would love to be mortgage free!

coldcazzie

Thankyou Tilly, I'm definitely feeling frazzled today. I thought J'raff was getting better yesterday, but today she's been worse again and now also has the runs on top of having a sky high temp, bunged up, not eating.

DH has been removed off the motorway to a service station and the AA man should be with him about now ish. Depending on whether he just needs roadside assistance or relay home as well the charge will between £125-£200.

On a slightly more positive note, my friend sent me the money to pay for the fishtank she bought off me, so I've now got £219 in my tank fund :T Only another ~£200 to go! :rotfl:

coldcazzie

icontinuetodream wrote: »

Yay!!! :j:j:j

NOOOOOO!!!!! _pale_:( Hope it's not too bad.....sending virtual hugs xx:grouphug:

Thankyou! On both counts! I'm in sore need of them today!

fairleads

coldcazzie wrote: »

Hi all, having read a few diaries I'd love to start my own, if that's ok! I tried to do a SOA but finding it a bit tough as many things are changing in the next 3 months and we pay some things outright instead of monthly (eg bike ins). I have a spreadsheet for monthly incomings and outgoings which I have maintained meticulously for the past 2 years. By that I have about £30-£50 left at the end of each month, although it varies depending on what we've bought.

People: me, man-wife, 3 sprogs: Squish-pot, Lumpy and J'raff (also 2 cats, 3 gerbils and 3 fishtanks).
Mortgage: 99,000 starting Dec '10, 4.11% fixed for 2 years then variable rate (currently 4.24%), over 35 years.

Currently out budget includes £250pcm into a fixed rate monthly saver (paying 6% interest, not taxed as I don't work!), in Dec when it pays out I plan to move this into an instant access savings account as a rainy day fund (3.1% interest), we are also changing current account which will give us a gift of £100 plus will give us a chance to reset our buffer, which I want to keep at around £500 at the lowest point of the month.

I can get an 8% fixed rate saver next year which means it makes more sense to save than to repay on the mortgage, but it's a fixed amount each month (£300) so anything spare after that will go onto the mortgage rather than into the rainy day fund (which will be about £2500), so at this stage I plan to overpay a minimum of £130pcm onto the mortgage. If there is extra free at the end of the month then great, I'll put more on, but £130 pcm is my minimum.

I realise £2500 doesn't sound like much, but we maintain a buffer in our current account too, and I have about £2200 in an ISA as well which I could withdraw if it became necessary. Although I hope it doesnt!

If its any consolation, or comfort to you, I've hardly made extra mortgage payments. I've always saved and invested the extra cash in shares and unit trusts etc. I've never earned enough to pay paid tax at 40%. I've also never contributed to a pension fund, but i retired at 56.

coldcazzie

Oh dear. The bike just pulled up on the back of a recovery truck...

coldcazzie

Cost for last night was £128. They were apparently supposed to take him to the nearest garage but there weren't any open so brought him home instead. Cost has gone on the credit card, so I guess at least we'll get 1% cashback on it! :undecided

Anyhoo, J'raff is much better today. Fever seems to have broken in the night, and having not eaten anything at all yesterday she had breakfast this morning and walked home from school. Not at my mum's though so no studying this week

My to do list today:
[STRIKE]take recycling out to garage
wash up
sort out worktop hotspot
write shopping list for Saturday (last minute party items)
make breadcrumbs for burger recipe
put away clean washing[/strike]
ring Tmobile re contract
[STRIKE]finish cutting card creatures[/STRIKE]
cut paper for hats
[STRIKE]organise all crafty bits for party so they're all together[/STRIKE]
find the person who invented Guess with Jess and kick them in the head
[Strike]more chocolates[/strike]

Yesterday I made a big batch of tuna pasta sauce: divided it up into 3 lots: 2 which are each enough for an evening meal for all of us (one in the freezer, one in teh fridge), plus 1 small portion which will do me for lunch with a jacket potato sometime. Just need to cook the pasta and reheat the sauce tonight, plus grate some cheese, so this means I can keep on doing things until about half 5 (assuming I don't run out of energy before then).

Want to get as much as possible sorted today so that tomorrow I can concentrate on baking.

Finally, I mentioned to the man-wife about the money that's building up in our c/a and he said he'd prefer to have the bathroom done up than make the OP, and tbh I'm inclined to agree with him. Fed up of having floorboards in there and a sink that wobbles whenever the kids lean on it. So... new bathroom here we come! :T I'll transfer the funds across to my esaver for the moment, so at least they're earning interest while we're waiting for more money.

icontinuetodream

coldcazzie wrote: »

Cost for last night was £128. They were apparently supposed to take him to the nearest garage but there weren't any open so brought him home instead. Cost has gone on the credit card, so I guess at least we'll get 1% cashback on it! :undecided

Oh well, it could have been worse.....;)

coldcazzie wrote: »

Anyhoo, J'raff is much better today. Fever seems to have broken in the night, and having not eaten anything at all yesterday she had breakfast this morning and walked home from school.

That's excellent!!:j

coldcazzie wrote: »

My to do list today:
find the person who invented Guess with Jess and kick them in the head

I have no idea what Guess with Jess is, but this made me laugh my a*se off!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

coldcazzie

icontinuetodream wrote: »

Oh well, it could have been worse.....;)

You're right of course, I was almost pleased. Almost!

I have no idea what Guess with Jess is, but this made me laugh my a*se off!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

It's a kids tv programme - it's not one of the worst ones, but it's still annoying! It was particularly grating on me this morning! :rotfl:

Peonie

Oh, the breakdown cover thing must be so annoying. I'm glad your little one is getting better and good luck with the baking.

We also need to renovate our bathroom but it may be another couple of years before we can do that. Are you planning to do the bathroom before the kitchen?

coldcazzie

Peonie wrote: »

We also need to renovate our bathroom but it may be another couple of years before we can do that. Are you planning to do the bathroom before the kitchen?

Yes I think so. For all that the kitchen is more annoying, we can afford the bathroom in a couple of months, we can't realistically afford the kitchen until next year. We will probably do the floor in the hall at the same time - it's currently carpet and we want tile. We plan to sell the suite once we've done it, so hopefully that will recoup a little bit of the cost.

coldcazzie

So I've got 2 cakes in the oven, the paper is cut for the kids to make hats. Now I'm off to change Lumpy's bedding as he had a little accident last night. I'm postponing all the current money stuff until next week. I'll write myself a list sometime today so I don't forget anything. Got an old school friend staying over tonight who we don't see very often so really looking forward to that :j will get the man-wife to fetch a duvet down from the loft this afternoon when he gets back from work.

J'raff is definitely back to normal; she's currently running round in a vest, gloves and hat and a pair of wellies which is pretty much normal attire for her during the day! :rotfl: she makes me feel cold just looking at her, but she says shes not.

Eta: almost forgot, I may have a buyer for my co2 kit, so if that goes ahead that'll be another £50-60 for the new tank fund! I'm aiming for around £400 altogether - about £300 for a custom made aquarium and £100 for the wood to self-build a stand and hood and for man-wife to do a custom lighting rig.