Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

blackste

Kittenkirst wrote: »

May round-up


Started playing with the first direct mortgage rates & calculators and got all excited, however we don't change mortgages until May NEXT year lol! I do hope the rates remain as competitive then! With our current payment amount we would be able to shorten the mortgage term with no impact to our monthly spends which would be fantastic I can keep dreaming....

I was sat with my mortgage adviser only 2 weeks ago, and he felt strongly that rates would be stable for a few more years yet. I went for a 2 year fix, based on that and my own belief of the same.

Love your diary btw, one that i make a point of reading.

Kittenkirst

Thanks BlackSte for the compliment, glad to know someone likes reading my babble Also good to have some comfort from your mortgage advisor too regarding rates!

We've managed to avoid the lure of tesco's; gf's mum text us to tell us we still had some meat in her freezer so we walked over and picked it up.

We now have lean turkey mince defrosting which we're going to have made into a Thai/Chinese style with some lightly boiled cabbage and brocolli. Yum.

Mum had made a massive chopped salad with white cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, chili etc and so have us some of that to take home so we had that for lunch and it was delicious!!

We've now got additional lamb burger, pack of sausages, 2 black pudding and pork sausages & 2 packs of 2 pork steaks. All food we bought agggges ago that we forgot about and will come in very handy.

I've been reading through some of the meal plan threads (black saturns, gingham ribbons etc) and have a massive hankering for a peach cobbler...will have to hope this passes as it's not very good for the waistline!

Groundsmen have been and dug up the patio, fixed the pipework and started replacing the patio. They'll finish off tomorrow, it all seems to be working now which is great!

Last day tomorrow of the time off, not achieved much this week unlike the last week off. However we've both been getting back into the gym, eating a lot better and generally feeling relaxed. I think this can only be a good thing!

Kittenkirst

Naughty 9p spent on some oven bottom muffins at Mr T's on our evening walk after dinner. Walked by the gf's parents and dropped half off with them; bacon muffins for us tomorrow after the gym!

Yum! I also managed to find £5 in a cupboard all folded up, this never happens to me so feeling pretty chuffed.

Ended today on 21,790 steps according to Fitbit which makes 86,549 since Monday morning. Despite this being a crazy amount of steps for me in four days I'm fourth in one of the challenges...tough group to beat!

themadvix

Great haul of forgotten food there and nice find on the fiver, although I hope it wasn't an old one? (I guess it's destined for the bank anyway, so not the end of the world if it is!).

Amazing step count, you put me to shame.

atypicalblonde

I'm lucky if I get to 10,000 steps a day, in my defence dragging two small children around with me most of the time makes it nigh on impossible!

Well done on resisting Tesco - meal planning really is the way forward and I am constantly astounded as to how much money can be saved by "making do" with what you already have in your kitchen rather than buying more xx

Kittenkirst

Steps will be low today, a bit of a dodgy tummy meant a very quick 20mi spinning session and then left the gym.
It didn't stop me demolishing my bacon & mushroom cob though

Pooky

That's a huge amount of steps! I'm lucky if I get to 5000 most days - working from home with a disabled DH means I dont get out as much as I'd like. I was chuffed to find 20p in the car this morning so I'd have been exstatic with a fiver!!!

Kittenkirst

Went into town this afternoon and finally found the nest of tables we have been searching for, and from a lovely independently owned store too
They were cheaper than we had seen similar elsewhere but still £100 for the set :O

That was the pricey part of the day, the rest of the trip was far more frugal. I need new sports bras as my shock absorber running ones have seen better days...my favourite one has all the elastic coming out :O

I got two from Debenhams-£42 at full price each- however they had a promo on that if you had a fitting you got 20% off.the lady at the till mentioned it so I said I will go get a fitting and she said not to worry and took it off for me anyway! I used a Debenhams voucher of £51 odd and only paid £13,70. Result

We then had a few samples from Auntie Anne's pretzel place and the lady advised us to download their app and get a free pretzel- so we shared a salted pretzel. Walked along a bit and the other pretzel place were handing out cinnamon sugar samples. Yum!

Picked up a free Rituals shower gel from a promo they had on Facebook a few months back...they had run out so took my details and promised they'd call when it was back in stock. They called a few weeks back but I hadn't been into town. They checked my name on the list and gave me the free sample

Finished off our shopping trip with a free cake & frothy coffee at John Lewis the lemon and poppy seed slice was delicious & so pretty too.

We planned ahead and took change from the change jar to pay for parking too so a fairly good shopping trip and the new nest of tables look gorgeous in the front room. Although the cats seem to think they are their ornament stands now :heartpuls

Kittenkirst

Finally back to work and already taking solace in my coffee break!

Called mortgage company and the interest per day is now £13.67 so will amend my round up post to add it in it's good to see it coming down slowly.

We sorted through piles upon piles of paperwork yesterday and we now have two Carrier bags full to shred soon and a few piles that need tidying and filing in a nice folder or something. They are currently stashed under the sofa (storage sofa) until we work out how to store it all.

It also meant I found my pension paperwork from last June- it was sat at £10,293.60 so I've updated my app and spreadsheet to show this. I put in 4% a month and the company puts on 8% so it's going up around £300 a month at the moment so I'm happy with this.

Checked the student loans website and up to the end of March the balance was a very surprisingly small £896, which with Aprils big contribution (thanks to the annual bonus) of £330 and Mays of £93 means it should only be around £450!

I never thought I'd see the day that I had hardly any student loans or have a pension plan!

Right back on with work, coffee breaks don't last forever unfortunately!

themadvix

That's great news about the student loan - it'll soon be gone!