Viola's MFW Adventure

Lois_E

viola_brandywine wrote: »

Go me! Just handed in my OU assignment. Might also have bought new bag to celebrate

Yay! Well done viola. :T:T:T

viola_brandywine

Thanks Lois!

Not much to report really. My OP this month has left us a bit short on cash so I think I will tone down OP/savings a bit while we have other expenses. Have to tax my car this month and then service and MOT in september. Also have holiday coming up and my friend's wedding. Plenty to look forward to, just need to make sure I can afford to go!

First free weekend for a while, I feel some baking coming on

viola_brandywine

Oops, been a while since last update. This month is not going all that well financially. I have decided not to make the huge overpayment I made last month this time as we ended up struggling quite a bit and we have holiday money to get this month (£250). Also had to tax my car (£190). I have also realised my service and MOT are due a bit sooner than I thought so these will need to be done before my holiday (hopefully no more than £250).

I have bought myself a nice dress from monsoon (£50) as I'm going to a wedding today and couldn't find one in my wardrobe that fits properly Back to the diet on Monday then. I got cashback on the dress and bought it on a cashback CC.

Ok, so since payday I have put some money in savings but made no OPs. I did manage to sell something on ebay at last (£27) :j

Here are the figures:
Mortgage £14,371
Savings (estimated as some is shares and down at the moment) £11,058
I'm including the stoozing account in there too but that will paid off my 0% CC by May.

So, on target for having it all offset by November: £3,313 :cool:

Sepa74

Woo hoo! You're doing so well... loving those figures

viola_brandywine

Thanks Sepa, the figures are looking good but it will go back up when we do our kitchen. I will enjoy it while it lasts though

Great day at my friends wedding although the journey there wasn't good. Someone bumped the back of my car while we were stopped in traffic. There doesn't seem to be any damage at all but I'm not sure what to do.

viola_brandywine

Nice surprise today - unexpected £103 paid into my bank account. No idea what it is and it won't show up properly on my statement until tomorrow. I hope it isn't a mistake!

viola_brandywine

£103 not a mistake and was a refund from npower :j

My phone has decided it needs to be replaced (had for 3 years and battery no longer holds charge) so I have decided to put the money towards a new one. I am probably not a good customer as I have the cheapest contract possible and never make any calls that cost anything. I do use a lot of data though so a contract works out better than pay as you go. I managed to keep the incredibly cheap contract which is only £10 per month including all data free and got a huge discount off the handset It took a call to the upgrades department and then cancellations before I got the deal but I'm pretty happy with my negotiation skills

viola_brandywine

Not too much to report lately although I now have a new allotment in my village which I thought I would have to wait years for. It has quite a few neglected fruit bushes and a tree on it which is nice so I might see what I can salvage from them this weekend. I was hoping for a NSD today but I ended up going to our local farm shop and buying some sausages, bacon and eggs.

I have been thinking about the run up to the end of the year and have come up with some new targets.

1. Continue with plan to offset my mortgage by savings for December
2. Increase my cash savings to £8,000 by the end of the year (currently £7,315).
3. Get the actual mortgage balance down to 4 figures.
4. Get 0% credit card below £3,000.

I have given up on the separate stoozing account and have just decide to use DHs ISA instead as it has a better interest rate. It would be best if I didn't have to take it out some I'm going to try to pay it off without doing that. I have until May. Unfortunately I had to put my car service and MOT on the card and will have to put my house insurance on it in October.

viola_brandywine

Had a lovely weekend. Got lots of gardening done which gave me plenty of exercise and harvested lots of tomatoes, chillies, potatoes, beetroots and squashes. I made borscht from the beetroots and some onions from my allotment which was my first meal from pretty much all my own produce. Not a no spend weekend but definitely a low spend one.

viola_brandywine

Hello everyone. I have just come back from holiday feeling relaxed and I didn't overspend either despite going with the intention of not worrying about money. We only came back with £500 on the credit card which was a couple of hundred less than I was expecting. I also found out that I passed my OU course

Time to refocus now I'm back. I failed a bit before I went with the xmas challenge but now I will get back on track with the money saving and weight loss. I got paid before the holiday and made an OP of £350 so the mortgage now stands like this:

Mortgage £13,005
Savings £11,093

This means I only have £1,912 to find to meet my offset it all by 30 challenge. I should be able to do this, all going well. Once that is done I will switch to paying off the 0% credit card and then the rest of the mortgage. I really hope to do this all by this time next year.

Unfortunately I have a 0% credit card balance now of £3,400 as our new sofas are finally being delivered and we have been charged for them. They were supposed to cost £18,00 but there was a delay so they gave us £200 off! I'm happy about this despite them take 5 months instead of 4-6 weeks.

Aside from all this, DH and I have talked seriously about starting our family, so all these plans could be changing very soon, hopefully