Plodding determinedly up a 300k mountain!

Karmacat

Excellent evening out then hope you can fight off whatever's been trying to get its clutches into you

michelle09

Thanks KC, I think I managed to avoid it. Been feeling mostly better this week at least.

Nearly holiday time. My OH is just heading back from picking up my mother and dropping off the cat for her holiday with one of his friends. Catteries are really expensive and she'd hate it, at least this way she'll have space to roam and regular contact with someone she knows!

Used our final wedding gift voucher (23 months after the fact) to pick up a swimsuit in Next yesterday, my old one was definitely dead. Given the house a quick clean, although lodger #2 will be here until a day or so before we get back. (Deep clean is planned for once they're gone!)

Using up the last fresh bits and pieces for when they get here. Pork chops, stuffed aubergines (with cheese, basil, tomatos and bacon), roast potatoes and vegetable. Getting very hungry so hope it's tasty.

Have a great week everyone.

Current Balance: £249,900.00
Kitchen Savings: £4,500/£13,000

Karmacat

Holidays :j:j:j

Have a great one :beer:

beanielou

Happy holidays

jodles16

Hi Michelle09,

You are doing an amazing job already! Mortgage is moving nicely in the right direction, so exciting that you will soon have the house to yourselves!

Jodles

michelle09

Thanks KC, beanielou! It was a lovely holiday. Thanks Jodles, it really is! Not as quickly as I'd like but we have to accept that this is a marathon and not a sprint.

So we are back from our amazing trip. We spent 10 days meandering through Turkey and seeing all the big sights. It's an incredible country with very friendly people, and it's very cheap! Picked up a plate of chicken, chickpeas, rice and salad for about £1.80. Found a street market selling Turkish Delight at £2/kg and so bought loads of 500g boxes to bring home for friends as gifts.

Got home to find that lodger #2 had moved out. The house is ours! We need to clear out that room and set it up as a spare room, and I've promised OH that we can put a glass display cabinet in for their geeky things. (I won't have them on shelves beause that gathers dust).

We started a bit of a clear out before we went away, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to have a bit of an ebay/music magpie sale so clear some space and raise some cash.

Our gas/electric moved over to EDF while we were away and our British Gas account shows that they owe us £151 on our accounts which I'm really looking forward too. (So much for "we needed to put up your direct debit").

Payday last week too, so put £2000 into the kitchen fund and rounded up the mortgage payment so it's a nice figure.

Back to work and the real world tomorrow!

Current Balance: £249,000.00
Kitchen Savings: £6,500/£13,000

Karmacat

Brilliant news, especially that the house is your own now

I quite envy you the trip through Turkey's interior - the only time I've been to Turkey, I spent a good long time there travelling up and down the coast, but it was winter, and some of the best bits inland were under ten feet of snow!

Have a great last day of the holiday

beanielou

Your kitchen fund savings are growing very nicely

michelle09

It was wonderful, KC. The highlight was definitely the calcium cliffs at Pamukkale, but so much of it was brilliant. Would highly recommend it if you can get back at some point!

Thanks beanielou, I'm dumping £2k of my pay packet into it every month. As my grandmother says, it doesn't matter how much you have after - you need to learn to live on it. (Obviously not entirely true, there is a minimum!). This way we should have enough to clear all of the house repairs by March/April.

Current Balance: £248,900.00
Kitchen Savings: £6,500/£13,000

michelle09

Back to the real world with a bump it seems. Work has been crazy busy so I ended up agreeing to an extra 10 hour shift as OT. Which at least means next month's payslip should look quite nice.

Job #2 had it's up and downs. I lost one student because their school has started putting on extra tuition sessions, but an old student has come back asking for more sessions that fills the gap. So it's not all bad.

It's our wedding anniversary next week and both OH and I are off so we went to M&S this morning and bought some fancy food courtesy of the gift voucher M&S sent after we complained to them a few weeks ago. Would rather have not spent 90 minutes on the phone to customer service with the problem in the first place, but might as well make use of it when it arrived!

Got our last payment from lodger #2 so put £100 OP on the mortgage.

Our monthly mortgage/bills payment on current direct debits is now £1301.24 so I am looking at ways to knock that down. Mostly to get it under £1300!

Current Balance: £248,900.00
Kitchen Savings: £6,500/£13,000