Goodbye Mortgage - the beginning of the end!

BlueMoo

Will keep my fingers crossed for your lottery win

Thanks for that. One day......


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It's definitely feeling a lot more festive. One week to go!

Beckyy

Current mortgage balance: £95,120.31

Will be happy to see it drop into the £94K's, as its been in the 95's for a long time! Won't be until the new year now though.

Last of Christmas shopping is done! Last present bought with an amazon voucher from surveys and the last couple of things ready to go to the PO all sent using stamps from surveys so (kind of) free. Has been an expensive month though!

I've got a lot to get done around the house today, and was hoping to make a batch of cottage pies to keep in the freezer. Hopefully I'll have a NSD today if I keep busy. :T

Beckyy

Why oh why did I look at the list of sales? Just spend 15 minutes trawling through the Next website adding things to my little basket... resisted and closed the page, was sorely tempted by the jeans though - cheaper than I could buy them off of eBay!

We're all sorted for Christmas, last of food shopping is all done so looking forward to it now!

I don't think we'll OP anymore this year (maybe just a couple of TTs) as it's been an expensive month and were going to need to have a frugal January to meet our targets I think!

Merry Christmas! :xmassign:

Beckyy

I hope everybody is enjoying the holidays! I've eaten way too much food, but somehow am still munching away at every available opportunity!

The bad news is that the amazing coffee machine I bought OH for his birthday, and saved up for a while for, has developed a fault. Thankfully it comes with a 2 year guarantee, but the manufacturer's helpline is closed for the holidays so I think we've going to have to wait until the new year before it can be sorted. I'm not very impressed for the price I paid for it, but relieved it comes with such a long guarantee.

We got some vouchers through from Mr. T and we're still well stocked from our pre-xmas grocery shops so our food budget for January has to be adhered to strictly! Have also order a lovely grill plate using vouchers so we can cook a little more healthily (or at least even it out a little as we were also given a deep fat fryer )

We need to pay for our new front door in January so targets will be hard to reach until January payday but we should make it (I hope!).

Beckyy

Currently 25 minutes into the 30 minutes queue to talk to an advisor with our broadband company about switching our line rental to them. Our BT saver expires next week and I don't want to sign up for another 12 months with their new charges, unless I've made a mistake I can switch everything to our broadband provider and also get better broadband for cheaper than we're paying all together now. I just can't see how to get the line rental saver and upgrade our broadband online as there is only the option for one or the other.

At least their on hold music is bearable...

ETA: After 45 minutes on hold I'm starting to lose the will... must just have skeleton staff on for the holidays.

ETA: After 55 minutes on hold (!) I finally managed to speak to someone who explained that I needed to do it online by doing line rental saver first then upgrade the broadband. So I've done it and paid for LRS, I just hope it goes through smoothly after the faffing about. Fingers crossed!

Beckyy

Well it hasn't been the best year for overpayments for us, but at least we've shaved a little bit off.

I counted up all our coppers yesterday... the tidy sum of £22 has now been paid into the bank and I will OP tomorrow as our first one of the new year.

Finally received the cheque for my uninsured losses from the car accident, is a bit pitiful though as they wiggled out of almost half of it. Once it's cleared it will also make up the bulk of Jan's OP target.

Savings will have to be dipped into, rather than growing, for the first part of the month with the new front door, but hopefully once payday arrives we will be back up to where we were - hopefully slightly better!

Happy new year everyone :T

lilmissmup

Good luck for overpaying the mortgage this year hun! x

Beckyy

Hope 2014 is a god one for you too lilmissup!

The £22 of coppers has been OP'd.

Had to book transport to visit some family later on in the year and still need to arrange either public transport or car hire for the last part.

Finally got the cheque through for uninsured losses from car accident, just waiting for it to clear.

BG decided to have the last laugh and give e on the serial number for our old meter which was taken out in August when they fitted the smart meter. So it's left to me to ring up and get it corrected, luckily e on were absolutely lovely on the phone and I was on hold far less than whenever I've called BG. Still waiting for final bill from BG hoping to be able to withdraw credit from account soon if there's any left after it!

Need to ring about coffee machine again now that holidays are over
ETA: Coffee machine is getting sent away for repair.

Beckyy

2 x £5 rewards + £106 OP'd. So half way to our target for Jan!

TT'd to savings. £16.85 - every little helps.

Making a conscious effort to eat a little healthier and do more exercise. I've eaten so much food over the past month I feel like I owe my body a bit of healthy time.

We had a lovely lunch out yesterday and will be having dinner out with relatives later on in the month so need to make sure we don't eat out anymore. It's a treat, but one we had been doing more often that we ought to really.

Beckyy

Did an early morning grocery shop and found a £1.90 voucher someone had left in the trolley we got, so will make good use of it!

Making sweet potato and coconut soup today. Added a couple of little bits to the savings pot, still waiting for cheque to clear for anything sizeable.

Had totally forgotten about NectarAdpoints until I got an email from them, am trying to bump up the reward points so watching s many as I can when I've got a few minutes free. Just over 100 points this week so far.

Need to clean the hens out and do some stuff around the house this afternoon. Waiting on quite a few Quidco payouts - hope they arrive and are on time!