TallGirl seeks new financial freedom & hope to loose a few pounds on the way.

TallGirl

Afternoon all,
For those of you who don't know me I have been around MSE for about 5 years and it was the MFW Forum that made me realise I could actually overpay my mortgage never really realised this.

We had a very nice Offset Deal with Barclay's and with the help of this forum and the original MFi3 challenge (which I did the stats for) I managed to pay off my mortgage in January 2010. We now live mortgage free in our small but lovely house which should be worth about £250k however we have no plans to move and nothing needs doing really as we got an extension and new bathrooms in the last 8 years. (The house is 16 years old).

We managed to pay the mortgage off 9 years early for 3 main reasons:
1. low interest rate and offsetting (husband earned quite a bit more then but we did not extent our expenses.
2. some inheritance money
3. by getting the best deals for everything, cash back sites, points tarting and having cheap holiday (visiting family in DK and SA).

I work in Sales for a debt related company and cover a huge huge area of England. I spend loads of time in my car and a lot of time in Hotels. This makes it hard to go to the gym regularly and also hard to eat healthy. I had a spell of really not liking my job when they increased my area in April 2011 but now I have lost Central London things are not too bad and there are not a lot of job around in my sector that pays as well I mine does. I have a company car and I do not pay private millage of in effect my car is free. I can also use my work mobile to make personal calls plus work pays for my broadband.

My husband who I have known for 21 years and been married to for nearly 8 has his own company. It relies on manufacturing business and unfortunately factories have been shutting down for the past 10 years so now its really hard to make a living. DH had cut staff and cut their hours too, he had taken a salary cut but as we had just paid off the mortgage this meant we still had the same to live on which was really great. The company is still making a profit but I can see its going to be a struggle as he relies on his dad who is 86 to come in every day and do debt collection and invoice chasing. Also he looks after things when DH is on holiday.

Unfortunately DH's mum fell and broke he hip last year and needed to operations. She is not great and keeps falling and is very frail. She is at home and FIL looks after her but its really too much for him. They wont accept and help and do not accept this is going to be permanent so don't want to spend any money either on help.

Anyway this is far too long a post lets get on with some goals for this diary.

TallGirl

Finances: budgets and aims
Right here it goes never done a SOA on here and to be honest I don't have many expenses:

Monthly up to April 2012

Income £ 1,936.35

Joint Bills £ 346.70
Contact Lenses £ 15.00
Gym £ 19.95
ISA Saving £ 300.00
Total Expenses £ 681.65

Total left £ 1,254.70

From April this will change as I need to pay £500 into the joint bills account and pay ££470 into my ISA for 2012 to fill it up. I will however also get a small payrise.

Other expenses I have is:
Paying for food: DH pays most of the time which is not really fair as we earn the same. I do need to pay more often but I tend to pay for holidays and I did cash in my ISA's last year to pay for his car.

Me money:

Holidays/Weekends:
Now this is a large expenses as we do go away on weekend breaks and holiday but they are cheap and with my Premier Inn free weekends we will not be spending on these that much. Summer holiday will be 2 weeks in Denmark which will be about £100 each for the flights plus spending money over there.

Eating out:
Do this a lot but 9/10 times it via Mystery Shopping so free really. I eat out a lot with work so when at home I don't mind cooking and batch cook a lot using my slow cooker.

Gambling:
Now this is a concern I started Match betting using this site and made £3000 profit however there were always lots of offers from Casinos and although you could do them risk free I ended up getting hooked on the slots and spend far far too much. I have tried to cut it out many times but there are always new ones and despite closing all accounts I get offers from others. I really will not spend any money in 2012 on this and how game block on my computers. Will try to come on here and update my spend every day if not every week and feel free to give me a hard time if any money gets wasted on gambling.

I think this will do for now.

abouttimetoo

Hi there TG, great to see your new thread.

I'm just having a five min break from housework and thought I'd have a quick browse on here via my phone. Its a right faff posting via phone keyboard so for now I'll just say hope you and OH had a great Christmas and wishing you the very best for 2012 and your new goals. I'll look forward to reading them later after a bit more housework, plan for today is just to get it back to pre-Christmas position

Regards
ATT

TallGirl

January
February
March: Make sure ISA is full currently going to be £239 short remember to add to pot
April: SO for £470 to new ISA and change joint bills SO back to £500
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

In general:

1. Gym at least twice a week
2. Golf once a week
3. Alcohol 8 drinks a week max
4. No spend on gambling - no new casinos.

abouttimetoo

Hi again TG

Your goals are looking good and your determination is coming through

Sorry to hear your MIL & FIL situation is not getting any better, I'm sure it's hard for all concerned

PS, lol to us being able to give you a kick if you fall off the straight and narrow, that means you will have to confess all to us :rotfl:

PPS! I hear you on the weight front, I can tell a few pounds have crept on last year, I'm going to get weighed in the morning and I'mn expecting to see somewhere between 7-10 unwanted pounds! If thruth be told I could stand to lost quite a bit more than that but I do have a 'comfy' weight IYKWIM where my clothes fit nicely etc

Regards
ATT

TallGirl

Thanks for the post ATT glad you are still around I am so with you on the weight front I looked at my aims for 2011 and I was 88 kilo then just the same as I am now but that's no good as last year I really got into getting fit with bootcamp, personal trainer and the new gym so need to do better. I am not looking for super slim just so my clothes fit me and I tone up. Much better for my back too.

Been out for an hours walk around the creek its a lovely walk all along the coast with views over Portsmouth Habour I am lucky to live such a nice place.

Found 2 things to put in Amazon and 10 things for Musicmagpie amazing how it all creps in again old CD's DVD's games etc. Should net £19.32 from Music Magpie if only the email would come in so I can pack it all up.

I had a very nice Christmas and New Year with the inlaws and BIL plus his German girlfriend. She is now in Germany but BIL has been down here quite a lot. We were meant to go out for a curry but now MIL is sorting some dinner for him.

Think I shall need some lunch and a play on my new IPad DH gave it to me for Christmas and I love it such a cool piece of kit.

TallGirl

Woke up feeling pretty good ready to start a new work year just waiting for my collegue to call me regarding taking over London (very happy about that).

Also happy that I checked the gym timetable and Zumba is now twice a week on Tues at 6pm which is perfect for me if Im here. Will go tonight already got the tracksuit on as I am working from home today.

BIL came around yesterday so had two beers that is not great but felt it was the last day of the holilday so allowed. Been eating far too much crap so will now try to be good and obviously get down the gym.

Also signed up to Zopa to lend people money will tell you more about that later as I dont have any money in the account to lend out (have transferred £100 in to lend out at £10 per person). Right now I need to get one with the phone call.

Hope you are all having a nice day and for those of you for whom its for the first day back that its not too bad.

TallGirl

Went to Zumba 30 min early but it was canceled but still did 1 hour in the gym, good to be back going to pump tonight with neigbour also be good to get back into that.

Chased the pet insurance and got an appology claim was made late Nov we got a letter date 2nd Dec saying claim is complete decision will be made within the next 10 working days. Logged on to their tracker online says claim being processed outcome around 15th Dec. Well they have now fasttracked it after they initially claimed the 10 working days were not yet up.

Saw the advert for £100 if you switch with the Halifax plus £5 p/m so just applied for that sadly no option to have it was a joint account when I did it online so may have to do that in the bank which I am sure will be fine. This is for our joint account where we pay £500 each a month so perfect really never goes overdrawn so no worries about the high fee.

Thinking I might open one for myself (I know I wont get the £100) as they have an app for online banking which would be hand. Could leave my salary in Santander and then just transfer spending money over leaving a buffer to build up in Santander which is pay at 5% interest.

A bit more about Zopa I have been thinking about this for a while and it may not make the most financial sense (I think you can 8% at some odd building society) I think it will be a bit of fun and if it keeps those borrowers away from Payday Loans I shall be very happy.

I have transferred £100 over and is thinking of sending over £100 a month the problem is it lend out over 36 or 60 months so I have gone for 36 months only. I will track all my lending on here and hopefully it will be fun and interesting to learn more. I realised too late that you get a fee for referring but never mind.

Today working from home need to be more productive than yesterday so best crack on with it.

Spend Tuesday, postoffice £2.50 on two letters and a parcel.

TallGirl

Right new day and 1 day nearer to the weekend. Managed Pump last night for the first time since July (when the old gym shut) it was hard but also good to go with friend next door. Hopefully we can do more Weds like that. No alcohol either so all good.

However I did deposit £10 x 2 into a gaming site (not slots) but I won it back and withdrew it. I am going to close that site but need to wait for the withdrawal to come through. Naugthy me really bad :mad::mad::mad::eek::mad::mad::mad:.

Zopa is coming along nicely I have lent out £80 of my £100 I did it all on Autolend and have now found out how to read up on who has borrowed my money. Basically its 9 different people in 9 different risk categories. This is what it looks like:
Term Rate Amount Lent £
36 8.40% 10
36 6.70% 10
36 8.70% 10
36 6.40% 10
36 6.40% 10
36 8.40% 10
36 9.90% 10
36 6.40% 10

I know you pay a fee to Zopa and you may not get the full return as some will have bad debts but for the moment I sticking with the £100 and see how we go. Its quite good fun to read up on each borrower to see what they wanted the money for and how much they have borrowed. Sticking with Autolend too complicated for now. I think I shall do a monthly update around the 15th of every month to keep track of lending and repayments.

Read up on the Halifax account offer and you have to have your £100 paid in from an account not in your name e.g a 3rd party. I could get work to pay it there for a while until the £100 is in and then change it to a joint current account which is what I really wanted it for.

Working from home again today will have to pull my finger and get some work done. Tonight will not be alcohol free or diet good as we have a Mystery Shop in a nice restaurant. £35 to spend and you have to have a 3 course meal (well one of you do and DH will only eat a main course.

Spend yesterday £20 on games but will get that back.

abouttimetoo

Hi TG

Well done on your exercise this week. Don't beat yourself up too much about the betting, you've broke even and intend to close the account and hopefully you'll feel proud of yourself when it's closed down. Without getting too 'armchair psychologist' on you have you examined what you think drives you to bet? You don't have to answer here of course but was there anything in particular maybe that made you bet last night eg boredom, bad day at work, tiff with DH etc. rite, that's enough of my pyscho babble, we all know from your years off posting here how strong and determined you are so you can beat it!

Your upcoming MS sounds a good one
Regards
ATT

originalmiscellany

Tall girl, I was thinking of zopa too - I've put a pound in so far, but was thinking of something like yours, say £100 a month so see how things go. I will certainly be keen to see how you progress on this!