Dreaming of financial freedom!

ch4rly2002

Thanks for the lovely comments guys. It feels good to have almost halved the interest just by switching to a better deal.
So, on Thursday evening I made a curry to use up a few items from the fridge. It was quite quick and tasted lovely. We then went to M&S to get my birthday cake and I got quite a few yellow sticker items that serves as lunch today and freezer stock for another time. I also went to Tesco to get some freebies and big reductions with some coupons I've found from the MSE coupon page. Although not a NSD, I feel like I spent my money wisely and got some good bargains.
Today was a bit of a rubbish day at work, but it as it's my birthday I finished bang on 5 and as soon as DH finished his last meeting we went straight over to mum's for a lovely home cooked tea. She made my favourite, which is a hassle for her, but it was really appreciated Tomorrow we have the meal in Leeds with friends and family. I'm really looking forward to it. For a few reasons we ended up having to go mid afternoon so it's lunch prices rather than evening prices so although it's not the cheapest, it works out about £10 per head cheaper than it otherwise would be. A couple of friends are then staying over at our house, so it should be a good celebration.
I've started doing Seagbucks again. I got fed up last time as I never got any surveys so the points barely grew, but this time it seems to be building up ok. Fingers crossed I'll get enough for a payout soon. I've also joined YouGov but I hardly ever get surveys through so I think that one will take a while! I think next week I'll investigate pine one and see what that's all about. I'll look for a thread or blog about ways to earn extra through surveys, comps etc.
Right, I'm up early tomorrow and the cat will no doubt wake me up before the alarm so I'm going to get to sleep. I'll update on whether I keep the birthday spend reigned in tomorrow night!

Maiden_Mum

Hi ch4rley, sounds like you are doing great1 I love those T3sco & Sainsbugs vouchers and was really cross that my OH managed to throw all mine out this month by accident so no savings to be made there for me this month! I did try ringing Sainsbugs to ask if they could send some more but they said they couldn't and I haven't tried T3cos.

kirtsypoos

Happy Birthday for yesterday!!

ch4rly2002

Hey Maiden Mum, if you log into your Clubcard account you can find unused vouchers and reprint.

Thanks for the birthday messages everyone we had a lovely meal out in Leeds and as it was at lunch time it was 1/3 less than the usual price, bonus!

ch4rly2002

I'm not well at the moment and I've been off work today so an easy evening meal is in order tonight. We have BIL round tonight as the Walking Dead starts again tonight (woohoo, I can't wait!). We have oven pizzas, the shop's top range (can't remember what it's called) but they were £4.99 each down to £1.19 each so they should be nice and tasty as well as easy in the pocket. I also got some yellow sticker items that I'm quite pleased with. 2 packs of ready to eat mackerel down from £2.50 each to 61p each - I'll either have some for breakfast or on a salad - one pack is in the freezer for another day. 2 packs of butcher's choice sausages down to 87p each and now in the freezer for road in the hole or bangers and mash another day, spinach down to 24p, rocket down to 24p, 2 packs of pita bread from 60p each down to 15p each, pork mince down to £1.17 and I had a coupon for £1 off new Covent Garden soup. the best bit is that the use by date isn't even today. Tomorrow I'm going to do a take on one our favourite meals (fajitas or tacos, depending on how we serve it). I'm using the pork mince instead of beef that I usually use, spinach, onion, pepper, sauce, rocket and cheese in pita bread instead of taco shells. I think it should still be very tasty and it will be cheaper and healthier than the usual. I'm really enjoying coming up with new recipe ideas for the reduced items I'm finding - I feel like I'm on Ready, Steady, Cook!
The freezer is full so I need to start using up some items, donor should be quite cheap and varied for a while
The cat's eating some free cat food tonight as well. I got a coupon from the Royal Canin website for a free 400g bag of dry cat food so I picked that up from the local pet food shop and he really enjoyed it. That should last a while... there is such a thing as a free meal

foxyloxy11

ch4rly2002 wow! you had a lucky score yesterday! all those bargains, sound delicious and cheap too, which will of course make them taste better
I'm with you on the trying allsorts of different foods, I've been watching Pioneer Woman on the food channel and Nigel Slater for new ideas. Most of the time they just make me hungry though.

ch4rly2002

Thanks Foxy I'll take a look at Pioneer Woman as I haven't heard of it so I'm happy to see what it's about. I've been enjoying making my home-cooked (and generally bargain) meals, and DH and the bank balance are liking it too, so smiles all round.
We didn't do much for Valentine's day as we've just had our anniversary so we exchanged cards (we bought the same one for each other, except one says husband and the other says wife, which I found funny - I guess we spend too much time together I took my Grandma shopping again and she kindly gave me some money for petrol and my time, she even told me not to try and refuse it before she gave it me. That was nice of her, and I've paid it into my bank now.
Yesterday I got a letter from the BTL mortgage provider. As I'd made an OP of £500, it is classed as a capital payment rather than an OP. I'm not entirely sure on the difference but it seems to be that with a capital payment they automatically recalculate the interest the next day and send out a letter advising the balance and what the next payment amount will be. As we don't have internet banking for that account I found it really useful, not to mention if it means they calculate the interest sooner, so I've decided to try and aim for an OP of £500 every month. It'll be a stretch, but I'm going to try! I also checked the new balance and it was £128,162.48 so I transferred £12.48 across to round it down to a nice round figure (thanks Tilly). Signature updated.
So far the OPs in 2017 are:
Res. Mortgage £195.46
BTL Mortgage £737.48

ch4rly2002

Also, I looked at the mortgage key facts that London and Country sent through, and it gives how much each £1 borrowed costs me to pay back, so that's helpful to see which mortgage I should OP more of:

Residential mortgage costs £1.42 for every £1 borrowed
Buy to Let mortgage costs £1.83 for every £1 borrowed

ch4rly2002

I'm still feeling rough. I have that hacking cough that's been going round all round the country. It keeps me up all night and my ribs are hurting so much - I can barely sit up for half an hour. Pretty miserable, but worse than that it is costing a fortune in strepsils and soothers, not to mention the 3 rounds of antibiotics the DH had to buy at over £8 a pop. Anyway, enough whining, just feeling sorry for myself. At least I still get paid while curled up coughing a lung up!

ch4rly2002

Still not well. I've pulled a muscle in my chest/ribs so I'm in agony when I cough and can't use my left arm. Apart from feeling pretty miserable, it's nice to have DH making me cups of tea and generally being a hero I ended up in A&E on Saturday as I was in so much pain in my chest and left arm I was worried I was having a heart attack or something. Luckily it was 'just' a pulled muscle but I didn't feel up to cooking so we got a take away (DH has been pestering for one for a while as we used to have them regularly before the MSE/cooking took off). That was tasty and nice not to cook so worth the £16.
Today we used up leftovers and I've taken sausages out of the freezer for tomorrow so I should be able to delay having to venture out for shopping by another day.
Hopefully I'll be posting a bit more regularly when I'm feeling a bit more human