22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Just checked, it is £58 per month I pay, 9.9p per Kwh

Plus I got cashback...

gallygirl

f0xh0les wrote: »

Just checked, it is £58 per month I pay, 9.9p per Kwh

:eek: Come to Spain - it's over 14.4c per kwh, bill for two months was €218 :eek:. However, we get through about one gas bottle a month for most hot water (€16-7 a go) and a bag of pellets for the stove lasts 2-3 days, around €35 a month, and it's been an unseasonably cold winter.

apple_muncher

Hope you feel better soon.

f0xh0les

oooh ooooh ooooh keep forgetting to say....

I have dropped another penny off the daily interest!

Now at £6.03 a day

gallygirl

f0xh0les wrote: »

oooh ooooh ooooh keep forgetting to say....

I have dropped another penny off the daily interest!

Now at £6.03 a day

That elusive £5.xx is almost within touching distance :T:T:T.

f0xh0les

We have one year left on the sub 2% interest. I figured if I hit it hard from the beginning it makes a bigger impact on the total. Maths 101

Need to think about remortgage in November time, as the standard rate is 7% if I don't. Also guess it will look better if we have overpaid in the first 2 years that it is obv affordable for us. Wish I could just make a 10% overpayment in January and that would be it for the year. I could concentrate on doing other stuff. But I don't have that kind of money and have £2k as an emergency fund.

Going around in circles in my head right now. Actually sat down and worked out that the 1p off the mortgage is just under £100 over the 26yr mortgage.

Keeping it Frugal in Frebruary might well lead to Madness in March.

kerri_gt

I might dreading our gas bill this winter, we're with EDF too, fixed til July I think. The previous owners were with them and I figured it was easier to stay with them and work out our usage in the house over the first year rather than change. Extra Energy still haven't been able to give me my final bill fro me last May! However, we have a gas fire here that OH likes on so I'm worried how high the gas bill will be. Although we do have a combo boiler so no heating hot water unnecessarily, and our dishwasher and fridge freezer are both A+ or AA rated which is good.

I love your diary foxholes, it's so inspiring, we moved last May so all your house stuff is on par with plans and ideas we have, although we're in diff style houses. Would love to OP our mortgage but it's £800 a month more than what our rent is and we need our monthly 'surplus' for house jobs first.

f0xh0les

I am very lucky that my DH has horrifically low standards:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: He would not care if I had not hoovered in a week, if he even noticed it, he would just get the hoover out.
He is not bothered if I don't have the dishes done, as long as there are enough to eat supper off, he is fine, if there are not, he would wash just enough for supper.
This makes me sound like the most rubbish housewife in the history of housewives, normally I am on top of everything, and it is all done and tidy and the ship runs efficiently, but on the days when I am stripping doors or wallpapering walls or painting things, he is not the kind of person to say 'Oi the house is a mess'. Luckily my tolerance of messiness is much lower than DHs, so he barely notices as it rarely gets that bad that he would notice. :beer:
Academics, honestly, I am surprised they are allowed to cross the road on their own, half the time. What they don't notice is unreal!

That also means that he does not mind if it takes me ages to finish a job, half the time I am not sure he notices I have started one.

There is only one bone of contention between us, and that is the roof situation. We have nail sickness, we have been told, and advised to get a new roof, but also that it might have another 5 years in it, but we will probably have to patch the odd slate every now and again if we have high winds or a heavy snowfall, DH says the roof is not leaking therefore it is not a problem. I say lets get it fixed before it is a problem. We have 3 kids in the attic. If it leaks they will end up sleeping in his bed. He says its been there 120 odd years, don't mess with it, and around and around and around it goes. I might hit him with the 'it will be easier to sell quickly with a new roof' line or possibly, 'as we are getting double glazing anyway, we might as well save on the scaffold costs by getting the roof done at the same time' .... see, I have a few cards left up my sleeve. We have enough in savings to do the roof and have an emergency fund of about £4k I think.

I need to get proper written roof and window quotes. Then I will know how much I need to have saved/rob off DH. But I am not saving much as I am overpaying the mortgage. Catch 22. I have solved the draughty living room problem by getting all the draft excluders I made when we were in drafty Sheffield rented house, and putting them at the bottom of the bay windows. Works a treat, especially when the curtains are closed. It is bad 80s double glazing and tbh you can hear every footstep and car going past. It should really just be called glazing, the double bit is pushing it a bit.:rotfl:

Apart from our mortgage me and DH have separate finances. DH has had a love affair between him and his overdraft for years and years and years. He spent every penny he earns since I met him. Since we sold our house in Salford and walked away with £50k (I overpaid the mortgage each month, he paid the monthly payment( it was only £300) he has set himself up a 6% regular saver account. We split the money between us. He had £25k in his savings account and sat in his overdraft on his current account - which was what caused problems with the whole getting a mortgage fiasco - he looked dodgy as he was overdrawn for 20 years. :mad: Nothing I could say to him would make him change. I warned him over and over again, I even paid his overdraft off for him in full twice, and I think his Mum did as well at one early point.

Since we are trying to build him a credit history, and the mortgage was finally sorted, he has taken out a credit card, uses it for about £50 a month and is paying it off regularly IN FULL:money:. Has not fallen into his overdraft at all, and is saving into his regular saver. However he will not take his own lunch in to work, he is walking to work, but that is because I made us buy a house 10 minutes walk from his work - no excuse really but it is also on a bus route in case his knee bothers him. But after 10 months, still no credit history. Wish it were quicker. But there is no telling some people is there? He also does not see the point in overpaying himself, as I am doing that. :mad: It is annoying to see parcel after parcel coming in through the door to service his hobbies, but he is working hard and although I see his spending as frivolous, he sees it as stress relieving and relaxing. It is probably a good thing we don't have a joint bank account. At least I can't see how much money he is spending!

But that is the extent of my woes. If all I have to complain about is DH not being in debt, even if his spending is frankly incomprehensible to me, then really I am in a lucky place. Unless the roof falls off, then it is no holds barred 'Told ya so!!' territory. Let's hope he is right on this one. :beer:

f0xh0les

kerri_gt wrote: »

I might dreading our gas bill this winter, we're with EDF too, fixed til July I think.

Are you registered online for meter readings? Bung one in, at least you will know if you are in credit or not. Then you can plan for it. I don't know, all these men and their love affairs with heating. Must be a caveman thing, they are fire-gazing to make sense of their day.....:rotfl:

I love your diary foxholes, it's so inspiring, we moved last May so all your house stuff is on par with plans and ideas we have, although we're in diff style houses.

Why thank you!

Would love to OP our mortgage but it's £800 a month more than what our rent is and we need our monthly 'surplus' for house jobs first.

We were renting at £1k a month, the mortgage is less than half of that, and DH got a pay rise of over 10k when he took the Leicester job, plus it was a permanent contract where the other one was just a 9 month gig. So we are probably in the best financial situation we have been in, well, probably ever really. Mind you when he jacked in his job 6 years ago and we went from £39k down to £6k it was a bit of a shock, but still just about do-able. It has taken 6 years to get back slowly to anything resembling a decent salary. Probably why I am such a skin-flint MSEr. :rotfl:

kerri_gt

I do do online billing foxholes but last time I put in a reading they upped my DD - which is fine, because I'll have to pay for what we use anyway but right now spare funds are assigned for things like guttering so I'm ok to defer for a little bit until we're out of the woods there.

I do firmly believe the saying opposites attract applies to finances too - I have spreadsheets and everything accounted for, and a budget and try to be frugal where possible to enjoy my hard earned £ on things I want to enjoy. OH...well, he's just coming round to the idea that you can only spend the same £ once :eek::rotfl: So I manage our finances and we each have a monthly 'allowance' - sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing or not , whilst it means things get paid, it does mean that OH continues to live in blissful ignorance of the actual cost and value of things. Oh well, he prob thinks I'm a skin flint control freak :rotfl::rotfl: