Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

MichaelDH

Kittenkirst wrote: »

Yes here is a monthly fee or you can pay annually for a little discount. We have two cameras- one downstairs in front room and one upstairs covering the stairs and rooms.

We're on the free trial for 10 day playback. I believe 24 hr playback is free. We're looking at it being £120 for the year for the two cameras which being two ladies we think is suitable for us (and £5 a month for peace of mind). The alerts are great but we do get them for the kittens every now and then!

Deffo worth it for peace of mind. Will have a look at the nest cams

Kittenkirst

Urgh! Can't sleep tonight in anticipation of a meeting in the morning with our Legal boss at a London chambers. I've spent ages preparing and getting the info and people all together to make it work, but I still find myself awake and unable to drop back to sleep (I've been trying the past 2.5hours!)

The more positive side is that I'm staying in a pretty fancy hotel just off Marble Arch so went for a little wander last night when I arrived, and also got to go to a street food restaurant I like called East St. which is when it's nice to have a meal allowance from work for overnight stays!

prebooked car parking just need to remember to pay congestion charge in the afternoon.
The hotel is pretty swanky with a free minibar (soft drinks,crisps & chic) and nice toiletries so not bad at all.

On the Apple sourcing front, gf's auntie who lives locally has a tree so has given us a nice bag full. They are on the racks at home with plans to make Apple & blackberry crumble on Friday night.

Good friends of ours are waiting on their completion on their first home,but the house valuation has been delaying things. They had the valuation on Friday and were looking to complete on Friday this week but they are hearing conflicting things about whether this will happen or not. Fingers massively crossed for them: we're on standby to help with moving on Saturday if it's all systems go (they need to be out of their rented flat by the 18th so ideally it needs to happen this Friday!).
How exciting for them

Due to funds in acct being low I've transferred out of my easy access savings yesterday to cover reimbursable expenses with the plan being to repay it in a fortnight when I get the expenses reclaim through. I MUST put it back.....!!

eBay news- the thermostat is up to £10.50 whooop, the first one went for £5.50 and this one had no bids at all last week. Funny old EBay! No news from the mirror lady or the snowboard guy. I may message snowboard man on Friday and just check...if not I'll list it this weekend on Gumtree and FB selling.

Gf's Parents are looking after the kittens tonight and in the morning: because our Nest cams know we are both away (from phone location!) we get notifications that they are in the property so we sat late last night watching them from earlier. Gf's dad gave both boys a lovely cuddle which was so cute

Prolific is now at £16.74 with £3.55 pending. Planning to do more surveys, if available, on my lunch breaks thurs/fri and next week with a view to withdraw the following and bolster the Aug OP.

So far we're at £38.60 which isn't bad considering we get paid on 15th. If that snowboard sells though that would be a nice old chunk of change, and get rid of it from gf's parents storage! Fingers crossed for me!

Trying to eek out groceries to not buy anything until Saturday...is like to push it to payday ideally as gf is staying away Monday night so I can just have something simple out of the freezer really and save the ££££.we shall see what gf things when the weekend rolls around!

Off to read some diaries and catch up, hopefully reading will calm my nerves and allow some sleep

P.S Ganesh statue had to be hidden as didn't get a chance to repair before we came away! Naughty kitties knocking him if the window!

MichaelDH

Hope your meeting went well KK.

And yes please do remember to pay the congestion charge. I've forgotten once before and received a fine :eek:

Kittenkirst

Meeting went really well thankfully! So well that my boss questioned why we had been made to travel for it; he's not aware of all the background running around like a mad thing I've done trying to get us to that place (it took ages working through it all with resistant stakeholders, documenting it, challenging passages with IS support etc!) I will definitely make sure he knows in my next 121 with him!!

Home from London and so very tired

Need to put all the expenses claims in today and get those pennies back!

Fleabay update- thermostat sold for £11.50 wooooooop! Buyer has paid already so will package and post that out ASAP. So £11.06 OP'd this morning (residual amounts in Paypal leaving enough for the fees to come out next week)!

Working from home today so should be ano spend day and should be able to take things a little easier as I'm pretty shattered from manchester & London trips this week!

Five mins to read some diaries then coffee and getting logged in for work

Kittenkirst

Morning all, nothing major to report from me today; also I've moved £120 back to savings which wasn't spent in London. The temaining £130 will be moved once expenses have been paid back.

I've sorted all my receipts ready for my claim today. However I hadn't realized you only have 24 hrs to pay congestion charge!!! I duly logged on yesterday ready to pay for Tues & Weds and would only let me pay for Wednesday. So, I shall have a £65 fine for Tuesday which I'm not sure if work will cover. It feels like an unnecessarily short payment timeframe to me I must say. :mad::mad:

Finally got a bid on an empty perfume bottle: 3rd week it's been listed so I'm pretty pleased it's got a £1.99 bid lots of watchers on some of the 30day listings but no more buy it bows yet!

Emailed the snowboard man to ask whether they were interested or I should just advertise it. Assuming I'll advertise it but waiting until closer to snowboarding season to get he best price

Need to have a rummage in the freezer for dinner stuffs for tonight....might convince gf to have that chicken Katsu curry again as it was a pretty easy recipe to do

debtfreeoneday

Hope you manage to get the congestion charge sorted!

MichaelDH

Kittenkirst wrote: »

However I hadn't realized you only have 24 hrs to pay congestion charge!!! I duly logged on yesterday ready to pay for Tues & Weds and would only let me pay for Wednesday. So, I shall have a £65 fine for Tuesday which I'm not sure if work will cover. It feels like an unnecessarily short payment timeframe to me I must say. :mad::mad:

Oh dear! That's exactly how they got me. Don't know why the window for paying is so short, seems a bit of a con to me. Fingers crossed work will cover it for you.

Kittenkirst

Thanks guys- talking with my wider team someone else got hit with it but they claimed it back successfully. We've had a change in manager since though so I'm hoping that gets through.

Had a call today and my boss talked about my big meeting on Wednesday and how it was testament to the levels of pre work and coordination i had done beforehand

£3 Pinecone survey completed before work this morning and 20p on onepoll....no surveys yesterday on prolific or so far today. Keeping an eye out as want to really maximize the returns for the OPs

Yougov is sat dwindling at £37 and hardly any survey...I want to hit the £50 payout this year ideally so will start religiously checking it daily in case I'm missing surveys.

Following he freezer rummage Dinner is going to be a sausage, mash and onion gravy meal (with mangetout and Broc) followed by homemade apple and blackberry crumble (using the foraged fruits!).

Will go to the gym again today and try and do the back stretches to keep the pain at bay.

Awaiting the glass company receiving the glass pane for that to be fitted, off to the tile place tonight as called them yesterday and they haven't got the off white tile we wanted but they have a brilliant white in stock so we'll go and see if it's suitable and look at getting those finally ordered

Kittenkirst

As if by magic a Yougov survey was sat in my inbox after work now at £37.50, and another £3 on prolific earned today so not too bad a use of my tea breaks

Small OP of 30p sent this morning to round down, and following a quick stop at Tescos Another 63p sent to round down again.

Friends aren't moving in this weekend so will lend a hand on Monday night once they've got the keys!

Apples all peeled and cored for crumbles: two crumbles made (one for us today/tomorrow, one for gf's parents tomorrow) and two tupperwares of stewed apple portions to freeze for pies/crumbles another day. I stupidly forgot about the blackberries in the freezer so just apple and cinnamon. Kitchen smells ammmmazing!

VelvetFreak

Hello KK.
Have spent the last few days reading through your diary
You and the gf seem to be doing really well. Call me nosey, but I just love reading about peoples' day-to-day lives. I am in Aus, so things are a little different here. I think I read a few pages back that you are planning a visit? Have you decided which parts yet?