would love to be mortgage free!

coldcazzie

So, have updated my spreadsheets today and done all online banking. Short review of where everything is:

Savings
ISA is gaining value, less money in Rainy Day Savings after paying for the holiday and the fridge. Another £300 in Regular Saver. All in all, our savings have increased not decreased. Will update my sig to reflect this.

Mortgage
Another payment's gone out, so we have overpaid another £55.06, bringing our total overpayments this year to £110.12. :j :j a month tomorrow and I could theoretically start looking for remortgaging deals. Isn't that something!

Spending
Had some more non-usual purchases this month: the textbook, the kids shoes (returned one pair for a refund as they did not fit), I also bought some plants for my mum and besty for their birthdays. He bought a trolley jack and the oil cooler for the bike, as well as new brake pads. Plus I hosted an Ann Summers party last night so I spent a bit there on some new underwear however, I did get freebies and a good deal because I hosted, plus I got a "dress" that I'm going to pair with a pair of pants and wear to the weddings. Unplanned spending this month has come to £232.39 :eek:

Fuels
Our gas and electricity are down further this month. Understandable that the gas has dropped, it's warming up now, but we've been making an effort to use less electric and it seems to be working. Our daily consumption is currently the lowest it's been since we moved in! :T:T to celebrate we have changed supplier today, the change takes about 4-6 weeks to go through, but we should see some savings soon

Edited to add: our cashback for upgrading Sky has been confirmed so that will be paid on the next payment run, and having switched via uswitch our £21 cashback has tracked so that should come soon too. However, our home ins cashback claim has been declined which is a pita.

coldcazzie

I think I may have to give up the revision weekend in September. Manwife has just announced to me that he's definitely going to need a new chain and sprocket set and new tyres before July and that will probably cost £350-400.

To be fair to him he did then apologise and say that he doesn't know what to do cuz the commute is destroying the bike

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hiya Caz, I had no idea bikes cost so much money. Although frustrating good thing is you have kept OPing and saving. It's just such a pain when unexpected bills come in. If you don't do the revisin weekend, how do you think you can make up the work/revision etc. What extra would you have gained from it and could you achieve it another way? If its just reading your books thats one thing, but if it's exam tips etc may be worth finding a way of meeting up with a study group? My DH did a numbeer of courses with the OU and they were fortunate to have enough people near ish, to form mini study groups. May be worth exploring perhaps?

Have a good Friday, Tilly x

coldcazzie

To be honest, I think some of it is simply that it was second hand rather than brand new. Replacing a tyre is something that every vehicle owner has to deal with, if the grip gets too shallow it has to be done. It would have been fine had we not had to do all the repairs after the black ice incident.

The revision weekend is held at Warwick and consists of a series of revision sessions covering the course material and exam and revision tips, presented by tutors etc. I joined a Facebook group for people doing this course, and am finding that really helpful, plus there are local tutorials too, but the revision weekend is a really great extra, and I've got a lot riding on this course... it's my last chance, y'know? I can't see how I can afford both.

coldcazzie

After overspending on our grocery budget last month I'm trying to make a bigger effort this month to not overspend. I took a page from Tilly's book and wrote myself out a freezer stock list, and I'm updating it whenever I take something out or put something in. It's actually surprising how much food I have in the freezer - I forget just how much we have.

Anyhoo...
Stocking up the cupboards at the end of last week cost: £140.15
Manwife bought some extra things so we could have a couple of friends round on Saturday evening: £24.46

Then yesterday and today we split the shopping between us:
SM: £28.57
Butchers: £14.68
Fruit and veg: £11
Fish and eggs: £7.60

So weekly total is £61.85 so only slightly over my weekly figure of £60.

coldcazzie

A few days ago I received a renewal letter about our washing machine cover. Rang them to change our bank details so they don't take the DD from the wrong account.

I also got an email yesterday about our new DD for our new energy supplier. Having rang them to clarify some things I'm really impressed - our DD is going to be just over half what it was before

Am just going through my spreadsheet now to add those in. It's also a free listing weekend on ebay this weekend so I think I'm going to have a looky through the bits I've collected together and get them all ready for listing.

Tomorrow will be busy as I've a tutorial in the morning and then my brother's birthday party late afternoon, so am booking a slot for Sunday to get them all up on the site

Giraffe fell again today - this time while trying to climb up onto the patio slabs that are at the edge of the decking, only she missed and landed on her eye socket on the edge of one of the slabs so is going to have a lovely black eye in a couple of days. *unimpressed face*

coldcazzie

Didn't manage to list anything on eBay must be more organised so I can get it done next time there's a free listing weekend. I've really suffered a post-TMA slump and am really lacking in motivation to do anything at the moment. I'm due my TMA back this evening so fingers crossed I can move on from it and feel a bit more motivated again.

I have set up a standing order for our weekly milk payment into a spare account. I was finding it very difficult to keep a track of it as it being a random cash withdrawal when we remembered, plus our milkman has had some recent family issues (his wife's been ill) which has meant he hasn't been to collect payment for over a month. Anyway, I feel better putting the money aside so I know it won't be spent by accident.

Our next regular saving payment into FD 8% saver has hit, so we've now got over £1k in there, which is a nice threshold to pass

coldcazzie

No TMA yet

Went shopping today. Will admit to getting sucked into a display/offer and buying some cupcakes that weren't on the list, but by god they're GOOD!!

I made a point of getting enough food that I shouldn't need to shop next week apart from some ham. Spent £86.35 total.

I'm going to spend a few hours in the kitchen over the next couple of days - shall be cooking:
1 pot of chilli - dinner tonight plus a lunch for me,
1 double portion of mince bolognese - with pasta and also make a lasagna,
1 lot of tomato and celery stuffing to go with fish,
1 lot of tuna and veg sauce - with pasta and jacket potatoes

Need a licking lips emoticon :rotfl:

coldcazzie

Well yesterday I made chilli (leftovers will do lunch for me and Giraffe at some point - these have gone in the freezer), and some tuna & veg sauce which I ended up with loads of (1 x dinner for all 5 of us, 1 x dinner for man-wife and I plus 1 child, 3 x lunch for me and Giraffe, and 1 x lunch for just me).

This morning I've made some sweetcorn chowder and had some for lunch (wow - delicious!) and will get 2 more lunch portions from it. I've got enough mushrooms left over from the huge tub I bought at the supermarket yesterday that I can get a batch of mushroom soup from them in addition to the recipes I was planning on putting mushrooms in... however, I've run out of freezer bags to portion it up, and all my tubs have other meals in, so I'm going to have to ask man-wife to pick some more up on his way home from work :rotfl:

I've not even started on the bolognese yet... :rotfl: I've kept aside 2 tubs to put that in but I'm not sure whether they'll fit in... :undecided

I seem to be coming out of my slump. Not got my assignment back yet, but it should be any day now. Am enjoying (!!! well, relatively...!) the course now that I've gotten into the swing of it, have managed to get some work done for the next assignment and am just waiting on some experiment results coming back from the OU (in a couple of weeks) before continuing with that. I also looked a bit further ahead and am now making sure I read/notate the next chapters of the textbook with the topic of the third assignment in mind so that I can hopefully do the best I can.

coldcazzie

I finished my batch cooking yesterday evening total has come to: 4 portions of mushroom soup, 3 portions of sweetcorn chowder, 2 portions of stuffing, 6 tubs of pasta sauce, 1 portion of chilli, 2 lasagnes and 1 tub of bolognese. And now my freezer is full to bursting. It took some work to fit the lasagnes in :rotfl: but I feel gooooood with such a full freezer!

Just got 12/13's water bill, it's about a pound more pcm than I had guessed at, but I don't mind that.

On a slightly less nice note, the bike has just been booked in for new tyres and a new chain and sprocket set which will come to just under £400 :eek: :eek: assuming they don't charge a fee for the priviledge we are going to put it on the credit card simply because then we'll get cashback on it. I'd hope that this is the last thing we need for a while, but I've a feeling it's not... :undecided