Mortgage free by 2023 (!)

debtfreeoneday

ha I wish - little man started at 4.30am, but did manage to get him to stay in bed until just after 5am, then DH got up with him and I snoozed till 7am! Feel like a champion today!

Tree and house show no trace of Christmas now and I have to say the lounge looks massive now. Considering the tree went up the day after the carpet was fitted, it's nice to be able to enjoy the room now, just need to find some curtains / blinds for the patio window.

Cleaned wellies after yesterday, the show was through a massively muddy wood (all part of the show) and it was so bad, the kids were covered inside and out of their wellies when we got there.

Sun is shining, so we plan to get out in the garden this arvo and tidy / weed the back garden.. plus want to get some stuff on fleabay this week.

Desperately trying to get my sales off the ground, but little interest on selling pages at the mo!

Trip out will wait till tomorrow to get haircuts and plant pots!

debtfreeoneday

Well in true frugal style, we hit the garden this arvo for some weeding and tidying and DH rescued a pot we can use for the house plant! So I just need to get some plant food and decent soil, so a few £'s saved there.

First £5 sale of the year (2016 has started for me in terms of sales and survey income), but that £5 will promptly get spent tomorrow on haircut.

Hopefully another £5 sale done as well, just need to deliver the item when I'm in the area! Survey update in terms of income for 2016, due in in the next few days:

£10 Am@zon voucher from Ips0s
£11.30 cash from p-base (not sure how to divvy this up yet)
£5.92 from TCB, Am@zon voucher requested

Also snaffled £1.50 on y0vg0v this afternoon!

DH has gone to get a takeaway. I'm feeling so much better the house is back to normal without the clutter!

Two items on ebay, hoping together they net over £100. got the offer of final value fee of 1p, so will save loads there.

Just realised I forgot the child benefit was due and I haven't factored this into the budget this month, so also need to decide how to divvy that up..

It's also house insurance renewal time in the next month, I need to beat my £15 cost that I got last year! That's a job for later!

Ali-OK

Great start to the 2016 money making :T

Garden is doing odd things at the mo here...snowdrops are out and now got daffs coming into bud. Weeds growing too!

Enjoy your take away and that new carpet, now you can see it properly without the tree

debtfreeoneday

Yes, there are lots of things popping up in the garden, but also some stuff needing clearing away as I was useless towards the end of last year and didn't finish it off. So a lupin that went mental last year needing cutting back and fern leaves that had rotted away. Tied back some of the climby stuff (I am a educated gardener) so that it weaves through the fence and covers it when in bloom. Clipped the thorny stuff that has grew through the fence and threw that back into the neighbours garden, the kids were looking through the fence today and said they could see stuff in the forest - that's how bad this neighbours garden is! Fortunately it doesn't impact on us in terms of views!

Then went out with the kids on their bikes and spent a while trying to get them to balance and pedal straight. We never did bikes with stabilisers, but have these handles on the back so we can keep them upright.. I fear they will never ride a bike unaided at times!

DH has some random naff stuff on TV. I've done house quotes nearly, just need to redo in a few days as our renewal is 1 Feb.. will try the cashback from TCB to see their best quote, but £84 is the cheapest so far.

Ali-OK

"Forest" - got to love kids for saying it as it is!

debtfreeoneday

Ali-OK wrote: »

"Forest" - got to love kids for saying it as it is!

It did make us smile too Ali! It is a strange family living there! We had a load of problems with tall trees when we moved in making DS's room so dark even in the middle of Summer! So DH went round a few times and encouraged them to do something about it. They did cut down about 10 and DH helped another 2/3 fall over when it was windy.. there are about 4 left and although it wouldn't provide a lot more light for us, they are way too tall and if they fell the wrong way in a storm.. yikes. DH only said yesterday he might cut them down.. they won't care, they haven't a clue what is happening at the end of their 'forest / garden'

debtfreeoneday

This week is just flying by! DS needs his hair cut today, but think DH is taking him. DD is off to a friends for an hour whilst I pop to the garden centre to find some plant food / soil and generally have a wander before picking her back up again.

£1.60 from p-base last night.

After messing about, I've decided to join a SW group for motivation and support plus one starts on 1/1/16 on the day I don't go to work which means I can actually commit to it and go without the kids. Bought Woman mag this week as it has an offer for free joining. Type more later as DD just woke up and wants a cuddle!

debtfreeoneday

It's operation 'eat the contents of the freezer' week so we can defrost it on Saturday ready for another food delivery on Sunday.

DS dispatched with DH for haircut, DD happily doing some stickers and I'm having a quiet cuppa on hold to the energy company to see when they are likely to generate a bill as we are massively in credit, but haven't had a bill since August and I'm kinda keen to see how we are doing in terms of credit / debt having been burnt earlier this year with power suppliers!

Nothing much happening in the bank account this week, saved £1.81 on the mobile phone bill so will send that to CC2. Hopeful of getting CC2 gone by January payday / start of February!

debtfreeoneday

So I've been brave and set up the automatic OP for £334 per month, this means we will automatically OP £4008 if I don't change it over the next 12 months.

In other exciting mortgage news, we have knocked off 1 month from the term, which is probably small fry, but considering we only OP £1244.62 in the last 12 months, I'm pleased that is finally showing.

All other spare cash needs to go towards the minimum payment on CC1 and then everything else left over to come off the everyday CC to get this back to neutral. I reckon we've got about £800 on that.

I'm not really thinking about anything else that could happen which might cause us to revisit these figures. Positive thinking and all that!

Ali-OK

Congrats on the month knocked off :T It's no mean feat and the ongoing snowball effect will start adding up nicely now. I only really saw that happening this autumn with mine.

Wow - that's a great OP each month too..hmm...I see I have some more spreadsheet fiddling to catch up and keep up now :rotfl:

You'll do it, I'll bet my next P!cone survey on it