Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

Happy Saturday all!
Today started with having to do the Saturday morning paper-round for girlfriends parents, as their paperboy is unwell in hospital. Not sure what is up with him, but very concerning for the poor lad and his family  

This week has certainly been interesting; in a very flakey way I ended up being given an interview for another role, and Ive only gone and been offered the job, with a pay rise too!!

Just awaiting the contract being sent next week and I’ll hand my notice in! I am totally anxious about the contract coming through, so just keeping everything crossed that all goes to plan and nothing scuppers it!

Managed to get out for a 7km walk yesterday afternoon which felt good- it was very chilly but the fresh air really helped with the cabin fever I’ve been feeling.

Some small overpayments made to the mortgage- £6.47 from Prolific and £1.20 cash back from Quidco. 
Payday was on Friday for me, so the bills have been paid and I have put money into the Cyprus holiday pot as that needs paying early March if we are able to go in May for the wedding. Will just have to wait and see; losing a holiday isn’t too much of an issue for us (we will get a refund/exchange) but just hoping for my friends their wedding can go ahead.

Oscar the cat seems to have another water infection- last time the vets just gave him a painkiller and it seemed to clear itself, so this time we have looked into remedies for at home and ordered some Cat tablets from feliway to try. If its not improved in a few days or he seems really uncomfortable it will be a vets visit again!

Due to potentially changing jobs and then my pay date shifting to the end of the month; with my proposed start date, I will have 6 weeks between paydays but the bills are still set up on my standard pay date, so I haven’t put anything into savings just yet and I will be focussing on trying my hardest not to spend any cash!

Olio has been ace recently- I got rid of a pair of high heels that slip off so I’ve worn them in the office once, and also a pot noodle style dish that I got from company shop. I tried one and really, really didn’t like it. Our food waste hero had a bit of fresh veg on Wednesday night and lots of bread last night, so tonight we are having cauliflower cheese and hotdogs in buns, and tomorrow we are making pau bhaji (a veg style curry served with toasted buttered bread rolls). Our freezer is burgeoning and we’ve been routinely putting things we wont get round to eating from our weekly shops into the girlfriends parents spare freezer too, so we’re trying to work on eating it up next week.

I made a mincemeat, marzipan & apple tart this week from BBC GoodFood which was lovely, girlfriends parents loved it too. Pretty glad as it used up the marzipan we were given by a neighbour last January (had a long date on it), apples from the freezer from aunties apple tree in the autumn, mincemeat left over from Christmas and some puff pastry: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/mincemeat-marzipan-apple-tarte-fine

My sourdough starter isn’t coming along well- its very runny and not really increasing in size now

debtfreeoneday

We’ve had an issue with our cat and UTI. Ended up with blinking expensive food and daily medication but to be fair it’s sorted him out. Mashing food in water was recommended to up their water intake so we mix a bit of high quality food at one meal and then his super expensive food for the rest of the time plus his daily meds. I didn’t realise how typical it is for male cats to get water infections so much. 

themadvix

One of ours is on UTI dry food too and we always add water to his chicken. Good to know we’re not alone! Hope Oscar gets sorted naturally - our other cat was due to have an op to unblock things after several days of not being able to go and then as I was about to box him up to take to the vets he went for a massive wee - I’m not sure who was more relieved, me or him! 😂

Kittenkirst

Thanks debtfreeoneday & Madvix- I had no idea it was so common either! He was having the feliway tablets but they didn’t seem to alleviate it, so I booked in for a vets appointment. He had a painkiller injection and is now on a 7 day course to help with his toilet issues. He’s not amused at staying in all the time- scratching at the doors to get out and generally being a bit depressed, but he seems to be urinating okay now.

Madvix- You did make me chuckle! I bet your kitty was super relieved if he’s anything like our Oscar who hates the vets with a passion!

I’ll take a look into UTI specific foods for him. He has a fair amount of water anyway as he’s always drinking (has a glass in our bedroom too the lazy bean!). We’ve ordered some feliway optimum diffusers as the vet recommended that in case it is stress related. Hopefully a combo of these will help as its so uncomfortable for him when he has the UTI and costs an emergency vet appointment plus meds for us.

This week Ive been back to work Wednesday-Friday and again this morning. It is going okay, but Ive now signed the contract for the new job and handed my notice in! I feel like such a weight has lifted and the new firm are super excited I’m joining- they’ve already sorted and ordered my laptop and work phone, Ive had an occupational health review with their team to see if I need any support and discussion about DSE in case I need any DSE equipment for at home (I currently have a laptop stand and separate mouse/keyboard so good to know I should be able to get these at the new workplace.

In other exciting news, girlfriend has listed her flat (on interest-only and just been weighing her down financially for ages) and has interest already.

We have also found potentially a new home which is very exciting. We went and found out some details at the weekend about available dates, included items (is another new build so we know things like flooring, kitchen, shower over bath, extra tv points all add up!) Hoping to see the show home (about an hour away annoyingly) on the weekend so we can ensure this is really for us!

We had all the snow yesterday so are pretty snowed in today on our estate so a quiet afternoon for me now Ive finished work: Calling sky to complain about our broadband yet again, calling my bank to sort out my internet banking Ive locked, doing the pre-checks online for my new job, packing up more beads Ive sold.

In overpayments to the mortgage we are now at £280.03 thanks to £152 Ive made from selling and posting off lots of my old bead stash. I have even more to list up so that’s jobs for this week too- it will only sell if its advertised! Quite pleased as its not been too much effort.

Ive been doing a no spend challenge on makeup, toiletries and clothes for January. Ive made an exception to buy some jogging bottoms as I split the thighs in two pairs of stretchy jeans last week (lockdown weight & just the age of the jeans as they were faves  I managed to get a 10% discount code and free delivery for the joggers so I was pleased with that.
However, I then had a zoom call with some friends last night which I haven’t done since my depression/anxiety flared up, and I had some amaretto. This then led to a splurge on the Killstar website and I spent £60 on their sale. I don’t need the items so will have to sort out returning them when they arrive!!!!

Burns night today so I’m making Haggis, swede & tattles for my dinner, girlfriend is having chicken as she’s not a haggis fan!
Im looking forward to the leftover haggis as it is lovely stuffed in chicken too

Jessy103

Congrats on the new job

debtfreeoneday

Our vet also said our cat might be stressed. Our cat is the most chilled out puddy ever. Bet asked me what he was depressed about - as if if can tell me!!!

Kittenkirst

Thanks Jesse! Three weeks to go until I start the new role and I am very excited. Also still can’t quite believe it comes with the £6.5k payrise too! I guess its true that it doesn’t pay to stick at one company (different roles) for so long!

This week has been a busy one; we’ve ended up meeting with an estate agent yesterday who took photos and our house is going on the market! Eeeeeeeeek

Also, in order to start the ball rolling, I dug out all our house paperwork (Land reg docs etc) and found a voucher for Barratts homes that they gave us when we bought this house. It will be worth £5k discount off a house if we buy from Barratts or David Wilson, which coincidentally are the houses we are looking at (only ones building in the location we really want). So that will be put somewhere safe just in case!! 

So that’s the girlfriends flat up for sale, our house going up for sale, and her parents shop sale still progressing, plus my new job! Maybe a bit silly doing it all at once but it’ll get some of the big changes out of the way in 2021, even if we do seem to already be spending our life sending documentation and emails to different solicitors!

In other news we have postponed our Paris trip to July this year- luckily Eurostar tickets are fully flexible but it does push back the date of the proposal back a bit, and our friends wedding has been postponed to July next year. Just awaiting TUI updating their free amendment dates to include May and then we’ll move it (for free). If we move it now we will have to pay £100 rearrangement fee so would rather avoid that if we can. Disappointed for our friends wedding being pushed back, but they seem fairly upbeat about it, and on a positive note gives us even more time to save up for it. Ill continue to pop £75 a month into the holiday saving account for me until we do get to go to Cyprus.

I have tickets for both Download Festival and Board Masters festival this year if they go ahead- I’m not convinced it will happen but its wait and see how the pandemic pans out. I just hope it slows down soon for all the people suffering with COVID or losing loved ones. It’s just too horrific if you think too much about it

Oscar is feeling a lot better now and we allowed him out yesterday, much to his happiness. Just relieved he’s feeling better- we could tell as he was pawing at the doors and yeowling a lot on Tuesday/Wednesday so we knew he was over the worst of it. Vets bill of £74 has been paid so we haven’t transferred to the cat savings account this month.

In overpayments we were at £280.03 however girlfriend has just been paid so transferred into our bills account. Our council tax is paid over ten months so free months in Feb and March, so Ive got ahead a few days and overpaid £148 this afternoon, and also our monthly overpayment of £112.45 for February. Making this month end on a fab £540.48 overpaid to the mortgage so far in 2021, but does mean that Feb will be lower as we didn’t wait and pay on the 1st!

VelvetFreak

It's been a long time since I've visited your diary and wow! Quite a lot has been going on. Congrats on your new job and (possibly) a new home. Yay! 

Kittenkirst

debtfreeoneday said:

Our vet also said our cat might be stressed. Our cat is the most chilled out puddy ever. Bet asked me what he was depressed about - as if if can tell me!!!

Ha ha I love that vets just think you will know! We aren’t sure whether he has been drinking dirty water down at that farm he visits and its bacterial, or whether he’s getting stressed out. He’s now had a urine sample tested and shows red and white blood cells higher than they should, so he’s had another antibiotic injection and we have Rheumocam to give him for ten days. If he isn’t better in 5 days he has to go back for ultrasound/x-rays. If he seems to recover in the ten days we have to do another urine sample for him to check its back to normal. So far the visits this week have been £180......they soon rack up don’t they!!

VelvetFreak said:

It's been a long time since I've visited your diary and wow! Quite a lot has been going on. Congrats on your new job and (possibly) a new home. Yay! 

Thank you for the congrats, nice to see you over here I’m trying to be a bit more regular with updating but will see

In house news- our house went up on the market Monday morning and we have four sets of viewers coming tomorrow evening and Saturday, Girlfriends flat had a viewing yesterday so we are waiting on any feedback from that too.
We went to see the show home of the bigger house we really like the look of, that we can get a mortgage for only if the flat sells too and its just wonderful. It’s exactly what we are both wanting- kitchen/diner/family room big enough for us to use as our main base in the house, lovely lounge, garage, and plenty of bedroom space to make home office for us as we’re both working from home consistently for the foreseeable (and both of our firms seem keen to keep it that way!)

So its all just wait and see now. We do like a smaller property that completing in May with David Wilson Homes that wont be dependent on getting someone interested in the flat, so just got to keep everything crossed that this year will be a positive one for us. Either way both properties are lovely, close to each other and the girlfriends family too, with quiet roads for the cat (concerned about any main roads as he is a wanderer and we are in quite a sleepy estate at the moment!).

With these house viewings Ive been trying to deep clean even more (strange how much you notice, and now my depressive episode seems to have abated somewhat) so Ive been in a cleaning and decluttering frenzy. The fridge freezer, kitchen cupboards and larder are looking sparkling; and Ive dug out some bits from the larder that are either not long past their best before or fast approaching so I’m focussing on getting these used up this week and next; Ive had oatmeal every morning with various fruits we have in, had instant mash on the side of my olio veg and turkey pie mix (no pastry, but used the mix we made in the freezer after Xmas!) and tonight I’m using the freebie pack of American pancake mix I got last pancake day to make American pancakes with bacon (from freezer at parents shop to stop it going out of date!) and maple syrup. YUM!



I’m planning to jet wash the patio this afternoon (once the girlfriend finishes her 2 hour video call) so it looks as good as it can for tomorrow/Saturday then its onto tidying and making the house look as lovely as possible. I’m tired already

Olio has been on fire this week- we’ve given away a smoothie maker from mums cupboards and a spiralizer she doesn’t use. We’ve also managed to collect from our Food Waste hero a few bits- so last night we had battered cod (olio) with homemade chips and curry sauces, with some (olio) steamed veg on the side. We got some lovely looking jam doughnuts last night so that’s our dessert/ treat for the next few days, we also picked up a cauliflower and grapes (so took them off our click and collect order for tomorrow at Tescos) as well as some pineapple fingers which we are both snacking on today. 

Tomorrow I’m picking up our Tescos click and collect, cleaning ready for the house viewing in the evening, and the girlfriend is going for her COVID vaccine with her dad! Yay, will be very relieved once they both have it done. I know it doesn’t necessarily mean we can go back to normal, they’ll both need to be super careful and vigilant still, but they will have a bit more protection hopefully.

debtfreeoneday

The bills quickly rack up. Ours just kept getting another infection as soon as he finished the meds. Hope it clears up soon for you / him.