The loooooong road to being MF!!

ammonite

I'm all for trying things once in Aldi and the more I try the more I buy. I buy all my meat and fish from Costco usually so Aldi is just fresh veg and cupboard items usually. The jacket potatoes are the best out of all the big supermarkets, very light and fluffy (although I got one bad batch last week - first time ever) and just 69p for 4. Plums are also nicer than the big supermarkets. I bought a chicken pie as a treat for £1.49 and it was stuffed full of chicken and delicious. The big bag of crisps (look like Walkers) are £2 for 24 bags and much tastier than Walkers. In fact, so far there isn't much I don't like about Aldi and definitely cheaper for staple foods.

chocoholic_chick

Gourmet jelly beans hmmmm they sound interesting! Shall have to keep an eye out when I next go. Thanks for all the tips ammonite, shall have to add some of those to my list for next time as well!

So just worked out that I have £10 in my purse and £110 in the bank to last us until pay day. Food and petrol is seperate to this, but still not much to get by on! Plus we're out tomorrow night, been arranged for a while, so I think the plan is to go out for a meal straight from work using up some of the vouchers I have then we're meeting up with friends. I'll be driving so won't be drinking, but I think there's an entry fee to the place we're going ( it's to see a band ) which is £3 each so I'm hoping to spend no more than £30. Leaves us with £90 to last until pay day, should be do-able!

If the weathers nice this weekend I think we'll use our national trust pass somewhere for a cheap day out and have a date night on saturday night, get a couple of pizzas in, a bottle of wine and sit and watch a film together. Really looking forward to it, although we see each other every day I feel like the weekends are when we spend our quality time together.

Diet has gone out the window and has been replaced by chocolate, wine and cakes. I know which I prefer, just a shame the scales don't feel the same way! Going to try to ease myself back into it though, don't think I'm organised enough to do it the way I was a few weeks ago at the moment.

chocoholic_chick

Well the meal out last night was lovely, ended up getting a 3 course meal, hubby had a glass of wine with his meal, I had a soft drink then we got a jug of tap water and only had to contribute £9.50 towards the meal. Bands were... interesting, a couple were really good, one was ok and the other was just downright weird! I think we spent just under £30 last night, need to double check so quite happy with that. Now it looks as though we're going for a meal on Monday as well with some friends for their birthday, but I think it should be a cheap night as there's deal on my O2 moments for that restaurant. So have £80 left in the bank now and £10 ish in my purse to last to the end of the month.

Got a letter through about my loan overpayment so need to remember to update my signature later with the new figure, got a refund of interest of £20 ish but got in late last night so only had a chance to quickly read the letter this morning before dashing off to work.

Mortgage broker has sent us some details about possible mortgages with a lower APR than our current one so hopefully we'll have some time to look through them tonight and see what the best deal is. Only thing I'm worried about is what the valuations going to come back at on the house and whether its going to be enough, but the only way to find out is to get it done.

Have sorted out a meal plan for next week and made a list of what I need to get at the weekend. Going to price up the things from Asda online and then go to Aldi first and whatevers cheaper there I'll get from there then get the rest from Asda.

Must dash, at work!

nattypants

£9.50 for a 3 course meal with a glass of wine and a soft drink is good going choc_chick!

I'll keep my fingers crossed that your house value is strong, and you manage to transfer onto a lovely low APR mortgage deal - I cannot wait until I can look at different mortgage deals (not until next year though:(), it makes such a difference X

chocoholic_chick

Well it's down to the fact we had a £40 voucher to use towards our meal that was given as a good will gesture because of a bad experience last time, but still not bad!

Been ploughing through the various mortgage deals on the market at the moment and if we get our 85% LTV ( fingers and toes crossed ) then I think the best options are looking to be either first direct or skipton building society. Going to ask our mortgage broker what she thinks and go from there. Still not going to get a brilliant deal but hopefully it'll be better than the rate we're currently on.

Updated my signature with my new loan balance which is now £5262.61 instead of £6631.00 if we'd kept to the scheduled monthly payments so happy with that :money:

ammonite

well done for your loan OPs. I just spotted a 1.99% mortgage with Tesco - not sure what the conditions are but I'd be sooo happy if we could have changed mortgage now. Early repayment fees are too steep to make it worthwhile though

HelenDaveKids

Excellent news re loan. Well done you!

chocoholic_chick

Thanks

Had a look at that mortgage ammonite but out LTV is too high. I think the best we're looking at is around 4.39% which is better than the 4.79% we're currently on. I just don't know how long we should fix for if we get the valuation we need. We have the option of 2 or 5 years and I just dont know what to do, fix and know what our repayments are going to be for 5 years or fix for 2 in the hopes interest rates will come down arghhhhh!!

Such a lazy morning, still in my dressing gown!! Have compared shopping from Aldi and Tesco where I can and listed whats to get from each store as found an aldi closer to home with a tesco a few minutes away. Shall report back later with spends! Amazing how much cheaper aldi is compared to tesco though. Also need to get some more bird seed at some point this weekend.

Hubbys been looking at breakdown cover as ours is up for renewal and some just seem too cheap to be true, some are coming out at less than £30 a year including at home cover which surely cant be right! So being the sceptic I am I'm going to scour the terms and conditions later.

Right off to get ready before the whole day is wasted!

lulabelle1

We use Autoaid for our breakdown insurance... Recommends via this site. Cheapest by far...

linz

I use Autonational which is similar to Autoaid I think. Again, recommended by other people on here. The cover is comprehensive and a lot cheaper than the equivalent with AA/RAC. They're also on Topcashback.