I have a dream...to be a MFW

ajmoney

I have just tried to submit my first click snap receipt thing with £co, hopefully 25p will make its way to me soon.

ajmoney

Fish and chips have been a success although next time I will make the chips a bit bigger. Baked apples with brown sugar currently in the oven to have as dessert with ice cream all today's dinner cost me was £4 as I had everything else in the cupboards, cheaper than a chippy tea and even less than the meal out that I was tempted by.

lulabelle1

Sounds like you are making great progress, well done!

ajmoney

Today is a good day in terms of numbers.

I will stay safely below the £132k mark at the end of this month on the larger mortgage :j we are on the edge of going below £170k in total

I have enough money to pay for my piano lessons on Monday and will still have £25 to last me until pay day at the end of next week.

We still have £150 in our joint spending account and with my food plans becoming more regular we should have plenty left so I can move some of it across to the mortgage.

39 days until we go on holiday and everything is paid for.

We are having a bit of a money day today as we are spending the day at Mr AJM's school fete so will need lunch out and we have a leaving do tonight so will need to pay for a meal and drinks. It should be quite affordable though.

ajmoney

More money spent last night than we anticipated so we have £67 to last us for the next 7 days. For most people this would be fine but my food shopping seems to have been quite expensive at each trip recently. We need to go shopping this afternoon so I am going to try and meal plan the next week so I can get most things today and try and keep the money situation under control. We might have a few things as main staples in the cupboard already but I may need to try and make up my own recipes this week to use up what we already have in.

ajmoney

Today will be a NSD, I have planned today's meals with what we have in the cupboards. Lunch has an american theme and is not very healthy, pancakes, bacon, eggs and maple syrup. Dinner is pasta with tuna capers and chilli.

I think we have enough to last us until Wednesday apart from maybe getting some milk so this is my challenge. 1 meal is a HM ready meal of lamb tagine so I just need to concoct 1 based on pork or beef as I am not sure what it is.

ajmoney

I am still re-jigging numbers which has resulted in another £25 OP to the mortgage from our joint account. I had over estimated a couple of quarterly bills so have re-evaluated that which has worked in our favour, meaning an automatic OP of £100 each month from our joint bills account while still building a small buffer each month. If we OP £25 each from our own accounts until Christmas it would knock another month off the mortgage. This is quite manageable while putting money across to savings so I will look at us doing this. The best bit is Mr AJM doesn't know I am doing this so I can easily ask him to OP smaller amounts from his account while still making more dramatic payments.

Hopefully I should get paid from the council for my work with the youth ensemble next month, I am planning on spending half on clothes for my holiday and putting half into my ISA.

edinburgher

Your lunch sounds delicious, even if it wasn't the healthiest combo ever

Well done on planning to save half your money from the council, I am trying to do the same with occasional bits of overtime at work (even a few hours a month makes a difference) and with cashback etc. that I source.

The only difference is I'm using Zopa instead of an ISA, as your self control sounds better than mine!

ajmoney

edinburgher wrote: »

Your lunch sounds delicious, even if it wasn't the healthiest combo ever

The only difference is I'm using Zopa instead of an ISA, as your self control sounds better than mine!

Lunch was actually really disappointing. Hopefully dinner will be better.

I only have self control at the moment because I am desperate to start OPing the mortgage properly, even though technically this is my own version of offsetting. I had £19k in my ISA a couple of years ago, it is depressing to think how much I frittered away. It is not as likely to happen now though as I have my individual savings pots to budget for everything including the holidays we love. Mr AJM and I now live within my means based on my income rather than based on his much higher one.

Just been for a run...it was very hard work

edinburgher

Just been for a run...it was very hard work

I'm starting back tomorrow evening - I find really bad dance music helps get the blood going!