Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

Hi all, thanks for popping in and your comments.

Hugo’s little mouse unfortunately made a reappearance at around half midnight that night :eek:

Today has been a bit of a slow day- we went to yoga, then popped in to see the parents. I then went into our little town and bought some DIY bits from the pound shop & Wilkos. We have now scrubbed down some of the white walls ready to put some fresh paint over tomorrow and then we can put our kitchen clock up. We also popped up a print we have had for ages so we felt proud for adulting today.

Normal cleaning etc for a Saturday and now catching up with eastenders with a cuppa.

Chicken defrosting since this morning ready for a garlic and black bean stir fry with noodles tonight.

Overpayment of £8 yesterday to round down the joint account.

Hoping to be able to call into Boots in town after yoga tomorrow and get the gf the Tiffany perfume for Christmas. She has been looking at it for ages but not bought it as she had others, she is now low on perfume as had been using them up so will get it whilst they do their double points event. I checked the little Boots in town today but they didn’t stock it there. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. I’ve been saving the work vouchers up so will use some of that towards it.

Payday on Thursday, feels ages away. Need NSDs until then (other than the gift on vouchers)!

Kittenkirst

Today has been a day of quiet in our home, I had a bit of a good clear up in the kitchen which included emptying drawers, cleaning the liners and then rearranging it all. Everything feels nicely ordered and sparkling now. I also finished chopping those pumpkins which are cleaned and portioned out in the freezer ready for winter.

I’ve then been marking my own respects (of sorts) by reading some poetry written during the First World War- I think I’m getting more emotional as I grow older as could feel myself getting upset on a few occasions. Such a sombre day today, important to be thankful for what we have, the freedom that we have and also that we are not required to give up our lives in war.

Off to gf friends for Sunday dinner tonight, we have got a big timmof biscuits and lots of Indian ghatia (savoury crisp like snacks) to take over with us. Friend has advised they are making a Bakewell tart for after a :heartpuls:

Lidl shop completed first things this morning with £25.60 spent and got some bits for stores (dishwasher tablets down to £1.99 instead of £3.29 so put them in the larder for now, same with some coffee and cleaning stuffs) we also got fresh baguettes and some trimmed bacon which made a superb Sunday brunch for us both- such a treat having fresh bacon baguettes

No travel for me this week and only silversmithing class on Tuesday so meal plans are a bit easier this week- got some turkey mince with 30% off as it’s tomorrows date so we’ll either do a turkey kheema or a pasta meatball dish (Both bulked with veg obviously) and we got some chicken breasts in tops we have a nice mozzarella from last weeks shop so may do handmade pizzas one night or potentially a nice pasta bake.

Payday is on Thursday which I’m looking forward to for the payday shuffle I need to call Clydesdale this week and check the amount of interest charged on the 1st and update the accounts spreadsheet & app.

Off to have a cuddle with the cats and a cuppa.

Kittenkirst

Working from home today and having my first break- I struggle taking regular breaks regardless of whether at home or in the office so have put the laptop down and having ten minutes to not think about work and have a nice cuppa.

Called mortgage provider and interest this month was £216.32 which means it’s now £6.98 a day. So much better than when we started BUT still a lot every day!

I’m trying to look at spending and get back into some better habits- yesterday at Lidl I picked up a Colombian instant coffee for £1.69 for 100g. That makes it £16.90 per kg which is an awful lot cheaper than the usual coffee we buy (which we buy from a variety depending on which is on offer to bring it under £22/kg). It tastes pretty good although need to see if gf likes it too.

Also tried the Lidl deodorant (65p I think) instead of £1.75-£2 for the Nivea or Sure spray we usually buy. That one is a definite keeper too!

Brekkie has been porridge with grated apple (free from work) with black currant jam (free from recent hotel stay!) and was delicious and much neeeed after a 6am gym session

I need to update my spending spreadsheet at lunch today and I’ve been putting it off- think I have ten days to update so will take a while :eek: and will show just how bad spending has been recently. Take each day as it comes and start little steps and we’ll get there I’m sure!

Hazelnutty

:coffee:I really like the Lidl and Aldi coffee - it's become a staple in our house. We get through about a pack a week, sometimes more, so the saving really adds up:coffee:

Kittenkirst

Hazelnutty- I think the coffee is a winner

We drink lots of coffee too so it’ll help keep some costs down. Will have a think what we can try as a downshift next week. All about spending less money but having the same enjoyment.

Just had a cuppa with a bakewell slice the friends gave us to take home yesterday- she made a marvellous roast chicken dinner with homemade bakewell slices (she’s basically a domestic goddess) who sent us home with a slice each and a slice each for gfs parents :heartpuls

So I’ve devoured that after a yummy turkey mince kheema with paratha and a raw papaya salad made by the gorgeous gf. I’m struggling today with this chesty cough a lot, so she cooked the dinner tonight. I’m going to prep a turkey sausage traybake for tomorrow (thinking same as last week with pumpkin slices, peppers, onions and maybe some chopped spuds), so will finish cuppa and then crack on with it.

I’ve cooked a Birdseye chicken breast for lunch which I’ll pack up with a wrap and salad, I’ll also take a lunchbox with porridge and a banana in with me too so I have plenty to eat without going to the canteen.

Need to adjust my eating habits as since holiday I’ve eaten what I fancy including an awful lot of treats....leading to gaining 4kg!! That’s 9lbs so I’ve basically gained a baby in weight :eek:

The bakewell was amazing tonight though :rotfl:

Kittenkirst

The week is cracking on at great speed and we are through hump day and onto the end of the week. Yay!

Tomorrow is pay day for the pay day shuffle and I realised why money has been more tight than I expected- popped my expenses through and I’m owed around £120....explains why I couldn’t get my budget to balance. It’s been approved so I’m hoping it gets paid on Friday!

I’ve been pretty good with food in the office the past two days- I have only spent 70p on a cheeky portion of chips to go with my (freezer) veggie lasagne today, no spends yesterday. Making pack up for tomorrow as in the office again and I’ll be pretty pleased if I’ve only spent 70p in the work canteens- definitely progress on the past few weeks.

I’ve made a cheeky overpayment today of £4.04 which was the last of the pennies in our joint account ready to start afresh tomorrow and be replenished for the month.

Been out for an evening run tonight of 5km, it was really hard especially with the chesty cough but I’m glad I got out there and got it done

Kittenkirst

It’s Saturday and I’m a bit shattered! Spent last night on the phones taking donations for Children In Need which was pretty fab, just a bit tiring after a full day at work.

Our workplace was fab and treated us to pizza and snacks etc throughout the night and it was a fab atmosphere taking the donations. It was lovely to hear the people who are making the donations- retired folks, little kiddies putting their family on to give the card payment etc :heartpuls: we raised a fab £32k which is great

Payday money shuffles have half been done- money has been sent to the following
-pension, share incentive plan (£50), sharesave scheme (£200): all deducted from salary
-£100 onto pure card (gift voucher for Christmas presents where possible)

Then we have made our monthly overpayment- this month it was £340.21.

Gf got her bonus through and instead of the £100 she had told me she would overpay she doubled it and popped £200 to the mortgage :T:T:T:T

Her bonuses will be changing as of next year to match mine which means she’ll get a fair amount lower (around 1/4 or 1/3 of what she used to take home annually from her bonus). Which sucks but a bonus isn’t salaried so our workplace can change the scheme, given they’ve announced earlier this year of 3000 redundancies it makes sense to try to make savings elsewhere.

We’ve got a big family meal planned tomorrow so have been running around today helping get things sorted as well as helping her mum and dad with some cleaning. We’ve almost cleaned up our house top to bottom, but the fab news is we have finally put up the awesome huge clock in our kitchen this afternoon- we bought it over a year ago and it’s been in the vupboard waiting to be measured out and popped up. It’s not of those where you have the clock mechanism in the middle but the numbers are words and numbers that are mirrored on sponges material so they sit out from the wall. Looks fab now it’s up! Only taken a little while :A

We’ve also picked up an expanding file today to sort out our paperwork (planned for next weekend) for £3.99 to try and make it a bit more organised as the huge folder we were using has got a bit full and chaotic. Be nice to get it all in order!

Total overpayments so far for November are a cracking £594.90 which I’m so pleased with, heading into December with a great £3846.60 :money: :money: :money:

Kittenkirst

Evening all,
Finally downloaded the Shoppix and receipthog apps to start snapping all our receipts into- going to give it a try until new year and see how
I get on! We get a lot of receipts from work expenses so will ensure I snap all of those into it to gain extra points.

If anyone wants a shoppix referral code mine is 57VB13QH

Similarly my Shopmium referral Is ACEAHKFA which if you use you get a free jar of Nutella (I get a £3 credit for claiming against products ) shopmium has the Harrington’s cat food on offer again this week so will get three packs, and also the new packs of iams for half price so will get a few each and stock up. We still have four bags of Harrington’s and two iams from the last time these offers came round and the boys love the food (except the Harrington’s chicken flavour oddly!)

A quick £2.50 earnt on prolific too (referral is 8JXN5BVG) as well as a quick 50p on YouGov.

Slow and steady will pay off with these apps I am sure!!

Kittenkirst

Insomnia is a right pain in the bum! I’ve been awake two hours now and getting a bit fed up.

Had such a wonderful day yesterday with the family meal- people have been sending pics through and it’s locelg for everyone to get together. One of gfs cousins and his wife popped over to the house midway through for a bit of a nose as despite living in Leicester they sti haven’t been over.
Thank goodness we did the weekly clean up Saturday and extra cleaning

Gf is lightly dozing away in bed and Hugo is at my feet also dozing softly. Oscar is on his blanket on the sofa downstairs as he seems to prefer sleeping down there.

Been chatting to my brother as he’s finally downloaded WhatsApp on the older handset that I gave him means I’ve been able to send him pics from the weekend and can share a lot more with him. Due to his illness &/or meds (I’m not sure which) he has quite a short attention span so being able to send him photos regularly seems a great way to involve him in our lives more without sending him reams of messages.

Did a freezer shuffle on Saturday as part of our cleaning- found a lot of fish in the middle drawer so planning cod in harissa this week- need to google what sides to pop with it. There’s a bit of asparagus left in fridge from last week and maybe some cabbage... will see what we can rustle up easily.

Found two portions of soup in there too, so will nab one out for today (Monday’s) lunch in the office as I’m going to have to go in as the frequent IT issue has occurred on my laptop on Friday which means I’ll be locked out of it tomorrow so no point planning to work from home really as I’ll only have to call IT to be told to go into the office to join the network :mad: it’s happening no-weekly now with weekly password resets needed and they can’t solve the issue, super frustrating given I’m a mobile worker so often in different locations and many of them not my work offices. Grrrr

Anyways, will pack some porridge using up a browning banana (from work last week that didn’t get eaten), and using more of that salted caramel hot choc powder we didn’t like (but works okay in the porridge) and then nab a soup and a kings mill thin (us and frozen ages ago naturally) for lunch. Dinner is a multitude of leftovers from yesterday’s family meal- dhal, mixed bean shak (curry), stuffed chillis and then for after some shrikhand- a creamy dessert which mum makes a bit better for us by using 0% Greek yogurt in place of some of the cream, topped with slices pistachios and rose water. Cannot wait for dinner tomorrow :j

We also came home with two half drunk bottles of Diet Coke from the meal, which are in the fridge for later in the week. We re trying to cut right down on fizzy drinks so will try and leave them for the weekend only.

Won’t be doing a grocery shop this week as we are away on Wednesday night with work, leftovers tonight, freezer tea on Tuesday after silver class (for me). Also we have ended up spending our grocery budget this week on a huge eggless cake for the family dinner (there were 25 people!) for £20.99 and some pretty flowers for mum for after the meal (£10). Mum and dad will probably try to pay us back for the cake but we wanted to contribute so hopefully they won’t and we’ll get away with buying it for everyone

Off to read more diaries, think I’m awake now until it’s time for work. Monday will be a very caffeine filled day I expect!

Kittenkirst

Morning mfwers! A very long work week this week which I’m glad is over! Lots of travel, early starts and late finishes has left me a bit frazzled.

On the positives two sets of external visitor meetings meaning two free lunches :money: and i managed to keep out of the work canteen! Only two coffees bought this week on the way to and from Manchester for a very long trip (one on the Starbucks card so prepaid with vouchers!)

Went to see the light switch on in town on Thursday- managed to get free on street parking, and I downloaded the shopping centre app as I’d seen advertised you got a free hot chicolate from Starbucks so we redeemed those for watching the lights. The town council did a great job with the lights and cannons throwing out ‘snow’ (very light foam) so it all looked rather magical. We then caught up with friends for a nice dinner. The restaurant forgot to charge us for two glasses of red wine and a Diet Coke and the food was delicious (but very naughty!) lovely night catching up with friends.

Yesterday we invited gfs aunties and cousins over who live in our area- we made masala stuffed jacket spuds (cooked 9 huge spuds for 7 ladies and they went down a treat!). Stuffed them with a mix of chilli, lime, spices, cheese, sweet corn, onions & peppers. We bought the ‘fancy’ Desserts from Lidl- the Speculoos (Biscoff) cheesecake and macarons. One of the cousins brought a giant Costco carrot cake so there’s plenty of cake left over (including the Lidl Deluxe Semi Fresno we bought and left in the freezer- looking forward to that another night ). We’ve portioned the Costco cake to give to one of the neighbours (the ones we exchange cat sitting duties with) and some for gfs dad as he loves a bit of cake. There’s two slices of cheesecake for us tonight too

We have a whole takeaway container stuffed full of the potato stuffing mix so we’re planning chicken Kiev with a potato cake (using the mix) and veggies tonight, we’ll ball up any leftover and freeze for another day. Impressed with how far the potatoes went, it was just a lot of time to microwave them all, shell them out and chop all the veggies. Totally tasty though!

We had a good clean up last night when everyone left (12.30) and have whizzed round this morning doing a spruce up, including the hoover so the house is looking spick and span now :A

I’ve been snapping my receipts this week on Shoppix and Receipt hog. Up to 1165 on Shoppix (3200 is £5) so that’s building up quite quickly, receipt hog is a lot slower and at 174 points (but need 1500 for £5). Will keep it up until Christmas and decide if it’s worthwhile- it feels like it’s minimal effort at the moment so may keep it up. One Shopmium item bought this week and claim submitted.

Only managed the one survey on Prolific this week as the ones available when I had time aren’t mobile compatible (boo’!) so only at £3.80, but we have changed energy provider so hoping for £40 to track on Quidco (not yet showing though!) and we finally bought a radiator cover for the hall, used a voucher and Quidco so hopefully a few ££’s back on that top.

Yougov is ticking slowly on and at £20.60. Slow and steady with all these activities. I tend to check on them when I sit down after dinner and watch some tv.

Off to crack on with the day, have lovely days all!