our forever patch challenge

EatingTheElephant

Well done on getting the workshop roof completed, what a fantastic achievement,

Enjoy your celebrations this week.

sammy70

Today all bills paid, also £534 off roof costs, £300 overpayment to the mortgage, and £200 of p.bonds bought, so a good day :beer:

New mortgage balance until standard payment goes out on 1st October=£233,000
owing to roof=£8000
P.bonds held £14,350


Heres to a month of making as many savings as possible, to maximise overpayments :j

To start, we have just received a letter stating hubby is getting a cheque for £331 from Halifax, a refund on charges for his mortgage with his nightmare ex, as soon as that arrives, its going off the mortgage :T

Also, I'm awaiting a refund from westfield, £76 for hubby and is dental costs, that also is headed for overpayments..

right, off out in the sunshine:)

sammy70

Just finished housework, found an old receipt for vodaphone phone voucher an old colleague gave me ages ago as she had moved providers, tried it, and it gave me £10 bundle, 200 mins and unlimited texts for 30 days!:j and I thought it was rubbish for the fire!!

Tilly tidied my current accounts in preparation for October overpayment, I'm raring to go!:)

Ive done a meal plan for the next 14 days, so only fresh stuff and bits and bobs to buy for the next week or so, so savings to be made there too towards the mortgage.

Also, after numerous problems, ive managed to get out of the contract with bt, changed to plusnet saving us £20 a month!:T

sammy70

The direct debit of £1208.83 has gone out , leaving a balance of £232,201.02
the interest for September was £409.85, daily interest £13.66.

We have made an overpayment of £101.02

So the new balance is - £232,100 :j

the total overpayments we have now paid to date is- £4,650.62 :beer:

Heres to a frugal month of savings for mortgage freedom

sammy70

today, thanks to westfield paying back hubby and my dental costs claim, and a tilly tidy on the accounts, I managed an overpayment of £100, rounding our balance off to a neat £232,000 :beer:

Also, our savings in the premium bonds had a small £50 boost, we had a win of £50, and we have our prize money set to reinvest, so a new total of £14,400 in the bonds now :j

sammy70

well, had no phoneline or internet for a week!:eek:
Turns out, after all my ignored complaints to bt, that the wiring underground was badly worn/damaged, now its being repaired, I no longer have the crackling noise ive being complaining about since we moved in!
I called bt today regarding compensation, due to being overcharged for fibre broadband that we cant even get, the crackly line, and no phone etc due to damage, my months of calling them and not getting it sorted, and the indian call centre operator, after listening to it all, said best they could offer is £10.75!! I think not.. I'm now awaiting a call from a complaints person, apparently they will be call Saturday teatime, if they don't sort this fairly I will be taking it further, what a scandalous rip off, and rubbish customer service!

on a happier note, the £331 cheque has arrived, being cashed, and £100 paid off mortgage, £100 off roofing costs, and rest off credit card, so happy days!:j

Hubby and I spent last sunday log cutting, we now have all the pine trees chopped into logs, awaiting use in 2019 when they will be ready, sappy wood has to be left that long to dry/season, also we chopped pallets for enough sticks for weeks, and wood to last half of winter, we are wood wombles, collecting old pallets for sticks, and our fallen large beech tree branches for our collection, you cant beat free fuel! and log chopping burns the calories :rotfl:

sammy70

At last its the weekend :j hopefully the weather wil be warm as predicted so we can get some outdoor jobs up to date.

I'm really pleased with our wood stocks, and with careful planning we have enough wood and trees to never have to buy wood at all. We are lucky to have mature wooded areas on our land, quite a few need felling due to age and being damaged etc, we will start felling more in spring. Hubby is planning to build 2/3 wood stores in spring, so we can organise stored wood and use seasoned wood at the correct time.

Meal plan for the next ten days done, so only top up shop next week, grocery budget has gone to plan again this month, I'm sticking to the £80 weekly budget for all food, toiletries, dog and bird food, and cleaning products :T

sammy70

my little doggy had a stroke of luck last week, I always enter all competitions for freebies in the smallholding magazine we subscribe to, and we had our first win this week!:j well, pooch did, a large bag of expensive fancy dog food, retails at £49.99!!, so that's her grub sorted for the next month :j

sammy70

Not a lot to report this week on the money saving front, other than I might be in line for a promotion, which will lead to approx. £4-5k annual pay increase, I will be awaiting developments on this, and will report the outcome ..:)

Ive renewed my car insurance, stuck with my current provider as they came in cheapest after searching..

Next week is both hubby and my paydays, so I'm looking forward to a decent overpayment, and another lump paid back for the roofing costs, and also we will be buying another lot of premium bonds to add to our emergency fund savings pot:beer:

This month end finds me with £15 left in my purse, and the fridge/freezer full with at least 7-10 days worth of meals, so a good finish I think.

I will be looking in the future to purchase a deep freezer, then ideally I would like to plan and buy the months supply of meals, all cereal, cheese, literally everything we need , which would save time, and money. This will be a project to achieve in the next 12 months I reckon:)

I'm off to finish my household chores for today, followed by a walk with little doggy (she is loving the free food by the way!)
Happy weekend everyone :)

sammy70

today was hubbys payday, mine was 25th. After all the bills were paid, I bought us another £250 of premium bonds, we now have a total of £14,650 :beer:

I paid £413.97 off roof costs

And best of all, a massive £400 overpayment to the mortgage :j the new balance now is £231,500 :T

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the promotion will happen, but I'm staying positive, I'm looking at other ways to raise extra funds to overpay ..:):)

The new total for overpayments since we started , 28th November 2016 is- £5,250.67 :T:D