The loooooong road to being MF!!

chocoholic_chick

Evening all!

So my shopping day wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be, got a few things from boots to put away for next Christmas, just hope I don't forget I have them which I've done in the past! Had a lovely family meal yesterday and spent the day playing board games which was good fun. Tomorrow we're just having a quiet night in, really not fussed about new year so I have my sister and her fiance coming round so just going to cook a meal and have a few drinks.

Spent an obscene amount in Mr S today ( £131!!!! ). Haven't got much food to show for it either but got a deep fat fryer, hubby bought a game which accounted for £40 of it, about £30 is for the food and drink for tomorrow night but have very little to show for the rest really. Really need to start shopping at Aldi again as thats just ridiculous and it's so expensive, it was just laziness and convenience I went there really.

Still we live and learn!

chocoholic_chick

Happy New Year all!! Hope you all had a fab night and are raring to go for 2013

Went to visit my gran today, first opportunity I've had over Christmas so was nice to spend some time with her, even if she isn't always sure who I actually am :rotfl:

Was going to take the decorations down today but really just couldn't be bothered. Didn't have a horrendously late night last night ( was about 1.30ish we went to bed ) and hadn't drank loads either but forgot to turn the blooming heating off the timer so it came on at 7 promptly turning the bedroom into a sauna so I ended up getting up and so now I'm rather lethargic! Back to work tomorrow, can't believe the holidays are over with already, oh to be a lady of leisure!

Checked TCB today and had just over £30 ready to be paid out so have sent a request in to get that paid but it's just going to go into the savings pot towards the windows. Still not heard a thing from Npower or had a final bill so going to give them until Monday then ring for an update as it's been 6 weeks since I left them now and could really do with the money back! Money is really tight this month, still got another 3.5 weeks to get paid as well so no chance of a mortgage OP this month, I think realistically it's going to be a few months before we can start thinking about it, though I might do the odd small one just to say I've made an OP

nattypants

Happy New Year choc_chick:beer:

Couldn't agree more with you regarding January being a tight month....still we have February and March to look forward to for 'free' Council Tax months and hopefully your TCB payment is winging its way over:D

chocoholic_chick

NP my free council tax is already accounted for unfortunately in the form of loan overpayments! We're definitely going to have to tighten our belts for the next few months, it's going to be tough! But alot of our money tends to go on meals out and as we're both trying to lose a little weight thats something that was going to have to go regardless.

So I haven't set myself any new years resolutions as I never keep them! I have, however, set myself some goals for 2013 so I think I'll do a monthly progress report on how I'm doing So my goals are :-

• Clear the £4,342.16 left on the Sainsburys loan
• Clear the £900.00 left on the loan from my parents
• Save the remaining £606.00 needed to get the windows replaced
• Overpay the mortgage by £2000
• Have £2000 in savings ( this is really for when I hopefully get pregnant to top up my maternity pay )

So a little over 10k needed to do all of the above!!!

chocoholic_chick

Food shopping today was a slightly more acceptable £47.11 at Aldi, still more than I had hoped but nevermind, went with a list and stuck to that and thats just how much it happened to cost. Got alot of fresh fruit and veg which always bumps it up a bit. The TCB payment came through yesterday so transferred that to savings towards the windows. Now have £1022 in there ( got the figure in the last update wrong so need to change that ) so need another £571 to get the windows done.

Went to the cinema last night to make the most of our cards we got last month, decided to splurge and get them but haven't had much opportunity to use them yet and bought some popcorn while there which wasn't MSE at all as it was almost £4.50 for a large popcorn and that was after we got 10% off!! Probably gonna go tomorrow as well as fancy seeing life of Pi and really want to see les miserables when thats out in a few weeks. Figure that on months like this when we haven't got much money it's already been paid so is something we can do for the price of the petrol to get there ( assuming we buy no more expensive popcorn! ). Probably not going to get an opportunity to go next week as hubby is away with work to various places next week. I think tomorrow we'll go after lunch so we aren't going to be hungry and tempted to buy overpriced snacks again!

Took the Christmas tree down today eventually, normally do it on the 1st but just plain laziness means I've only got round to it now, house always looks bare when the decorations come down until we get used to it again.

Really feel tired today and haven't got done half the stuff I wanted to, I think the first few days back at work after you've been off for a while are always hard and take it out of me, plus I've been pretty busy which didn't help!

Hubbys busy making tea so gonna go give him a hand and hopefully get a chance to catch up on some diaries later as I've barely had time to come on here lately!

Lois_E

Hi chocoholic_chick. Just discovered your diary. Always good to meet another long-hauler. You are doing really well, plugging away at such a long journey. I find the best thing is to find lots of mini-milestones to celebrate along the way, so it feels as though some progress is happening, even if it's small.

What interest rate are you paying on your mortgage and your Sainsbury's loan? If the loan is significantly more than the mortgage, it might be worth throwing everything you've got at that first. But maybe it's at 0% and you have a clever plan to get it paid off exactly on time, so the mortgage is the best thing to do with any spare.

chocoholic_chick

Hey Lois Yup I'm definitely going to be a MFW for a while yet!! I can't actually remember the interest rates but I think the loan is around 5.9% and mortgage is now 4.39% ( ish! ) so at the moment I'm not OP on the mortgage, saving for the windows and OP on the sainsburys loan instead. Since taking the loan out in July we've managed to overpay the loan by £1625 and I'm hoping to have the loan paid off by August after which we'll be focusing on building our savings up and OP the mortgage. I have it all planned out on a spreadsheet :rotfl:

Lois_E

Spreadsheets are fun.

Do you have pie charts and bar charts and graphs and things, or just columns of numbers? I'm very much a graphs person myself. This post tells you how severe my graph addiction is.

chocoholic_chick

Lol I haven't reached the stage of having graphs yet! Just tables with formulas in really and a cash flow forecast for the next 12 months lol I have different sheets for the loans, savings accounts, food budget etc my main spreadsheet has 10 different tabs and I have a seperate spreadsheet for my mortgage but I know thats nothing compared to what some others have!

Won £10 on the lottery last night so thats gone into savings Found a joint of beef in the freezer yesterday so thats been taken out for lunch today, think we might go to the cinema this afternoon as well and then it's back to tidying ( oh joy! )

[Deleted User]

Well done on the lottery win chocoholic chic
Enjoy the cinema- I was thinking about whether it is worth us getting those unlimited cards - times like this when there are a lot of good films to see it seems like it could be worth it, but other times we could not go to the cinema for 2 months (as you say its the popcorn etc.. that bumps it up!) ....hmmm....

Another long-hauler here , no idea at the moment how long it would take us to pay off mortgage/save for a "big" house - reckon at least 10 years so am settling in here! :rotfl: