Mortgage free by 2021?!

Sundaysgirl

Belated birthday wishes! Hope you have a lovely relaxing day today.

debtfreeoneday

Well done on the cashback!

hiddenshadow

Thanks Sundaysgirl and DFOD!

Still waiting on £100 cashback from switching to N@tionwide - thought it would arrive this week but it's 30 working days, not 30 days, so in theory could take another 2-3 weeks.

hiddenshadow

£8.43 OP from MB.

Another £4 OP today from more bus ticket savings. Original company has dropped their fares further so could have waited for their bus and saved an extra £6, but we weren't too bothered - either we paid a bit more for rival company and encouraged them to continue the route, or we saved a bit of money (and potentially encouraged original company to keep the lower fare, which is still being billed as a "Christmas gift"). It was really cold and both companies were late so we went with the first one that showed up.

Payday this week - possibly on Thursday for DH, definitely on Friday for me. (The joys of working for small companies - no big payroll firms to do the paychecks at a set time/day each month!) With luck by the weekend we can make our big PPI-driven OP.

Birthday was very low-key...had leftover takeaway curry for dinner and DH got me a lovely book about galgos (spanish greyhounds). I suggested that once we're MF and living elsewhere we could look into running a rescue kennel for them, as they apparently have no real support network. Not sure how they would appreciate the British weather, but our Irish-bred greyhound seemed unfazed by the freezing temps this weekend (though he did wear his coat on walks).

hiddenshadow

Got cashback on two of our 3 T$B accounts last week - opened the joint one mid-October so we didn't start spending on it until this month. Another £6.61 on its way to the mortgage.

Should get a renewal quote from our home insurance, hoping we can shave close to £100 off the annual cost based on quotes I did a few weeks ago. Even if the cost stays the same and we get cashback out of it, that's still a bonus.

hiddenshadow

£2.40 refund from TFL for my 3-hour journey last month, + 99p for a kindle deal that's available at the library (should track that I want to read these, not just that I can get them for free).

Hoping I can continue the regular OPs for the rest of the month, but not sure where else money will come from this month. We'll see, I guess! We're down to £1.52 in the grocery budget, so will either need to borrow from eating out (£29.80 left) or convince DH that we don't need anything. (Don't think we really do, except possibly yoghurt for the dog's food.)

hiddenshadow

So far on Am@zon's lightning deals we've spent £42.52 and gotten: a sock/clothes organiser (bought one a couple of months ago and like it), a lip balm set (I always have some in my pocket/bag in the winter), a 15kg bag of dog food, a bucket to go on the shower wall and hold shampoo/bottles, and a raw food Christmas dinner for the dogs .

We weren't really planning on spending any of that, but all of those (minus the Christmas dinner) were things on our "buy at some point" list, so may as well get it now on discount. That's what I tell myself when I panic about the spending spree, anyway...

(Hey, at least we didn't spend £240 on the Wii U, and likely won't spend any on the PS4 deal coming up.)

shangaijimmy

Isn't it great how our mindsets change so much we have to justify buying dog food!

hiddenshadow

shangaijimmy wrote: »

Isn't it great how our mindsets change so much we have to justify buying dog food!

So true! It's even a legitimate need, just not right this instant (as we just stocked up a couple of weeks ago). The sale price is about half what we just spent on food, and if the boys like it the regular price is about the same. No real reason not to buy it, except...spending! Scary!

cazmanian_minx

Hello, saw you on AlexLK's diary, thought 'Ooh, horsey person' and tracked you down

I've managed to stay completely away from Amazon's Black Friday week this year, I'm still cross with them from last year when I bought Mr Minx a t-shirt on offer on a Black Friday deal only for them to reduce the price by a further £5 the week after and then they flatly refused to refund me the difference.