Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

Hire cars now booked for the relevant sections of our holiday and planned our holiday money & budget.

Also booked a sunset kayak around magnetic island too :j

NSD as worked from home today-50p Tilly tidy today- and made some bodycoach chocolate banana strawberry muffins to take up north with me tomorrow for work. Used two bananas from work that I put in my lunch bag and forgot to eat, some of the 50p yellow sticker strawberries from the weekend and also some of the hot chocolate powder we didn't like from Whittier's. Pleased with the using up of stuffs and looking forward to it with my coffee mug in the morning. Frugal & tasty :money:

Kittenkirst

Sorry lovely MFW-ers, I have had a broken phone situation which meant I was unable to put any updates on.

I've managed to part back up my phone and then transfer to gfs old handset so it hasn't cost a bean, fortunately! I have lost all whsapp messages and any photos since December tho

In OP news gf decided to put £200 of her bonus aside as a sneaky additional OP, so we overpaid it straight away, this brought us to £18.5 away from our year end target if £3k. By freaky coincidence, or kismic fortunes, I had a transaction for Quidco clear for £18.04- it's been promptly withdrawn , and topped up with a small amount to mean we have now officially hit our 2018 overpayment target

:j:j:j:j:j

Busy_Mee1

Well done Kittenkirst - that is some good going hitting your year end target in August. Best set another one then

:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

Kittenkirst

Yes indeed BusyMee! So pleasing to have hit so early, especially with having paid for the majority of our upcoming holiday :heart puls:

We have officially overpaid £3000.58 this year so far! :j:beer::T:j

We've discussed another target for the end of the year but agreed we will review funds post Australia and set it then

In smaller news we had a fab but speedy weekend for SW4- gf loved her first festival day and loved all the garage music and Capital extra stages. I rather enjoyed the drum & bass surprisingly.

Gym and yoga has been a bit sporadic as I've been waking up with a pretty painful back- hoping to gym tonight after work.

We've taken advantage of Shopmium having free Maggis Fusian noodle pots which are in the larder for any last minute lunches to take to work. I've also recommended a friend to shopmium so he gets the free Nutella and I'll get a referral credit (£4) if he uses it. It all helps!

We also utilised our free coffee from Starbucks and have usd up our Starbucks filter coffee (bought on offer) which had a free latte offer so that's in my bag for this weekend as we're planning to go shopping for our holiday clothes top up (with vouchers!).

Also scored £10 off my yoga membership for taking two friends with me who were interested in trying- think they enjoyed but found it tough.

I've been quite strict about packing lunches for work too which is helping the funds stay in the bank, and was given some free apples by one of my suppliers (I was shocked when he said he leaves them to rot on the ground :eek: ) so he brought me a nice big bag. Planning to cut up and freeze this weekend.

We have two weeks until our big trip- majorly excited- so we are trying to run down the freezer and cupboards of anything fresh (spuds, onions, all the frozen stuffs) so last night I had some rather sorry looking potatoes as jacket spuds with some leftover vegetarian chilli from the freezer. Tonight we have got the rack of lamb (YS obviously) out and thinking of making a nice spicy dry rub to accompany it.

themadvix

Well done on reaching target Kittenkirst - that's fab!

We have a big bag of apples to process too - just got to find some containers for them for the freezer!

Kittenkirst

Forgot to mention that I got to see my favourite band (The Used!) play on Tuesday. As i was the chauffeur to SW4 and back my friends paid for my scrummy dinner out before the gig and also paid for parking and most drinks which was all rather lovely

The gig itself was fantastic so a great night was had!

Kittenkirst

Morning folks,
YS rack of lamb last night was delicious and felt very decadent! We made a nice fluffy spicy rice with onions on the side with a tomatoe & onion chutney, rubber the lamb in a small amount of tikka paste & chargrilled some rather bendy peppers on the side. Yum!

We managed to take advantage of the warm but cool weather and finally painted the last long strip of fence panels last night. We've now run out of paint and have one panel & the gate to do but it's so close to being done

Off to yoga this morning and I'll drop gf at the gym on way (save fuel!) and then we're going to head to town for our holiday shop! We have checked and we have a free John Lewis coffee & cake voucher, plus the freebie Starbucks voucher so shouldn't need to buy food/drink whilst out (we'll brunch at home after showers!)

Need to pick up some old vouchers mum found that we'd left, and then in to take advantage of any sales that are left and utilise the gift vouchers we've been saving.

Holiday money turned up yesterday....made me feel like a millionaire with a wedge of dollars :rotfl:

Off to make some filter coffee and try my old holiday clothes on, want to avoid overbuying or getting duplicates, so a good trying on session is required!

Have lovely Saturdays folks

michelle09

I think you have a great taste in music, the Used are good.


So close! You guys must be really excited now.



Well done on hitting your target, it sounds like everything is going well for you both which is brilliant.

Kittenkirst

Hey Michelle
I'm always dead excited when people know who The Used are- most of my friends aren't into my type of music so just say 'who'

Yes, things are going pretty good at the moment, work is so much better than this time last year (when I was off with work related anxiety) due to changing roles, kittens are now cats and happy and healthy and overall things are going lovely :j

I've been excited for months about the holiday but now gf is getting excited- now she has the Grand Prix lanyards and the holiday money I think is getting more real

We've sorted our holiday budget and ordered cash, but both taking our credit cards for emergency situations (say if money goes missing etc)- both have £0 balances at the moment so feels like a good safety net and we both have some money stashed in instant access savings, should we need it.

Yoga session was fab this morning- with one of my fave teachers who explains the breathing and postures so well- feeling nicely worked but energised now

Just had post yoga brunch- some jalapeño bread gf bought ys yesterday with poached eggs whilst we caught up with the Bodyguard (how good is that show!?!?)

Off to shower then head to town for our holiday clothes shop- hoping the free parking i use on the outskirts of town is free- anyone else hate having to pay to park :mad:

Been trying to sort out my friend staying on tuesday night- she is coming up from Bournemouth way and we're off to birmingham to see Incubus (throwback to our sixth form common room days!) - she's driving up to us in Leicester and I'm going to drive us to Birmingham and back- just need to google parking- I've managed to find free parking before a bit of a walk from the venue just need to remember where it is!

newgirly

Hi KK, glad all is going well for you, congratulations on hitting target for the year already :T