Finally have a mortgage now to try and get rid of it asap

egoode

Well I haven't had a good start to the day forgot to bring my lunch in which I had actually remembered to make last night. Although I did make lasagne's yesterday so freezer is fully stocked for the few nights I'll have at home in the next month. Also just realised the other insurance agent I called about income protection insurance never called me back so I'm guessing he couldn't help me out either.


Mortgage payment came out yesterday and I've just realised I'm paying £18.30 a day in interest :eek:. However the good news is my offset savings have already saved me £295.16 to date and has taken 16 days off my mortgage end date I think that's not too bad considering I only started my mortgage in August.

Can't do too much money shifting until January as I only get my dividends quarterly but hopefully I'll be able to add something to the offset account then.

katep23

Hi there, just been reading your diary. Sounds like you are going into this with the right idea and good news you have already reduced your term!


We're about to be in a similar situation. We're buying a house (due to complete next Friday!) which needs a lot of work doing which we will pay for as we go along so save up, do a bit. We've also gone for an offset for this reason, we can't overpay for the time being but at least our savings will held reduce the term.


Will read your diary with interest!

egoode

Hi Katep23, I'm glad you are enjoying the diary. I'm never quite sure if anyone's interested in my rambling thoughts!

egoode

Had a bit of a big night last night and not feeling like doing too much work so thought I would come on here for a bit.

I worked at home yesterday so remembered to eat my forgotten lunch from Tuesday for lunch yesterday. I'm back in the office today and actually remembered to bring my lunch today which is amazing as I was quite hung over when I woke up this morning.

I've been getting lots of texts lately from Carphone Warehouse as apparently my contract has finished and they want me to upgrade to a new phone. I currently have an iPhone 5 which I'm quite happy with and it's working fine so I won't be upgrading but I do need to go and find out if I can reduce my monthly costs now that I'll soon be out of contract. I think they have a shop near my office so hoping to go later this afternoon and see what they can recommend.

London18

You are doing so much better than me on lunches and dinners! My diet's been terrible for weeks, mainly thanks to insane hours and workload -I ate a plate of canteen chips for lunch at 3.30pm today, the first chance I got to take a break. Sigh.

Re your mobile have you looked at GiffGaff. They have some good sim only deals as do Tesco. It's definitely worth some time to search around if you don't need to change the handset.

Hopefully my shiny new Samsung arrives tomorrow. So that's the weekend gone trying to work out how to use it!

egoode

London18 wrote: »

You are doing so much better than me on lunches and dinners! My diet's been terrible for weeks, mainly thanks to insane hours and workload -I ate a plate of canteen chips for lunch at 3.30pm today, the first chance I got to take a break. Sigh.

Well not sure I'm entirely doing well with the food. The last 2 nights I've been out and had lots of drinks and eaten 3 courses. Luckily though one of the meals was paid for by work

London18 wrote: »

Re your mobile have you looked at GiffGaff. They have some good sim only deals as do Tesco. It's definitely worth some time to search around if you don't need to change the handset.

Thanks for this, I went to Carphone Warehouse yesterday and as I didn't want a new handset they didn't seem that interested and told me just to call my current provider which is O2 but I'll check out Giff Gaff and Tesco as well.

egoode

It's almost been a week since my last post so thought I better check-in. I've had a really busy week with more Christmas drinks and dinners last night I had 2 functions to go to and I have another one tonight. Thankfully all but 1 were work related functions I didn't have to pay for them and the one dinner I did pay for wasn't overly expensive

On the weekend I had a look around for a sim-only mobile deal that would work for me and it looks like O2 may be the winner as they are my current carrier and the only one that beat them was only £1 difference and I'm not sure I could be bother with sorting out the switch between carriers for such a small amount. However I haven't seem to be able to speak to O2 about doing the switch yet. I tried calling and gave up after being on hold for about 30 mins, I also tried online with no luck so thinking I'll have to go into one of their stores and see if they can help there. I've still got a bit of time as my contract runs until the end of December but that's also when I go away to Canada and the US so would like it sorted before then.

Also it looks like the move for my gas from British Gas to EDF has gone through successfully. I got my final bill from British Gas and been told my direct debit with EDF has been set up so seems to have gone really smoothly with little effort on my part other than submitting a meter reading.

Not much else happening Money Saving wise at the moment just wishing I could have a bit more sleep but looking forward to working from home tomorrow and may sneak in an afternoon nap. I think I might have a duvet weekend (need more than a day!) as I'm back out having a couple more Xmas dinners on the Monday and Tuesday.

Pushkin

egoode wrote: »

However I haven't seem to be able to speak to O2 about doing the switch yet. I tried calling and gave up after being on hold for about 30 mins, I also tried online with no luck so thinking I'll have to go into one of their stores and see if they can help there. I've still got a bit of time as my contract runs until the end of December but that's also when I go away to Canada and the US so would like it sorted before then.

I have had similar experiences when trying speak to Vodafone (queue time of 30 minutes). I find it very ironic that it is such a nightmare to contact companies which make their money providing communication :rotfl:

egoode

Been a while since I updated. I've got a cold at the moment which is making me feel quite under the weather. Probably have it from too many nights out in December! I'm hoping it clears before Christmas.

It's not been the best month for saving money. I caved after an afternoon of drinking and order my first take away for a while but every once in a while isn't too bad in my view. I have taken quite a few taxi's though as some of the events finished quite late and I prefer to get a taxi home when it's really late. Although I did factor that into my budget for this month as I knew I would use a lot of taxi's and have stuck to the budget I set.

I've got a few things to sort out before the end of the year:
- I need to get my company accounts sorted out as I need to submit my annual accounts by mid Jan so need to do them before I go away on my trip in the new year.
- Still need to contact O2 about my phone contract coming to an end.
- one more present to buy for Christmas but plan on it being a bottle of wine so just need to get to the shop and buy it.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

egoode

Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas and if you have plans for tonight have a great new year. I currently have no plans to do anything but pack for my trip to Canada and the US. I fly out tomorrow evening and currently have nothing packed! I always seem to leave these things to the last minute.

I had a badish start to my day was meant to be logged on for work at 9am but forgot to set my alarm and didn't wake up until 11am!!! Oh well not much is really happening work wise and I had finished most of the things I need to do already so not too much of an issue.

However once I finally woke up I've had quite a productive day in doing my business accounts, cancelling my cineworld unlimited membership as I really wasn't using it enough the last few months to be worthwhile. I also finally got through to O2 to change my tariff and actually it worked out better that I didn't get through a couple of weeks ago as the tariffs now dropped by £2/month so I'm now only paying £11/month for my mobile rather than £35

Plans for the rest of the day is to:
- send out a few work emails to people on things they might need to cover for me while I'm away
- Do a grocery order for when I return to the UK so I have food in the cupboards again I've been eating it bare in Dec.
- Pack my suitcase