I really really want to be........mortgage free!

ourcornercottage

Thanks SJ it's amazing how much wasting money annoys me now! That's a good thing tho.

Today is the first day of the school hols and I have 2 days off work and then am working Friday and Saturday. Unlike most parents that dread the holidays I love it. Working for myself you just hardly take a day off without good reason as generally you have to pay someone else if you're not there. School holidays means days off with miniOCC. :j

Thought I'd update my list......

1. Keep Barclays savings account for TT's but reset internet banking. - still waiting for card thingy.
2. Keep check for BFs SIPP monthly payments to start. - won't start til August
3. Write a blog post or 2 this week. - need to keep this up as I'm getting tons of page views per day (over 50) so I must be inspiring/ helping people. Maybe will write one about what to do with a glut of apples seen as I have TONS!
4. have changed the ads on my blog to useful stuff where I control them. A free audiobook and free prime trial from amazon. Must write a blog post advising to try and then cancel if not wanted. I actually find prime really good as I buy lots of stuff for my work from amazon so it pays for itself on the free postage many times over.
5. Make more preserves out of my oranges, apples and corvette glut!

Off to use my season pass at a local attraction as it only has a couple of days left on it. Will take a picnic so it will be a NSD accept stuff for preserves.

ourcornercottage

Had a lovely day, out with miniOCC for the day. He was a little grumpy later in the day.

Made some corgette and Apple chutney and orange marmalade with the glut. Not sure the marmalade is going to set , we will see. If not I'll re boil it in the morning.

Money wise.
On a plus note sold 2 jars of preserves for £3 and got some free snacks from bzzagent.
Went to asda and spent £12.55 on some essentials.
Took miniOCC to squash spent £6.
Nothing yet on the CC Switch annoying as I will be being charged a bit of interest. the Barclays card thingy not arrived yet so I can access the tidy account.
Transferred 1p to the tidy account!!!

That's all for today folks.

ourcornercottage

Today was a NSD also made 2 cakes with the apple glut and juiced a whole load of oranges some of which I've frozen.

Had to re boil the marmalade this morning which was annoying but now we have 5 jars of lovely marmalade.

I have received the card reader for the Barclays account. Prior to the tidies it had £160 in it so put £10 to mortgage and £150 to the credit card. Will transfer the tidies to the mortgage on the last day of the month.

The mortgage payment will come out tomorrow so will be making my standard OP. I'm still hoping to get to £400 on the OP's and because of my CC mistake I will have made a real dent in that this month too.

Actually this is shaping to to be a good month money wise despite my CC error :-)

ourcornercottage

its standard OP day so signature updated to reflect this. Need to find £110.14 to hit the £400 PM target. Should get the £10.14 from the tidy account and the halifax rewards so just need to find about £100 extra which shouldn't be an issue. Would have liked to have done a little bit more but my CC mistake has meant Ive fired any extra money at that this month.

My OP's are made up as follows....

£88.21 OP from bills account
£3.20 Quidco
£2.00 OP from bills account
£10.00 from redundant barclays saving account now used for TT's
£184.56 standard OP
£1.79 'profit' from santander account

interest paid

July 2015 £264.20
Julie 2014 £298.15

£33.95 less in 2015

Will update this list for my monthly summery which I am going to start next friday but its nice to see on 'paper' that I can meet the (self imposed) target this month.

In other news wrote a blog post on amazon prime and realised quite how useful I find it. I've been having loads of readers a day at the moment for some reason on my blog. Its just under 100 page views a day which may not sound like a lot but that's people reading my stuff which blows my mind! I'm really hoping people find it useful as that's the aim :-)

trying for another NSD but really need to purchase some vegetables as we dont have any!

ourcornercottage

Not a NSD as really busy at work so late leaving. Invested in a Chinese takeaway! They taste so yummy when you don't often have them :-)

It hasn't stopped raining for hours so no need to water the new turf for a few days and it's knitted in beautifully.

Nothing else to report since my money shuffle this morning.

Currently we do groceries from personal spends, have decided to get £100 out each on payday to cover it so it's fair every month. We will stick within £200 per month then and leftovers can go to holiday fund :-)

shangaijimmy

I'm definitely with you on the takeaway front. We're probably average about 1 every 3 months so its a real tasty treat.

ourcornercottage

You have to have a treat every so often. Keeps you going.

Grocery money in place now in a jar in my kitchen cupboard. £50 spent this week doing a big top up. £150 left until next personal spends payday which is 3 weekly shopping trips.

Nearly a NSD excluding groceries, Spent 60p today on kids books from the charity shop.

Sent £43 to the CC. when the balance has transferred and the bit of interest added (due to my c*ck up) I will know how much the total left is. It was £5500 when I transferred to my current card in January this year. I'm hoping to have knocked £1000 off this when I work it all out.

Under the circumstances with the plumbing disaster earlier in the year I will be happy with that.

My list

1. Watch out for the CC Balance transferring.
2. Keep check for BFs SIPP monthly payments to start. - won't start til August
3. Write a blog post or 2 this week
4. Send Payment from my TT account and my Halifax reward on last day of month. Then make it up to £400.
5. Close my old redundant CC that I've cut up but haven't closed. - DONE written letter.
6. Find some free things to do in the school holidays.
- 4 free tickets to a pre season friendly at Norwich City picked up.
- need to check nector and clubcard for others.
- look for free/almost free festivals or Fayres.

CathT

Hi occ, just catching up. I currently send tt to cc but I know some people offset them. Saving up and sending as an equivalent of daily interest is a great idea. I can't amend my OP's online or I would definitely do this!

Your DS sounds a bit like my dd, loves sports and activities!

ourcornercottage

Hi cathT funnily enough I was reading your diary last night when I was woke up in the middle of the night by miniOCC.

I'm lucky I can make unlimited OP's on one part of my mortgage. I currently have one smaller mortgage still in a tracker. I can send all the quidco and tcb payment straight there. I'm considering fixing this smaller mortgage too but I like the flexibility. I wouldn't be desciplined enough to have an offset account as I'd drop into it.

I've been re motivated to clear the cc which is on a 0% (although hasn't been this month, I'm an idiot) as this is just expenditure from moving house and is on 0% I haven't been desperate to get rid of it since starting this diary. I consider it part of the mortgage tbh and have been paying abut towards it every month so it's slowly reducing. Since I made the mistake and have been charged a bit of interest I am wanting to get this down too and will keep moving onto 0% cards until it's paid off.

MiniOCC definitely has lots of energy, he loves sport and missed football today as the pitches are waterlogged so has been feral today. I don't know if you're finding you are going mad with the school holidays already. Tomorrows going to chuck it down too so might need to sort out some indoor activities. Crafting and cooking here we come!

ourcornercottage

Very quiet day today.

Went to carbooot this morning before rain started. Got 3 films some Lego some toys or the miniOCC had drink there and donuts spends £8 total.

Been home cooked and ate a roast, made enough for 2 days so tea for tomorrow organised. Used up all the veg that needed using :-)

Ordered dog food and a new squash racket for miniOCC from amazon. Went through easy fundraising for dog food so 1.5% to miniOCCs school and through quidco for racket 2% for me! Spent out of personal spends £18 each so we paid one each.

Put miniOCCs old squash racket on FB selling sites and gumtree but it's probably a bit specific so may try to sell at squash club or list on eBay.

Nothing else to report money wise.