Mortgage Free For A Happier Me

Happier_Me

Well I've just placed my online weekly grocery order using my shop t@rt tactics:D and it's going well, I think.

I opted for Tesco this week and I've also used Quidco Click Snap Grocery for the first time.

So the bill came to £100.88 after e coupons. Total e coupons (money off vouchers) amounted to £12.80, of which £1.30 were courtesy of Quidco Click Snap (thanks Click Snap ). I also ordered several items with promotional clubcard points so Tesco points for this shop amounted 472 (should have been 113). The points are great for me as I am saving Tesco points to pay for a Eurotunnel journey next year. If Click Snap works I should get £1.50 cash back for this shop via Quidco too. I stuck to my shopping list (apart from a few extra's that were on offer and we would have needed next week).

Has anyone else used Click Snap?

slowlyfading

Haven't used Click Snap - not heard of it! Congrats on being sub 80k - kinda :j :j

Happier_Me

Thanks Slowlyfading. I'm a little tempted to change my mortgage payment so this comes out as we get paid. That way I could genuinely claim to be sub £80k.:D

Will update my diary if and when I get my cashback from Quidco for Click Snap. I will be using this again and it will be interesting to see if the offers change quickly enough for this to be worth my while. I actually don't do anything other than check the offers on Quidco and buy those that are on my list...in theory Quidco do the rest.

I know my food budget is generous compared to others but we have cut back on many other things this month to try to pull back an overspend from our spendy days during Summer. If I strip the food budget back too much I suspect we will stray from the MFW path altogether...and it won;t be the first time:o

Happier_Me

It's been a few days since I posted mainly because I have nothing to post about...which is a good thing from an MSE point of view.

NSD's at work are becoming the norm for me and DH which is great.

We are doing our best to be sensible this month as we have an overspend (around £290) to still address that I don't want to cover with offset savings. I have £205 to put against this if need be but it won't hurt us to watch the pennies and cut back for a short time considering how much we have spent unnecessarily over the Summer. The £205 will then be used to kick start our holiday fund for 2014.

There is probably going to be a one off spend in the near future though as we haven't got a Will:eek:and this really needs sorting out. This hasn't been budgeted for.

Almost did this a few months back but never saw it through. I read somewhere recently that even though we are married if, say, I were to die some of my estate would automatically pass to our children because of it's size. We also have the dependent children issue to sort out too.

Sorry for the slightly morbid post and I don't begrudge my kids anything but it should be down to DH to decide what he does with my money, not the state. And he has promised, if the worst happened, he wouldn't spend it all on fast cars and loose women :rotfl:

Happier_Me

Well, I'm off work today with the kids, hence a few sneaky posts this morning. It has been a productive morning from an MSE point of view so far.

A bolognese sauce is in the slow cooker for tonight's tea and I also have a gammon joint in slow cooker no. 2 for Wednesday and Thursday nights tea.

The children wanted to go swimming today but our local pools are not open for public swims until tonight - apparently not all schools have closed due to strike action! Second choice was a 3D film at the cinema - still expensive despite having 2 for 1 vouchers. But there isn't really anything on that's worth watching. Option 3 is to spend a few hours at our local theme park, with a packed lunch. It's free entry as we have annual passes so very MSE. So option 3 it is:D.

I have 'work' work to do when I get home though despite being on leave. Putting it off, to be honest, but this will just end up ruining my day if I'm not careful.

sweetdaisy

Happier_Me wrote: »

There is probably going to be a one off spend in the near future though as we haven't got a Will:eek:and this really needs sorting out. This hasn't been budgeted for.

Almost did this a few months back but never saw it through. I read somewhere recently that even though we are married if, say, I were to die some of my estate would automatically pass to our children because of it's size. We also have the dependent children issue to sort out too.

Sorry for the slightly morbid post and I don't begrudge my kids anything but it should be down to DH to decide what he does with my money, not the state. And he has promised, if the worst happened, he wouldn't spend it all on fast cars and loose women :rotfl:

We had our Wills done two years ago, a few months after DS2 was born. It was always something that I said I'd get round to doing and due to a close family member being ill, it made me think that I just had to get it done. It is great piece of mind that should anything happen to us the children will be provided for. There is a lot of think about, which I hadn't realised before doing it, but close family members have a copy of it and are fully aware of the details. We didn't pay upfront for our Wills as the company charges us £20 a year (admin fee), but this means that we don't need to pay when any changes/amendments are made.

Happier_Me

I'm going to ring around today for a price for a Will. I didn't know you could pay an amount per year instead of an up front fee so I will look into this too.

It has been a quiet spend week, I had my work spend day yesterday (40p on coffees - well I did start work at 5.45am yesterday morning).

We're both feeling very motivated but I could kick myself for letting such a large amount of money be frittered away during Summer. I reckon we have spent on top of our current budget £7K from extra earnings and savings in 2013 :eek:

We are on target to pay off our mortgage but we could have overpaid more and had more in savings. It's not so much the spending, it's that we have nothing to show for it. This is what I can list as spends:

• A new Barbeque
• Children's passports
• A holiday in France - which was great, we'll be doing this again next year
• Some summer clothes

So that leaves around £5k in spend that is unaccounted for :mad:

If I'm honest I know where it's gone....the bathroom scales are telling me I've eaten it! Looking at DH though, I am fairly sure he's eaten the majority!

Happier_Me

Hi

Weekly food shop done - this should have been a relatively cheap shop to get us through to next Thursday when I get a Tesco delivery (I've moved the delivery date to midweek to avoid a delivery charge) but I still managed to spend £70.53 at Aldi and Sainsbury's today. This should last us until around 11th October. We have £95 left in the food budget to last us another 10 days after this (our food budget runs from credit card month to credit card month).

DH managed 5 work NSD's this week, I have managed 4 (all be it my spend day was just 40p:)). I have spent £10.50 on tram fares for work this week. Only other spend has been £3.50 at the school disco tonight. Plan is to take the children swimming on Sunday (just have to pay for me and DH as the kids get free swims with their swimming lessons) and we may venture to a street fair next weekend for a treat.

I'm still reading and enjoying lots of diaries on the MFW and DFW boards and I am picking up tips as I go along.

tootallulah

Hi just nipping in to say that I read your diary and enjoy it. You are making such good progress, well done.

Happier_Me

Hi Toots - thanks for your post.

I read your diary as you have rental properties and this is something we're thinking of doing when this mortgage has gone. The hardest part of this journey for us is not really knowing what the plan is after we are mortgage free and this can affect our commitment at times. Lots of ideas but not sure which path we will take at the moment. Ideally we want to be able to retire in our mid 50's (17 years from now) somewhere sunny if the kids are independent by then, hence the need for a second income stream. At the same time slowing down in our early 40's and reducing our hours to spend more quality time as a family is very, very appealing.

Putting the possibility of redundancy and other disasters, this is a nice dilemma to have I suppose:D