The Long, Long Road to Mortgage Freedom

catshark88

Leaves blocking drains are a nightmare here too Trying to be good! DH has cleaned the gutters out once this year, but we are surrounded by trees and it needs doing again now that all the leaves are off. Isn't it frustrating when you need help with something, time's getting on, but you don't want to nag?!

Fiisch, welcome! I do my OPs online. There are no limits for OP on the product that I have, bar my bank balance, lol! I think it depends on the provider though.

catshark88

Well I wouldn't have believed it, but DH actually volunteered to do a NSD yesterday! He stuck to it too. I don't quite understand why he refused to take a packed lunch though- poor chap was starving when he got home, lol.

I'm doing the DFW Janus challenge at the moment too. It rally makes me think about what I'm spending and the whole need v. want thing.

catshark88

NSD for both DH and I.

Made tiny £6 or £7 OP (I try to round the mortgage down as often as I remember).

Er that's about it for today! ;-)

Slowdown

Hi
Just popped over from my own newly established diary to have a catch up of your progress.
Looks like a new year for you too and I really like the way you round down the balance a the end of each day. :T
I shall be popping in and out to catch up with your progress as I need all the incentives I can get.
Good luck
Kind regards
Slowdown:)

catshark88

Thank you Slowdown!

Made a £145 OP yesterday from collecting odd coins from around the house last year. Think this says most about the untidiness of my DH... ;-)

catshark88

Yay, a NSD today! Was sorely tempted to buy a jar of peanut butter, but resisted, lol!

catshark88

£5 OP today. So far, have only spent £2.29, on soup and the much awaited new jar of peanut butter...

Am trying to keep to a madly tight budget until payday so that we can put a chunk into our offset savings account. Getting close to the wire now though, lol!

catshark88

Well we managed our mad budget challenge! We'd budgeted £1k for Christmas and saved throughout the years to a savings pot. As it is, we managed to pay for it without needing to use our pot and so the money has gone into our general savings account and continues to offset the mortgage. As some of the expenses only hut the credit card in Jan & needed to be paid off that, we didn't know if we'd manage until now. Sighs of relief all round and a big thank you to Ald1 for their help!

Have done some batch cooking this morning. I love the convenience of being able to fish "ready meals" out of the freezer, but knowing that they are healthy (if not very exciting!) and have various vegetables hidden away in them.....

catshark88

We made OPs of £297 in January. Not much I know, but we're mainly working on savings at the mo and they offset.

I've been taking a lot of inspiration from the DFW challenge boards. It is incredible how much ingenuity is on there. I started a challenge that involved no spending days (NSD) and now have several a week. It takes a bit of planning ahead, but I don't want spending to be a "leisure activity" (although I'd never have believed how excited I would get about a twice weekly trip to Aldi, lol!).

catshark88

At the risk of proving that I really do need to get out more, I had a very enjoyable trip to Aldi today.

I filled a full sized trolley, inc meat and fish and paid a grand total of £70. I ran this through mysupermarket and discovered I'd saved £18 v Morrissonz and an incredible £30 v W8rose (the only others near me). I was quite shocked as while I know w8rose is more expensive, I had no idea it was THAT much more and I'd always thought that Morrissonz was quite cheap. To be fair, I suppose it is, if one is comparing it with W8rose....

I also got a £10 off voucher in the post from boden. It's not a brand I'm into, but I started to use it to show my son how shops entice you to spend when you weren't planning to, by offering a discount, but with a minimum spend. But I then found that there wasn't a minimum spend for once, so I splashed out 80p buying him a long sleeved top. He gave me strict instructions to only buy it, if there really wasn't a minimum spend or p&p, so he's learning, bless him. :-)

I did go mad and put the ch on for a couple of hours as although the rooms we use are kept cosy by the woodburner, the rest of the house was getting a bit damp.....