The march to financial freedom

liltdiddylilt

Snow!! Jealous not really... I have things to do and snow does not fit in with these plans! It is only good to look at

Hope travel is not chaos and you make your meeting! Your dinner sounds fab. Lamb is my favourite but as it is so expensive a joint is usually Christmas dinner. This year a genius taught me how to freeze it in meal parcels and it is lovely to have it without the expense. Especially as the giant entire leg of lamb cost £6 at Xmas

xx

Ali-OK

Evening

Been a plodding couple of days, the snow mostly melted yesterday and none since. The highlights:

- Car tax renewal arrived, looking forward to doing that as it's zero band
- Had lunch with a friend today who had Clubcard vouchers, so a shared bill of £8 each for the remainder
- Cheapest travel ticket I can get for my London hospital appointment is £47 peak travel card, so need to buy that
- Doglet No.2 had her vacs tonight - £55 bill paid
- Whilst in town for lunch, popped £20 into DS's other new bank account, taking that to £25. Plan to just add odd bits to that as and when.

Financials:
- bank account checked and all good there - £13.36 credit interest added
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar card value £29.35 still
- Inbox Pounds up at £5.87
- Qmee - empty pot again

Still sorting phone/broadband as bill has arrived and they're trying to charge me line rental for half of Jan, when I'd paid the year in advance which took me up to 31st Jan. :mad: Phone call to them first thing tomorrow.

Can start hunting around for best gas deal and car insurance soon (both March).

Still working our way through Christmas chocolate - or more precisely DS has helped himself in the guise of 'helping me' :rotfl:

Found out that one stop north on the fast train line has property prices £30k cheaper than here - a BTL there looks a better buy. All in the name of research whilst pushing the savings pot up.

Hump Day over and it's fast downhill to the weekend :T

Ali-OK

There goes Thursday!

Work and food shop in Ald! today - spent £21.89 and pushed it forward a day from last week so am pleased with that.

Had a good tidy up tonight at home after batch spag bol and feel ahead for the weekend.

Just waiting for dates to tick over - CC statement due over the weekend, mortgage interest letter and annual statement both due mid next week I should think.

Still sorting phone/broadband, but paid the bill on its arrival this morning to get the 10% speedy payment discount and their Complaints department phoned me 3 times today (all whilst I was at the office). So will try and finally sort that tomorrow.

Very little else to report - weather here has been mixed - bit of snow first thing, then sleet then rain. Thick jumpers out and heating still sat on 19C.

Hope everyone else is fairing well.

liltdiddylilt

Hugs Ali - am struggling today but didn't want to read and run. Am impressed with your interest. I got just under that Next month... *rubs hands together* xxx

Ali-OK

Hey Lilty Get Well Soon :A

That interest is from Club Lloyds 4% gross on £5k - so doesn't go below that. Also got their Regular Saver (I think that's 4% too) and have £2,600 in there at the moment - I move between £200-£400 a month going in depending on other outgoings/income.

Makes a change for my "always banked with" bank to be paying one of the best rates

Ali-OK

Ooh a post with lots of figures in today

The first £100 SO transfer to DS's Reg Saver went this morning - so he has £200 in the Uni Fund

Business banking done and also banked £10 in 50p's from the Change Bucket - that's gone into the TT pot, plus did a TT of my current account for £4.51 online - TT pot now in 3 figures at £102.88 :j

Mortgage Interest letter arrived :T - £375.78 this month, down £2.41 on last month and down £34.56 a month to date (since 1/1/14). Great news that the £98,180 mortgage part now has interest below £10 a day. :j

Part 1 - £98,180 - Month Int £301.98 - Daily Int £9.93 :j
Part 2 - £24,000 - Month Int £73.80 - Daily Int £2.43

March will see the monthly interest on the large part under £300 and I've provisionally budgeted £830 capital to send to it. :j

I'm having a field day updating my spreadsheets with all the above :rotfl:

Brogden

Well done Ali

I love reading these posts :beer:

beanielou

All sounding good :j

liltdiddylilt

That is so amazing Ali, well done you!!! Must be so satisfying seeing that interest dipping down each month. i would be making them send me letters every day :rotfl: party for the postie!

As for Club Lloyds, I was always with them until I started my trek to try and get the best out of the bank. Eventually closed it as they were doing me no favours and it made me plenty of cash to do so. I might yet open a new one but might leave it a few months yet as I don't have the required capital to get the good rate yet, tiered as it is!! xx

Ali-OK

Cheers peeps

Will let you into a secret - I have two postmen - the one that delivers it through the letter box and the other called a Springer who normally collects from floor and delivers to me on the sofa

However, this morning he appeared with the interest letter in his mouth and the postman had not been.....so I suspect the letter arrived yesterday and he'd hidden it under my bed (usual place he puts pizza leaflets and taxi cards :rotfl:). He's very good at sorting the carp from the important mail, but not this time. I need to re-train him :rotfl:

So tonight whilst starting housework, I decided to move the bed out and hoover underneath it and check for anymore post - kill 2 birds with one stone as spring cleaning season coming fast - didn't find anymore post, but did manage to break the damn hose where it connects to the hoover :mad:

Lloyds with Vantage was a free account, used to pay well and I had 2 of them earning £7-8 a month. Club is £5 a month fee, waived if £1500 gets paid in which is ok for me, but can only have 1 of them. I've got a Spanish Bank 123 Account as the mortgage DD gets cycled through there, but not worth me moving all my DDs for the £2 charge and cashback as wouldn't get as much as at present because mortgage is IO and the capital part is a payment (and I'm not wasting £50 converting to repayment )

Need an account in June to put the Reg Saver pot into - prob TSB for the £2k at 5% as may need some of that pot for the summer holiday. Fall back is my ISA currently with £11.38 in it :rotfl: