the time has come...to get the mortgage below £200k

thewalrussaid

Feeling very restless today, not sure why, I think because work is a little slow.

Funds v low (yes I know it is the 4th of the month ) due to spendy weekend excursion. Out tonight with a friend but this should be cheap ish (<£15), however out again tomorrow night this prob be more like circa £20...

I give me and DH £200 a month (each) spending money and this sort of has to cover everything. This month £100 of that has gone on tickets for 2 events later this month, lunch on Sat, coffee on Sat, a souvenir on Sat (just typing this is making me think hmmmm there's the problem). I don't want to be too repetitive as I have spoken about this recently but I think i have to keep excursions to once a week max and think carefully about where I am off to.

So in other MS new we have been thinking about holidays. I have set a budget which allows me to keep my overpayments to the level they need to be and am working from that. We are going to have a long wknd city break during a half term and a UK holiday in summer, both with the DSD so hence thinking about it now because the school holidays get booked up fast and are expensive!

Nothing else to report - the next excitement will be the grocery bill on Saturday aka challenge "how low can it go"

Have a good day all.

thewalrussaid

After another absence I am back...(my absences coincide with spending) after paying to have the print framed and then buying another one and another frame in the shop (less expensive that the first but even so) I realised that I had to combat my desire to spend all the savings.

My solution thus far is this...our savings are attracting no interest where they are and due to dipping in and out to pay for holiday deposits they seem easily accessible (well they do to me anyway) to combat this I have done the following.

1. Left £1,000 in the original savings account

2. Opened a 123 acct for the rest of the savings to attract the 3% interest rate - in order to gain max benefit with min hassle I am transferring the council tax, water & gas/elec DDs over to this account.

I have set up a £500 SO to the acct so just need to move over the DDs. I am also thinking about switching away our 123 credit card now that the fees have gone up but not sure that we would get more elsewhere...

Aim is to have £10k minimum in 123 account which remains untouched as a proper emergency fund!

Other that that things were going well - shopping was only £50 this week but I thoroughly derailed myself with the prints

I have written a list and meal plan for the coming week and today will be a NSD. No outings this week apart from one on Sat with DH which will be lovely apart from the outlaws being there :eek:

I am determined to achieve my goal and for that sacrifices must be made hence I am going to introduce a 1 outing a week rule for the evening as much for the sake of DH as well as my bank account.

spendinglikemad

Hi there!

Good luck with the outlaws this weekend

I love my 1,2,3 account so can highly recommend it.....its part of our EF and apart from paying in and out the dd and solar generation we try not to take any out so its nice to see that growing

SLM

thewalrussaid

Thanks Spendinglikemad - I think you took my true username ;-)

Well tonight I have changed my water DD details and will call the electric company tomorrow and send off my council tax DD form - hopefully this will fulfill all the criteria for the 123 account (along with the £500 monthly payment).

Today was a NSD and I have been on the treadmill so things seem to be going okay (ha that is going to jinx me now!) Maybe the past few weeks have got everything out of my system - I certainly hope so!

Firegirl

Well done with NSDs.

123 account is great!

thewalrussaid

Not much to report from the weekend. Did the grocery shopping v late on today after spending some time ironing. I see to be getting the hang of the grocery shopping a little more in that this week's came to a total of £65 from Mr L and Mr S. However I had £20 cash from my mum for buying her some stuff last week so only £45 had to come out of the account.

Need to buy some more dry cat food but am going to investigate deals online for not so MSE cat.

Our evening last night with the outlaws was fine, food okay, nothing to write home about.

Am off for a bath and then will do dinner before an early night so that I am fresh for Monday morning!

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck with your thriftier week x

Luckyinlife

Do like the fact you give each other £200 spending money

I need to do this myself from this month as it limits myself then with treat so like the idea :]

thewalrussaid

Luckyinlife wrote: »

Do like the fact you give each other £200 spending money

I need to do this myself from this month as it limits myself then with treat so like the idea :]

Hi Lucky,

I am not great at following a budget (if you have read my diary you will see this). However what does work is having a number to aim for, if I didn't have the £200 amount I know I would spend far more so even if I spend £250 that's still better than the alternative. Our budget is very much a work in progress at the moment :eek:

In other news I have purchased 15kg of dry cat for £30 - when I usually pay £15 for 3kg. I am hoping 3% of cashback will have registered too. I also hope that my pampered cat will not get fed up of the flavour either!

gallygirl

A bit late to the party but just wanted to say 'well done so far'. One thing that helped me curb my overspending (though to be fair I've never been one to go crazy) was to work out how much I needed to knock a month off the mortgage. As I'm a lot older than you and that coincided with me retiring it was easy to say 'do I want to work another x days to pay for this'. If the answer was yes I went ahead. It also worked on smaller things. For example, the souvenir you bought the other week - how many extra hours will you have to work to pay for that? Was it worth it (especially as it's probably already 'out if sight and out if mind')? If you can get yourself asking that BEFORE you buy it you should find that a good motivation :T.