Its time to grow up and pay off the mortgage

OS_QS

Nipped to te$co as I had a £9 off a £60 spend... OH scored with a new ps3 game to bring up the total and I got some milk etc and mothers day cards. Plus 5p off petrol coupon :T

Seriously doubting I will be able to spend £60 for the next 6 weeks for £6 off, but didn't want to waste the big £9 off have a happy OH and I'm happy he got the game at cheap supermarket prices rather than his usual expensive gaming shop :cool:

£co are slowly but surely processing and confirming my receipts, except they missed my £1 for my porridge.... So duly resubmitted. They're not getting away with that!:rotfl:

Plus if it helps anyone, if you have multiple items of the Same thing, then try automatically give you the cashback 3 times (the max the cashback can be redeemed on each item) so for my Aussie shampoo, I got 3 for £10, then £2.40 cashback :T bargain!

OS_QS

Lazy morning today, enjoyed watching the snow even though it didn't lie. Have had headaches for past few days and went straight to bed with strong tablets as soon as I got in the door from work. Catching up on chores an trying to de-stress. Hoping to go climbing tonight since I wasn't able yesterday.

received £10.40 from £co click snap with 3 receipts (3.60+1+1) still processing.

Planning on eating out the freezer as much as possible this month. Car mot + work was more expensive than anticipated and we have the road tax due at the end of the month also. Hopefully the freezer contents will help us out

southerndave

Looks like you're doing well! Hope you're not coming down with what we have had here, a bloody horrible week long head cold - ours all started with headache, then bad cold.....

OS_QS

Luckily I dont think (i hope!) it's the cold, i'm just really run down and its quite stressful at work at the moment. I love when it's all go, almost thrive on it, but then once I hit the deadlines and get everything done, I get mega headaches.:( I'm really looking forward to the bank hol weekend to get a bit of a rest. (And eating lots of Easter eggs!:rotfl:)

Managed more climbing today, I think I'm getting better, but definitely need to build up my arm strength before I can make any major improvements. The place was freezing!

It's been snowing all day, we woke up to a whiteout, but the sun comes out in burst between the snow flurries and keeps the roads clear at least.:)

OS_QS

Just tidied up the joint account and paid £6.66 to the mortgage.

Also have went through my cc statements and lifted out exactly what I've paid for groceries:

January £216.48 £43/week:)
February £365.93 :eek: £92/week:eek:
March to date £66.54 £33/week

Although march is only low so far because I've heaps of food in due to my splurge in February!

I find it best to put everything on my cc and pay it off in full by direct debit each month. That way I earn extra club card points, and can easily keep track of my spending, and copy statements into a spreadsheet and sir into categories (mainly food, petrol & entertainment). It's a real easy way of finding out where all your pennies go!

I'm seriously thinking of having another bank account for 'fun fund' to balance our emergency fund. Anyone else do this? Part of me thinks budgeting for fun doesn't sound like much fun!:rotfl:

OS_QS

finally sent away the direct debit form for OH's first direct account. only taken me 7 weeks:eek:

had a day from hell at work today, so relieved that its over! now i'm curled up with a hot water bottle....so glad its almost the weekend. Have the dentist this week, hopefully not going too expensive!

£21.40 paid from £co on my groceries they seem to be getting quicker at turning it around?

really happy to see that I managed to make it green for both the MFiT and mfw challenges Dont think I'm too far off from being 'slightly ahead' in the mfw, but i'd be worried that if I thought I was ahead I'd slack off!:rotfl:

OS_QS

Just back home from a very long day out the office at meetings. Glad I'm in before the snow

Also managed to claim a £10 amazon voucher from valued opinion$ Adding this to the drips and drabs from TCB. OH wants to buy a relatively expensive item, so i'm trying to gather up the vouchers to minimise the impact Also awaiting a £10 referral bonus to be confirmed as a friend has reached the payout threshold :T

just tallied up my ops to check against the mfw, it stands at £2,488.38 to date :j

hoping to have a quiet weekend this one coming, i'm absolutely shattered:(

OS_QS

ooooh in the two hours i've been home, it hasnt stopped snowing :eek: I was going to nip to sainsbugs to get some fresh food in (we were away the weekend) but I really dont want to go out and clear the car and drive. But I suppose if I dont do it tonight, it will only be worse tomorrow morning. Ive checked the forecast and it says heavy snow until wednesday morning!!! :eek::eek:

On a slightly more positive note, I realised that I only have two more payments into my regular saver and that will be the year up I have a plan to put £2500 of the £3600+interest into a nationwide account of 5%, and the balance into my ISA, and drip feed the £2500 + monthly savings into a new FD regular saver, although its only 6% this time. See I've been reading the saving guide on mse

Though I must admit, that signing up to £300 / month takes me pretty much to zero every month and has been a big commitment but worth it. It definitely make you focus on saving and spending what ever is left in your account (or makes you realise quick sharp that theres not much left for splurges!) rather than the other way around.

OS_QS

Still snowing! I decided to walk to the train station this morning, its only 2 miles, but my goodness it was tough going, marching through 5inch deep snow, in a blizzard, with it being too windy for a brolly! I was shattered when I got to the train. Took me ages, but much preferable - I really do hate driving in the snow.

At least when I had to walk home after work, there was no rush so I could dawdle and enjoy the snow.:D The wind had died down, but it was still heavy snow fall, so I put up my 'see through' brolly..........only for it to quickly not be see through and become very heavy:rotfl: I couldn't believe it.

Got a letter from sky offering HD for much cheapness, which we will certainly be taking up as its the F1 season love it. I would very much like to go see one live as part of a longer holiday, perhaps somewhere far away and lovely, australia, canada, etc. Definitely on the to-do once the mortgage is paid off

A few posts back I had said I was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend, but unfortunately I jinxed it by mentioning it. OH has informed me he's invited some friends to stay. Ah well, it will be good, just in a different way

OS_QS

I've been struggling a bit with my personal cash-flow recently. It was caused by purchasing my train pass annually at the new year instead of my usual monthly ticket at the station. I'm hoping that this will be the last month of things being tight for me for the last 10 days of the month.

Unfortunately as I had coughed up the £1500, I don't have anything spare to put into this year's ISA allowance. But it was 15.2% cheaper for me to buy my train pass this way. Cant get that return on saving the same £1500! But I've only managed 40% of my annual ISA allowance this year. Still better than nothing. I've never managed to put away anywhere near this any other year.

Theoretically I should (by next month) have some spare money, as I'm not paying down the annual pass expenditure (borrowed £600 from OH). I think I've worked out that the money in my account on the first is enough to cover any spending on the credit card to date. Which will be a relief.

I'll finish on a positive, £co seem to be on top form recently and have paid out many of our longstanding tracked cash back items |(some from 18months ago!). Adding to this my check-ins and clicksnap, we have received almost £60 from £co this year alone! :T Its all been paid towards the mortgage. Consequently, we have reduced our daily interest rate to £8.88. :j This is brilliant. :beer: