Mouche’s adventures with her first mortgage (while coping with her first baby)

mouche

What would I do without MSE? The lovely Motoring forum members have told me I am being ripped off by my garage and should not have to pay anything near that amount to get my car fixed - and that several items are unnecessary anyway. So hopefully we won't have to part with her or all of our savings after all.

On the MSE front:
- My health insurance has paid £200 towards my osteopathy and glasses
- Persuaded OH to take a packed lunch in to London today as he had to go in for interviews.
- OH has made a huge lasagne - I should get 6 work lunches out of that. Plus the bread and butter pudding with the yukky brioche is much more edible than the brioche and has saved us throwing it out.
- I worked from home today so that OH could use my travelcard to go to London. £££ saved

Had to go in to A$da for apples yesterday as OH was feeling faint (he's diabetic) and didn't feel he could drive home from LOs nursery without a snack. Also bought milk and a pack of YS crumpets for (they cost 10p). OH and I have never eaten crumpets before but we ate them toasted with butter this morning and for 10p I'd say they were a big hit! Still enough left for breakfast tomorrow as well.

mouche

Well I am back to update my MSE activities for the past few days. This diary is so much help in keeping me motivated.

MSE activities
- OH and I decluttered our extremely messy downstairs and not only did we find random coins, we also found various useful bits and bobs that we were planning on buying that had been kept in the wrong place (or hidden under piles of laundry). We now have a reasonably organised downstairs so hopefully will waste less on things we already have. Apart from the mental peace having one clean area of the house brings!
- Keeping up the decluttering theme, I spent a few hours trying to shift our stacks of books. I managed one bookcase full and though most of the books will either not sell or go for pennies, I did have one book (picked up in Poundland or charity shop) that Amazon Trade-In wants for £7! Am very chuffed about that. I still have two boxes full of books to go through and hopefully some of them will be more valuable as we have loads of cookbooks in great condition and I’ve noticed that they usually sell for over £5. It’s even useful identifying the ones of no value as they can go to the charity shop and perhaps someone who hasn’t read them can enjoy them.
- Saturday we had an afternoon out in Bluewater as we needed to buy some clothes for OH and LO. My parents had given us £50 each for them (they bought me over £100 worth of clothes while they were here) and his parents gave us £25 for LO as a major festival is coming up for us where we have to wear new clothes. OH bought some trousers for £30 and has saved the £20 for later. Normally, he would have bought a jacket or something but he is being very sensible – MSE is catching. We bought a winter jacket (M&S), four long sleeved T shirts (Boots), wellies (Boots) and some inners (Asda) for LO – total price £47, so he’s got £28 left as well. I doubt he’ll need anything more for a few months at least. However, the MSE aspect of the day was we went to Bluewater and spent a total of £4.65 on non clothes spend. This is very unusual for us as we usually spend at least £20 in the food court – often more! This time, we went after lunch so weren’t hungry. We got LO a milkshake (free, thanks to full loyalty card) and had a coffee each and that was it.
- Sunday, OH took LO to soft play in the morning (£5) and then we had a lovely afternoon/ evening out at a local park where LO ran around like a mad thing and loved watching all the dogs that had come for a walk. He had water and biscuits to snack on and OH and I intended to have a coffee at the caf! but it was shut by the time we got there and to be honest, we didn’t miss it. Next time, we’ll take a flask of coffee and it will be perfect. Back home we had a pizza-dinner (frozen from the freezer) and all in all it was a lovely day. Thanks to GreyingPilgrim for helping me see that a lovely day out needn’t cost a fortune – all you need are the people you love.

mouche

Also wanted to mention that we have had our mortgage for 2 years now. In that time we have paid back £14,779.37 and reduced our mortgage term by 6 months. Not a massive achievement but that period has been dotted with the arrival of LO, maternity leave, OH continuing unemployment and other belt tightening circumstances. I think we're doing ok given the circumstances. I WILL be mortgage free by 50!

poorbutrich

mouche wrote: »

I WILL be mortgage free by 50!

WOW - two very inspirational posts! I'm glad I decided to have a sneaky peek on MSE this morning as they've put me in a happy MSE mood!

Loved your post about the books - we had a major purge when we moved house but will see if there's anything else we can shift! Amazon usually offers us 25p for trading in books!

mouche

Thanks for stopping by pbr - glad I could be of some help! Most of my books are the 25p or the 'you want money for this? haha!' category but it seems an occasional gem has slipped in. OH has sorted through his cookbooks and decided he can only bear to part with the least valuable ones so may not be such a goldmine after all. Then again, as a chef, they are his reference books, so can't really insist.

Nothing much else to report other than the car repairs have reduced from £2,500 to £600-odd by going back to our old garage. Thank you motoring forum. Will also be complaining to the main dealer about the new garage trying to rip us off.

Have brought in lunch today - frozen lasagne - yum yum. Haven't needed to buy lunch for a long time.

Got a free flu jab at work today.

And OH is trying to repair my old laptop - he seems to have achieved everything other than internet access so fingers crossed he can get that working as well.

Oh and LOs nursery has asked OH if he can stand in for the cook for 2.5 weeks as a favour. They will pay him for his time - it's not a lot but will give him something to do and will hopefully cheer him up a bit.

tootoo

you're doing great mouche!!

mouche

It's almost like an addiction posting on here! Even when I have nothing to report I feel inclined to report it.

Today is OH's first day helping out at LOs nursery. He will be paid £7 ph for 6 hours a day for about 2.5 weeks so that's £500-odd. With that and our saved up childcare vouchers, we won't have to pay nursery fees for LO till next year. Assuming they get their act together to accept vouchers soon!

No other MSE news other than a 10p survey on Onepoll. I'm at £18.85 after 4 years and it's payout at £40 so am not holding my breath.

I'll try to get home a bit early today so I can use the computer to flog some more books. OH has been monopolising the PC to watch films for the past two nights. Grrr.

Courgette

Well done and good to see you posting again!

mouche

Thank you Courgette!

I am fasting today as it is the first day of Durga Puja (a major Indian festival) and today is the day mother’s fast for the health and wellbeing of their children. ‘Fasting’ is a slightly misleading term as I am allowed to eat fruit and yogurt (and tea and coffee) during the day and a simple vegetarian meal in the evening. So far I have eaten 2 bananas, a pear, two pots of yogurt and drunk 2 cups of tea with milk and I am still STARVING! It’s all in the head isn’t it?

On the MSE front, the Amazon trade-in book has been posted and small box of books has gone to the charity shop. Hoping to find time to list the more valuable books on regular Amazon today. Also, after complaining about them yesterday Onepoll gave me three paid surveys today so I now have £19.20 in there. Still not holding my breath though!

Did I mention I am hungry?

tootoo

you have more will power than me mouche.
I decided last week that i needed to cut out all the unhealthy 'treats'. Since then the house has been ill and i've eaten loads as its quick between meals