Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

MichaelDH

Hi Kittenkirst

Sounds like you've had a productive day! Hope you are planning to take it easier tomorrow!

The craft fair was great thank you, though a little spendy... bought three new candles (£25), four little cakes (£5) and two Dahlia plants (£3) so not too bad really. I'm in love with my new candles, Indian Summer, which I can't really describe other than it smells kind of tropical, Coconut and Lime wish smells exactly as you would expect it too, and Green Apple which smells so crisp and fresh. Can't wait to light them but have got another 10 at least to get through first as well as some of her wax melts.

Drew's parents visited from Telford today and took us out for lunch so that saved us some money. Had delicious Turkey and Mushroom Pie, Chips and Veg, followed by Cherry Bakewell Sponge Pudding and Custard. The pie wasn't technically a pie, was just a pastry top, but will steal this idea next time I make a pie at home. I usually use a whole pack of ready rolled puff pastry to do the pie base and top and chuck away the left overs, but I reckon I could get six pastry tops from a roll at least, maybe eight. So lunch was free, tasty and educational!

Going to chill together tonight and do some planning. Need to think about meals for the week ahead, have a look what we've got in the fridge freezer and cupboards and make a shopping list. We've agreed to try doing an Aldi shop tomorrow. Hope they sell nice tomatoes! Any idea what day the super six changes?

Decided I will be starting a diary at the end of the month once I've got more of an understanding of our finances. Can't wait, I think it will really help keep me on track. Not planning to tell Drew that I'm doing it as think it might cause him to rebel

Kittenkirst

Ooooh those candles sound lovely! I'm still on a use up mission with my candles and incense as I have so so much and keep stockpiling! We started on some 'witches brew' candles last night which were a Halloween gift from a friend (it's my Christmas!) unfortunately they didn't give off much scent which was a little disappointing (they are wax lyrical brand so I expected more!)

We've just made Sunday lunch for us and dad as mum is off for the afternoon: used two chicken breasts and made a lower fat chicken and mushroom pie, dads portion is cooking with roasts potatoes at the moment and will make some veggies and gravy when we take it round at half past for him.

We'll finish ours off when we've dropped his round; used half a roll of pastry from freezer (from last pie making escapades) and added onions and peas to bulk it a bit more. Pleasing as we reduced the chicken quantity but it still looks plenty for us three.

Hugo is now watching his programme- he loves coronation street it seems, he hears the starting music and comes running then sits and watches the whole episode on the arm of the sofa. So cute!!!

He made us chuckle on Friday night as we were watching catch up tv in bed and he was enthralled by the Waitrose advert, so much so that he jumped up at the tv on the wall and fell on the floor. Funny & adorable!! :heartpuls

We've been to mr Ts this morning as we were out of cornflour for the pie: spent £4.61 as got some YS pork and a YS chicken pizza and a big bag of onions. Shouldn't need any other groceries this week hopefully so we are still under our £25 a week budget

Need to mop the kitchen floor this afternoon and if the rain holds off now the lawn! Allllll the chores

Needhelpsaving

Mmmm, the pies sound lovely!

FYI on the candles, it might be worth emailing to give feedback on the scent. Someone at work had a Yankee candle and the scent did not 'throw' (I didn't know this was a thing), but they offered her a brand new candle.
It may not work, but worth a try?

Kittenkirst

Good thought Needhelpsaving, I've emailed them now with feedback just now, thank you. I'm Not really after a freebie but good to give feedback as their candy corn candles were gorgeous so it's not up to their usual standard! I'm going to stock up on candy corn ones when Halloween comes around as should be all used up by then!

Pie worked well and dad was very pleased. We cooked our pies when we got home and by having just the pastry top and using a cornflour based white Sauce it was a lot less calories, even with my 'healthy' portion of roasties! Had the leftover mac cheese on toast for supper tonight and gf had beans of toast as she's not been feeling great today.

Two items sold on ebay! £7.50 plus postage for shoes (they reached £24 last time the buyer then didn't pay though!) and £5.20 for the smoke alarm (buyers already paid as well!) so £12.70 for our clutter :money:
The two thermostats have 3 and 4 days left on them so hoping that they wil both go.

Didn't get anything listed today need to work through the pile and pick out the summery items and get those listed next week.

I went onto the pensions forums today and started playing with the Money services pension calculator which is a little scary I must say. I'm currently putting 4% aside a month and my company puts in 8% however the calculator suggests to retire at 65 I need to be putting in closer to 16%! :eek:

Working through my budgeting spreadsheet which goes on quite a few years and looking at when I could increase the pension contribution; my student loan should be cleared by my feb pay so that £92 can be diverted across to the pension without me noticing it so will bolster my contribution up to 8%, making 16% invested per month. I will then work to keep increasing it from there.

I'm also planning on putting £10 a month into my Lifetime ISA, which I'll boost by £10 a month per year (so £20 next year, £30 the year after) and add any lump sums from regular saver payouts/sharesave payouts when they occur.

Alongside this I'm going to be putting £50 a month into premium bonds from next year when my regular savers finish which will build that little pot.

I'm hoping having these alternate stashes of funds will support with our retirement plans, despite me not turning 65 until 2048

Kittenkirst

Coffee break time!
Dropped the little boys off at the vets this morning at 8am and working from home today so I can go and collect them a little later.

Talking with gf last night we are provisionally planning our big holiday, planning for Sept 2018 three weeks in Oz with maybe a little
stopover in Fiji (if the climates good then!).

Gf gets Amex points and has 53,000 at the moment. To get two return flights for Oz and pay only £500 in total will be 60,000 points so looking at what I can use her credit card to pay for and then pay the cash straight across (vet bill today, fortnightly petrol for example). Alternatively we can use the points for hotel stays in Sydney and the areas we travel to. Exciting to have a general idea and something to save up for!

Prolific is going well- now up to £21.28 tracked so have to wait for it all to confirm and for one £10 survey I need to do two more parts on different days. So glad I asked about prolific as am having loads now through periodically checking on my coffee breaks

We had some bad luck the other week as Girlfriends only pair of glasses broke- frames snapped! we've bodged them together with tape and she was initially going to go to Boots; I checked MSE and she tried the home trial of frames with GlassesDirect. She loved one pair and has ordered them this weekend, they do £30 off for a new customer and 241 on certain frames. She has paid £34 for two full pairs of glasses which I think is fantastic and they should arrive by Wednesday :money:

So much so that I've downloaded a free eye test voucher from my company and booked in for Wednesday evening (it's been two years since my last test!) and if my prescription has changed I will order some frames to try!

Kittenkirst

I've just found £19k!!!!!!!:rotfl:

So, thinking of pensions I went onto the company pension portal and it needed a reference number so I could log in. I dug out my meticulously filed pensions paperwork and was confused that I had two companies- Legal & General & Standard Life statements. Not sure how I'd never noticed this before

Looking closer I realised that the Legal & general contributions stopped mid 2013, and that's when the standard life one started. I assumed that they had rolled the funds over but once I'd got logged onto standard life's portal there was no transfer of funds....I dutifully waited for lunch and called Legal & General to be told the pot of £14k from the Sept 2014 statement has grown to

£19,322.75

I feel like I've won the lottery!!! I've updated the address they hold on file, got my log on details and requested a statement of account for it.

I shall also advise gf to give Legal & General a call as she's been with our company longer than me so possibly has two pension funds!!

shangaijimmy

What a fantastic find!

MichaelDH

Hi Kittenkirst

Well done on the pension windfall! Bet that's made your Monday!

Hope the boys operations go well. Lots of cuddles for Oscar and Hugo today. We had our Oscar neutered just over two weeks ago and it didn't seem to bother him at all, he was running around like a crazy thing the next morning.

Your chicken and mushroom pie sounds lovely. I made something similar, chicken, bacon and leak cottage pie, delicious! We are usually greedy and eat the whole thing but this time I froze half of the filling and bulked out our meal with veg. Will top leftovers with a pastry lid at some point.

Yesterday was really productive. Sorted out access to our joint account with First Direct, shamefully I don't usually bother logging in to check statements etc. so had forgotten password. Also opened up a separate saving account with First Direct so that we can keep bill and general money separate to savings.

We planned our meals for the week ahead and did an Aldi shop which came to £36.02, at least £10 cheaper than equivalent shop at Asda would have been. Plus that included stuff for packed lunches too, so that will easily save us £10 per day between us! :j

Have registered for Free Postcode Lottery so will have to try and remember to check that each day. 50p cashback on Quidco too! Also registered for Pinecone at the back end of last week but have't received a survey yet so will carry on waiting patiently

newgirly

Congratulations finding the lost pension, that's amazing

shangaijimmy

Second those Aldi/Lidl comments. Not sure how we'd be able to afford anywhere else with 3 kids (1 still in nappies) and a dog!