Ecoelle's MFW Diary

ecoelle

Morning. Well I managed to sell some stuff last night off Gumtree so made £45, plus have had an offer of some possible work in a school next week which could lead to more depending on the situation so all looking good. So house fund is at £45 now. Got to rifle through the savings now to see what else we can add in. Should be a few thousand but then we need to get the plumbing done so it'll drop pretty fast. Taking the kid out to enjoy some nature today, should be a pretty cheap affair.

Enjoy your Saturday x

brizzledfw

Enjoy the (hopefully) sunny outside

Good to have you back posting

ecoelle

Had a lovely weekend out doors with the little one and also had a nice family party. Nothing too expensive and very worth it.

Well, hubby got paid so I have done the transfer to get the Santander cashback and then transferred the money back which is not needed for DD. Next thing is to draw out the monthly spends after I get paid and to then freeze the cashcards!

Off to rest for a bit as feeling slightly off colour today, awaiting some more results from the hospital so might know more once they come back x

ecoelle

Morning all. Well slept rubbish again, still no news on the test results, getting really fed up with being so tired and miserable all the time.

On the money side of things we are OK I think. Had a letter to say one of our insurance products has gone down in price which makes a change Looking forward to payday tomorrow and being able to get everything sorted for the month ahead x

brizzledfw

Keep on plugging away. Hope test results are useful..and you start to feel less tired soon.

Iron deficiency or B12 perhaps?

ecoelle

Morning all. Well money side of life seems ok. The TA work I had last week went well and if the lady is still off this week I have 3 more days so that's good. I've found it harder than I thought though, more anxiety provoking than I was expecting. Not sure how I'm going to cope with this as I wasn't expecting it at all...

Had some of my test results back, much to my doctors surprise my B12 and Iron were fine, it is my hormone panel which she was shocked by. Got to go and have some more tests done, but the word Menopause was mentioned...I'm only 34! Ho hum, i'll go next week and get some more bloods done and then i'll see where i'm at. Perimenopause would explain a lot of the symptoms I've been having, including the anxiety.

Lots to do at the house today, got to clean...hmmm, where did i leave my motivation?

Hope everyone has a good day x

ecoelle

Evening all, hope you are all well in MSE world.

I have been taking stock prior to the new year and am now ready to post some figures...

Figure we would owe if we had stuck with our original mortgage and made no overpayments minus figure we actually owe today = money saved!

£99651 - £87601 = £12050!

So by changing out mortgage and doing overpayments we have saved over £12000

I'm actually shocked. I thought we still owed over 90000 but apparently not so I'm well chuffed. I have some other news on the whole money/work front. I have quit my shop job after being offered some work at the local nursery as a TA for the next half term. I have been working a little for them this term and have saved the money so as to cover us in case there is no work after half term. I'm nervous but excited. I did contemplate keeping the job in the shop as well as the TA work but realistically I would be too tired and although we want to pay off the mortgage ASAP it can't be at the cost of our health or well being.

ecoelle

Time for a list!

Things I plan to do next year to save/make money

1. Reduce petrol from £50 to £30 (monthly)
My new job is within walking distance so I'm hoping to be able to walk most days, unless I am combining work with a trip somewhere else. (£240)

2. Meal plan to reduce food bill from £50 to £40 (weekly)
I'm hoping to be able to food shop on a Thursday when little one is in nursery for the day. I need to get back to meal planning so that we can batch cook a bit more and freeze the extra portions.
(£520)

3. Focused effort on surveys. I'm going to try for OnePoll each day, Consumer Pulse every Thursday and Valued Opinions once a day.
Aiming at one £10 per month to start with and see how it goes.
(£120)

I may add more things but for now those are my 3 and total £880 which could be another chunk off the mortgage.

Off to do today's surveys.

ecoelle

ever have one of those moments where you think
'why doesn't this add up? I know I,ve included everything, why is there not enough money in the account?'

then you realise you are a total doofus and you have actually added your DD on twice and everything is then right with the world again and you chill with your coffee.

Yeah, 6am on Christmas Eve and I'm staring at both our bank accounts trying to find a missing £166 only to realise I'm a total idiot and have added one lump of our DD on twice. Phew, panic over.

Well good morning all,I am up and about quite early this morning mostly due to the wind outside (rather than my own) and have spent the last 40mins working and reworking figures. Looking OK for the start of the new year. For the first time in a long time we are in credit and have nothing on the credit cards and all of Christmas is paid for. Just paid up the plumbers as well so now onto saving for the next 'house job'. Think we have enough already to get done the doors we want doing, then it's sanding and reconditioning the wood block floor we found under our old carpet (bonus!) re plastering and decorating, then carpets, then frilly bits... so a bit of saving to come.

ecoelle

Figures Check

Original mortgage 120,000
Owe to date 87,601
If overpay 125 per month and no interest change we will be mortgage free in 3030 rather than the original 3036.

The plan though is to get the house done up over the next 2 years and once it's done we can then throw the money which we are presently saving every month, for things like painting and carpets, at the OP's. I'm hoping we could increase the OP'S to 250 a month but we'll see once the house is finished.

If we continue on the present OP level then we will hit 60,000 (half mortgage gone) in the next 6 years rather than 9 which would be amazing. A bi like the next milestone really. I would love to owe less than 60,000 by 2020 i think it has a nice ring to it. So think that might be the goal.

Been doing OnePoll and Valued Opinions each day. Still have to complete consumer pulse for some of the Christmas purchases but think i might leave it til after the big day. Off to fill in an MandS survey now for a chance at £250.