The long road to being mortgage free!

ammonite

Paperwork: STARTED

DY miles : £75 redeemed and £6 towards next Amazon voucher already.

Adpoints: Done for the week - still a few teething problems but not as bad as last week. For the amount of time it takes, its worth it for the 250 points.

eBay: Thinking about it.....:D

Also checked out my mobile phone bill to see if I could downgrade to a lower data tarrif but looking at my usage I think its best if I don't. It was only £3 per month saving but I think if I downgrade I'll end up paying more for data than the £3. Will keep monitoring it, particularly as I'll be home more soon so may not use the 3G data much at all in which case I'll downgrade.

Shopping for the week: £20.44 Really wanted to get a pie that we absolutely didn't need so didn't get it. Was pleased with that. I also just did a quick reccy on mysupermarket to see how much the equivelant shop would have cost me in Sainsbury's where I usually go and it would have been £28.32 so I've saved £8 by going to Aldi for a change. It's when you look at it like that you realise where things begin to mount up...over 4 weeks that is a saving of over £30 (a week's shopping!). Think we'll be back to Aldi again next week Anyone else ever do these little experiments?

And for my next experiment....gas and electricity usage. I'm going to try and monitor the gas and electricity each day and see how much we use/spend. Just because I'm a geek and I can

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

ammonite wrote: »

Really wanted to get a pie that we absolutely didn't need so didn't get it. Was pleased with that.

I can relate to this! I must have picked up 6 or 7 things that I didn't need, some even touched the metal rungs of the trolley before they got put back this evening at the supermarket. I was £12 under budget when I got to the checkouts!

BookWorm

ammonite wrote: »

Hi Bookworm - Thanks for popping by! Good luck for your re-mortgage, do you have any idea what your LTV might be? We were lucky as prices dropped when we bought, we ploughed money into it to get it into a liveable state (rather than it being liveable and paying more for the house in the first place) and had a decent deposit so I conservatively estimate our current LTV is around 50% - hopefully it stays in that sort of region for the next year. I'm sure by the time I get to re-mortgage the interest rates will have shot up after being low for 5 years - we got a house when the prices dipped but the mortgage rates were still fairly high sadly Oh well, can't worry about it, just got to figure it out when it happens!!

It was 90% when I bought it 2 years ago and I'd like to think (hope!) that I can get it down to 85% which would mean I'd have a bit of a chance for a better rate. At this stage though I just have no idea whether the value will have dropped in that time - I suspect likely though However, on the bright side - since I've found this site and the fab suggestions for making money and overpaying - I'm going to see what I can do It is tough though as it's just me so only have 1 salary to play with but I figure slow progress is better than none right?

Reminder to people doing Nectar adpoints: the new week has begun!

I will get over there shortly LOL Thanks for the reminder

HelenDaveKids

Gosh, Ive been struggling to keep my groceries under £500. Thats so impressive.
Did shop at aldi yesterday though and I dont think I bought anything naughty (except gourmet jelly beans)
DH and kids off this week (im working wednesday and saturday only) so havent really got down to batch cooking yet. been stripping DD2 bedroom for her birthday in a few weeks (present wants is new bedroom)

edinburgher

Also checked out my mobile phone bill to see if I could downgrade to a lower data tarrif but looking at my usage I think its best if I don't. It was only £3 per month saving but I think if I downgrade I'll end up paying more for data than the £3. Will keep monitoring it, particularly as I'll be home more soon so may not use the 3G data much at all in which case I'll downgrade.

I'm going cold turkey with mine - not going too badly so far as I get free wifi on my bus in the morning and once I get home I can use our home broadband.

Did you start any eBay listings?

ammonite

edinburgher wrote: »

I'm going cold turkey with mine - not going too badly so far as I get free wifi on my bus in the morning and once I get home I can use our home broadband.

Did you start any eBay listings?

Erm...if I said yes that would be a lie

So that'd be a no then

I'm gearing them up to start on Sunday night anyway so I've got a bit of time to get them sorted...honest

We can go ahead with various bits of work to the house now so this is where the savings fund probably goes downhill a bit...hopefully we won't have to dip into it too much :eek: This month's spare cash will be spent on the house I think rather than saving anything, first time since April that we haven't saved anything Spent a lot of the day ringing around for quotes for different things so just need to try and keep the price low where possible.

I posted my old phone off to O2 today for £15 Amazon voucher which is earmarked for one of my Dad's Christmas presents.

On £9 for DY for next £20 Amazon voucher and 3/4 of the way to another £10 voucher via my credit card. I'll put the next few bits of spending on there to make sure I get it in time for Christmas. When the other credit card website comes back up I'll cash in my £10 voucher from there.

Amazon
£15 from O2
£20 from DooYoo (9/20ths of the way there!)
£10 credit card #1
£10 credit card #2 (3/4 of the way there)

=£55 <-- all to go towards Christmas.

MFW journey is kind of temporarily on hold whilst we get these expensive couple of months away

HelenDaveKids

Its tough going up to christmas. Still have quite a few bits left to buy so know how you feel. Having finished renovation last December, have only just got the energy to do the room (dd2) that only got a lick of paint (oh and a new window, electrics, radiator and door), not looking forward to papering and painting but I did promise... she also wants a sofa bed...

Hope you ebay listing goes well.

edinburgher

MFW journey is kind of temporarily on hold whilst we get these expensive couple of months away

Do what you have to - it's not as if you're splashing the money on caviar and designer jackets!

I really need to get back into Dooyoo but it's *so* boring.

ammonite

edinburgher wrote: »

Do what you have to - it's not as if you're splashing the money on caviar and designer jackets!

I really need to get back into Dooyoo but it's *so* boring.

Oh Edinburgher...you caught me out, we've just had caviar butties for our evening meal classy me you know!! Yes I agree, of course we could clear our mortgage probably in about 5-6 years if we did nothing but save but life is for living too in my humblest of opinions!

Yes it is boringly dull but when you see the rates mount up it does motivate me, if you can get motivated in one of the level 1 categories it is pretty good. We've had a good few bonus weeks cosmetics, coffee, spirits and hair care have all been level 1 so it has been quite easy to mount up the points. When "diving equipment" is about the only level 1 thing to review, its hard and boring! I'll make you a deal, I'll get eBaying if you get DooYooing?! There is some motivation for us both.

HDK - Christmas shouldn't be too bad as we've been saving for it, plus vouchers, nectar points etc. Plus for the first time ever OH and I genuinely don't know what to buy each other so if we think of anything at all it'll be about a max. £50 spend each (unlike previous years!).

Work on the house will be a little bit more expensive than Christmas that's why we've saved so hard this year though so we can enjoy our money on something we want and need and will benefit us for years to come.

edinburgher

I'll make you a deal, I'll get eBaying if you get DooYooing?! There is some motivation for us both.

I can only suggest items from specific categories now - boo!