Challenge of a lifetime!

ALM2013

Any news on the mortgage balance? Really hope your still Doing well. Your motivation is fantastic. :j

cotswoldaccountant

ALM2013 wrote: »

Any news on the mortgage balance? Really hope your still Doing well. Your motivation is fantastic. :j

Thanks ALM2013! Yes, I had called the mortgage company but so busy in the run up to Christmas I hadn't had a chance to post.

:j:j:j New balance £347,654 so the £350k target is well and truly smashed! :j:j:j It was a nice Christmas present to hear that


Well we had a lovely Christmas Day yesterday. I like the way that Christmas Day is a NSD as well! No shops open, and we didn't leave the house apart from a walk in the afternoon. We normally go to church on Christmas morning, but the timing didn't work this year with visitors arriving. My sister and her family came for the day which was lovely - my children enjoyed spending time with their cousins, and they all just played nicely, without any overexcitement. My mum, who is very frail and unwell, was even able to join us for a few hours which was so nice. Christmas lunch was lovely, particularly so as OH cooked the majority - although we did realise afterwards we'd forgotten to make the cranberry sauce! Oh well, nobody likes it anyway!

All the presents went down well, and although Christmas always ends up being more expensive than planned, I was very pleased I had stuck to a strict limit on presents for the children with 4 presents under the tree each from us, plus a stocking of inexpensive things from Santa (ranging from pants and socks to a cheap DVD). The children were all delighted with their gifts and played with them really nicely. They each had a toy, a craft set to keep them busy, a parcel of books and finally something useful - the older boys had clocks, DD a jacket, and DS3 a dressing up outfit (well I suppose that isn't particularly useful, but he is only three and he will love it!)

Off to visit relatives today so it will be nice to get out.

Happy Christmas everyone!

CA

Crumpets

Happy Christmas CA, your day yesterday sounds lovely, so nice when the children play nicely and appreciate their presents.

Enjoy your day today

Crumpets x

cotswoldaccountant

Argh I just wrote a post which got deleted, how annoying. So I shall be brief.

Happy New Year to all!

I have sorted out our finances today - made tax payments on account and am ploughing through our filing. I'm determined to organise my paperwork in 2014!

We had friends to stay for NYE which was lovely, and such fun. 4 extra adults and 4 extra children created quite a houseful - the children all got on well though and the play was actually pretty calm considering there were 8 children.

My task for this evening is to carry on sorting out the filing cabinet, as well as to watch Sherlock of course!

CA

fothers365

Happy New Year!

Crumpets

Happy New Year CA, yay to sorting out your finances :j that's one of my jobs for the day

cotswoldaccountant wrote: »

My task for this evening is to carry on sorting out the filing cabinet, as well as to watch Sherlock of course!

CA

I've been looking forward to this night for the last 2 years but I was so tired last night I had to go to bed!:rotfl: i'll be watching it tonight though:T

C x

cotswoldaccountant

Crumpets wrote: »

I've been looking forward to this night for the last 2 years but I was so tired last night I had to go to bed!:rotfl: i'll be watching it tonight though:T

C x

It was great! Enjoy when you watch it later.

Filing is going well too - about half done and tons of paper in the shredder and recycling box!

My in-laws have announced they would like to come and take the children out today, which is a lovely surprise, so I shall use the time to finish off my filing, catch up with a bit of work and hopefully go out for lunch with OH. Let's see how much of that I can achieve!

Crumpets

Wow! What lovely in laws you have. Enjoy your day x

Muser1

Lovely! Make sure you fit in the lunch out

cotswoldaccountant

Well it's been a busy start to 2014. The children are settled back at school, and it was DD's birthday the other day so that involved a tea party (larger than planned!) for her friends. It was very inexpensive though - doesn't take very much spending (of food or entertainment!) to keep a dozen five year olds happy. They were very loud though.

The exciting news is that our au pair arrived on Thursday. She seems very nice and very helpful around the house, and the children already love her, so I am really hoping this will be a success!

Doing well so far this year on the mortgage front and I am hoping that I will make the target £3000 monthly overpayment in January (have OPd £2082 so far). January is always a good month for bookings of our holiday let, as people get their 2014 plans organised - so we've taken lots of bookings (and deposits!) over the past few days, which I have all overpaid.

I had a stocks and shares ISA which I had opened around the time of the Royal Mail shares issue but wasn't actually able to use - but have only just got round to cancelling the £50 a month DD so I closed that and now have a £100 refund from them of the payments I made, which is nice!

I've also been able to sell a big Ikea cupboard as I am having a built-in one made, which will help towards the cost of the new one. Unfortunately the old cupboard has already been collected, and the new one will not be built for a couple of weeks, so the contents of my children's toy cupboard are now arranged in piles around the
playroom!

Not a lot planned for today. My older boys are going to rugby training this morning so I will try to do some of the Christmas craft kits with the little ones!

Have a lovely Sunday everyone.