Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

Sorry for the radio silence- I keep managing to lock myself out of my account on here

March overpayments ended as £472.74 thanks to our normal monthly op of £342.45, £100 from girlfriends bonus, £23 from Prolific and £6 from Pinecone surveys and Shopmium cashback! Pretty pleased with that and have continued the momentum in April with a nice

£513.06
Which was the monthly op of £342.45, £10 from Shoppix receipt app, £100 from my annual bonus, £30 from the last of my metalsmithing tools selling, £25 matched by gf for the sale and two small Shopmium cashbacks.

I’ve completed 2 Pinecone surveys so am hopeful that these should clear next week so we can add that £6 to the pot! :T

Year to date we have overpaid £2131.41 which is cracking for the first four months, however we have no more bonuses left and are paying for the shed to be built next month!

One bit of bad news was that one of the furry boys managed to get two horrid thorns in his eye so had to have emergency eye surgery. He’s healing well now and having pain meds and several sets of eye drops. We have his check up on Tuesday evening but he seems to be doing okay, he just wants to escape outside and get his cone off his neck! Thanks goodness for the kitten savings- we had £560 in the bank stashed aside and the surgery and appointments cost £980 :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So we’ve delved into our other emergency savings to cover the rest. We feel very fortunate that we have the savings and didn’t have to think twice about him having the emergency appointments and surgery. He may now be wrapped in bubble wrap for all future adventures!

The savings pots are nicely building up- I now have £6400 in the different accounts so on track to hit £9.5k by the end of the year.
I upped my LISA contributions in March so I now pop £35 a month in there, so an increase of £10 a month. Small amounts but they will build up over time.

Kittenkirst

In other news we have been doing lots of DIY around the house and I’ve quite enjoyed it. I managed to paint the diner wall a lovely duck egg/green shade to complement our kitchen tiles (they are grey, teal and white), as well as the indoor blinds for the patio doors and kitchen blinds. I marked out all the edges and did two coats one Sunday and dead chuffed with how it turned out

I think I’ve previously moaned about how much I disliked our kitchen floor: the white gloss tiles are gorgeous (if hugely impractical with two outdoor cats & a cat flap :doh: anyways, we’ve spent ages discussing it and thought we would have to get a tiler out to dig out the old murky looking white uneven grout and then regrout with a darker colour. We’ve chatted about it a lot and it’s on the house plan for this year when I had a sudden thought that there must be a type of paint you can use- a bit of googling later and I’d found there is!

So we bought a nice deal charcoal grey grout pen (well two) and I painstakingly painted the entire kitchen-diner floor, mopping up the excess as I went and touching it up a lot when I wiped off the paint multiple times. I then used the grout sealant we bought ages ago when we were trying to make the grout white (didn’t work) and sprayed that on all of the grout and scrubbed the residue from the tiles after. It took me a good ten hours plus but I am so chuffed with the result- it looks like a new floor and marvellous. I can’t stop mopping it now :rotfl:

We managed to buy all the supplies using that PURE MasterCard I get topped up through work, so no actual cash from the bank, which was even more pleasing.

I also managed to sell the desk I had in the jewellery room (£25 nicely in pocket) and then thought to bring the shelves that went with it downstairs to the living room to see if it would fill the space at the end of our L shaped front room (it’s always looked dead empty). Popped a few ikea pull out boxes in and some of the candles, plants and ornaments we had in boxes and it looks perfect. Feels good to find a use for the shelves rather than buying new.

Today we’ve picked up some dark navy metallic paint for the two end walls in the downstairs loo which is my project potentially on Monday. We also bought a LED mirror for the en-suite. Marked at £60 in store I quickly checked online (for the measurements) to find it online for £40 so B&Q price matched. Both purchases again were on the PURE card too the mirror will go up when the tradesman comes to do the shed as he can do that too for us

I’m feeling quite proud of our new found DIY-g and feeling braver so we’ll tackle a bit more in the house now!

Kittenkirst

Evening lovely mfw-ers.

Busy day today- started with a tough gym session (half hour stair master followed by 40 minute strength circuit).

We then went to b&q to finally buy our shed for the garden. Managed to get the one we need for £235 delivered. Gfs parents are putting £100 towards it which was our Christmas present from them so we only need to pay the £135 between us. Bargain!

We also popped to the range. We have a tradesman coming next Monday to do the base for the shed, a small pathway and then put up some shelves, mirrors and frames for us whilst he is here.

So we picked up a big mirror for the hallway and a small circular mirror for the downstairs loo, as well as a few nautical housey bits to go on the little shelf we’re putting up in there. I’ve then managed to paint the two end walls the metallic blue this evening (finished at 9pm!) so tomorrow I just need to touch up the edges/paint splidges and it’s sorted in there.

We’ve had a busy weekend as we picked up my big brother on Friday and had him & his gf over for the weekend. We took him out on Friday night for an Indian meal as he doesn’t go out much in public spaces and he coped really well. Plus he loved the food at the Marten inn! I made him a mahoosice cinnamon bun cake that I found the recipe for in the latest Tesco mag- it worked beautifully with some mini sparklers and he seemed really chuffed!

So a very spendy weekend all in all but we’ve ticked off lots on the house list that needed doing and we celebrated the big brother turning 40

A Pinecone survey credited today so I’ve withdrawn it and overpaid to the mortgage- a little £3 to keep momentum going.

Next month will be a much lower overpayment month as we’re paying for the tradesman and replenishing the cat find following Oscars surgery last week. Ha next appointment is tomorrow so I’m hoping the cone can come off and he can go out to play- he’s starting to get a little cabin feverish now!

MichaelDH

Oh dear poor Oscar! Glad he's on the mend and hope check up goes well tomorrow. Good that you had savings to fall back on! We do the same for our boys as insurance is so expensive. Amazed our two haven't got in to mischief with the house being a building site for the last 12 weeks... hope I haven't jinxed us now!

Your OP's are looking great!

jodles16

Glas Oscar is on the mend, it is always good to know you can afford to make sure the kittehs are well looked after! Reassuring!

Garden stuff sounds like it is coming along well!

Jodles

themadvix

Hope the cone comes off today! Poor little thing

Kittenkirst

Thanks all for the love for naughty Oscar. The cone is off and he’s allowed to gallivant to his little hearts content.

In celebration of his new found freedom the little terror decided to go on a killing spree and bring in a variety of animals for us last night (two birds and a small rodent). Each time I managed to convince him to pick it up and tinker off outside with it. The poor little things!

Have a big meeting tomorrow morning in Manchester and have to be there for 9am so the alarm is set for 5am...dress and boots are our ready, laptop etc is all ready to go so can shower, dry hair, put makeup on, make cuppa and hit the road for 5.45am. Urgh! Am a bit nervous if the session but it will all run fine I am sure.

One bonus is there will be catering so free coffees and a lunch spread. I have ordered chopped fruit to try and keep me away from too many sandwiches and the cake tray!

Nails are currently drying in prep whilst I’m snuggled in bed.

Had goisto delivery yesterday as we had the last referral credit to use so four meals for £7.98- we had a pork steak with potatoes and salad last night and an amazing blackened haddock salsa bowl this evening. That one will deffo be made again especially as our local Tesco always seems to have cheap haddock in the YS section

jodles16

Best of luck on the meeting! You are super organised!!


Jodles

Kittenkirst

Meeting went super well, and my bosses boss gave me a ‘great meeting, well done’ which is massive coming from him! (He’s awful with people and praise!)

Last night we had five friends over and had created a pub style quiz- it was supposed to be cheaper than a night out but after we had got some snacks and ordered some pizzas in we had spent £100
Luckily friends will all return the favour over the next few months so there’ll be a few free/cheap evenings in at theirs too

Today I’m off to a yoga workshop in a few hours which I’m really looking forward too and then it’s leftover pizza for dinner tonight (there’s another pizza portioned up and frozen now too!)

Not much in the money saving this week other than free lunch at the meeting and eating from home a lot!

Kittenkirst

A much more frugal Saturday & Sunday after Friday nights entertaining. Yoga workshop yesterday was fab and gf gave me a lift on way to the gym which meant no need to pay for parking.

Last night was leftover pizzas and some meatball biryani from parents neighbours :heartpuls: Today was gym session then a yoga class. I took back a dress and cardi bought last month from fat face (so gained £70) but I then bought a nice new slouchy jumper in their sale and a belt in the sale so spent £42 of the £70 refund. I guess I still gained £28 and now have a new slouchy comfy day jumper!

This afternoon I have listed a few things from the jewellery room on Facebook marketplace, gf has mowed the lawn and we have watched Umbrella Academy on Netflix with the two furries.

Going to whizz the hoover round in a little bit and do some tidying, then whip something up for dinner from the cupboards