pickle me's diary

eco_farmer

brilliant post,well done you, no doubt that your reduced debt and positive cash flow position has meant you have a better mortgage deal. will you over pay now?


eco

pickle_me

Thank you my friend Overpaying the mortgage is definitely part of the long-term plan but first I want to build up a decent cushion of savings. Once we've got some savings behind us we can think about what to do with the money we've saved - I want us to take the girls to Disneyworld in a few years, my husband has a student loan to pay off and of course there's the mortgage. Plenty of ways to spread our money around ...

pickle_me

I'm considering a no-spend challenge for October (or until I get paid at any rate). I had a lovely day yesterday with my eldest, whose school had an inset day, so we went into town and I bought her some much-needed new shoes and clothes. Totally justifiable but great fun too! I also got a new dress for myself (£28 reduced to £15, thank you Dotty P) with my birthday money and a top from H&M for £14 So I rather feel I've had my big splurge out of this pay packet and should get back to my conservative ways.

I have the following to pay for this month:

Groceries £300-350 (can I stick to £60 per week?)
Music lesson (mine!) £50
Present for littlest's best friend's birthday £8
Might have to chip in for petrol at some point

I may also buy some Christmas presents, just to spread the cost a bit. Otherwise I'm going to see how many no-spend days I can manage until next pay day. So no more new clothes, for a start!

mfmaybe

NSDs are a really good "focusser" for me (made up word ). I had one today, although it's easier when I am working from home; but on days I am in the office they can save me £6, between lunch and coffee.

Great news on your mortgage deal. Your improved credit position will have definitely made a difference to the quality of offers you were eligible for :T.

pickle_me

Thanks mfmaybe I work from home every day so have no excuse really - it should be easy for me to have no-spend days. In theory!

Anyway - no spend day yesterday, and also today.

I'm becoming slightly obsessed with my freezer. My mum gave me a really good cookbook a while back - Freeze by Justine Pattison - which is not just about dishes you can freeze, but dishes you can make from frozen food (like frozen strips of meat to throw into stirfries), and most usefully it's a general guide to freezing. What you can freeze, what you can't, how to do it, how to defrost it (safely!) As a result I'm finding it harder and harder to throw anything away - if I think I can freeze it, I will!

In the freezer I have the following homemade dishes: pizza, chicken nuggets, lentil pie, chilli, bolognese sauce, rice pudding and cottage pie; plus loads of different veg, chicken pieces, soup, sausages, fishfingers, chips, ghastly potato shapes for the kids, ice lollies, breadcrumbs, onion rings, garlic bread ... yeah, it's a big freezer. I may have to slow down a bit and make sure we actually eat some of the food that's in it now :rotfl:

It's a good feeling though, knowing I have all this food tucked away. Hopefully it will help me stick to my £60 weekly food budget this month ...

pickle_me

I have been waiting and waiting to update my figures - waiting for this month's Barclaycard statement - but it hasn't arrived yet, although my husband and I are both pouncing on the post when it comes through the door ... anyway, here is September, for posterity:

September 2014: £757.89 / £2815.54 / £3069.69 Total £6643.12

Barclaycard is dead and gone and we have only two active credit cards :j Hallelujah. This time a year ago I had just discovered the extent of our debt and we had a huge mountain ahead of us. A year later here we are - what a year it's been. It feels brilliant to be here now.

Our new mortgage rate is now confirmed and we have a new 5-year fixed rate. I've been playing with figures today and I'm starting to get a serious attack of the mortgage-free-wannabes My goal is for us to pay off £6k per year over the next 5 years; that will mean by the time our mortgage fix ends we'll be £30k down. And if we can do that ... my next goal would be to increase our overpayments to £1k per month, which would all but wipe out the mortgage in a little over 10 years from now. That would be a m a z i n g. I'm being a bit head-in-the-clouds now but actually it's not beyond the realms of possibility - my earnings should only go up from here on, as the kids get older I can increase my hours and I have a grip on our finances now that I am not going to relinquish It's good to have a plan, right?

I'm not doing too badly with no spend days so far this month, although I've gone a bit over with the food budget for the last couple of weeks. We had my parents round for dinner last week (a thank you for giving us some expensive concert tickets) and have the whole family round for lunch tomorrow; I always forget that entertaining makes it impossible to stick to the budget I'll have to try particularly hard to stick to it for the rest of the month ...

pickle_me

Would you look at my beautiful new signature?!

in_need_of_direction

Great progress. Well done

dottyanne

Wow pickle, fantastic progress on the cards - we'll done

pickle_me

Thanks so much INOD and Dottyanne I really appreciate your support.

Well, the money comes in, and the money goes out. We sold the second car on ebay for £150 - we were doubtful of getting anything at all and at one point were considering giving it to the local fire station to use for training, so I'm very pleased with this. Particularly since our main (now only) car has cost us so much this week - £185 for new tyres, £220 for a full service (long overdue ), £55 for the MOT and £100+ (can't remember the exact figure) for new brake pads. Ouch. Thank god we can now pay the car tax monthly by direct debit.

Once again, a month when I thought I'd have a bit spare draws to a close and I have !!!!!! all - you'd think I'd have learnt by now :rotfl: As ever I remind myself that the debt is steadily decreasing, this won't be forever. But Christmas is fast approaching and with it all the presents to buy ... I'm trying to keep myself on a (clothes) spending embargo until Christmas - last January I had absolutely no money to spend in the January sales and it made a long miserable month even more long and miserable. This year I've promised myself I can buy a few things - if I don't buy anything in the run-up to Christmas ...