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

QueenJess

Hope everything is ok.  I miss your posts which remind me about many of the things I want to do re: environment etc.

I signed up to Giki as well and got a score of about 800.  It was interesting to see that basically everything comes from driving a car and food I eat.  Going to try and make a few very small changes during the year.  Already tried swapping to soya milk since I only have porridge for breakfast and don't drink tea/coffee, so you can't really taste the difference anyway.

newgirly

Hope you are ok Vix xx 

Jessy103

Missing you vix, hope you're ok xxx

themadvix

Aaand, I'm back. Thanks everyone for your thoughts - I've missed you all too. Things haven't been great for the past couple of months with stuff I don't want to go into on here, but I *think* things are a bit better now and progress continues to be made.

In MSE news, we've remortgaged and paid about £10k off the mortgage while we were out of the fix. So the balance is now £42,500. We're getting there.

Other MSE things:
* saved money on car insurances renewals - more than £100 between us
* Saved £20 on house insurance based on a super quick check (because I hate house insurance renewal time)
* Continued clicks, surveys and cashback as per usual
* Have been using Olio to get lots of free food (mainly pastries - whoops!)
* Work has been busy (which has delayed me posting by at least a week) - yay!

Less MSE things:
* Quite a bit of expense related to 'stuff'
* I don't want to think about food spends!
* Might have spent some very silly money on buying and sending St Patrick's Day hats to family for Wednesday. We'll be celebrating DH's first St Patrick's Day as an Irish citizen and it happens to happen on the same day as family quiz night.

Non-MSE stuff:
* Have been volunteering at the vaccination centre when shifts are available - it's a very popular place to be, so hard to get shifts!
* Have had my jab as a result (where's the jumping smiley?!)

Gratitudes:
* Longer, warmer days
* A couple of walks with friends
* Spring flowers
* Vaccinations (Mum and Dad and the in-laws have all had theirs now too, so feeling much happier!)

Hope you're all well. I'll be doing the rounds and catching up with your diaries soon - you all seem to have had a lot to say in my absence though, so I may be a while!

greent

Glad to see you back x

Karmacat

Yes, so glad to see you back!  The 'stuff' sounds like its taken a huge amount of your time and energy, so its amazing to read that you managed to keep going on lots of mse efforts (St Patrick's Day hats are well within bounds for that ) and to do the volunteering at the vaccination centre - when I had my first, I really noticed how useful the volunteers were, because I really didn't want to step anywhere I shouldn't, and they all enable that. 

Congratulations on the £10k too!  Magnificent. 

try_harder

So good to see you back , i have missed reading your posts

QueenJess

Ooh - congrats on the mortgage.  I am looking forward to being below £50k as I think it'll start to seem more real to be mortgage free

Fortune_Smiles

Yay!  You're back!  Sorry to hear you've been having a tough time.  I hope things continue to get easier for you.

Fortune x

themadvix

Thanks ladies. You're totally right Jess - we're definitely now beginning to think of what to do 'after the mortgage', and it seems tangible. We've refixed for 2 years (and 3 months, because that's what Santa have given us? ) and the term is only 5 years 10 months. With more OPs over the next two years, we should be very much at the last knockings by the end of the fix.