The loooooong road to being MF!!

chocoholic_chick

Afternoon all

So no more mortgage OP's to report but made an overpayment on our loan this morning of £1000 :T . Means we have pretty much cleared out our savings but it's taken 3 months off our loan

Shed is now up with the assistance of my sisters OH. Parents came around again so baked another cake this morning to have with their cuppa. Not had anything to eat yet so trying to decide what to do, hubbys been working so hard the last few days sorting the garden out ( in the rain! ) so I'd really like to take him out for lunch/dinner somewhere, I know it's not very MSE but I think he deserves it so trying to find somewhere cheap!!

ammonite

Well done for the loan overpay and it'll be worth it in the end!

greent

We've had some fab made-to-measure blinds from blinds2go.co.uk at very reasonable prices. Think we managed cashback on them too (only about 2 or 3%, but better than nothing!)

chocoholic_chick

Thanks ammonite I know it will, I'm just used to having a little in savings but by focusing on overpaying on our loans rather than saving it means in 12 months they'll be paid off.

greent - Thanks for the tip! I'll have a look, though I have to admit I'm worried about measuring etc myself incase I mess up and order the wrong sizes

Well not much else to report really, though I did end up blagging a voucher for £10 for Mr S. Went to do my shopping last night and they always have bare shelves and last night I'd just had enough so asked to speak to the manager. Had a bit of a rant at him and said my shopping was now going to cost me £7.50 more as I had to come back the following day because the things I needed werent in stock and I had a voucher towards my shopping that was only valid until that day ( didn't tell him I had another voucher that was valid longer, but I was going to use this towards next weeks shopping ). So off he goes and comes back with a £10 giftcard by means of apology and assured me the items I wanted would be back in stock today. So went shopping today and still there were bare shelves, I got the last free range chicken which was more the size of a pigeon so asked an assistant how they had sold out so quickly when they just got stock that morning, the reason, they had 6 Free Range Chickens delivered for the entire store! Unbelievable considering this is a big store, even he couldn't understand why they'd ordered so few. Anyways rant over and the upshot is I used both vouchers to get £17.50 off my shopping tonight :money: Though my shopping still somehow came to £50! I think I ended up buying extra things because I knew I was getting the money off, should mean next weeks shops not much as I got a few whoopsied things to put in the freezer as well.

Got enough petrol to last until pay day after putting £40 in this morning and still have £61.23 left in our food and petrol pot so should have money left over in there come pay day which will go into our overpayments pot. Quite surprised and happy about that as I've already took £80 out to go towards the mortgage earlier this month, don't know whether to rethink our budget for food, or continue to put the same amount aside *just incase* and any money leftover at the end of the month can then be put towards overpayments. Guess I just don't want to get towards the end of the month and have no money to put food on the table, I've had alot of vouchers to use this month, I think I've had 3 for £7.50 then that £10 voucher means I've saved £32.50 and obviously I can't budget assuming I'm going to get those each month. Hmmm shall ponder on this and stop rambling!!

Main spends this week have been on birds! Bought a new feeder, a huge bag of mealworms and some bird seed. Think we ended up spending almost £25! But we do both like sitting watching them in a morning descend onto the garden, and we're hoping to attract blue tits etc with the mealworms.

No projects for hubby this weekend, poor thing's been kept busy the last few with building or painting things! So I think we're going to use our historic new zealand pass to go for a day out somewhere if the weathers nice. Should mean minimal spends

Doubt we'll have any more cash to make OP's this month, only have £63 left to last until pay day which is still 9 days away. Still haven't received the paperwork through from Santander either to increase my mortgage payments so will have to chase them up tomorrow as I'm sure it must have got lost in the post or something by now.

ammonite

An excellent bit of work in Mr T's! Well done! I just won't let things go any more if I've had bad service. I tried to get a refund from M&S online to a gift card and they sent me an email saying it had been refunded onto the original gift card.....which of course I'd thrown away as it was empty. Kevin was sorry he couldn't do anything for me and it was my own fault if I'd thrown it out. Cue a "I want to speak to the manager" who cleared the original card & re-issued it...no fuss, no drama...thank god I'd asked to speak to the manager or I'd have been walking away £9 worse off!

chocoholic_chick

Yeah I'm the same, there's no excuse for poor customer service now as far as I'm concerned! I don't complain just for the sake of it, but I'm no longer prepared to smile and say everythings fine if it's not.

Nothing much to report since my last post, though we haven't spent any more money so still have £63 but now it only has to last 7 days

Got a letter through from Santander confirming the £100 overpayment we made but still no letter about increasing our overpayments, haven't been able to chase them up though as we've been in late the last few nights so it's been closed by the time we've got home. Need to get this sorted though, I'll just have to make an overpayment next month up to what we want it to increase by as there's no way it's going to go through in time now.

Sorely tempted to start putting my heating on, it's been so cold this week!! But I refuse to put it on in September lol so we shall have to just wear extra clothes and grim and bear it until at least October. My herb pot has a few teeny green shoots so at least some seeds are growing :rotfl:normally don't have much luck when it comes to keeping plants alive but hopefully in a month or so's time I'll have a little herb garden on my windowsill

Been busy reading through a few different MWF diaries, it's now my bedtime reading keeps me motivated and gives me inspiration for little changes I can make. So well done everyone on your MFW journey :T

chocoholic_chick

Hmm so my weekend of "minimal spends" went out the window

Went out yesterday and got a couple of big storage boxes for the shed, though forgot to buy a padlock for the shed so still don't want to put anything in there just incase ( though the only things we're going to be storing in there is hay and guinea pig food, so hardly valuable! ) so that was £12.99 gone then went out for lunch.... again. I know I know I shouldn't, I said I wasn't going to and we've been out more times then I care to tot up! And to make matters worse it wasn't even a cheap lunch, it came to £41.45 :eek: It was lovely though, but considering hubby had a starter main and I only had a main it was pretty pricey, wasn't helped by the fact a fresh orange was £3.30!! So we each had a couple of soft drinks which I think equated to about £15 of the meal!! Hate it when you don't realise how expensive soft drinks are until you come to pay.

Anyways I told hubby I would make a desert later on rather than pay £6 each at the restaurant so made some chocolate brownies and defrosted some blackberry coulis type stuff I made last year ( was a bit dubious about whether it would be ok or not but tasted fine ) from foraged blackberrys to go with it along with some clotted cream ice cream and it was rather yummy, especially with the brownies still warm from the oven.

Got some twinks hobnobs baking now in my nice clean oven ( I actually forgot you could see through the glass in to the oven, thats how bad it was!! ). I'm really struggling, well lets face it failing! to resist the temptation of eating all these lovely baked things, especially when the house smells of yummy biscuits and cakes. But I've now lost 7lbs :T so really dont want to start going backwards now. Can definitely tell my stomachs shrunk though, I would normally polish off a 3 course meal no problem but after my main yesterday was stuffed! Fair enough I had the chocolate brownie later on but only had a couple of slices of toast for dinner as I was just to full to face a meal.

So the upshot is I've had to "borrow" from the food and petrol pot to top the main account up so we have £10 in there to last until pay day :eek: Also transferred another £30 from the food and petrol pot to our overpayments account which I think will go towards the loan rather than the mortgage, but will top that up after pay day and pay an extra £230 towards the loan next month I think. Leaves £30.14 in the food and petrol account to last until Friday which should definitely be managable as we should only need milk and food for the guinea pigs this week. I have that voucher to use off a £40 spend at Mr S but I really don't need to spend that, I think £10 should do it really as I still have enough leftover from things I bought this week to make 6 meals, and thats not counting what we already had in the freezer.

Oh the documents to increase my mortgage repayment FINALLY came through yesterday so filled that out ready to post tomorrow. Won't go through in time for the next repayment but I'll just overpay by how much the mortgage is now going to be. Means the term has been reduced to 16 years 4 months :T

It's my grans 88th birthday on Friday so I've asked my aunt what her favourite cake is so I can make one for her and take it round on Saturday. As it happens it's a walnut cake which I have most of the things in for so won't cost me much to make, bless her she's not all there anymore but still lights up when we go to see her, even if she can't always remember who we are. Then Sunday hubbys inviting his parents round for Sunday lunch so will have to think of what I can make as, I'm ashamed to say, I've never actually cooked them a meal before

Nothing really planned for through the week, just work unfortunately!!

Now off to make a cuppa so I can catch up on a few peoples diaries.... the question is do I have one of the yummy smelling hobnobs cooling in the kitchen to go with it.....

chocoholic_chick

I failed, I scoffed a hobnob

That is all!

ammonite

Well done on the weight loss! I made the poor decision of baking on Saturday and have almost single handedly eaten the batch of fairy cakes I made This is why I don't bake! I can't be trusted!
I'm sure your gran will enjoy the cake, that is a lovely gesture

chocoholic_chick

Yeah I'm the same, thats why I stopped baking for a while, but I really do enjoy baking as well, it's probably my only hobby really, only problem is I eat everything lol

Well it's a way to save money as well if I'm honest, shes at the age where she doesn't want anything so rather than buy a bunch of flowers when inevitaebly thats what everyone else is going to do I thought if I make a cake then everyone can celebrate with her.

In other news the heating has been put on :eek: it wasn't me though, hubby was the one that caved in. He's only put it on for an hour but it's already a little too warm for my liking.

Pay day is Friday and I'm determined to spend no more than £10 on food shopping before then, if I manage that it'll mean my total spends on food/toiletries/fresh food for the guinea pigs will come to £165 this month. I'll be really pleased if we manage this as we've ate really healthily for that with alot of fresh food bought I normally wouldn't buy.

Not going to do my normal rambling long post as don't want to bore anyone who might be reading this!