22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Ok guys it is New Year's Eve 2016. Time for a round up of the (8 months) year of overpaying.

Total sum borrowed at end of March ....£118,658.00,
mortgage currently stands at ............. .£114,863.60
DH's normal monthly payments were...... £4,325.46
my Overpayments ( of six months ).......... £1,218.91
the interest we have repaid has been .......£1,722.97:eek:

I am really surprised that the interest on this, is more than I have repaid. I was not expecting that. But it means that I am cutting into this debt or I would still be in the £116k range, rather than the £114k. It does mean though, that I have repaid an average of roughly £200 a month. I was aiming for £247 a month, but now I have the magic internet banking on the mortgage account, I can start 'tidying' the odd pence into the account. And we have dropped 4pence a day in interest. From £6.12 to £6.08.

So that is the financial news, plans for 2017 are.
To put the child benefit £247 straight into the mortgage account the day it comes in. It will benefit the children.
All YouGov payments are going straight to the mortgage account. Aiming for £150 this year.
Anything I can sell on the local facebook selling site goes in the pot.
Womble about like crazy - it focusses the mind. Jumble Sales, Book Sales and Charity Shops are the wombler's friend. Reduce, reuse, recycle, make-do and mend.

f0xh0les

My boys do not need an excuse to binge eat carp! They could compete for GB in the Olympics. I have 3 fruit bowls. They want crisps. I cannot win but I can make smoothies (smoothies are acceptable 'milkshakes' apparently- who knew!). The fruit all seems to disappear though. Must be mice.

I saw Cirque du Soleil a few years ago. I wanted to join the circus too. I fancy being one of those girls in the hoops up in the rafters. Spinning like mad on those ropes.

f0xh0les

Took the afternoon off from being Mum and went charity shopping instead. Found a new V neck school jumper for DS2 still with tags £1, a posh waistcoat DS4 is going to love, £1, and a new school blazer for DS1 £2.50. And a new never been opened but very battered, boxed game of Risk for £2.50. DH is quite excited about the Risk game. So some pretty good bargains, and came home, made a huge batch of dough to make pizza bases/doughballs/foccacia, put it in the airing cupboard to work its magic, and looked in the fridge and while I was out they have eaten all the bl00dy cheese. So it looks like I am going out again on a cheese run. Or I might just do cheese free pizzas. Either or. I did cheese free. They were great.

The doughballs have behaved and are lovely, light and fluffy, and the foccacia is in the fridge slowly proving for lunch tomorrow (tomato, garlic, and red pepper soup).

The second hamster tower arrived, so they are next to each other now and can kiss noses through the bars, but are safe in their own spaces.

So all I have left to do is wish you all a Happy New Year for five hours from now, and I will see you all (virtually) next year.

apple_muncher

Like what you do with thec= child benefit - I do the same, but had been feeling 'guilty' for not saving it for dd, until I read your comment. Thank you!

f0xh0les

apple_muncher wrote: »

Like what you do with thec= child benefit - I do the same, but had been feeling 'guilty' for not saving it for dd, until I read your comment. Thank you!

I have saved £100 for each year my kids were born, so ranging from 14 years - 7 years, in a 6% regular saver, so they get the interest from that in March each year to spend on what they will. They then lend me back their money to put in again, and I spend it on important things like roofs, and bathrooms. The money will be back there when they need it (16 or 18 yrs ). We are a family, we have family finances, how you use them is individual. I know people who would not dream of touching the money they have invested for their kids, but when we were buying a house, mine insisted we use their money if we needed to.

I love my kids. They are great. And they trust me not to rob them blind.

f0xh0les

YHA are having their 25% sale on selected hostels up until March. code NY2017-001 plus £3 off per adult and £1.50 off per child per night if you are a member (I have family membership so save £12 a night) I am so tempted to go back to Norfolk in February half term just to get the kids out of the house. 3 nights for just over £100, but that is a 6 bed room. Much cheaper if you only need 2/3/4 beds. But if it is chucking it down, 5 miserable boys will not be fun company. Will have to talk to Himself when he finally rolls out of his pit. It is shifting later and later, it was after 10.00 yesterday. 10.00! but Uni opens up again on 3rd, and the kids are back at school on the 4th, so it will all return to normal and the house will be empty at 8am.

All the kids stayed up this year to see in 2017. Not sure what they were expecting but the youngest two wilted hugely with 20 minutes to go, but they all made it, DS1 wandered in at quarter past midnight, with an 'is it time yet?'. No sense of urgency that boy of mine. Twit.

Just had a notification that a friend of mine is now engaged. Really pleased for them both. Not a close enough friend to be invited to the wedding or anything, but it was just nice to see some happy news. I like being married, even if he does leave his clothes all over the bedroom floor in piles. Yes, even though he has a wardrobe. He is going to wake up in it if he does not stop the floordrobe. Always good to start the new year with a threat.

I contacted DS2s clarinet teacher at the end of the last term to let her know he does not want to continue with lessons. To be honest he has been doing it for 18 months and is still on B-A-G stuff. OK, so he does not practise much, but still at around £150 a term for a 20 min lesson once a week I would have expected a little more than 3 notes. She needs a full term's notice to cancel, which I think is out of order. Especially as she has cancelled and changed the time of so many lessons due to her own ill health and hospital stays, and then he has to make up the time with double lessons or lessons after the end of the school day, so she does not end up with too much missed time. We have been really patient with her, she however is sticking to the exact terms of the agreement and wants £132 up until Easter. Oh well. Let's see if she tries to change his mind about quitting.

Cold, wet and rainy here on the first day of the New Year. Wet just is not conducive to festivity is is?

f0xh0les

Blimey I haven't updated in 5 days. Well, what have I done? Lovely black and white Kingsize duvet cover set from Asd4 via a charity shop £8.99, never used still has the sticky label on it, saving at least £10. It will complement the new wallpaper I bought for the bedroom when I put it up. Whenever that is! The dim and misty land we shall call 'the future..........'

Got another hamster ball from a charity shop for £1.50 so they can both rocket around the living room in their zorbing death stars.

Bought Star Wars baubles - metal ones that split in half and you can put presents in them (!) for next year, reduced down to 50p (spent £7) in Wilk0, then in £land the black and silver glitter star wars ornaments were a pack of 9 for 25p. So I will be having a Star Wars themed Xmas next year, to go along with my Tardis and Dr Who Xmas corner. Dairy free chocolate coin bags were down to 10p in Sainsburys.

Went to a very cheap shop, very odd, it is set up in the ground floor of an office building, some of the stock is o-o-d, others is well in date but much reduced, so we have 10p noodles, 15p plain flour, 70p Sainsbury's breakfast cereal, etc. I think it is along the lines of Approved Foods, but still, very strange and very bargain basementish.

DH is very shaken up about one of his students who came to him greatly distressed . His housemate had tried to kill himself and didn't know what to do. He came in as soon as he knew the Uni was open to get help. He felt he could not leave his friend on his own in case he tried again. Poor chap. He can only be 18 or so, 4 yrs older than DS1. So sad. Not a good start to his university life, can't imagine what the mood in that house is right now. Anyway it is playing on DH's mind all the time. It is what makes him such a good tutor.

He is off to Portugal this week for 4 days to a conference with another academic friend, whose wife has just been diagnosed with cancer. So he may be going alone. Stocked up on Nakd bars for him, he has been there before so knows where the veggie restaurant is, but mostly he is going to be on black bean stew and salads. Still, the break might do him good after a rough first week back.

Bobarella

Foxy - really hope DH has a good trip.

f0xh0les

Well hello again!

Just gave away 4 pies from my freezer, as they had honey in them and so no good for us. So what do you do with them? Put them up for free on the local facebook page! Had a taker within 5 minutes just at the bottom of my road so dropped them over. No waste here! Have not misread an ingredients label for YEARS. Must have been very distracted that day.

Have made coconut biscuits for kids afterschool snack. Made an apple orange and plum compote to go in a filo case for pud with custard. Supper tonight will be a surprise, well , I have a menu plan for the week , but which one it will be is still a mystery to me.

Shunted Child benefit + a bit more, at the mortgage this morning. Down to £114,180. :beer:

Will try and do this week on £40 which should be easily do-able as most of the food is in the house. Just a few sandwich fillers needed for toward the end of the week. Wish the school was not nut free. Peanut butter on brown goes down well with them all. So cheap but not allowed. Mind you DS4 would bite your hand off for raspberry jam. :rotfl: M-i-L makes it and brings loads so it is sat in the pantry. Hmm, might be an option by Thursday.....

Remembered to do DS1s parents' evening booking online (!) so that is another thing done and in the diary.

Put the £8.99 new duvet on the bed and it looks SMASHING!!! (We are now on Five get into a Fix) will be nice getting in to bed tonight.

All laundry in the WM going round and round:rotfl:
Bathroom cleaned, even bath mats and pedestals washed and dried and back where they should be.
3 kids bathed last night, one left for tonight. Found DS1 at 11pm still watching his laptop in bed, 2HOURS after being sent to bed. I think this is not a new occurance. I only went upstairs as I thought I could hear one of the smalls in distress, you know when they give a little shout or whimper but not all the time, just intermittently - well, it wasn't the smalls, it was Big laughing and then stopping himself. So I am going to turn off the wi-fi at 8.30pm to stop them from messing about. Bedtime is not a calm experience this week. Poor DS3 came down with a scratch on his face from DS4 as they decided to fight over DS3s bedside lamp being on when DS4 was told to go to sleep. Well they are going to have to have different bedtimes from tonight, so there will be mutiny on the landing (Mr Christian).:D

Oh well, off to get some kids from schools.

See you later (but not after 8.30pm):(

Bobarella

Hummm that's a tricky one. I used to be a repeat offender for reading in bed long after lights out (torch) I can see late night laptop use is the new thing. Completely agree with you by the way, especially on a school night.

Are you allergic to honey then?