A blissful home - mortgage_girl's MF diary

mortgage_girl

Rain has stopped play today - though I'm not complaining. I was up and out by 9am and dropped a couple of bags of bedding and a few other bits off at the charity shop, so that's a bit more space cleared. I also picked up a few essentials from @ldi and picked up some bargain tinned tomatoes from £stretcher - 25p a tin! I did a matched bet last night and came away with a £17.88 profit. I used to do it quite a lot a few years ago and will try and take advantage of a few more of the offers while I'm on holiday and have the time.

Oh, and my new mobile contract came through - I was paying £19 but I'm now paying £15.30 for unlimited text and calls with 2gb of data. So for anyone that hasn't checked out their contract in a while then definitely check and see if you can get it any cheaper.

Have a lovely, if somewhat rainy, Tuesday everyone.

MGx

BookWorm

Hiya MG

Thanks so much for stopping by my place and leaving such a lovely message. I was after reading it :kisses3:

Good to hear you are feeling better now and have been enjoying your holiday time (around the delightful British summer weather ) Well done on still being thrifty at the same time with your survey payments and mobile savings :T It's really quite addictive isn't it?

Hope you are having a lovely weekend

BW x

ETA....

p.s - how is the new mattress now you have had it a while?

p.p.s - thank you for the recipes..I have bookmarked for future use

mortgage_girl

Morning all

Aww BW, I'm pleased my message made you . The new mattress is absolutely fantastic and well worth every penny. It feels like such a luxury. Enjoy the recipes, I recommend trying the carrot and courgette cake first - it's yummy!

So just a quick update before I get my backside into gear - I'm kondo-ing this weekend and determined to clear as much clutter as possible. So yesterday was spent re-sorting my clothes, bedding, towels, toiletries (I have so many to use up! :eek:) and paperwork alongside the rather long process of making beetroot and chocolate ice-cream - which I made to use up surplus ingredients, so it was a thrifty- tasty effort really.

I've just finished another mb so when the money hits my account I'll be almost another £20 up. I'm not op-ing my mb profits at the moments as I'm trying to build up a float so that I can take advantage of the bigger offers. Once I've got a decent float then I'll start op-ing with the profits. So it's currently a bit of a work in progress. With just a year to go towards my ideal mf date I really want to hammer the mortgage down as much as possible.

The veg patch is going wild at the moment and producing lots of goodies - courgette, winter squash, runner beans, broad beans, rhubarb, plus tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers from the greenhouse. So I'm using up what I can on a daily basis and. Also batch cooking to preserve what i can. Hopefully the squashes should keep into the winter if I store them correctly. I love this time of year when all the hard work begins to pay off.

Right time to crack on. Will update properly when I'm all kondo'd out!

Have a lovely Sunday,

MGx

mortgage_girl

So I did a bit more kondo-ing yesterday. I sorted through some books, stationary and cleaning products. It's amazing how much clutter gathers under the kitchen sink - not any more, muah, ha, haaaa (evil laugh!), it's been banished! I did plan to do some more today but haven't done any as yet. I was up early to go into town and collect my new glasses - I don't like them. Everyone says they look nice and really suit me but I'm just not happy with them, I think it's because they're so different to my previous ones. Hopefully they'll grow on me, well they'll have to because I'm not forking out for another pair. But...back to being positive, I experienced lovely customer service when I went into G*ldsmiths today to see if they could change my watch battery, the lady I spoke to was lovely and I got a complimentary posh coffee and biscuit while I waited. It really cheered me up. I also popped into the phone shop with a query about my phone that cropped up after changing my sim the other day and they fixed it within a minute - problem solved! So it was quite a productive early start to the day.

Instead of kondo-ing when I got home, I sorted out some paperwork that was on my to-do list and I've applied for the water company to come round and assess me for a water meter. I've had a fairly relaxed afternoon really - my get up and go seems to have got up and gone but I may see if I can do just a little bit this evening.

It's raining here so I don't need to go and water the garden things tonight, just the greenhouse. I cut one of the cucumbers yesterday (thankfully they kept producing fruit despite the leaf disaster) and have found that there's plenty of seeds in there that can be saved for next year, so I've currently got them in a jar of water (apparently bad seeds float and good seeds sink). I'll keep adding to it as I use up more of the cucumber - thrifty eh?

In money saving news, I had a voucher for £10 off my eye test, so that's going in the op pot, plus my profit from my matched bet came in so my float is now up by £19.37 and I had some free spins on a casino game which netted me another £2.00, so things are ticking over steadily.

I had a good look at my spreadsheet yesterday and I think that by this time next year I should be able to get to a point where with savings and mortgage op's combined, my mortgage will stand at just £20k. That's if everything goes to plan. So it's not quite hitting my target of being mf by the time I'm 35 but I'll be pretty close and much closer than I would be if I'd never started this journey! I'm going to keep plugging away and see where I end up.

I'm going for a day out tomorrow, I've no idea where - my partner's taking me out somewhere for an early birthday treat - exciting! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for sunshine.

Right, I'm going to get me backside into gear and do a bit more kondo-ing.

Have a lovely evening.

MGx

CathT

Your garden sounds fab and so productive!

mortgage_girl

Thanks Cath! It's doing much better this year compared to last year.

I've been busy kondo-ing today. I've cleared loads of stuff out of my kitchen cupboards, it's amazing what can gather in there over the years...I also never realised how many different types of tea I'd collected! I'm about half way through now and have unearthed a few treasures that I can sell and a few bits to donate to charity too. I'm going to try and get a few bits listed on fb this evening and see if I can get some of it sold. I don't want it sitting around for too long really as that defeats the object, so I'll give myself a couple of weeks to get it shifted and if not then I'll take it to the charity shop.

MGx

BookWorm

A midweek hello from me

Hope you had a good day out yesterday. Oooh an impending birthday... can we have a party?

mortgage_girl

Hiya BW :wave: Thanks for stopping by. Oops, I just realised that I even mention my fab day out in yesterday's post - must've got distracted by all my decluttering! I had a really lovely day thank you, we went to Yorkshire Wildlife Park and spent hours cooing over the animals. The meerkats were the best though, such mischievous animals, but the tiger cub stalking its mum came a very close second. We took a picnic and I even got a mini birthday cake as a surprise.

Ooh yes, lets have an MSE party - everyone brings their own! :coffee: :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I hope you're having a good week so far? I've been busy this morning doing the washing, tidying up the decking, pruning the tomato plants and freeing hundreds of tiny seeds from the tree cabbage seed pods. I've got a glut of tomatoes and courgettes at the moment so I'm going to make a batch of pasta sauce later and some garlicky tomato sauce to use on my pizzas. Nom, nom, nom.

MGx

BookWorm

Hiya MG

Just popping in to see if you have had a good Bank Hol weekend?

If the weather your way has been anything like where I have been...(a washout).... then you will be extra pleased that you got your garden jobs done when you did.

Your day out sounds lovely. :T for a surprise birthday cake too :bdaycake:

Hope you are enjoying whatever time is left of your hols

BW x

mortgage_girl

Hi BW

It was a bit of an emotional weekend really as my Grandad passed away. He must have been watching over us though as the weather was lovely so we still went ahead with the BBQ that Mum had planned for my birthday - that's what he would have wanted. It only started to rain as we went inside.

I'm so pleased that I'm still off work this week though as it's been lost in a haze of funeral arrangements and spending time with family - the important stuff really. It's amazing how much something like this really puts your life in perspective.

Miserable weather here today - I've even pushed the boat out and put the heating on! I hope it's brighter where you are.

MGx