoping to get all the work I wanted done for £1,500 but decided to be cheeky and go in lower, anyway I managed to seal the deal for just under that so I was pretty impressed with myself. That includes my stained glass lighthouse door , a catflap, letter box and door knocker. I think it's definitely worth the investment as my current wooden door loses loads of heat through the winter, so I reckon it'll save me quite a bit of money. I'm not sure if i'm more excited about the lighthouse door or the fact that i'll have a south facing, self contained sun trap for when I grow my seedlings!

Hope you're all having a great Sunday!

MGx

mortgage_girl

Gosh, doesn't time fly when you're busy! I can't believe how long ago it is since I last updated. So far this year i've managed to reduce my mortgage total by just over £5,500 which is quite impressive considering i've been saving for roof repairs and frantically trying to pay off my 0% credit card by the end of it's term. It looks like there's going to be a £4,000 shortfall of me hitting my target of getting the mortgage down below £60,000 by the end of the year, but i'm going to do everything I can do to get as close as I can to my target. My plan to tackle this includes decluttering and selling unwanted stuff like crazy, making the most of my garden veggies to reduce my food budget, sw@gbucking and surveying for xmas vouchers and just being a general tight @rse :rotfl::rotfl:

In other news, my new door is being fitted tomorrow, i'm so excited to see how my window design looks and also intrigued to see what a difference it'll make to the temperature of my house this winter. My veggies seem to be growing very well this year, so far I have picked/dug up potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, courgettes, turnips, leaf beet, cabbage, lettuce, radish, broad beans, mangetout, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb and basil, so i'm feeling quite happy with my efforts. There's still sweetcorn, carrots, jerusalem artichokes and runner beans to come. I'm starting to think about building some brick raised beds on the large veg patch ready for next year, but I need to draw up some plans first. I'm also going to move my fruit canes and gooseberry bushes into the smaller veg patch as they're currently at the back of the flower bed so not very accessible.

Phew, all that sounds like hard work. I'm off for a cuppa!

MGx

linz

Hi MG,

Gosh you are busy, but its good to have plans and targets. Your comment about your door made me laugh. We have also had new doors and windows and are kind of looking forward to winter now so we can see if theres much difference, especially to the bills

We only have a small garden so only room for herbs and a small raised bed but we have been out picking blackberries til theres no more room for them in the freezer, which were going to make wine with. Works out about £1 a bottle:).

Do you do nectar adpoints? Its a great way of racking up nectar points. Im saving mine so we can have a big xmas food shop at sainsburys paid for with nectar poitns and p! Nec0ne luncheon vouchers

Hope you get near your 60k target.

mortgage_girl

Hi linz, glad it's not just me that's curiously looking forward to winter - although I suspect i'll want rid of it as soon as it's here! Yes i've done adpoints in the past but must get back on with it as i've let it slip of late, I think i've made about £15 on there so far. Ooh yummy, blackberry wine sounds lovely!

It's another month since i've been on here and I have to confess that i've done very little (aside from my regular overpayments) to get any closer to my 60k target. Sadly, my long term relationship came to an end, so everything else has come to a standstill for a while. However, i'm now back on track and raring to go, i'm determined to make these last 3 months of the year count and get as close to my target as possible.

So the plan is to declutter and sell as much 'stuff' as I can, get back on track with batch cooking, survey/sw@gbuck daily and keep my expenditure to a minimum. This month i'm aiming to find an extra £300 to add to the mortgage op pot - i've made about £26 so far but it's really time to up the game and get things moving in the right direction. To make it feel easier i'm breaking it into 10 chunks of £30. With focus I can probably make £30 from sw@gbucks, also more than £30 from tutoring, plus if I do fairyclicks '£1 a day mortgage op challenge' then that'll be another £30, that's £90 so far. I've got plenty of things to sell too so if I get on with that then I should get pretty close to my £300 target as well as freeing up some space in my home. There's lots I can do, I just need to keep motivated and take baby steps towards my goal.

In other news; myself and a friend have just started doing the NHS's 'couch to 5k' running plan with the goal of doing a 10k run next year to raise money for charity. I'm really excited about it, i've never run before but i'm really enjoying getting out into the fresh air and having some 'me' time. The new front door/porch has also been fitted and it looks beautiful, i've had loads of compliments from people and it really does make the house seem much brighter.

Right, the sun is shining so it's time to get outside and clean the chooks and potter in the garden. Hope you have a lovely Sunday!

MGx

mortgage_girl

Well how time flies! It's been 2 months since I last updated and I've been trying to keep put money in the OP pot as well as get ready for xmas etc. I'm determined to be more organised for xmas next year and spread the cost through the year as it's taken a big chunk of my money over the last couple of months. Maybe I'll set myself a challenge to offset the cost of xmas through surveys etc.

I've been pretty much wrapped up in work and xmas preparations over the last couple of months. My evenings have been spent running and our running team has turned into a running group. We've completed the full 9 weeks of the NHS's 'Couch to 5k' and have gone from being total novices to being able to run 4.6k in 30 minutes, which is an amazing feat. I've also got back on track with sw@gbucking and neobuxing - it's a slow burner but I think it has potential.

My overpayment total for the year to date is £4288.51 and, although I haven't quite hit my sub £60k target, I have reduced my mortgage by just over £8k this year. I'm pretty impressed with that considering I've had the roof re-tiled and a new front door fitted this year. I'm going to try and squeeze every little last drop I can out of 2013 so hopefully there'll be a few more overpayments to go. Then it'll be time to come up with the grand plan for 2014!

Have a great weekend everyone!

MGx

mortgage_girl

Well Christmas has been lovely and i've spent the last couple of days relaxing with my family. I've been well and truly spoilt this year and now have a lovely stash of chocolate and smellies that will see me though the year (well, the choccies may not last that long :rotfl:).

So Christmas is now over and whilst I've been sat around with a rather full belly and watching Xmas telly I've started to think about my op plans for next year - yep I'm a glutton for punishment! Looking at my spreadsheet, i've worked out that I can easily op by £5k, so i've decided to set myself a real challenge and see if I can find an extra £6k in op's. It'll be tough but I don't believe that it will be unachievable - I already have some tutoring work lined up that will bring me some extra money in so it's just a case of figuring out how i'm going to raise the rest of it.

I think the way forward for 2014 is to come up with a plan of where the extra £6,000 is going to come from and then make it happen a month at a time, so over the next few days i'll aim to do that and it will mean that I can hit the ground running in January.

Right, time to get my beauty sleep!

MGx

mortgage_girl

I've had a thrifty day today and have given the washing machine a much needed clean using white vinegar and stardrops. It's now sparkling and smells much fresher. I've run out of white vinegar now though and need to work out if it's cheaper to buy in bulk rather than from the supermarket - suggestions anyone?

Over the past couple of days i've been planning how i'm going to find the extra £6,000 to go towards the mortgage op's in 2014. Firstly i've created monthly targets for areas of my budget where I intend to save money; these include: food, petrol and mobile contract savings, a sealed pot challenge, as well as adding any interest I get from savings to the overpayment pot. I also plan to make more money through tutoring, sw@gbucks, selling unwanted items on the local fb selling page and doing surveys. I've kept my calculations realistic and it seems that I should be able to achieve at least £5,000 through these methods - I just need to squeeze a bit tighter and find that extra £1,000.

This is the first year where i've planned my op goals so specifically and I do actually feel much more focused as I 'know' where the money is coming from - it's not just a target to work towards, if that makes sense. It feels achievable and i'm raring to go!

MGx