Always Pass on What You Have Learned

hummingbird

Hi there!! Just read the first post of your diary - I want to live until 120 as well!!!! I've never heard anyone else say anything like that on here before!!:T:T:T

So just dropping in to say hi and I'll keep a look-out for your posts xx

wishus

Thanks, Hummingbird!

Well, I've popped on here just to say, a magical email has arrived in my inbox:

"We're pleased to let you know that your request to change the borrower(s) on your mortgage is now complete"

It's done, it's done, it's done! :j:j:j:dance::dance::dance:_party__party__party_:iloveyou:

Right, on with the following challenges, spot the song-titles!:

1. This Ole House

My tumbledown home is half-mine, and so I am going to have to start the huge amount of work it jolly well needs. A new roof, cracks repaired, replastering, new windows, new electrics, except we can't afford the lot to be done right now.
In order to do this we need to tackle:

2. Books from Boxes

So proud of OH yesterday for sorting out a load of scrap for the rag and bone. I can sort out my excess books. Let's make inroads.

3. Hangin' on the Telephone.
I think we both dread the dreaded engaging with builders. Need to set a deadline on this.

4. La Isla Bonita
OH wants a holiday. I have to try my best.

5. Burn, Baby, Burn
Let's burn through the debt, and not the money.

Today I have got an extra £10.63 from cashback, and £6 is on its way in 72 hours - thanks, Quidco!
12p roadkill today and yesterday.
I aim to make an additional £300 by this time next month,so I might join a thread to get support for this challenge. Without this - no holiday, as all my salary is for bills and savings.

wishus

I made an unfortunate discovery in tidying up the post yesterday, and it seems OH still has an outstanding balance of over £1K on his card - which he'd cleared :shocked:

I don't understand how he could be back there. We learned all about the good and bad of cc debt when we were trying to get his credit rating up for the transfer of equity, so he knows he should not be toddling along with minimum payments. At least I don't think he was hiding it from me, I just genuinely think he wasn't aware it was like that.


Ah well... back to the drawing board.

in_need_of_direction

Hi, just read through from the start and feel the gunk that must have hit you hard. Have the chat then go back to doing what you have been doing. Everyone struggles, your oh clearly more than you.

wishus

Thanks, In Need of Direction. He's not in a great place, but on the road to somewhere better.

chickadee

Solicitors are so expensive aren't they wishus? I have to deal with them (and their bills) in my work and it breaks my heart how much they charge. Even solicitors' assistants in some firms can have a charging-out rate of £160 per hour. At least you have got your equity transfer sorted out and you can start looking forward now. Sorry to hear about the extra debt that you thought was gone. Still, now it is out in the open you can factor it in. Better to know than to be blissfully unaware and end up in a worse place.


You sound generally positive though, and very focused. I'm sure you will be able to sort it out. It certainly sounds like you have more than enough in your store cupboards to keep you going for quite a while!

I use quidco too. I have had a wait for six months for £35 cashback from an insurance policy that I took out last November. Anyway I had an online chat with a very helpful lady at quidco and I politely asked if anything could be done to chase it up. She said she would go and investigate, then a short while later she came back to me and said that although they hadn't received the funds yet she would mark it as confirmed and I will get the money in the next BACS run. Result! :T When you need to buy something, cashback sites really are money for nothing.

Keep going, now that you have your name on the deeds, I am sure you will be able to move forward and make real progress. We don't want that wall falling down do we?

wishus

Thanks, Chickadee. Yes, they are a gruesome necessity. So glad we're finished with all that now. Time to start looking for builders!

wishus

Yesterday, OH went on his health walk again with his friend, and phoned me because he had found a butchers. Honestly, we have so much lamb in the freezer already, but he's a sucker for a good butcher, and to be fair it's much better than we'd be able to buy otherwise. So I said don't spend wastefully, we don't really need anything. Which apparently translated to "only buy what you think you can carry.":undecided

The butchers was next to the farm that animals had come from, so had in all likelihood been bleating not too long ago. We got 4 chops, 4 steaks and 2 gammon steaks. How much? No idea. Apparently reasonable.

So, I thought we'd best use it, so I've been marinading the chops overnight in spiced yoghurt - a la Tony Singh and Cyrus Todewallah's Incredible Spice Men book, but with tenderising yoghurt instead of calorie-laden oil. I'll let you know how that goes!

Last night's tea was Norwegian meatballs, using the rest of the pork mince. Except, I didn't have cream for a Norwegian-style sauce or enough spuds for mash, so they went into an Italian-style sauce with pasta. Very yummy.

I mixed 250g mince with an egg and 30g porridge oats, 1/2 teaspoon of all spice, 1/4 of nutmeg and salt and pepper, and a finely chopped onion. Rolled into about 24 balls, baked in an oven at 190C for 25 minutes, on a tray coated in Fry Light, and turned once to colour all over. Much healthier than shallow frying!

OH and I also had a talk about futures. I feel so lost with what I want to achieve, and I feel I have been letting time slip me by while I do things for other people instead of myself. So I made sure I did my freelancing work last night, and had time to watch episode 1 of Life on Mars which will be our televisual treat now we have run out of Game of Thrones to watch. I also got to bed early. Delighted to say I woke up and got ready for work with enough time to get back to my novel that I've only been writing for the past 4 years and not getting past 2000 words. Back to a new draft and 800 words written. This time I am going to do it.:A

wishus

Ooh - another £1.17 cashback just landed - and another penny roadkill today.

That makes a total of £17.94 extra cash picked up this week. I also got my £5 refund from Mighty Deals which I've popped into the 'holiday or otherwise' fund. HOO fund - I like that!

Also pleased that after having spent just £19.11 in Sainsbugs on Saturday, judicious use of Nectar bonus points has given me a free bottle of wine, plus another 565 points, so that's worth at least £2.82.

wishus

I have decided that all my roadkill and cash back will be going into the HOO Fund - and putting said monies into said fund shall henceforth be referred to as HOOFing
So for May, I have HOOFed: £22.82 + roadkill YTD to be converted is £5.95

I'm going to try to minimise my spending this month:

• trip to visit parents: should not cost anything but taking an emergency £15, just in case
• trip to London for work: taking a tenner to be sociable in the pub.
• 2 birthdays : £70 for gifts.
• A house party some way away, we can crash on the floor: budgeting an emergency £20 in case of contingencies, like a coffee the next day.
• A wedding - the friend is on a budget and hasn't been able to invite us. I think we should at least send a card, but I know money is tight for them. Should I also send a gift card? £25 tops?
• A weekend away. £17 pays the rest of the camp site fees and budgeting £35 to spend on fish and chips and fripperies!

Much better, I think to plan what you have, then you know what you can and can't do. I've been used to saying, I have X-spending money, and it runs out. Learned that last month...


I have overpaid my loan by £70 already for this month... I don't want to risk any more as I'm making that up by using my ice points and catching the bus next month rather than the train. This is a once-only thing as I cannot afford to waste my evenings with extra travel as that's when I do my freelance work.



I also have some dates in the diary for free tennis lessons, and picnics in the park with my bike. Going to try to make them spend free. Oh, June! Halfway there...