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

poorbutrich

Hello from Lurkdom!


Glad you had a lovely holiday - boy oh boy did you deserve it!


Lovely to read through your posts and read about DS' advancements!

mouche

Work have limited access to the internet making it a bit of a faff to post though I am still reading. It’s frustrating as I feel I’m not progressing if I can’t post – not to mention not being able to communicate with my MSE friends! I have decided to keep writing my diary entries and posting whenever I get the opportunity.

Recent money news is that OH and I have bought out new (used) car. It is a Nissan Qashqai and has amazingly made OH happy without going (too much) over the budget I had set him. This is his 40th birthday gift and though I couldn’t afford a Ford Kuga, which is what he wanted, I think he is almost as happy with the Qashqai and certainly it is cheaper and likely to be cheaper to run as well. So a happy compromise between his boy-racer longings and my Scrooge-y purse-strings. We all miss our beloved elderly Fiesta – she never let us down and I hope whoever buys her at auction loves her as we did.

I have £8,000 in my flexi saver for the car but since I still can’t find the Nationwide paperwork, we paid for it using three credit cards. That gets me lots of Flying Club miles and has also bought me an extra month to find the blummin’ paperwork and retrieve my money from Nationwide!

Grocery shopping is going okay but we are further through the budget than I would like to be – it’s only the 15th! The eating out budget is completely gone as well! We are also spending far too much on days out this month but have decided to increase the budget to accommodate as summer is short and LO won’t be little forever. Recent trips have included a visit to a PYO farm resulting in luscious strawberries and very sticky and happy LO; two trips to a fabulous park near us where LO had a super time on the toy train, in the playground, the sandpit and in the paddling pool. I think this will be our new favourite place to go. We have a trip to a cherry festival planned as well.

Spent £24.99 on a new iron to replace the absolutely rubbish one I bought as a replacement for the one I lost in the fire. I think it cost about £16 and it is useless! Will try to flog it on ebay or something as I only used it twice. Also spent £22 in Ikea on god-knows-what. Mostly Tupperware and bits for the kitchen.

Any other MS to report? Hmm…several free lunches at work last week (leftover sandwiches from meetings and one food tasting by our new refreshment supplier). Other lunches were also very frugal.

The money-shuffle on payday paid off the travel credit card and so now I know the total cost of our holiday was just over £2,000. Considering we would spend that much on 4-5 day breaks for just the 2 of us pre-LO, I think that’s quite good for a week long family holiday. It’s left us with a little bit in the holiday fund as a starter for the next one!

I have cashed in the account balance of £6.50 from my greenmetropolis account and asked for Paypal to be added to my PineCone account so that I can claim another £6 from there. Once they hit my account I will add them to my July ‘Make £100’ challenge.

On the minus side, spent £24.50 on taxis collecting LO from nursery. I don’t do taxis in the summer unless it’s raining or he’s unwell but it’s adding up thanks to a four week period of OH doing silly hours and being unable to pick him up even one day. This period is now over so hopefully we will get back to normal for a while until it starts again in September.

We are also seriously considering taking the builder to small claims court for not finishing the snagging work. He has promised to come twice and not turned up. Formal letter with deadline will be drafted and sent soon. In the meantime, we are getting someone else in to install the dishwasher – it has been sitting in its box for a month now and without it we can’t really get properly started with Operation cleanup. All we need is a dishwasher and time.

LO has been sleeping very very late recently – he excelled himself by staying up for the World Cup final – he deigned to go to sleep at 11.45pm in the end! Last night was better – he went off at 9.30 so long may it continue. I’m having the middle of the month blues – nothing I can save, nothing I can earn, nothing I can transfer over. I have a list of financial type things to do so perhaps I should attempt to do them now that I might occasionally have a free evening. I also need to get back into list mode though I won’t inflict it on MSE if I can’t update every week.

tootallulah

Hiya Mouche, good to hear from you, you were missed. Great news on the holiday, car and general getting sorted out. Where will you go for your next holiday?

mouche

16th July

Thank you tootalullah. The holiday seems so long ago now and yet we’ve only been back for a month! Next holiday will be back to India to visit family. It will be a long one of 6 weeks as I want LO to spend as much time as possible with his grandparents. I had asked my boss if I could take 3 weeks (paid) annual and 3 weeks (unpaid) parental leave and he said he couldn’t spare me for 6 weeks of leave – paid or unpaid. However, he has said I can work from home in India for 3 weeks so though I will be working, I will also get to spend time with my parents and LO will get to harass his grandparents! This will be a super-expensive holiday as we will need flights both from the UK and within India (my parents and in laws live in different cities). Plus, we have to throw a big party for family at both locations as no one has actually met LO yet. My parents will pay for theirs but we have to pay for the one at my in laws. Plus OH wants to give his parents some money as well. We have £5000 saved up for this trip (much of it from the compensation money after OHs work accident) – I really hope it will be enough.

On another note, I have decided to try Flabelos to see if it helps me shift some weight. Once I have got rid of some I am sure my back and feet will improve to the point where I can do some proper exercise. So have booked in for an induction this weekend. I also went for a make up Pilates class last night so am really trying to be more systematic about exercise. I think I also need some new shoes. I wear trainers everywhere and now they have holes in them. I need to investigate smart but supportive wide shoes as I have a lot of shoes worn a few times and discarded for not being as comfortable as I need them to be. Finally, I need to stop the chocolate again as I clearly have no self-control when given some.

On the MSE front, I got a £1.90 rail voucher as my train was late last week. Have also requested my Quidco payout of £3.98. So those count towards my monthly total of £100 extra. I also got refunded £4.10 for our old car’s parking permit but I’m not sure yet if that is before or after the £5 admin charge so not sure whether it’s a profit or a loss!

17th July

We had a meal at McD last night – very naughty as the Eating Out fund is empty – but it was a semi-special occasion and our original plan was to go to Bluewater so the fact that traffic prevented us is probably a good thing. Just under £10 spent there. Had a good rummage around for the Nationwide paperwork and OHs P60 (as I think he might be owed a refund due to being unemployed for some months last year). No luck unfortunately – I think they will surface when I no longer need them. I did find the letter for the sofa finance so OH will have to ring them tomorrow to find out when our payments end. It won’t be soon but we can’t remember whether it was till 2016 or 2017.

Got free croissant samples at the train station this morning so breakfast was sorted.

Am hoping for a meal out with a friend tonight. She’s skint too so hopefully a cheap one. Haven’t had a night out in ages so really looking forward to it.

LO moment:
LO after nursery: Mummy, Ellie ate my breakfast.
Me: Ellie ate your breakfast??
LO: Yes!
Me: Who’s Ellie?
LO: I don’t know!

He lives in a world of his own, he does!

Oh and I negotiated a week’s free childcare for next year as we will be on holiday for six weeks! £250 to the private school fund!

21st July
I wonder if it will be August by the time I get to post this!

We got the dishwasher fitted finally – cost us £70 for the privilege but we’ve already made good progress on getting the house cleared. By good progress I means about 1% of everything that is to be done but that’s 1% more than usual! During the clearing up, I found the Nationwide paperwork and OHs P60 – about 2 hours after he had rung Nationwide and requested new details to be sent out. Oh well – at least the problem is solved now – or will be when the new paperwork arrives. I also filled in OHs tax return and though I haven’t submitted it yet as I want to be sure of the interest paid by Nationwide, guess how much tax refund he’s owed? £1,800!!! That will go a long way towards paying off the new car (we had to lend the car fund about £2500 from other ‘pots’).

I also found our council tax statement and it seems I have been paying £30 a month too much towards it! So I think if I just don’t pay in July, and then pay the actual amount from August we will still be ok. That would be a £144 saving this month and another £30 a month going forward.

That’s all the good news. On the bad news front – we are down to our last coppers in the monthly budget and OH as the chef has been instructed to feed us till the end of the month on £3. He says it is possible thanks to the vast quantities of homemade frozen meals in the freezers so let’s hope we can actually do it. All we will actually NEED is milk. We also had a very spendy weekend, especially the day out at the cherry festival. Apart from the cherries we bought – luscious and well worth the inflated price – there was toy train ride and ice cream for LO, cake for me and annoyingly lunch for OH, who refused to eat the picnic we had selected and packed together. We are from India and picnics there involve biryani and curry rather than sandwiches and crisps and OH simply will not change his tastes. It was very annoying but it can’t be helped. It leaves us with 37p in the days out fund so next weekend will have to be a free one! OH is working dawn to dusk on Sunday anyway so that might be easier than it sounds as I can’t drive.

mouche

Apologies for the essay above but it was 3 days worth and in effect 10 days worth of updates. And just in case you hadn't read enough - here's another one! Will try to keep it brief though:

1. Nationwide money found and moved to regular account ready to pay off car on cc.
2. OH tax return filed; £1,862 tax refund to be received in 2-4 weeks :j
3. Energy supplier switched to Co-op - hope to save £100+ a year
4. Too much spending on taxis thanks to OH working late and me not feeling well
5. Flabelos joined for £30; have been 4 times and it is doing something though I will reserve judgement for now.
6. Email sent to customer services at scam company Completesave. OH has been paying £10 a month to them for months for no reason. Apparently it's one of those things you get opted into if you don't opt out. Have cancelled and asked for refund. Hope we get something.

Think that's all the major stuff. Have been paid today but will update again after money-shuffle on the 31st. Have a great weekend everyone!

tootallulah

Hiya Mouche busy as ever I see. I think that your boss leting you work from home whilst in India is great it sets a very good precedent if you can make it work, and will give your Mum plenty of spoiling time with your LO! When your family are far away it does make visits expensive but it is so important to go and make sure your LO knows his extended family. Also things like lovely days out together are one of the way you create your own family memories never money wasted on that. Brilliant news on the tax rebate - well done you.

Goldiegirl

Hello Mouche, just been reading your updates.


It'll be great to spend 6 weeks in India, and for LO to meet the family over there.


I would just like to say.... a curry picnic sounds fantastic !

poorbutrich

Have a brilliant time in India Mouche! Very jealous!

mouche

Hi everyone...I'm not actually in India yet and won't be till next year but thanks for all the good wishes. I could certainly use some good vibes as 4.5 months after our house fire, we were burgled last week.

Fortunately, no one was home and so no one was hurt. Unfortunately, they took quite a lot of cash and all my jewelry. The cash was left over from our holidays and hadn't yet been banked - we don't normally keep cash in the house. The jewelry was only a small part of what I own (the rest is in a safety deposit box back in India) but it comprised some pieces that have a lot of sentimental value and I have been very upset about their loss.

More than what we lost, it's been the feeling of our home being invaded and a stranger going through our things. I'm not a fainting type of person but in the middle of the phone call to the police I started shaking so badly OH had to take over. And I've been afraid to come home on my own with LO since it happened.

We are having a monitored burglar alarm fitted asap - a whole lot of expense but at least for a while, I won't feel safe without something like that.

Anyway, I don't want to think about it anymore. Payday shuffle has been done and we overspent quite a lot last month. The overspend has negated the £144 I will save this month by not paying council tax (overpaid enough to skip a month) and the £110 I have had refunded for a membership we don't use.

I have saved £14 using OHs company discounts though and I also found more in the Nationwide account than I expected. So I have been able to put aside £100 in the private school fund and another £80 towards a mortgage OP.

My laptop battery is about to die so I will have to finish this update later.

poorbutrich

mouche wrote: »

Fortunately, no one was home and so no one was hurt. Unfortunately, they took quite a lot of cash and all my jewelry. The cash was left over from our holidays and hadn't yet been banked - we don't normally keep cash in the house. The jewelry was only a small part of what I own (the rest is in a safety deposit box back in India) but it comprised some pieces that have a lot of sentimental value and I have been very upset about their loss.

More than what we lost, it's been the feeling of our home being invaded and a stranger going through our things. I'm not a fainting type of person but in the middle of the phone call to the police I started shaking so badly OH had to take over. And I've been afraid to come home on my own with LO since it happened.

We are having a monitored burglar alarm fitted asap - a whole lot of expense but at least for a while, I won't feel safe without something like that.

Anyway, I don't want to think about it anymore. Payday shuffle has been done and we overspent quite a lot last month. The overspend has negated the £144 I will save this month by not paying council tax (overpaid enough to skip a month) and the £110 I have had refunded for a membership we don't use.

I have saved £14 using OHs company discounts though and I also found more in the Nationwide account than I expected. So I have been able to put aside £100 in the private school fund and another £80 towards a mortgage OP.

My laptop battery is about to die so I will have to finish this update later.

Oh gosh Mouche - so sorry to hear this.