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

Cheery_Daff

Don't blame you for not watching the rugby this morning! :rotfl: Enjoy Pizza Express though

EssexHebridean

We didn't do Pizza Express in the end Cheery - just came home and had scrambled eggs and toast instead! :rotfl: Seemed to fit the requirement of reining spends in a bit rather better, too!

Well I've just had one of those lovely productive feeling lunchtimes. Checked our energy comparison as our electricity tariff is approaching the end - confirmed that as the next cheapest supplier for our gas would be £33 a year more, and we currently only spend about £25 a year on gas, we're staying with Ebico for that, and have also decided to stay with Flow for the electricity but just switch to their new fix - which should be *slightly* cheaper than our current prices I think. Yes prices might fall, and yes there were a few suppliers out there who would have been cheaper, but at least we know where we stand until April 2017 now, and as the other suppliers were either brand new with no feedback, or Scottish Power who were awful and we don't want to go back to, we're quite happy with that.

While on a roll I logged into the clubcard account, exchanged £15 in vouchers for a code for our Two-together railcard which needs renewing soon, and dealt with that too - the email with the code came straight through, and the railcard is now on its way to us. :T

This week will see another trip to Scampton - heading up tomorrow evening and will stay at Claire's overnight. Pub beckons tomorrow evening too - it's turned into quite a crowd of us heading down there now and we have such a laugh so I'm happy to be spending on that. Photography will happen on Thursday and I'll drive straight back once they finish flying for the day.

Spent £40 at the farmers market but got masses for that so that will hopefully see us through with meat for the month. The flipping freezer is full again though - so much for trying to run it down a bit! :rotfl:

Clicks and OnePoll....

EssexHebridean

OK....due to be paid today I *hope* - no idea what they're doing with it with the 28th which is officially payday being Sunday....we'll see what lands, hopefully my payslip when we get the post otherwise I'll deliver a gentle nudge later.

Other money related stuff:

Dinner in the pub the other night was a bargainous £13.80 and that included a drink so all good there. Lunched in there yesterday too as we were utterly frozen and needed a warm-up - that was £10. All paid cash so that doesn't exist any more for budget purposes. The weekend has NO plans that involve spending money aside from routine shopping - if we get out early enough tomorrow we'll pop to the market as well as that place beginning with T...

Dinner tonight is sorted and will not be a takeaway in spite of the fact that I'm working today...the lure of tatties, cream, bacon and raclette cheese proved to strong even to tempt me in the direction of the chinese!

Railcard has arrived - just need to open and check it's OK then they can go in my purse in replacement for the expiring one.

Need to think about food for the next week -
Tomorrow: lunch me only something random from the freezer. Tea - cheese & crackers
Sunday: Lunch slow roast shoulder of mutton, veggies, roasties, etc. Tea probably toasted crumpets.
Monday: Warm salad - bacon & cheese.
Tuesday: Steak & kidney pudding & veg
Wednesday: Morrocan style mutton & couscous
Thursday: Me out, Mr EH Omelette.

Heading to Scampton again at the end of next week if all goes to plan...last trip before the boys head off to Greece so want to get there if I can. Can't stay at my pals as she's on nights so Travelodge booked - through TCB (if it tracks that's 10% cashback) and a discount code used so £33.30 for that, and it's flexible so if I need to cancel it I can, as I don't know their flying programme for next week yet that makes sense. Assuming I am up there we'll be pubbing Thursday evening again. :D:beer: After that they'll be gone for 7 weeks so I don't mind one last blow-out!

EssexHebridean

Apologies - airshow season got in the way again!

Reason for popping in now is that as the eagle-eyed may have spotted from my Signature (and Mrs Stripes already knows!) we achieved our aim of becoming mortgage free this morning. Very VERY exciting - that's 12 years early and after 8 years of overpaying.

:D:D:D:D

Greying_Pilgrim

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Reason for popping in now is that as the eagle-eyed may have spotted from my Signature (and Mrs Stripes already knows!) we achieved our aim of becoming mortgage free this morning. Very VERY exciting - that's 12 years early and after 8 years of overpaying.

:D:D:D:D

Saw Martin :money: had re-tweeted you earlier :T:T Bravo :T:T

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Thanks Greying - I think it's gradually sinking in!

EssexHebridean

Hmmm...musing on new diary, or continue with this one. Without even a mortgage now, I do feel a bit of a fraud being here so I guess a lot depends on whether you lovely lot are happy at me continuing to camp out on your "patch"? For now I'll presume (how presumptuous!) that you are, and will witter a bit here, I think...

Feels very odd having "done it" - the immediate feeling on Friday was "Whoooooohhhh!" but on saturday morning I woke with a weird feeling of anticlimax....a combination I think of a slightly odd reaction from a friend - or rather a complete lack of reaction. I know she saw the message saying we'd done it - as it was sent to a group of people, others have replied, and she has participated in chat amongst the group since, but not even a flicker of congratulations fro here, not even an acknowledgement. I know her situation isn't easy - she rents, not necessarily through choice - and I can only assume that it is that which has made her choose to note even say "well done" - but it's still hurtful. This is someone who I would have regarded as a really good friend, someone I choose to spend time with. Actually that may now have to change to "chose" to spend time with, as I'm unsure how I feel about things now. I simply cannot think of a single situation which would make me fail to say "Oh well done - that's fabulous!" to someone in that situation, regardless of how - dare I say it - jealous, I felt of them. It probably shouldn't have done, but it's take the gloss off it, somewhat.

I do feel the need of some new challenges. I've already made mention of them on my blog, and the first of them was financial - To replace the money we have taken from savings to pay the lump sum off the mortgage.. We've already re-jigged our financial shufflings a little ready for next month, a very small amount extra in personal spending money (£20 each). An increase of £25 to our "joint fun" account each month - this covers a meal out about once a month, and other odds and ends - travel to get to places, admission fees for days out, that sort of thing. And £25 to a new account which is currently simply labelled "Food" - that will cater for the increase in food budget we have decided on - and will deal with things like Farmers Market trips, the occasional bulk-meat purchase of a meat box or a whole lamb, for example. So, essentially, in our new "Mortgage free" status, the last of the big spenders are increasing budgets by, ummm...£90. That's it. God we know how to live. :rotfl:

Actually though, that's just it - we DO know how to live. And we know how to do it well, but while making our money work for us, rather than by scattering it about. that's what this whole thing has been about, after all.

We have some planned spending coming up - we're heading to the Hebrides for Christmas week. It's long been in my mind that at some stage I wanted to be away from home over Christmas - as an only child the only christmas I've ever known is with my parents, and other family members. I don't want the first one that is different to be because they are no longer with me. The flights, hotel the night before we fly from Glasgow, and parking for our car at Glasgow airport are already paid for, and the car hire over there is budgeted for and will come from our "Virtual Sealed Pot" savings from the year. We'll need relatively little spending money. The cottage we're renting will be paid for from the money we're not spending on the mortgage payment that month.

We've got some weekends away planned and coming up - our usual trip to Birmingham for the Good Food Show - spending money for THAT is saved for monthly throughout the year and is sitting in the account waiting for us. Accommodation is Travelodge and is paid for. (And I found a discount code to save us £11 off the 2 night stay - go me!) In the New Year there is our regular trip to Manchester Beer Festival - accommodation for that is booked and paid for, train tickets need buying later this month, when they become available at the cheap price. We'll book the cheapest we can and use our Two Together railcard for a saving. There's a few other bits too.

I still intend to do all the things that have got us to this position in the first place. Meal planning, cooking from scratch, keeping an eye for bargains and making sure stuff gets used up. That's all common sense to me. It wasn't, once, but now it's second nature. We don't just "go shopping" or "go for a wander around the shops" now. We've got no intention of starting. When we want to buy something, we save for it, then buy it. We shop about for deals, buy decent quality but don't pay for brand names or labels where there are equivalents that are as good, or better. MSE has got us here, and it will keep up here for the next stage of the adventure - and THAT is why I want to stick about.

Greying_Pilgrim

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I guess a lot depends on whether you lovely lot are happy at me continuing to camp out on your "patch"?

EssexHebridean wrote: »

MSE has got us here, and it will keep up here for the next stage of the adventure - and THAT is why I want to stick about.

I can only speak for myself; although as Baby Greying is here s quirming on my lap, they can vote too, but I hope you stay EH. You ARE living what you know, you are actively demonstrating how 'rich' a life can be led without necessarily needing to throw cash at it, and most certainly without needing to go into debt for it. You are also very, very supportive of new (and not so new ) users of the site. So the vote from Greying Towers is...... STAY

It's a shame that your friend chose to say nothing about your super achievement. Kind words cost nothing. And despite us being wise enough to know better, it does hurt. I was lucky enough to bump into one of my 'nice' neighbours on Monday, after my incident with a stranger. It's amazing how much of a balm their wise words of confirmation; 'that's just ****ing rude' were at the time.......

Stick around here with us lot. Us who appreciate the hard work that goes into debt repayment of any description, and who also appreciate how hard it is to stay 'debt free' longer term. We can all pick up tips from each other if we carry on sharing.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Noted GP (And BG, who definitely gets an opinion and a vote, I say!) - and unless anyone happens along and says "No! Gerroff our laaaaand!" I'll stick about then!

And on the subject, thank you for YOUR kind words too - although I think there is someone over on the main DFW board currently who thinks I'm being anything other than supportive, but there you go... :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

<sneaks in to say... I'm also both debt and mortgage free and nobody's kicked me off yet... and I'm FAR more frivolous in my spending than you are... shh.... :rotfl: >

As for your pal, what a shame she's not congratulated you. But don't let it ruin your achievement! I think that some people just don't necessarily recognise that type of thing as an achievement (although obviously I know nowt about your friend and what she thinks!) I know when we paid ours off (and that *wasn't* an achievement other than just Mr Cheery living long enough to pay it for 25 years :rotfl: ) nobody was very interested at all :rotfl: If you don't have a mortgage, mortgages can seem very dull I think Who knows. Hope she comes round, please don't let it ruin your celebrations (or your friendship!)