Gillybean's new MF diary- here we go again!

Gillybean

it's so easy to go to the same places out of habit, isn't it CathT? I was well pleased when i saw those loaves of bread for 99p!

I was very impressed with the quality too. Took the kids to the park after school so needed something quick for their tea and I'd picked up a couple of their 47p cheese and tomato pizzas. They were absolutely gorgeous! I've bought cheap ones before and they usually have hardly any cheese on and the base is like cardboard. these had loads of cheese on and a gorgeous squidgy base that (shock) was actually enjoyable!

Not much done moneysavingwise today but I've been out and about getting jobs done. I've been after some sandals for ages and found just what I wanted fot the princely sum of £4 in peacocks, so that was kinda moneysaving, I guess!

Gillybean

Hi all,

Doing well on the low spending front, haven't needed to top up shop at all yet which is a big thing for me. The only thing I have had to spend out on is DS2's birthday party this weekend (he's 2 tomorrow :j) so that was a supermarket shop but all for the party, nothing for us for the rest of the week.

Just had a quick check at where we are moneywise and it's looking good for paying a good £200 off the mortgage at the end of the month. Only PITA is the dual fuel DD has gone up, bout time I looked around for a new deal, particularly in the light of the first of many companies announcing price hikes. I'll have a mooch on here and see how best to go about that, the amount we pay is just crazy, and we are careful with how we use our gas and electric.

Been a bit naughty this morning and on the way to fetch a parcel for DH I went and got the car washed- £5 But it was totally filthy, I've got too much on this week to have the time to do it and neither has DH, he usually does it. Ah well, a one off treat!

Gillybean

Only 3 more DD's to come out of the joint account and then i can OP the rest- should be around £230. very chuffed with that!:j

I've also not had to top up shop, apart from some milk yesterday

My youngest was 2 yesterday- how did that happen? :eek: So there has been a bit of spending going on as we're having a party tomorrow :beer: but it's not every day your baby turns 2!

Mission for next week- change the energy supplier- any tips?

Gillybean

OK so I've checked on the sites Martin recommends and it's looking like Eon is the best one for us to switch to. Not doing it today tho as my brain is mush after yesterday's party (where's the fuzzy head smiley!).

For some reason this week's supermarket shop was MASSIVE. So for ease I just went to morrisons, couldn't face having to go first to aldi and then to Morrisons for the few bits I can't get at aldi. So it's all done aside from some milk later on in the week and some burger buns.

Got to head out to ToysRUs later, as it would appear DS2 has a bigger head than I thought and his new bike helmet doesn't fit! He's desperate to get on his new bike so we're going to swap it after school later. DS1 needs a new helmet as well, he has this habit of chucking it on the ground when he comes in and there's a lovely chunk taken out of it.

Oh, I am SO tired after the party, we all are. DS2 has been yawning his head off and rubbing his eyes all morning (asleep now thankfully). I ought to have had a nap myself but playing about on my laptop was more tempting, silly me.

Gillybean

Morning all,

Not doing too bad here, but i did get a little lazy and couldn't be bothered with Aldi these last couple of weeks. It just seemed like such a faff, all that packing it up after you've paid for it rather than as you go along, then there's always a few bits that I can't get there so have to go to Morrisons as well and with a 2 year old in tow it just seemed too much to be worth it. But I've got a new plan to try out. I'll go to M's on my own on Sunday and get the things that I need to from there then do the usual weekly shop at A's the next day. We'll see how that works.

All set for OP of £200 this week, looking forward to making that call!

DH has to get paid for the job he's working on this week and then will arrange a fair size OP (10k hopefully, I'm fingers crossed for more!) once he's worked out how much he can throw at it.

Right off to the gym. On top of trying to reduce the size of my mortgage, I'm trying to reduce the size of myself :rotfl: I paid for a year's membership upfront which saved £48 compared to paying monthly. Got 4.5stone to lose, best get cracking!

Gillybean

So, with DH's dividends from the business, plus a bit of our savings, we're all set for paying off another 10k tomorrow! I've just checked my current account and the money is there and will show as cleared funds tomorrow- I'm so excited! Wonder how much the repayment will go down by?

Feels very good to have so much paid off and a really nice small mortgage that we can easily manage. I'm still managing to save a good £100 a month from the joint account surplus at the end of each month, which is slowly building into a nice little savings buffer. My £2 coin jar is almost full, as is the loose change jar, it's all mounting up.

Summer hols aren't costing too much so far. The boys are happy as long as they're outside playing. good job there are tons of parks round here. Doesn't stop them driving me crazy tho!!

Sepa74

Hi Gillybean, it sounds like you're going really well. a 10K over payment is really exciting!! Let us all know when you've done it so we can celebrate too!!

Gillybean

£10k paid off this morning!

:j:beer::j:beer::j (maybe save the :beer: till later, it's only 9.30am!)

So we now owe approx £87,600 which isn't bad considering when we bought the house in 2005 we had a mortgage of £134,000, so we're almost at the halfway point.


Ooh, that felt gooood! Totted up the £2 coin jar and there's £118 in there, and the change jar is almost full. Going to try really hard this month, I've been dipping into the joint account a bit too much and if i don't touch it there should be a decent amount in it at the end of the month to add to the repayment pot. How noce it would be to be able to pay off a few hundred at the end of the month as well!

Gillybean

had our update through from the mortgage people, we now owe £87012 and the repayment has gone down by £50 approx. So very chuffed with that. Looking at around £170 left in the joint account by the end of this month, which I'll add to what I've been syphoning off these last few months.

Half way through the summer hols and the kids are driving me utterly loopy but apart from that everything is fine in the Moff house.

off to catch up on a few diaries, see how everyone else is getting on.

Gillybean

Hello, not been around for a while but am a bit more active on the MF front these days, so thought i'd bump my diary up.

So a few things have changed. We now have enough in savings to be going on with. So the money we were saving is now going to be directed at the mortgage each month. Having got the mortgage and other bills down our monthly outgoings are less. however DH is still going to pay in the same amount to the bill account and i will syphon off the excess at the end of each month.

Those 2 things combined mean we can OP by around £7-800 a month.:j Would never have dreamed of being able to do that when we first started out. back then, even a £50 OP each month was a major achievment!

Now things seem to be speeding up I'm hoping I'll have more to post about. I've still been lurking, reading all the diaries, should be able to join in a bit more.

One thing I must do- as I'm making more regular payments I ought to put our lenders number in my phone, saves me having to dig it out of the filing box every time!

Going to make an OP today, £1000, so will update my sig once that's gone through.