Viola's MFW Adventure

viola_brandywine

Mortgage update:

Mortgage remaining - £17,923
0% credit card £711
Cash savings - £5964 (full ISA + DH new ISA)
S/S ISAs and sharebuilder £2000 + approx £1400

Which means mortgage + debt - savings = £9,270

Finally gone below 10,000. I Hope I can save the rest by the end of the year then switch focus to actually paying it off.

viola_brandywine

I've had a very productive day today. My 0% credit card arrived yesterday (after a very long wait) so today, DH and I went into town and ordered our new settees. They cost £1800 but should last us a very long time and I don't have to pay the balance off for a year. To make sure I have the money available I set up a standing order to my savings for £150 per month. I will just make the minimum payments off the card and then keep the interest on the savings

I have also calculated that to have my mortgage balance less than 10,000 by the end of the year I need to overpay another £800 on top of all the savings to offset it. So far I have paid £6 towards this.

This afternoon I went to our shared allotment and planted 6 squash plants. This will hopefully mean lots of lovely soup this autumn I am also about to harvest some pak choi from my garden to have with rice noodles and a lovely piece of pork hock I got from the butchers counter for £4.11. Hopefully there will be leftovers from the pork for lunch tomorrow.

Final small bit of progress towards mortgage freedom today was a statement about premium bonds that my DH remembered he had this week.... a grand total of £20

Have a nice evening everyone!

viola_brandywine

Eek, I have managed to end up with only £140 to last me & DH two weeks and I have not made lunch for work today so will have to buy it

I think it's time to aim for some NSDs and keep a spending diary for the next two weeks so that I can get on track for my next OP instead of paying it all off my credit card.

viola_brandywine

Well that didn't go very well, I managed to spend £20 today on food

This did include some healthy fruit and yoghurts for my diet though and hopefully that's all I will need to spend on food for the rest of the week.

viola_brandywine

No NSD to report unfortunately but have now cancelled Sky subscription saving £22 per month. We had the sky plus box for recording which is the only feature we used and have now bought a HD freeview+ box which was £275! We got some cashback so it will pay for itself in a year. Unfortunately this was another expense on the 0% card but at least there is plenty of time to pay for it.

One good bit of news is that I got a small payrise this week. It will only give an extra £30 per month but this all helps towards OPs. My savings should go over £10,000 from next payday if I can save my usual amount so I think after this I will stop saving for a while and make more OPs. I really hope I can make the mortgage less than 10,000 by the end of the year and have it all offset by savings.

Only £70 left until payday thanks to having to buy birthday cards, food and an incident with a lip gloss

Can't be a NSD tomorrow as it's my wedding anniversary and we are going to do something nice tomorrow, probably involving a trip to the pub :happyhear

Here's hoping the weather is nice, it has been lovely today.

viola_brandywine

Well we had a good anniversary and didn't spend too much and am now down to my last £12. This should be ok as I don't need anything now until I get paid.

Unfortunately I'm going to end up using the credit cards again today as I am facing a big vet's bill. I hope it isn't too much although of course I would much rather my pet is ok.

viola_brandywine

Back from the vet. Fortunately it was a simple problem and my little bird is going to be ok. £32.50 bill went on my credit card so will need to pay that off as soon as I can.

Have a couple of trips away this month so OPs/savings won't be huge. Still hoping to hit targets.

No more spending this weekend I hope - home grown broad beans made into falafels for dinner tonight

viola_brandywine

Ok, time for an update.

Pretty good savings this month and money towards my 0% credit card.

Actual mortgage balance now £16,908.
Savings now £10,161

So Mortgage - savings = £6,747

Unfortunately have £2,877 on 0% cards.

I'm hoping to have the mortgage fully offset by savings by October and fully paid off by next June.

Now our savings have gone into 5 figures I think I will stop saving and start overpaying more. This month will probably be fairly expensive as I have two trips away (one being to Silverstone to see the F1 ). To compensate for this I need to make sure both DH and I take as many of our own lunches to work as possible to save buying unnecessary food and use the car as little as possible. We both took sandwiches today so this is a good start.

Hopefully only 4 pay days until having it all offset!

viola_brandywine

Good day - 50p on lunch as a belated payday treat Cooked for 5 tonight as we had guests and the ingredients totalled just over £5 so very pleased with that.

viola_brandywine

Hello everyone. Very strange weather day here. I was going to get some gardening done as it was very sunny and nice this morning. I went outside and took the cover off my coldframe to let my bean seedlings get some fresh air and about 30 seconds later a very violent hail shower started!! I ran back inside then it stopped about 30 seconds later!!

Me and DH then decided to have a good decluttering session and hopefully find some things to sell on ebay. We spent two hours clearing out the garage (ok, I spend half of that time sitting drinking coffee while DH carried on ) and found nothing but empty cardboard boxes and total junk that has moved houses with us about 3 times I even found a single shoe that I had given up on ages ago when I threw the other one out. Oh well, at least we decluttered a bit - it is very liberating to offload lots of junk!

Very frugal dinner tonight - pork goulash leftovers with rice. Shouldn't have to spend anything else this weekend now we stocked up on pet food on the way back from the tip. I'm hoping that if we don't spend anything this week I can make an OP before we are away next weekend.

Have a nice weekend everyone