Balancing not just the budget

RosaBernicia

Sunday shuffle dutifully done, though naff all else dutiful as I declared it a snow weekend and basically spent today lolling around cuddling moggies and listening to audiobooks

Budget wise things are not ideal as a £100 vet bill for small mog but she has bounced back straightaway so all good. This month also included the extra interest for the remortgage, so isn't really a normal budget anyhow. Sofa plans possibly end of the month on credit card, though more likely next month as I'm busy the last couple of weekends so wouldn't get to the Swedish store or be here to benefit :rotfl:. Am also allowing for paying some back to buffer fund, and beginning to be horrified at what the van is costing me while getting no use so need to have a bit of a think about that at some point.

No surprises, which is good really so just more turtle steps (as Martha Beck calls them) in the right direction


Rosa xx

MuffinTops

Snow days are great, especially as you had the audio books and gives you time to rest and recharge with the moggies.


Good to hear the small moggy has bounced back after the hefty vet appointment.


Yay to no surprises.


MTx

beanielou

Good news on the wee moggie bouncing back but boo to the vet bill.
One of mine needs to go to the vet as they have a lump.
Bah.

RosaBernicia

beanielou wrote: »

Good news on the wee moggie bouncing back but boo to the vet bill.
One of mine needs to go to the vet as they have a lump.
Bah.

Oh dear Beanie, hope it is as good news as can be.

I can never decide whether to keep a savings pot for them or just roll with it. It could end up being a huge fund if I went for worst case scenario :eek: so I think I might just give up on it and consider it another purpose of the general buffer fund.


Rosa xx

beanielou

Will need to get her to the vet at some point.
Unfortunatly she is big & very solid & I can barely lift her so will need someone to help me take her to the vet.

kerri_gt

Glad little mog is ok Rosa vets appts are costly aren't they. We had ours at the vets twice last year for abscesses on her behind and now I'm totally paranoid about her being off-colour as any more will indicate a likely glad issue rather than her fighting ....which means surgery :eek: (and prob a defibrillator for me :eek:)

What sofa are you planning on buying from the big Swedish store?

EssexHebridean

Glad small Moggie has bounced back Rosa - we always opted for insurance on ours but then she WAS somewhat prone to getting herself into scrapes...

And definitely no sense in buying a sofa you won't be about to sit on - defer that one for a few weeks then!

RosaBernicia

I have insurance for the mogs too but have always set the excess as high as possible and not (yet) claimed on it - it's only really there to cover surgery etc if (gods etc forbid) they were to have an accident. They're both pretty good about staying out of trouble so far.

Yes sofa is on hold... looking at a Stocksund. Though by the 'actual time sitting on it cost benefit analysis' I probably shouldn't buy one til autumn, given current plans for time away. Which might be a plan actually. Or to just spend enough for the interest free credit and pay it off slowly.

RosaBernicia

Sig updated - another 0.5% paid off the mortgage, and 2% off the campervan

I want the mortgage to get to 10% as it increases my options, but that should happen within the current 2 year fix anyway, and I'm not going to sacrifice fun for it. The van feels very expensive at present but I'll see what happens over the summer. Once I finish paying for something else - which should happen in the next few months - it won't feel such a problem and of course it is an asset that can be sold not money disappeared.

EssexHebridean

It's getting there Rosa! Something we did which we found was really helpful was ran a specific "mortgage overpayments" savings account which we used to drop oddments of money saved into - so if we negotiated a utility bill down a bit by changing supplier, the money saved went there each month. If we were going to get a takeaway but decided against, we'd transfer the value of the "no takeaway" across to that account, and so on. Each time it reached a certain level we'd transfer the contents across to the mortgage and start again. Meant that every now and again we had the boost of making an extra OP, and we never noticed the money that went to it as it was what we always thought of as "money we didn't know we had" because we'd been parting with it in any case.

We still have the account now - and the monthly DD for money saved on things still goes across to it. It's now known as the "Account Formerly Known as" (The Mortgage OP Pot) - it's now what pays for extra trips away with friends, and our Christmas holiday.