Bricks Not Books

VintageHistorian

Today is 1 year since we completed on our house! I think I love it even more than when we bought it. All it needed was some TLC, and we can give that in spades!

VintageHistorian

SNOW!! :j :snow_grin: :dance:

michelle09

Happy one year in your house! Glad you're still happy.

savingwannabe

Congratulations on being in housey for one year. It has flown by. I hope you have a good time in the snow. It is icy here but no snow.

VintageHistorian

I have fallen down a bit with Christmas prep. Working from home today so I thought I would spend my time saved from not commuting by wrapping Christmas presents and writing out cards. Instead I've started planning a new blog post series next year on unlucky princesses XD So need to write the cards tonight so DH can take them to his work tomorrow (only a few to do, they're for my ex-colleagues/DH's current colleagues).

You will all be thrilled to know that after much deliberation, me and DH have decided to go to Disneyland Paris for our 1 year anniversary :T Already booked and paid (DH just needs to transfer his half to me before we go) and made sure I did it through Quidco. Going by Eurostar as planes make me sick and DH nervous. In the end he was less keen on Amsterdam, and he wasn't too fussed about Northumberland. Plus this is the last time we'll be able to go as we'll never be able to afford it when we have kids XD I've been looking at the website and getting very excited about it. Food does look quite expensive though so I'll need to sort out a saving budget for spends while we're there.

I've been making some plans for the new year, including setting out some plans for monthly savings. I was also inspired by SW's plan to lose weight. I stood on the scales recently for the first time in two years, and I was not happy with the numbers! I don't really "watch my figure" as it always seems to end up in an unhealthy obsession for many people. But I'm genuinely not happy with the weight I've put on, so I'm planning on making some health changes over several months that will hopefully lead to getting my weight back to a reasonable level. I really like MWC's monthly resolutions so I'm planning on trying something similar from January onwards, just need to actually write them down and then stick to them :rotfl:

Dinner tonight is a baked potato with a batch of (the worlds least spiciest) chili from the freezer! :j Winter comfort food.

savingwannabe

Great news about the new blog. It's great about your Christmas cards too. I have only done half.

Hurrah for Disneyland, I went once and I came away Disneyfied ( ie laden with parcels from the shops and a zero bank balance). It was fab and I've never forgotten it.

I ate so much comfort food at work today. I am sooooo glad to be home. The hols have started for me. I hope the last day goes well for you.

VintageHistorian

Not going to lie SW, there's a real chance I may buy lots of stuff at Disneyland XD Going to have make sure we come up with some good holiday savings.

We're ending 2017 with a December OP of £47.96! So our total OP in 2017 was £1111.74! We haven't dropped under the £155k mark, but we will do in February which is 3 months earlier than it would have been! I'd like to OP over £1000 next year as well, but I won't aim for a specific amount as I'd rather focus on the savings this year.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! DH doesn't normally celebrate it so it was a bit of an education for him XD We had three days with my family at my parents house (I have three younger siblings so it was quite loud), and then three days at DH's parents house. We got some lovely household gifts, and had a nice evening out in London with my in-laws. Got back on Friday and promptly tidied everything away, did the food shopping yesterday (traffic was oddly very good but the shops were quite busy, as you'd expect), and DH has just cleaned the house this afternoon.

Someone I follow on Instagram did a little post about how she turned a yellow sticker bag of spuds in to potato wedges for the freezer. Now I'm a little annoyed at myself for not realising how easy it is! So yesterday in Mr W we spotted a bag of YS King Edwards, and a bag of YS carrots. This morning I made a big batch of carrot and potato soup, most of which has gone in the freezer. I actually used almost all the potatoes for that, but I do have another bag for tomorrow. DH is back at work on Tuesday but my work is still closed, so I might use some time on Tuesday to finish off the bag of spuds for some wedges to go in the freezer.

I also got some reduced Christmas bits in Mr W - a bauble reduced to 60p, two packs of gift tags reduced to 25p each, and two packs of greetings cards reduced to £1.50 each. I've put them away in my Christmas box and made a note that I have them otherwise I will definitely forget by next December! Our tree is still up and decorated so I'll start taking that down on Tuesday too. A local hospice does a tree recycling service in return for a donation so we've booked that in for next Saturday.

Tonight's New Years Eve dinner is steak with fresh baked rolls for me, and chips for DH. Hope everyone enjoys their New Years Eve! See you all in 2018!

savingwannabe

Well done on the OP. I can't believe you managed to still overpay in December - you are super-duper organised. lt's great that you are planning for next year's Christmas too.

Have a great night tonight and may all of your wishes come true for next year. God bless you.

VintageHistorian

Thank you SW, it was a little TT plus our solicitor who did the house purchase wrote to us to say they'd done a final account check and they owed us £14. It came through quicker than we expected so I just chucked it at the mortgage.

Happy 2018 everyone!

I stood on the scales yesterday and am starting the year at 11 stone 3 :eek: That's really creeped up in the past 18 months. Although at least it hasn't gone up over Christmas as it was the same when I check a few weeks ago. With this in mind I've spent the past few weeks planning some changes to make each month. Some are health changes and some are things to do around the house or online.

My overall aims for 2018 are;
- Lose a stone in weight.
- Generally improve my health overall.
- Overpay £1000.
- Get my savings back under control.
- Improve the house by decorating/completing rooms/tidying it up all the little bits that get forgotten about.

I've split some of these down in to smaller targets month to month. I think a lot of the problems people have with resolutions is that they try to make lots of big changes all at once. The health ones for example are going to be a series of small changes to make all year round that will hopefully help me lose weight, and improve my health.

Savings wise I've realised that the past year I've been trying to catch up after most of my money went on the house and the bathroom refurb. I'm constantly finding extra things to spend money on each month and very little is actually getting saved. That really needs to stop. So I'm going to set up some extra savings accounts. An ISA that will get £100 a month and will eventually cover the bulk of the costs when we move in 5 years time, a fixed-terms savings account that will get £100 a month and which will be my maternity fund for either 2019 or 2020. An easy access saver to bung £1000 in for emergency savings, and another easy access saver for car repairs and holiday funds.

So my aims for January are;

HEALTH
- Drink 2 litres of water a day (I've downloaded an app called Plant Nanny, which you use to track how much you've drunk and grows a little digital plant for you XD).
- Reduce biscuit eating to twice a week (this has really become a problem at work as we're constantly buying biscuits for the office).
- Take a vitamin c every day (DH does this already).

OTHER
- Open an ISA (future house move funds).
- Open an easy access savings account for car and holiday savings, and a fixed rate savings account as a future maternity fund.
- Print off wedding photos for a frame we got as a wedding gift, and hang it up.
- Sort out all the filing for bill paperwork.
- Buy a blind for the living room.

That should be enough to keep me busy for January! I'm only going to weigh myself at the end of the month, weekly weighing never works for me.

And now I need to go for a New Years Day walk to help get me off to a good start!

VintageHistorian

I was back at work for two days and quickly booked today off :rotfl: There wasn't much for me to do in the office anyway.

Returning to the commute after so much time off has reminded me that I really need to find a new job. It's exhausting and there's so many other things I want to do, but can't because nearly 2 hours of my evening is taken up by driving. So another thing I want to do this year is find a new job closer to home.

I also wanted to take today off to finish off the things I didn't get round to doing on Tuesday. So this morning I've done my money shuffle, sent our standard OP of £30 over, plus an extra £1.24 cashed out from Quidco. I've also opened a regular savings account with Halifax, which will be my maternity fund, and opened an easy access saver with my normal bank and put £1000 in it. That will be the emergency fund, and I'll probably pop some extra pennies in it through the year to increase it a bit. That means I can use my current savings account for the car and holiday fund. I've already opened an ISA with Virgin Money, it's a 1 year fixed rate account and I'm just going to put £100 a month in that for the moving costs in 5 years time XD

So overall I feel like I'm now happy with the savings set up for the coming year. Now that it's all done I can just put money in the different accounts after each pay day. Half the time I delay stuff because it takes ages to find what I want and then set it up. Getting it all done and out the way has made me feel very accomplished.

Car is currently in the garage getting the rear tyres sorted out, and also investigating a clunking noise on the passenger side. My money is on the suspension coil as it made a similar noise when a front one went. I also need to go and pick up a large food waste caddy as ours decided to seek new opportunities elsewhere during Storm Eleanor, and we've got various piles of paperwork that need to be sorted out and filed, so I'll try to do those today as well.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!