Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

themadvix

Morning all!

£1.56 TT to savings this morning. Have set up new RS with Santa to cycle savings through. Still waiting for Nw bonus money. Savings deficit now £933.81 - slowly but surely I'm getting there.

Have just been looking at Santa internet banking... I think it's wrong that they don't use a minus sign against the mortgage - it doesn't show it's true significance if it looks the same as the other accounts (which are in credit). I can't remember exactly, but I think our NW mortgage had a minus sign in front of it. It would just make it clearer for the less savvy that it's a *debt* and should be dealt with accordingly. Hmm...

DH is away with work tonight so a quiet night. Was meant to be viewing houses with Sis but the EA hasn't got back to her - couldn't get hold of the tenants or something... So hoping to walk to meeting with Brownie friend - good exercise, save on parking and fuel. Weather is a bit rubbish though, so I'll see. Need to do a couple of bits in town while I'm there too.

Have placed an online grocery order as DH informed me that he'd run out of Weetabix! (Organic - because we tried them once and they taste so different that we couldn't go back). I always buy these online as we get staff discount. So between them and some other bits it was £60 (before discount). And hardly anything to eat. But with that in mind will aim for another 6 weeks before another order (approx time to end of Weetabix supply!). There's plenty in the freezer and ingredients to make other stuff.

MS things:
* VB poll, MS rewards, SBs codes and 100 SB survey - saw link in Martin's email to double points - so cross I'd not cottoned on to it before (had seen vague mention on KC's thread but not followed it up - that 275 yesterday could have been doubled.... at least this one will be!).

Think that's it!

Gratitudes:
* Good to see evening class friends last night.... Really struggled with a new concept though, need to study it more
* Library books Haven't had any from the library in ages and recently got three out - down to the last one now and they've all been great (found a new author too)
* Lunch with a friend

themadvix

Have just ordered £30 of LV from S&S - will stash those away for the breakfasts at the wedding... or will try to anyway!

Busy_Mee1

You are famous Mad Vix ! - your old style thread about using piccalilli has been featured in the MSE email :rotfl:

themadvix

Haha Busy Mee, I'd missed that! :rotfl::rotfl: Just hope the in-laws don't spot it (although I doubt very much FIL reads the email with anywhere near that much attention.... and let's face it, if he's clicking on it it's because he needs an alternative use for all the piccalilli in the house! :rotfl:)

themadvix

Morning all!

With DH away, the cats let me have a lovely lie-in this morning The joys of being self-employed! Woke up to rather a lot of small bits of work, so have blitzed them and working on the bigger project that has been lingering this week - if only clients gave me tighter deadlines!

Busy day yesterday in the end - managed to walk into town to meet Brownie friend, but didn't have time to do the jobs I needed to do, so will pop out later. Sis picked me and we went off to look at houses. I don't think there were any real contenders in the ones we saw, but she'd seen another in the morning that was promising. Home about 5 and then out to Dad's for dinner at half past!

Today, once I've finished this project (it's just not holding my attention enough!), I need to get those jobs done. I'm still struggling to get used to the idea that I have a car again, having not had one for the best part of two months (if only we'd known, that would have been a nice amount of road tax back). I may pop to visit a nursing home with mum later (for Nan), but it will mean I get caught in rush hour traffic and mum may not make it either, so that's a bit up in the air.

MS things:
* MS rewards, SBs (only 3 today, after a bumper day yesterday!), VB poll done
* YG, NV, Nectar surveys done
* £1.07 claimed from TCB
* Lunch in Wetherspoons yesterday and had a refillable tea which I bought when I first arrived. Lunch came with a drink and the bar lady said I could have one with a lid on to take home - winner! I know I paid for it, but it certainly seems like a freebie! £5.60 spent on jacket potato with chilli, 3 cups of tea and a J2O!

Gratitudes:
* The bird song - so much to hear at the moment, especially as I walked into town yesterday, just had to block out the traffic noise.
* Lovely fish and chips with dad
* Great catch up lunch/planning with Brownie friend
* Time with niece and sis yesterday (and nosing round other people's houses!). Niece is definitely getting bigger - all the carrying of her yesterday counts as a workout!

Hm pizza for tea tonight - if I remember to make the dough! Right, back to the boooooring work!

Karmacat

I'm off to look at the newsletter, got to see that

themadvix

Pizza dough is proving and I'm trying out a celeriac soup recipe in the hope that we've found a way to eat the celeriac we get in the veg box every so often. It's ok in small quantities (in stir fry usually), but the problem is it's such a big vegetable! Soup is the River Cottage recipe, smells nice at the moment! I appreciate that the weather forecast is due to be very un-soup-like, but needs must (the celeriac was a bit furry on the outside!). Will freeze it if necessary.

Have been thinking about the upcoming events in May/June - we're going to be away on a couple of occasions and plan to take some food with us. I think I need to crack on with getting some of this prepared (and frozen) so that the dates don't creep up and take me by surprise (I can always guarantee that work gets busy the week before we're away).

Finally finished that dratted project - hooray! Didn't get to view nursing home as mum had to cancel appointment. Did post ebay parcel that was overdue though (oops).

themadvix

Morning all,

Very glad it's Friday today. It seems to have been a long week. I have a very long to-do list, but I'm not sure how much I'll get done today as I'm going to visit some care homes with Mum later, hopefully. I do need fuel and have a double Nectar points voucher, so will be topping up at Sains.

At the moment I'm finishing up some work and trying to fend off the headache I have acquired. More tea may be necessary! (On that note, I recently accepted that I needed to stop using tea bags because of the plastic content - had been burying my head in the sand - and am amazed at how much cheaper loose tea is! I guess it's not surprising given there's much less effort involved, but I won't be switching back, even when the plastic-free tea bags are on the shelves - it's still less waste, less carbon involved in manufacture too).

MS things:
* VB poll, SBs, MS rewards
* YG survey
* 1P - 30p - halfway there now!
* Entered some comps (haven't won anything this month yet! :eek:)
* ETA 2 PA surveys completed- £4.52 there now (will be a while yet as I wait for £25 to pay out)

Gratitudes:
* DH got home eventually last night - motorway was closed, so we ate quite late!
* Enjoyed 'Minimalism', a documentary on Netflix
* NT magazine came yesterday and they've switched the wrapper to potato starch - not only is this brilliant from an environmental POV, but the ginger cat, who eats plastic bags, wasn't interested in munching it! Safer for future occasions when post comes while I'm out!

themadvix

Morning all,

Was feeling a bit frustrated this morning - it seems like we're never going to be able to afford the home we'd like (house-wise nothing bigger than we've got now, but somewhere more rural with more outside space) somewhere where we actually want to live - i.e. not millions of miles away from our families and friends. However, DH has discovered that some shares he bought have tripled in value, so he's decided to sell these. In itself it's not an earth shattering amount of money (£1k profit), but the fact we have all these bits tucked away (DH's employer loves to give him random free share allocations) does make me feel better.

Am refocusing and going to try to make more of an effort now though.

MS things:
* 2x £14.38 refunds from our old pet insurance company (no notification of this, but it's just appeared in our account, guessing they must have been taken by mistake)
* MS rewards, SBs (met target) and MM survey
* Claimed £10 voucher from SBs
* Lemon biscuit dough chilling in fridge.
* Transferred Amex points to Virgin Atlantic... slowly getting to have enough for our trip to the States.
* Persuade DH to open Nw RS to use for 'moving' savings - once we've got these saved we can go back to OPing.

To-do this week (hoping putting this here will hold me accountable):
* Ring ikea as our oven is still not working properly
* Ring miele as our fridge guarantee is coming to an end and we're still using gaffa tape to hold the light off so it shuts (2nd visit for them too)
* Close Amex card

Today, I'm going to have a go at planting some spinach in the garden. I know it's risky weather-wise, but we just don't have space to start them inside (I have four seedlings in a pot on the kitchen windowsill, but there's no room for more - cats!) and fingers-crossed that the weather just keeps improving now! Veg bed has been topped up with hm compost (very pleased with this and there's more to use too ) and as we love spinach, I know we'll eat it all!

I also need to post a card and pop to specialist to top up my ecover bottles. DH is going to do some car stuff (the mini, I think) and garden stuff.

Right, those biscuits won't cut themselves. Have a good day all!

earthgirl

Just catching up after hours hols, all sounds great.

Arghh to plastic in t bags -really?

Off to research!