Attempting to pay off our mortgage for a bigger house! :)

Gillybean

Sounds good, glitter!

Nice one re the shoes, they cost a fortune, don't they? I've got 2 boys who are growing so fast I can't keep up!

I have got a diary somewhere, I'll bump it up for you.

glitterjunkie

Aww how old are your boys Gillybean? I know the feeling I spend a fortune on clothes for DS, planning to go to the Next sale at 5am this boxing day and get all his next size up wardrobe!

Another pretty good few days money-wise god bless my OH I went downstairs this morning to discover he had cycled to work at 5.30am instead of getting his usual taxi (Iwe only have 1 car between us and I need it to take DS to the childminder somedays)... looks like my renewed efforts are rubbing off on him,hehe. God love him I dont begrudge him a taxi at that time in the morning. I made a packed lunch for work again too but forgot to get anything out for tea, must nip to Aldi on way home to avoid the takeaway temptation! I spent £6.50 on a dress in the sale in New Look to wear on Christmas day, very chuffed as I'd previously bought it for full price £23 a few weeks ago but returned it as I felt guilty!

glitterjunkie

Forgot to add yesterday also spent 40p on the Sun newspaper for the £5 Aldi voucher it had in it, and planning a big Aldi shop on Saturday, will be interesting to see how much I can get in there compared to our usual tesco/asda. Quite excited, how sad is that ha.

Also spent 50p on the Mirror paper first as got mixed up and thought the voucher was in there oops!

Had a letter through to say my driving licence photo needs renewing so that will be £20... feel quite annoyed at this enforced spending when im doing so well!

glitterjunkie

Well we fell off the wagon a wee bit last night and got a takeaway and a few drinks, feel a bit guilty now haha... however not too guilty, I want us to still enjoy ourselves too at the same time as trying to make savings wherever possible got a wwedding night do to attend tonight too which will be an expensive one by time we have paid for drinks, money in a card etc, but worth it just going to have to double our Moneysaving efforts to pay for it all. Im thinking of switching to Firstdirect bank account for the £ 100 bonus to put towards an OP, need to look into it.

Got my £10 Tesco voucher through from the Sun for doing the £1 free trial (which ive now cancelled) and also cancelled our home phone and broadband which we NEVER use, got to pay next month as a notice period but will be £20-odd a month saved after that = £240 a year! Amazing how these little sums add up.

Have a lovely weekend everyone x

gallygirl

glitterjunkie wrote: »

Im thinking of switching to Firstdirect bank account for the £ 100 bonus to put towards an OP, need to look into it.

If you make it a joint account you can open 2 x regular savers at 6%. Even after tax that's likely to beat your mortgage rate :T

glitterjunkie

Oh thanks Gallygirl I'll look into that, I didn't think 6% existed these days! I think I'd rather pay our OP's directly to our mortgage lender each month rather than putting them into a savings account, as I'm a terrible one for dipping into savings (I could never be disciplined enough for an offset mortgage!)... we are on a 4.84% fixed rate so not much difference. However we do save a regular amount of £400 a month, so I will definitely look into the Firstdirect savings account for that

Had a VERY 'spendy' few days... two big nights out with friends this week :beer: and OH has gone mad with the credit cards for last minute Xmas presents! Had a fab weekend though We will defo be having a quiet January to make up for this month's overspending, as the credit card will need paying off out of next month's 'spending' money. We don't tend to go out much usually, it's only with it being Christmas. Oh also our tumble dryer is playing up, came home today to find the timer had got stuck so instead of switching itself off after 90 mins it had been going for 5 hours... ouch! Dread to think how much electric that's used :eek: at least the clothes were properly dry haha. I wish I could find an alternative to the TD, but I just cant get the clothes dry without it... our toddler creates a lot of washing!

On the plus side I did my first ever 'big shop' at Aldi today, using a Sun £5 off voucher... Cupboards are all nicely stocked up now and I reckon I've saved at least £30 on what the same things would have cost in my usual supermarket. Hope they pass the taste test now! Also found a bag with a broken clasp that I was going to chuck out and replace, gave it to OH's dad who is fab at fixing things and he's sorted it good as new!

Thought I'd post my monthly SOA while on the computer...

IN
Tax credits 100
Net income from work (joint) 2283
Child benefit 81.20

Total 2464.20

OUT -
Mobile phone bills x2- 60
Childcare for DS 308
TV licence 12.43
Council tax 105
Life insurance 15.81
DS's account 20
Gas/electric 119
Water rates 20.59
Mortgage fixed rate 285
Mortgage overpayment 385
Christmas savings club £30
Car maintenance/petrol/insurance £100
Savings £400 (this pays for unexpected bills, buildings/contents insurance in full annually, house mainenance etc)
Groceries and ALL other spending (including going out, birthdays etc) £603.37

I think I've cut our outgoings down as much as possible, I've recently cancelled home phone, broadband and trade union membership (only needed since OH's previous employers were so awful!) saving £350 a year. The only things I can think to chop down further are our mobile phone bills, but we're both tied into contracts for another year. Childcare is our biggest bill as we both work full time but can't do much about that... can't wait until DS is entitled to 15 hours free when he's 3, although we'd like another baby not long after that so the whole thing will start again, lol. The main area I want to try and make savings is our groceries and general spending, and any savings we make there can be put into more OP's!

Getting excited for January now when I will be making our first ever OP! :j

glitterjunkie

To do list...

[STRIKE]1. Cancel home phone and broadband, weekly Graze boxes and trade union membership[/STRIKE]
2. Set up direct debit of £385 a month to overpay mortgage starting from January
3. Cancel credit cards...(to do in March after cashback anniversary date)
4. Cancel tax credits claim, as I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be entitled to them anymore now OH has a new job... I've told them about it and they insist we are, but I've had this before with them and ended up having to repay £400 they'd overpaid us! :mad:
5. Speak to work about getting childcare vouchers taken out of my wages instead (which should work out roughly the same as tax credits with the tax/NI saving, without all the hassle!)
6. Try to do more grocery shopping at Aldi - have started this!
7. Make wills! Been meaning to do this for ages
8. Close a few unused accounts, including Next credit account which I only have for the VIP sale slots, but I have fallen out with them after not getting one this year it only encourages me to spend anyway so probably a good thing!
9. Have a good clearout for Ebay... probably best to wait until Feb for this, I think Jan is pretty quiet on there?

pavlovs_dog

We too make good use of the Aldi vouchers. A tip we've picked up from here which we'll try later in the year (once we've made a dent in the Armageddon food stores ) is to buy two papers, using one voucher on the first day of validity and the second on the last. Frontloading these shops with storecupboard/freezeable buys should in turn help reduce spends later in the month.

glitterjunkie

Thanks pavlovsdog that's a great idea, I will definitely be doing that next time

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, we certainly have, lovely time with family and DS has been spoiled rotten I did a Christmas Eve buffet for everyone entirely with food from Aldi, fed 11 adults and 2 kids for about £30 (usually would spend £50) and it was all lovely, not much left over so a big thumbs up to the quality of Aldi food! New years resolution to give up one of my fortnightly Tesco online orders and do a big shop at Aldi once a month instead

I did go to the Next sale in-store on Boxing Day and spent £125, got 16 things for DS 4 things for DH and only 1 for me lol. I dont feel too guilty though as its been planned as DDS does need some new clothes in the next size up. £30 was vouchers and £50 was paid for by a generous gift from the in-laws so only £45 'actual money' to come out of the spending account also ordered a lovely dress from Next online for £60 reduced from £125 which I am really pleased about as saw it a few weeks ago and was hoping would go inthe sale. It will be worth it if its nice as can be worn for 2 separate weddings we are going to in 2014 and 2015 = £30 per outfit its a 4-week delivery time so can be paid out of January's spending money other than that I' haven't bothered with the sales at all, there's nothing we need now that DS is kitted out for clothes so avoiding temptation!

Did a shop at Mr T's yesterday and managed to get a £79 basket down to £32 with a combination of multibuys, vouchers and Clubcard Boost vouchers so pretty pleased with that! (Would have been £22 if id remembered to spend the £10 Sun giftcard but never mind it will keep for next time)

Did a little bit of batch cooking yesterday, just did double the amount of a curry we were making for tea, and got 6 meals for DS in the freezer and 2 meals for DH to take to work, going to do more today my job for this week is to meal-plan for January. I want to work out the cost-per-serving on the meals we usually eat and see if there's a way to make them any cheaper. I think I need to set aside 1 morning per month for a meal-planning, shopping and cooking morning!

We are still on track to do our first OP of £385 on 10th Jan as long as I keep up the good work, determined to do it! We will be having a quiet January like most people after going out alot in December, and OH is working nights on NYE so il be staying home with DS and watching telly lol... so hoping for quite a few NSD's! Xx

glitterjunkie

Good start to OP's, just had an email to say ive reached the spending amount for 20, 000 bonus points on my AMEX card, so just ordered a £100 giftcard since this can be used in Asda/Tesco I can put £100 extra cash from the grocery money towards an OP next month