Going to get rid of my mortgage!

Spendless

Are the kids on packed lunches or do you need to pay out school dinner money? I've had a text saying I'm £2 in credit (though I did think it was £4). We're another household waiting till Thursday payday.

bbh30

They take packed lunches. It works out so much cheaper- I can make them a healthy packed lunch for pennies and a school dinner is £1.90 each. Also, even though the school provide "healthy choices"- my kids always choose the unhealthy choices- I would rather give them a cooked meal in the evening. Just made a batch of bread to last us the week and I bought plenty of fruit, ham, cheese etc on saturday morning.

bbh30

Hooray the husband has been paid! We now have some money in the joint account!

I aas transferring money from the car account earlier to my credit card to pay it off, but it has to go via the joint account to get there. I wasnt really thinking about what I was doing and stupidly put the money designated for car insurance onto the mortgage! Its not a huge problem as I would have put that money onto the mortgage at some point, it just means I made a bigger overpayment than I intended to today!

I ended up buying some more stuff online, Ive ordered some washing powder (by all accounts it should be 2 years worth! Husband is going mad about where we will store it but it cost me less than £30!) Also ordered a wedding present for the wedding I am going to on Saturday.

Had a busy day back at work and spent most of this evening working also, Ive had to force myself to stop now as Im tired. Dinner was leftover chicken turned into a curry. The husband is going away tomorrow for a few days so I might just live off jacket potatoes whilst he is away.

I changed the order of the pictures of our house on Right Move a few days ago and the interest level in our house has gone up! Weve got 3 more viewings booked in the next few days. Soo bored of cleaning and tidying for viewings but keep hoping each one will be my last.

bbh30

I (stupidly!) offered to make some puddings and starters for my friends wedding on saturday. She had all the ingredients delivered to my house last night via Tesco so Ive got a fridge full of ingredients and just need to make them! Tomorrow is my day off work so I plan to spend the whole day in the kitchen making the puddings. Ill make the starters Thursday evening after work so I've got a busy time ahead!
Posted all my ebay items today, made a grand total of about £15 which is nice. Rounded off the bank account to make another OP, once I get paid I should hopefully meet my 1k target for OPs this month, I may even try to add in a little extra!
Next month I am going to aim for another 1k OP, Ive got the girl child's birthday so will need to pay for that, she wants a dressing table which will cost us around £100 I think, and we have decided to have a movie night as a party which should be cheap and cheerful!

bbh30

Well its the last day of the month, Ive been paid and just finished the money shuffle! So the figures are in:
Total OPs for Feb is : £1136.34
Total Grocery Shopping for Feb £204.89

I am SO SO chuffed with the grocery shop, I was aiming for less than £250 and thats nearly £50 less. Im not going to reduce the grocery budget for March because it's a long month and it also contains the girl child's birthday and Easter. Im aiming for at least another 1k OP in March also.

I am really really happy I have exceeded my targets, March is going to be a good month, I can feel it in my bones!!

Spendless

Don't forget even though March is 31 days long, if you get paid on the last working day of the month (which it sounds like you do) you'll get paid on Thurs 28th march (as fri 29th is a BH) so it only makes it a 4 week month to the next pay-day. Yipee! I had to look up that yesterday as March for us contains 5 birthdays (inc both our kids) 3 x mothers day presents and Easter. :eek:

bbh30

Spendless- yes you are right, 4 weeks til next payday!
Sadly I arrived into work this morning to find a letter addressed to me, saying I had underpaid tax this year. I have underpaid by £126 and they will take the whole lot off next month (!!!!) unless I write and specifically say I want a pay plan and then it can come off over the next 6 months. It has applied to everybody in my workplace, the letter isnt from HMRC. I would prefer to pay it over a year rather than 6 months. I am NOT a happy bunny about this at all. I think it sounds like somebody in the finance dept has f*cked up and now we all have to pay the price.

Anyway, moving on, Ive had a no spend day, in fact, I got some expenses back from work so paid them into the bank on my way home. All the main bills have come out of the main bank account so now I have done another money shuffle and OP by £17.31. A good start to March I think!

Tomorrow we are going to my friend's wedding, so I will need to get some cash out to pay for drinks etc. The husband says he is going to drive so at least he should be a cheap date! I will never drink as much as he is potentially able to, so overall that will save us money. I've only got the couple a cheapish (but nice!) wedding present as Ive made hundreds of desserts and starters for the wedding.

Spendless

Jeez! I always wonder how you can get letters like that when you are PAYE and they have your salary details.

bbh30

We went to my friend's wedding yesterday. It was a fabulous day! We ate, drank, danced, and was merry all day long. It really was such a good wedding. I didn't spend a penny the whole day- I had expected to but she had provided so much free drink that I didn't need to buy anything! We also ate so much until we were bursting. We definately did not go hungry or thirsty! In fact, the only money I did spend was buying some new tights on my way there as I managed to ladder mine.
Today I went to ASDA, I was in a bit of a rush doing the shopping as I needed to be back for house viewings we had arranged, so instead of being able to take my time and work out best prices etc for stuff, I ended up just shoving stuff in my trolley. I don't think I did too badly in the circumstances, but I did spend £78.44, I shouldn't need to go to a shop for a couple of weeks now though.
The husband took the children out to a triathlon show (excuse me whilst I yawn) this afternoon, and I did the house viewings- we had 3! He didnt plan any lunch etc for the kids so ended up buying them a sandwich and a drink at the show- he said it cost £18 for 3 sandwiches and 3 drinks!! Good job I wasn't there or I would have made them go hungry at that price, ha ha!!!

I am hoping I won't need to buy anything all week really, I probably will have to visit the shops for work at some point, but that should be it. I made a batch of bread this afternoon which should last a few days, tomorrow I plan to make a batch of hot cross buns and some sausage rolls.

bbh30

Just sat down for the night, going to watch Superscrimpers. I do like watching programmes about saving money but that programme tends to annoy me; usually they just point out the obvious and their money saving tips can sometimes be a bit dodgy!! Still, I will watch it anyway and probably sit and moan all the way through it!!!

Bank tidy up after the weekend and made another couple of OPs.

Im really annoyed as Ive just managed to rip my favourite "work shirt"; its really comfy but also looks really smart. It is about 4 years old so has lasted well. I wear it all the time though, I might have to invest in another work shirt. I really struggle to find shirts that are comfy and I can move properly in; this one was perfect. Hmm maybe I can have a hunt through the bag of clothes my friend gave me the other week and see if there is anything in there I could replace it with.

Ive decided Im going to make some new lightshades for the hallway, I saw a really cool tip where they wrapped string in PVA glue over a balloon, and then popped the balloon, leaving an empty solid ball which can be used as a lightshade. I think it would go well in the hallway as its all very neutral in there, I have loads of balloons and a big ball of string in the cupboard, and I will borrow some glue from work! Will try to give that a go one evening this week.

No news from any of the viewings we had last week; still we have another viewing booked for this week; I am SO fed up of viewings now, I find it all so stressful. I just don't know what to do, Im tempted to take the house off the market but I know we can't stay here forever, and if we take the house off the market then we will just be delaying the inevitable. Just so fed up of showing people around the house and having to have it so spotless etc and then never hearing anything more.