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

shala_moo

i've accidently paid off more than i meant to on my credit card!!

Anyone else forget that they've paid a certain amount off and pay it again, forgetting the original payment.. d'oh!

In total i've paid off £675 in the last two weeks.. bit excessive, especially due to it being an expensive month of special birthdays! Lesson learnt => check my spreadsheets before i pay money in/out of accounts.

shala_moo

Good morning all...

What awful weather.. we were going to start digging some of the veg beds over today but i think that can wait at least the ground that i've recently uncovered can get some water into it..

We have been reviewing our grocery spends this morning and i'm quite pleased with the results.. we used to spend between £330-£350 a month before moving. The last months spends are £240 :j i know this can still be reduced further though... some of you ladies and gents are fab when it comes to grocery spends!


The ways we've achieved this are

• shopped at Aldi, Farmfoods and Home Bargains
• used vouchers for main supermarkets
• rolling 9 week meal plan set up - need to set up the shopping lists for each week
• cooked from scratch every day
• OH went shopping a few times, he sticks to the list (i can't resist stocking up on bargains :rotfl:)
• used the greengrocer at OH's garden centre (50p for a punnet of blueberries v £2.99 at supermarkets:eek:)
• Have one veggie meal a week - i will be increasing this if i can get away with it

I've also been reading the 2012 Frugal Living thread which has given me some ideas.. Frugaldom on there lives on £1 per person a day for meals :eek: amazing. If i could do that then i'd be saving over £200 on an average month, unfortunately whilst it's a good idea in theory I don't think i'd get away with it in this house.

Right off to stock up on some chicken and pork at the butchers, this should last us the next 3-4 weeks according to my meal planner - e.t.a. spent £78 on enough meat to last 42 different main meals and any leftovers we get from them! I think we'll be fine for quite some time!! (worked out that the same amount of meat would have cost £150 ish from Sainsburys)

shala_moo

Hi everyone.. not much to update this week i'm afraid. OH took me off to Gloucester for my Birthday so there's been some money spent there.

Once again it's sad to wander round the town with the amount of shops that were closed/closing... consequently we didn't actually buy anything but a hotel stay, petrol and trip to the cinema/nando's were expensive enough :eek:

I notice it's going to be lovely this week, weather wise, so i shall try and start tidying the garden and preparing the veg beds, the grass has been cut today so thats started my sneezing off already

I love spring.. all the trees staring to bud and blossom and the gardens starting to come into life, makes you feel all happy..:T

shala_moo

Hi everyone, hope all is well in your MFW worlds.. :wave:

Pay day today again.. nicer than usual as I've had a bit of a bonus which is already allocated to buying a fireplace . I know this is a want rather than a necessity but it's money i wouldn't have had in my "usual" pay IYKWIM so i'd like to use it for something that otherwise would not get bought. I've never had a fireplace so i'm very excited :j a bit sad huh? :rotfl:

So shuffling wise today
£300 in regular saver
£250 in sharesave scheme
Paid off everyday credit card for the month
shuffle to Hal1fax and back
£1000 into bills ac
£175 "council tax" bill money paid off 0% CC

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So this leaves my figures for March 2012

Outstanding mortgage £165,072.32
Family loan £16,324.22
Outstanding CC 0% £1,722.90
Savings £10,000.00 - hit my target

Total Debt at present moment £ 173,119.44 (-1,541.54):j

I've spoken to my sister about paying back the loan she gave me and she's wants it back in one lump sum, so i'll just be stashing the money away in a savings account somewhere for now.

So my savings are actually more than the £10k but i'll class any extra as payment of the loan..

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On a different subject,I went to fill up with petrol earlier and got given a till spit for £9 off a £90 shop.. not sure i need that much stuff from the shops but i'll kick myself if i don't use it...i'm stocked up on most items so at the moment i have a dilemma.. to use or not to use, that is the question :rotfl:

shala_moo

Just a quick post...

Had a Council tax rebate from old property of £112 come through today so i've duly sent that off to the credit card debt along with £30 from someone, that was owed to me, and £8 to round it up to £150!

This brings my total down to £1,572,90 :j

Another £150 to come off this at the end of the month once i get OH's money through and we should be well under way of getting rid of the debt by the summer!

Didn't go to Sainsbug's in the end. Just popped to Tesco as I had a £6 off a £40 spend instead. Managed to spend £46 so much better than £90 odd!!:T

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Edited to add - another £30 extra to go on to the CC too :T

Just managed to get £20.15 off an old survey site that stopped sending me surveys just as i was about to redeem, for some reason they've just started sending surveys out again so i've managed to get over the threshold now..:j

Also £10 Sainsbury's voucher from Valued Opin1ons.

shala_moo

Afternoon all:wave:

Lovely sunshiny day today - done a bit of tidying in the garden earlier but i've had to bake 36 cupcakes so i've been stuck in the kitchen most of the day

Couldn't wait for the end of the week so i've paid some more money off the credit card - £259.65 (£150 OH, £10 mystery shop, £30 survey money, £65.65 sky cash back finally, £4 my dad)

This leaves the balance at £1,313.25 at the moment :j hoping to get it under £1k next month. Really want to get it cleared so I can start maing inroads on the house debt!!

Good news on the bills front - we had our first water bill and it's under budget. I'd budgeted £40 a month (same as we would be charged for rates) but it's come in at £29.56 for 48 days worth of water. I knew making OH shower at the gym had a plus side!

To counterbalance - Bad news :mad: - i accidently spent a lot of money at Mr T's yesterday.. didn't really need anything urgently and still spent £100 fell off the wagon spectacularly!

I have vowed not to shop this week to balance it out, excluding having to buy cake ingredients for a 2 tier chocolate cake i'm making for MIL's 60th.

shala_moo

So this is the cake i've been working on all week! I'm cream crackered :rotfl:




The black tier is a bit wonky and the damask stencil didn't work that well but it looks ok (i'm a perfectionist so i'm a bit disappointed in it) It cost me about £30-40 to make plus about 8 hours of time :eek:, i've never bought a cake from a shop but i'm guessing it would have been about £100 (??) and we'd have had to buy one if I hadn't made it

In MSE news
- my total hours of overtime this month have added up to 28 hours :eek: nice for the money but not nice for the time spent away from home
- £10 amazon voucher from Ipsos
- veg seedings are coming along well.. hoping they'll produce something in the summer
- fitted a device to the tv so that when it switches off by remote ctrl it also switches off at the wall.. must save some electricity surely?
- heatings mainly off (although predicting snow next week!:()
- surveys
- haven't gone food shopping this week :j

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi SM,your cake is AMAZING - well done. If I could manage something 10% as good I would be proud.

Slightly worried about the snow comment, I was turning my heating off now so will need to check the weather forecast

Good luck with your veg growing - I find so long as you water regularly, rather than feast and famine, most things do well.

Best wishes Tilly

shala_moo

Thanks Tilly - it went down well at the party! I like to try to challenge myself and this was my first time making a icing mask.. I was so scared it would break, but it made it through :j this week it's dinosaurs...

I've just rechecked the weather forecast for the week and as usual it's changed! It's now only raining by us not snowing, but it could all change again tomorrow.. weathermen are rubbish aren't they! :rotfl:

Money news, we've had our first gas/elec bill today :eek: £481 for the quarter. This is our first 3 months in the new house so I knew it would be a large bill but this is a bit too :eek:.

To be fair the Gas central heating was on constantly for the first 2 weeks as we couldn't figure out how to use it:o. We used 100 units in Jan and another 100 units in Feb/Mar equalling £323!!

I've now gone round switching off all the radiators in the spare rooms and turned the thermostat down. OH has just left the room leaving the TV, Sky and Xbox on.. so i've turned all these off and had a word!

I look forward(kind of) to the next bill which will be significantly lower!!

shala_moo

I got home last night v. late from work.. Oh was sitting watching tv in the dark with the heating switched off!

He cooked tea in the remoska and hadn't precooked the pasta..

..all to save a few more pennies on the gas/elec/water bill!!

Bless him..

I can't believe he's so on board now! :j