Mortgage freedom..Shala_moo's attempt at a diary..

shala_moo

Bit of a mixed day today.. my Dad came round earlier, he has a knack of upsetting me with little comments here and there so after he left I felt all meh, although OH couldn't understand what had happened! :doh:

Then I cut OH's hair, this time I remembered the hair guard though so he's not so much of a skin head :rotfl:so £7 at the hairdressers saved :j

I also logged onto my np0wer account to find they have billed me on the 2nd April and reduced my direct debit. Yeah for the reduction :T but boooo to not emailing me to tell me! I missed out on updating my fuel spreadsheet for 25 whole days!!! Do they not know about our ss obsessions?

I've checked usage and we are 23% down on last year :T I imagine that's down to the weather rather than us being careful though

We were paying £110/month all last year and they've reduced the DD to £68 - whilst that's great for the summer period my estimation is that it will go up to £130 for the winter period. I'd rather even that out a bit over the summer so i'm leaving £100 going into my "bills" current account and building up my buffer for winter.

Busy day tomorrow - off to court (hopefully i'll get picked!) and then off to visit MIL in hospital as she is having a hip replacement tomorrow. She got put into one of the local private hospitals as there wasn't any room in the NHS ones - for free - how MSE is she :rotfl:


Night all.. xx

shala_moo

April Money Shuffle 2...

OH has paid me so I've

• knocked another £170 off the family debt (shhhh he's given me £20 too much this month so I've knocked a bit extra off )
• paid off my credit card - quite low spends on there so very happy with that
• moved some extra money to savings - although i'll have to transfer some back when my car gets fixed

I've managed to somehow put enough money into my savings to make it a round figure of £16,000 - complete fluke but I was very happy to see that when I logged on :rotfl:

Very tired tonight as I went straight to work after court, means I got a couple of hours overtime, but primarily it will have definitely helped out the person covering my work tomorrow so I'm really glad I went in.

ATB xx

Pearla*Merle

Well done to your MIL, that's some good going on the hospital front! :money:

Sympathies for parents and daft comments, I get that a lot too... fortunately they're far away, but then it means several days at a time visits which can take me a week to get over. :eek:

Yay for round figure flukes and extra pennies this month

shala_moo

Hey Pearla, thanks for dropping by, always nice to have visitors x



MIL is now at home resting, unfortunately I haven't had chance to see her since Monday so we'll be popping up tomorrow to see if she's ok (OH has been up every day though)

Veryyy busy week for me, I've been in court everyday then had to go straight to work after to catch up Luckily a couple of the days I finished court at 12ish but the other days I've got to work at 5pm and finished at 10-10.30pm.. I'm very much on the tired side today so it's a nominated relaxing day

Things done this week

• "earnt" £120 for jury service - spent £15 on lunches, £50 on petrol and £3.50 on additional parking so nice profit - I will put the full amount to the savings pot though
• got free pizza one night at work as I asked them to buy me some tea - cheeky
• logged my overtime - I thought working till 10pm was reasonable enough to claim - didn't expect to work that late :eek: but (without blaming anyone) my work wasn't covered 100% so had to catch up to meet the deadlines
• put away 3 criminals... I'm quite shocked at what some people think is normal behaviour in this world it's a sorry state of affairs
• met some lovely people who were very interesting to talk to and enjoyable to experience unusual situations with (if that makes sense!)
• received a free chocolate bar with my Sainsbugs magazine (subscription was a present)
• received another 4 weeks worth of £10 vouchers from Tesc0
• got 2p off a litre of petrol from Tesc0 - £2.00 ish saved (can't find the receipt to check)

Things to do

• catch up with diaries doing
• catch up with surveys done
• clear email inbox done
• catch up with my stories on the tv done
• washing/hanging on the line done
• Halifax shuffle done
• maybe a nanny nap didn't bother
• order shopping - done £35

I have to say I really did enjoy my jury service, there was some element of waiting around (and some people were very grumbly about that) but it doesn't really bother me and I found the whole experience really interesting and i'd love to do it again!

I'm a little bit sad that I now have to go back to my normal boring routine at work.. :rotfl:maybe I need to find out how to become a judge or a barrister, it won't take long to train will it?

Peonie

You could become a Justice of the Peace. I've know a few people at work who do/have done it. They oversee things like no car insurance, drivers over the limit. I think they do it about one day a month.

shala_moo

Peonie I've just gone and googled it - you don't have to be qualified or anything, brilliant!


Maybe it's something I will look to when I retire and have more available time :T:T although disappointingly they don't have to wear the wigs and gowns I quite fancy dressing up to go to work!

shala_moo

Afternoon all...


Tired again today.. we both can't seem to sleep at the moment so we keep getting up early when all we want is a lie-in! Boooo...


We did have a cup of tea in bed though whilst reading the papers on the I-pad so at least it was restful if not sleepful (new word)


Housey stuff today as everything as been sorely neglected over the past week or so..

• mown both lawns
• garden swept and tidied a bit (it still looks like a building site)
• vacuumed and scrubbed the house clean
• washing done and out on line
• stripped beds - OH can do that washing tomorrow when i'm at work
• popped to get some wraps for tea - I usually make them but I really can't be *rsed today

I hadn't really been out in the garden for a while or looked properly out the window but we have tonnes of bluebells appeared, lots of blossom on the apple tree and blueberry bushes and there's even some blossom on the strawberry plants :T:T


Unfortunately we don't really have anywhere to sit at the moment otherwise I think i'd have sat out today and enjoyed the fresh air :cool:


Off for a cuppa and a catch up on the rest of the diaries I didn't get round to yesterday :coffee:

shala_moo

Big spendy weekend coming up and on top of it my handbrake snapped in my car when I got to work so that needs fixing now too!! :mad: No parking on slopes for me for a while :rotfl:

So spends

• OH's birthday coming up - bought presents and will be taking him out for dinner at a local pub/restaurant (£15 spend so far)
• Cousin's birthday - £20 voucher plus card to buy
• Car needs fixing - new handbrake cable, new shock absorber
• prescription - £8
• stock up on toiletries (£10-20)

I'm thinking of replacing my car next year sometime, it's only 10 years old but loads of bits are going wrong it and testing my patience.

I usually spend around £6k on a car when I buy them - they're usually a few years old by that point, but might save £8k just incase something else more expensive takes my fancy - not that I have my eye on a Fiat 500 :whistle:

So new car fund to be added to signature, will probably have to use some of my savings to pay for this car to be fixed first though

A few bits of money savings to cheer myself up

• £18.50 received from dental plan - to new car fund
• £1.95 TT - to new car fund
• not at work tomorrow so no petrol spent

xx

gallygirl

shala_moo wrote: »

not that I have my eye on a Fiat 500 :whistle:

What colour are you not looking at? I think the Italian one (cream with red & green stripes) is the nicest. Or maybe the pink :T.

shala_moo

Morning GG, I like most of the colours so my research will involve seeing which ones don't show dirt easiest:D i don't tend to wash my cars much, obviously because I feel so passionately about saving water :whistle: so it's a big consideration.

The one I keep walking past is pearlised cream and just beautiful, but I imagine one muddy puddle and :eek: