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

katep23

Most drunk people wake up to the remains of a kebab, imagine waking up to a pot of jam and wondering where it came from

ourcornercottage

imagine waking up with some jam stuck to your face!

today is a funny day, at work (currently taking 5 minutes, as the boss you dont get a lunch break!) Ill be working tomorrow too so a funny few days for me as I havent worked a weekend in a while. Its been so quiet today, no calls which is always wierd. Taking the opportunity to get our trade newsletter out and catch up some paperwork.

Im still robbing peter to pay paul at the moment but all of this is coming from the various current accounts so no touching the savings which is fab.

For those that are obsesive leccy meter checkers I had managed to not check it for 26 days which is a small miracle as im obsessed with it! Average of 4.08 units per day. Nice one.

ourcornercottage

Today ended up a NSD for me although BF brought some apples and cream to add to the foraged blackberries to make a nice crumble! I swear MiniOCC doesn't actually realise there are supermarkets as the two of them always seem to be scrumping or foraging, or picking our own!

I need a list.

1. Check accounts daily and shuffle money to cover everything.
2. Pay balance of my first counselling course.
3. Give blog some attention as I've had no time at all to do anything on this in the last week or so.
4. Put some things on eBay.
5. Plant My cabbage tree seeds that have arrived from Portugal.
6. Transfer an OP to mortgage from personal spends budget
7. Transfer a payment to CC from personal spends budget.
8. Add 100 to funding circle if I can stretch to that!

That'll do for now although I may add to it later

ourcornercottage

tried to write a blog post last night in really simple terms as to why you should overpay your mortgage or offset if you can. Its really hard to put into words why you should do it and even small amounts help. if you get a chance take a look its actually dated 27th although I wrote it last night so its a couple of posts back.

This is aimed at people who dont overpay at all (60 people have read it so far today) so all of you MFW's if you can give me any other ways to explain it in very simple uncomplicated terms id appreciate the feedback!

In other news, now leaving work to enjoy the rest of the very hot and sunny day in the garden

ourcornercottage

Lovely day yesterday in sunny Norfolk. Had the paddling pool out which miniOCC was in when I got home from work. Today we went to car boot, miniOCC got a few toys and I got him 4 pairs of school trousers some regular trousers and some shorts. I don't often get him clothes at car boot as boys ones are often worn out but there's were as new. Total spends £4.50

Then when we got back we went to village bbq, tbh they aren't well supported but we always go even if it's only for a few hours. MiniOCC saw some of his school friends played rounders and football. We had a pint each, 1 hotdog (veggie) 2 burgers (1 meat 1 veggie) total spends £8!

I've finally set up a Facebook page for my blog and told my fb friends about it! Next time you go on fb please like my page it's called stretch your pennies. Thanks very muchly!

Now finally having a sit down and no plans to move all night

Ali-OK

Good reminder to read my meters too, it's gone off the radar a bit of late. Running between 9-11 units a week since school hols :eek:

I'll find some time to read your blog too and hopefully pick up some more hints and tips

ourcornercottage

I invested quite a sum in solar panels about 6 months ago. Since then we have used an average of 4 units per day. I try to do all washing, baking etc when they are generating electricity. It will be interesting to see What my daily usage is in winter with the panels.

As I've got a thingy that turns on the water tank Immersion when the panels are generating too so hardly any oil use this summer either

ourcornercottage

Totally forgot my cycling rant earlier. Going on from my previous rants about (some) cyclists I just now add a little rant about the tour de broads.

Today, totally unbeknown to us this event happened, I have nothing against the event, nothing against the cyclists and it's fab raising money for charity etc but if you happen to live along the route and the cyclists go past your house twice it would be really nice to know in advance.

Imagine the senario, some single, some 2 lane roads in rural norfolk and over 2000 yes you read that right 2000 cyclists. It would really nice to have been able to get out of our drive this morning to get to the car boot sale but instead because we had no idea it was on today we had to wait in for hours on end as they went past us twice by the time the slower ones were coming round the faster ones were coming back. If we had known we could have got out early or used our time this morning wisely. Don't forget this is a road race, they are racing each other sometimes forgetting the roads aren't closed to cars and people actually live in the area.

Is it too much to ask for an odd sign or poster in the general area, an advert in the paper of some plugs on local radio. There is no route map that I can see on the website so if you knew about it you can check. They put up signs advising the cyclists of the route (which haven't been taken down) so why not a couple in advance just to let people know it's passing through. I also didn't see one Marshall all day on my travels keeping an eye on things.

Anyhow rant over. MiniOCC enjoyed cheering them on and the dogs enjoyed barking at them but even they got bored after about the first 1000!

ourcornercottage

Saw this on the referrals thread yesterday. Please use my sign up if you do it

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5247062

Looks like it works, totally free money

ourcornercottage

Its standard OP day so signature updated to reflect this. OP's so far this month £247.79. Need to find £177.21 to hit the £425 PM target.

Should get the £10 from TT account and do have quite a few things in Quidco and TCB waiting to payout so I hope these might come through before end of the month.

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

£25.25 OP from topcashback
£10 from my personal spends
£1.57 from bills account account to make the account a round amount!
£3.43 from topcashback
£20.31 from bills account account to make the account a round amount!
£2.67 from personal spends account to make the account a round amount!
£184.56 standard OP

'profit' from santander account I have put in TT account for now

interest paid

Aug 2015 £271.23
Aug 2014 £306.81

£35.58 less in 2015 than in 2014 :T:T:T

Will try to add the £177 in the next 7 days and update at the end of the month what I achieve. I submit my FIT readings tomorrow for the second time so that will help with next months OP

In other news I have paid the balance on my November course this month and have brought miniOCC some shorts to top up his school uniforms although his trousers are only just long enough now so will probably need some next month so he hasn't got ankle swingers! Only need one "good" pair as got the others off the carboot. Will review the shoe situation next week but has trainers that fit so it will only be school shoes which I suspect he will need.