Getting a Grip and Saving towards the mortgage

Busy_Mee1

I am back from a fab holiday, feeling slightly chilly and jet lagged this morning. My body clock is out of sync so I have been up since silly o'clock doing washing and a fair amount of money shuffling :rotfl: It feels strange to be doing this so late in the month.

The holiday was great and we got to see another corner of the world we haven't been to. I feel very happy that we are able to balance saving for our retirement, and finding enough money to travel whilst we are still fit and able; even if this does mean being fairly frugal on a day to day basis. I have definitely decided that I would rather spend money on holidays than "stuff" .

Thanks Madvix and TH as ever, for your encouragement and hello Tinkerbell. It is lovely to have had visitors whilst I have been away.

Anyway, by way of an update on Hardcore May, I have had a bit of a setback in that the electricity tripped out whilst were away and the freezer defrosted .
I spent last night throwing the majority of the contents in the bin as I just didn't know how long it had been off for and I darent risk it. I have managed to salvage a few things that should be OK, like bread and cakes and we will be eating these up over the next couple of days.

The silver lining I guess is that I can give the freezer a proper clean and start from scratch building up stores again, luckily it wasn't that full.

I am however determined to plough ahead with Hardcore May on the basis that even if I don't make the magic £50k target, I will still be further forward in my long term savings plan. Given that there are only 3 weeks left in May this shouldn't be too bad.

I have done the number crunching and allowed a little more for groceries than I had planned, given I have nothing in the freezer :eek: My plan also relies on some annual interest on my ISA and the £200 switching bonus from N@tionwide being paid.

I will keep you updated and try not to winge

Busy_Mee1

All plans today were scuppered as my car wouldn't start. I think the battery is flat.:eek:

First the freezer and now the car, and I am now waiting for the third thing to happen. I am far too superstitious for a reasonably intelligent woman :rotfl:

At least today will be a NSD

Busy_Mee1

It's Friday and I have managed to make it without too many mishaps. I did knock a jar of peri peri salt out of the cupboard and smashed it, so I am counting this as my third bit of bad luck !

Mr Mee managed to get my car going again. I am not sure what drained the battery because nothing was left on, but the car is due for servicing, so I will mention it then.

I was dreading going back to work but it really hasn't been bad at all. We are quite quiet at the moment, but this is just the lull before the storm, as it will all kick off again in June. I am going to enjoy it whist I can :T

I got notified of my performance bonus for this year and I was awarded the top amount. I am really pleased that my hard work has been recognised and even happier that I will get a chunk of extra money around August time :j

Hardcore May has commenced in earnest. I did a very frugal grocery shop on Tuesday. I had to go to Sainsbreeze because of the car trouble and was ultra,ultra careful, as we all know how badly a trip to Sainsbreeze can turn out:rotfl:. I managed to get us a good haul of reduced stuff and spent £41.92, but I used £10 of nectar points so it only cost £31.92.

Using my nectar points reminded me that I have various other rewards and points squirrelled away that I can use to ease Hardcore May and I used my Boots points to pay for some stuff I needed from the chemist. So no other "real money" spent this week.

I have ruthlessly shuffled as much money as I can into savings,and including £453.00 annual interest from my fixed rate ISA, the total savings currently stands at £49,775.32. I need to find another £224.68 to hit the magic £50k figure.....this feels so near and yet so far !

I am still waiting for the £200 switching bonus from N@tionwide - this will more or less guarantee we will get over the line and I am obsessively checking my accounts everyday to see if has been paid.

I have left us with £100 a week (£300) to pay for everything else this month , groceries, parking, petrol and any other incidentals, so if I am really careful I could dig a little bit more out from here. I also have the S@antander rewards and interest to come, but this will only be about £10.

The reality is that I really need N@tionwide switch bonus to hit the magic £50k figure - I think I will ring them today to see when it is likely to be paid.

Have a great weekend :j

try_harder

Oh so close ,just brilliant ,i am keeping my fingers crossed for you that it will come in soon but what ever happens you will soon be there.I am so pleased for you ,you have worked so hard on all fronts .
Glad you had a lovely holiday i am looking forward to mine i feel we both need it my husband is very tired poor man ,he works such long hours and its a very physical job .So pleased too to hear about your bonus and the fact that they appreciate you at work that really does make all the difference after all you are working so many hours of your life it is so much better if you feel good about it all .
You too ,have a good weekend ,i expect you will find plenty to do at home .Did you ever get your garden furniture ?I do hope the sun will come back ,it was beautiful yesterday sitting in the garden but not so nice today .

Busy_Mee1

So after a frugal few days in which I only spent £2.00 on a Birthday card for our baby niece and resisted going to the pub for our tea on Friday night ( I am not sure Mr Mee is as committed to Hardcore May as I am :rotfl: ), I have slightly blown the budget today :eek:

I have spent £93.93 on groceries but to be honest I needed to because the cupboards, fridge and freezer were bare. I don't think I have had so little food in the house for years. I also drew out £40 cash (£20 each). This leaves us with the grand total of £167.07 for the rest of the month :eek:

I did do another Tilly Tidy last week of £8.08 so our savings total is now standing at £49,783.40, so £216.60 still to find before the end of May to hit £50 k. There is still no sign of the N@tionwide switching bonus yet, but the website says it should be paid before the 20th of the month following the switch. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I have also realised that my 20p jar is almost full and it normally holds around £50. I needed to get this bagged up, counted and paid in. There is also £40 tracking in TCB, I am hoping this will become payable before the end of the month. All these little bits and pieces of MSE shenanigans are really making a difference this month :money:

I will be back to the Sunday cookathon this afternoon - I am making Tuscan Lemon Chicken (SW) and Lemon drizzle cake to use up some lemons. I am also going to try and replicate A beetroot and orange salad we had on holiday for the lunch boxes tomorrow.

Busy_Mee1

try_harder wrote: »

Oh so close ,just brilliant ,i am keeping my fingers crossed for you that it will come in soon but what ever happens you will soon be there.I am so pleased for you ,you have worked so hard on all fronts .
Glad you had a lovely holiday i am looking forward to mine i feel we both need it my husband is very tired poor man ,he works such long hours and its a very physical job .So pleased too to hear about your bonus and the fact that they appreciate you at work that really does make all the difference after all you are working so many hours of your life it is so much better if you feel good about it all .
You too ,have a good weekend ,i expect you will find plenty to do at home .Did you ever get your garden furniture ?I do hope the sun will come back ,it was beautiful yesterday sitting in the garden but not so nice today .

Hi TH, no we haven't got the garden furniture and I think we will be waiting for next month, because I have thrown all the spare money at our £50k challenge.

I hope you and your OH have a fantastic holiday it sounds as if you are really ready for it x

themadvix

Glad you had a good holiday BusyMee! I feel your pain about coming back and things going wrong - you have my sympathy! (see my diary - soon to be updated - for my list of woes!)

It sounds like you're doing well and the extra bits of money are helping - I know that feeling too Great news about your bonus, you definitely deserve that from what you've said about the stress recently.

Busy_Mee1

It is a beautiful sunny Monday morning and there is no usual trip to London for me :j A couple of my normal Monday meetings down there got cancelled and I can just teleconference the other one. I am therefore taking the opportunity to update my diary ( a bit late) after a hectic weekend.

We have had a lovely weekend with some old friends staying and the kids dropping round to spend time with them. So a lovely house full

In terms of financial stuff, Hardcore May continues. I managed to hold on to my £20 cash spends until Thursday but then the window cleaner arrived and needed paying :mad:

I went supermarket shopping on Friday in my lunch break, which meant I was without Mr Mee so was able to shop a bit more carefully and only spent £50.49. He shops with a bit of a siege mentality and is slightly scared that we will run out of anything, consequently we end up with gluts of particular items.....currently we have four bottles of flash under the sink !

The best financial news was that DD unexpectedly paid me £150 towards her US flight, so I put that towards the savings and Shhh :shhh: I darent say this too loudly because there are still 10 days until the end of the month, but I think I am going to hit the magic £50k ! I don't want to jump the gun though....anything could happen in the next 10 days !

The worse financial news is I think I have made an epic fail on the N@tionwide switching bonus...they are suggesting that the account switched didn't meet the criteria for the bonus. I think one on the direct debits didn't get paid out on the original account because they switched really quickly and therefore there wasn't two active DDs. I am still in correspondence with them but if the worse comes to the worse I think I can retrieve the situation my closing the N@tionwide account and switching another one that will satisfy the T&Cs for N@tionwide. I might also be able to get another switching bonus by switching the current N@tionwide one to FD as both DDs have now paid out so with satisfy the T&Cs for FD.:money:

In other financial news I have set up a new regular saver with M&S with interest that will pay out in the 2018/19 tax year and I have also downgraded my S@antander to a 123lite account as the interest of a paltry 98p in not worth the £5 charge.

Have a great week everyone

Busy_Mee1

I have a confession to make ...I ordered new garden furniture. I have been threatening to buy new garden furniture for the last couple of years but talked myself out of it. I was determined that we would buy some for this summer but then Hardcore May kicked in.

However I saw the weather forcast on Sunday and took the plunge (using my credit card) . It arrived on Tuesday and I love it and have been sat outside in the evenings on my lovely outdoor sofa enjoying the weather :T

Does this mean I will get kicked out of the MFW gang ?

themadvix

Definitely not! Life is for living too and I know I'm guilty of putting things off which would probably improve quality of life because of financial goals and it's not good! Enjoy your furniture to the full - we're all here because we choose to pay money off, not because we have to, it's all about choices!