Challenge of a lifetime!

cotswoldaccountant

Morning all. Am hoping to have a productive day working from home today - am looking forward to keeping inside out of the rain, and hoping the weather isn't too awful for the school run this afternoon! We are expecting more rain this afternoon, so OH has been building makeshift barriers to divert the water from its expected course, as we were very worried yesterday that it was going to flood our holiday let. We're not near a river, but there are lots of underground streams and the water all runs off the fields behind us onto our land. All very scary.

At least the bad weather doesn't create many shopping opportunities so I have been fairly frugal this week (apart from Christmas shopping, but that is all budgeted for!). Given the lack of cash needed for the cleaner over the next couple of weeks, I'm hoping for a cheap end to November!

The mortgage offer has arrived and we have taken great pleasure in accepting it. Just 39 days to go until we transfer - I am very much looking forward to it!!:j

CA

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Evening CA, you're either over run with cleaning or you're busy preparing for Christmas :T

Hope things are well with you.

Tilly x

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks for checking in Tilly! I am utterly overrun with Christmas, work, ha ha to the cleaning - that hasn't even started yet. In a valiant attempt to be MSE, I have made nice little iced Christmas gingerbread biscuits for the boys' class teachers, my daughter's pre school teachers, neighbours etc. Am now trying to get them bagged up and ready for doling out tomorrow!

I've found a few Christmas bargains along the way (half price Duplo in Sainsbury's yesterday for DS3) but have spent more than intended, as expected! Although I have had a couple of freebie meals this week - one with the organisation I volunteer for, and another with friends who decided to treat me because I was hosting a dinner for them in a couple of weeks time.

I haven't a clue what my mortgage balance is, having been far too busy to check recently, which is a bit slack of me given that we are remortgaging on the 2nd Jan! Hopefully we are somewhere around the £395k mark, and I have a little available to OP should we need to make some extra payments before the changeover date (which I am secretly rather excited about!)

I will endeavour to update my diary properly tomorrow, and get myself on track to remortgaging, as well as getting organised for Christmas too!

CA

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Looking forward to the update CA, one child already finished school for the year, middle one finishes today and not sure when nursery closes! but looking forward to the break and being able to catch up on the diaries here. Well done on the homemade pressies.

cotswoldaccountant

What a whirlwind Christmas has been! I have been completely run off my feet the past few weeks, and barely had a moment to think about the mortgage, let alone make any overpayments! On the positive side, that means I haven't got to the end of December worried about the bank balance - as I usually OP every spare penny, but haven't done so, there has been plenty left to cover the unexpected Christmas expenses. I'm planning that next Christmas will be much more budget-conscious, as I do always feel that I have spent too much.

We have been descended on by many guests over Christmas - entertaining the in laws on Christmas Day and my family on Boxing Day, with various friends on most of the surrounding days. I'm exhausted! Having a big family ourselves, and plenty of space, generally means people come to us as we have room to host everyone and space for them all to sleep if they want to stay over. It's tiring though - sometimes I don't think visitors realise quite how hard I have to work to keep everyone fed and entertained, as well as looking after the children. I do love having lots of people around the house though, although it's always nice when they go home as well!

Well I have finally got round to calling the mortgage company to get an update on my balance, which as at 2nd January (the day we plan to remortgage!!!) is £396,644.85. The new mortgage will be for £395k, so we need to fund the shortfall of £1,644.85, which, given the lack of OPs this month, will not be a problem.

I'm already thinking about new year resolutions, and top of the list will definitely be menu planning. I will have a browse of the forums later for top tips on how to start. I also need to plan a cleaning schedule so that the house doesn't go to rack and ruin (our cleaner resigned a few weeks ago), and endeavour to be more organised, e.g. getting all the school things ready the night before rather than madly scrabbling around in the morning before we leave the house. Finally, I must sort out my childcare, of which I only have 5 hours a week with all four children out of the house, which really isn't enough to keep on top of my workload. Still, we are potty training DS3 at the moment (day 2 and it's not going badly at all - he's only 26 months but I am very proud of how well he is getting on) and once he is totally out of nappies he can go to pre school with DD, so that will give me an extra morning once a week.

Hope everyone's had a great Christmas - I've not had much time for diaries but am looking forward to catching up with them all over the next few days.

CA

pixelwife

Just wanted to congratulate you on getting well below the £400k mark. I'm just a touch over with mortgage no. 1 but I'm bang up to date which was a big improvement on £17k behind!

I wish you every success in smashing the mortgage in 2013 and lots of health, wealth and happiness in your family.

Pixelwife

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks Pixelwife, glad you've been able to get your payments up to date! Must be a weight off your mind.

Well, today is the day of the completion of our new mortgage, which should save us something in the region of £35 a DAY in interest. :j Just waiting for a text confirmation that it's gone through! Unfortunately I've just realised that the d/d has come out today for the previous mortgage, so will now need to contact them to see how quickly they can pay me back. I hope they don't charge me for paying it back - I've already been charged £82 in fees for bank transfers by the new mortgage provider. It's certainly an easy way of getting money out of customers!

I had a profitable trip to the sales yesterday - profitable in that I had several expensive items to take back, and not a lot to buy apart from a few bits for DD's birthday party and some essentials such as tights and leggings. So I came home about £200 richer than when I left! Unfortunately, I'd had to return my fairly new winter boots which had turned out to be faulty, so although I have money (and the shop were surprisingly good about refunding it 8 weeks after purchase), I have no boots, which is problematic as I am a size 8 and it is always very tricky to find boots at the best of times, let alone in the sales - the sale racks tend to stop at size 7...

I'm hoping for a fairly low-spend January to get us on track with the new mortgage. It's a tricky month, as I have two children's birthday and OH birthday to get through, although I have already bought the children's birthday presents in the sales. OH has his sights on a new tv though (which is badly needed - ours is 10 years old and keeps turning itself off!) so that may dent the bank account a little!

Happy New Year all and have a good day!

CA

newgirly

Hi, I've just read your whole diary Congratulations on getting under 400k already, it's not easy to cut back with a big family as there is always something that crops up! Best of luck for 2013.

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks newgirly! I totally agree - there seems to be an unexpected payment every day. We have extra children this week as looking after a friend's two children for a few days, and I was going to take them all to softplay this afternoon. But it's a bit pricey for six children, and will likely be very busy, so have decided to go to the nearby woods, which they will love, and we have membership to so will be free. Plus I need to buy a few toiletries, but think I have enough Boots points to get them free - so perhaps I can make it a NSD!

cotswoldaccountant

Busy couple of weeks here, with two children's birthday parties last week to organise! One was shared with a friend which helped to cut costs and workload, and the other was very small, so they didn't break the bank. Pretty tiring though!

Finally received some correspondence from new mortgage provider (we completed on 3rd January!) and have made our first payment. They don't take a payment in the first month, so I have paid in the whole of the usual payment amount, plus a £500 overpayment to get things going. Given that my target is £3k overpayment per month, I still have quite a way to go... Never mind, Christmas was expensive and now we are getting back on track. I should be able to make a few more OPs this month.

Just had a free graze box delivered, and also took out a free lovefilm trial. Always nice to get something free! Disappointed with lovefilm though - it's a "download" trial rather than getting DVDs in the post, but the selection available seems pretty poor. Annoying as I just bought OH a blu-ray player with wifi for his birthday, hoping to use the wifi bit to download films from lovefilm! Think we will be cancelling that one though...

Lots of work on at the moment with it being the self assessment deadline on the 31st, so I am trying to get on top of it all. I do have a morning extra childcare a week now that both of my two smallest children are at pre school, so that is helping to shift the backload (a bit!).

Have had a lovely lazy afternoon at home with the littlies - too cold to go outside and DD had a paper doll set for her birthday which I have been helping her with - she loves it! I'm also pleased as I wandered into the shop this morning thinking that I must buy something for tea, and then realised I had the ingredients for a fish pie already at home - so no money spent! In fact I've only spent £1 all day on a toddler group first thing, so that is a good value day! Off to make my fish pie now.

CA