EH - Keeping on track. (AKA focus Woman! FOCUS!)

EssexHebridean

Ummmm...feels very odd doing this again after a break of, errrr, several years, but I've been musing about it a lot and decided the time is right (and the place even more so) for a new diary.

Some of you already know me, some know me worryingly well (Mrs Stripes McRG I'm looking at YOU!) and some of you are thinking "who? Never bl**dy heard of her!" so I shall do the polite thing and a brief introduction...

Been lurking around these 'ere boards for a few years now - Londoner, no longer able to refer to myself as a thirty-something. Living with MrEH in Essex as we decided we wanted to buy somewhere to live and London is full of rich non-natives shoving the house prices up. So - Essex for where I am now, Hebridean for where I aim to be in a few years time - that's the final target. Before that though there is a mortgage to be paid off (yes, I know that's *technically* a MFW thing, but you lot are friendlier and don't whinge if I buy a penny sweet as a treat rather than making a 1p o/p to the mortgage. :rotfl:) I'm a keen photographer too - purely amateur, but I am about to blow a carefully saved sum of money on a new lens. I've not done it yet because the sum in question is scaring me. got a website and a blog with photos on if anyone's interested - link in my profile I think.

Currently debt-free thankfully, well, apart from that mortgage of course. We've been overpaying that for a few years now and have already knocked 5 years off the original end date - if we can carry on as we are we're on target for another 5 getting knocked off before we're done. I'll witter more about that another time though.

Standard second post to follow with aims, targets and goals....

If you've got this far, well done, feel free to award yourself a gold star.

EssexHebridean

So - the plan for this year:

To be more organised.
To procrastinate less (the joke of this is I've spent several weeks debating about starting this diary - go figure!)
To OP as much as we can to the mortgage until we hit our 10% limit...
...and to have an additional £5,000 in the "Overpayments waiting to happen" savings account by the end of the year. *gulp*
To whittle away at household spends again seeing where further savings can be made.
To have replaced the savings I'm spending on the stupidly expensive camera lens by the end of the year.
Walking - lots of walking. This is to include the entire London section of the Thames path, and all the circular Jubilee Walkway walks, as well as at least one proper hill when we're in the Hebrides.
Shop "supermarket free" at least one week of each month.
Continue to buy local, free range etc wherever possible. (Even I accept that free range bananas are impossible to acquire!)

And, specific to this month:
As many NSD's as I can - I wanted to aim for 20 but that's not going to happen. Let's see how close I get.
Grocery shopping under £75 for the month.
[STRIKE]Kick Sky into touch - they either need to reduce their cost, or they'll be history![/STRIKE] DONE - £15 reduction per month.

Pippilongstocking

Dons shiny gold star :-)

Two things love - maybe three.

FOCUS a plenty

CHEESE galore

ADVENTURES of epic variety and funfilled

oh and GOODLUCK.

Ps I'm going for £100 groceries for the hounds and the dd and the resident musician- we'll see..... I took out 'REAL MONEY' - shudders.

*subcribes*

cazmanian_minx

Subscribed here and added your blog to my RSS feed

What's the lens, so I can drool vicariously?

EssexHebridean

Cheers Stripes - glad I'm going to have company on foolish grocery challenges - must make sure we budget for cheese!

Caz - it's the Canon 100-400mm - Been saving for 18 months and finally there - just got to get the nerve to buy it! looking forward to having it for some Airshow action this summer!

Step one achieved today - checked out alternative TV/Internet/Phone packages online, realised pretty fast that BT are really going for it at he moment, advertising absolutely everywhere, and that their package at the same level as our current Sky one would beat Sky's price by £15. Phoned through to Sky - spoke first with the Upgrades/downgrades department to go through the motions of "seeing where we could make savings" - and when they failed, asked to be out through to disconnections...had a chat with a lovely lady who pretty quickly came up with their current offer which - surprise surprise - is aimed to prevent people leaving to go to BT. :rotfl: We now have a small reduction off the TV cost, a larger one off the line rental, and free broadband for 12 months. :T £15 a month saved which can go against the mortgage OP's.

As starts go, I'm quite pleased with that one!

starnac

Hello *pulls up chair and gets out the crackers ready for all the cheese *

A new diary. How lovely. I've subscribed now so you can't lose me *evil laugh* ask Pippi she'll tell you how hard I am to lose

Good luck with your goals. X

Greying_Pilgrim

Ay up! :hello:

Greying duly claims gold star

Thank goodness - *finally* - someone who can take and put up a decent photo :j I can retire my point & squirt now :D

Good luck with all your aims - I know you'll achieve them, with a bucket load of belly laughs and a few :beer: along the way :j

Looking forward to Focus, Zoom and the whole dang *fish-eye* perspective of your shiny, new diary

Greying

EssexHebridean

starnac wrote: »

Hello *pulls up chair and gets out the crackers ready for all the cheese *

A new diary. How lovely. I've subscribed now so you can't lose me *evil laugh* ask Pippi she'll tell you how hard I am to lose

Good luck with your goals. X

I went all the way to Scotland and found you, so I can imagine! ;-)

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Ay up! :hello:

Greying duly claims gold star

Thank goodness - *finally* - someone who can take and put up a decent photo :j I can retire my point & squirt now :D

Good luck with all your aims - I know you'll achieve them, with a bucket load of belly laughs and a few :beer: along the way :j

Looking forward to Focus, Zoom and the whole dang *fish-eye* perspective of your shiny, new diary

Greying

I have to confess to having awful problems with putting pics up on here - how embarrassing eh?! :rotfl:

There will definitely be beer. Which means we'll get to see Pippi's "Beer Face" - very entertaining, is that!

Darn it, now with all you lot subscribing I really have got to stick to this lark, haven't I?! :eek:

EssexHebridean

Morning! Well we ended up compounding a speedy day yesterday into a VERY speedy one - but all planned, so not bad.

Shopping in the morning - Mr EH was near to L*dl so got milk from there! and we used our new local greengrocers for some odds and ends of fruit and veg. Also popped into the fabulous bakers we're lucky to have a few miles away to buy a loaf of their pricey but tasty bread. total spend on groceries this week is £8.68 :T

Popped out in the afternoon as we'd run out of tea lights - as well as looking lovely candles lit work surprisingly well for boosting the warmth in our front room. Got a couple of bags of those and a bottle of screen wash from B&M - total price £2.99, and also a couple of jar candles - big ones - reduced from elsewhere, and we used a £5 love to shop voucher for those too so they only cost us 98p. The vouchers were a Christmas present and we still have £15 of them left.

I decided to double check if the ferry company that go to the Hebrides had launched their summer timetable and tickets yet and they had - great news for us as it means our holiday ferries are all booked ready for May - £152.10 booked there which was under what I'd budgeted - and we also grabbed the chance to book a Premier Inn for our journey break for the way up - £29 for one of their saver rooms. The stop for the way back will wait for now as it's a Travelodge we need for that and their prices aren't keen enough quite yet.

The ferry tickets have been paid on the cashback card and the money will be transferred from the holiday account when the bill comes in, and I'll need to do the £29 transfer for the premier Inn next time I'm in the banking. Always lovely to feel we've started getting somewhere towards holiday booking though! :j

Souk08

Just popping in to say hello and great to see that you've got bits of your holiday sorted already :jAlways a good feeling. :T

Liking the grocery budget and the goals. :money:x

lionheartedgirl

ooh a few old/friendly faces in here think I will tag along too

not sure I will make the Hebrides this year but will definitely be spending a fair bit of time - as much as possible - in the far north :j

Happy New Year EH X