Ruby's Bought a House, Now I want to Own It!

ruby_eskimo

Morning all.  £10 cashed out of Prolific today and added to the EF.  Also have some money to request from TopCashback which will also be added when it clears.  

Have decided to book a week off with DH in September.  We're not planning on really going anywhere, just having a break away from work.  I've booked for us to go for brunch on the Monday and he wants to go to a particular restaurant one evening but other than that I think we're just going to go fro drives and take picnics with us.  Kids should be back at school by then so most places should be a little quieter *fingers crossed*

ruby_eskimo

Morning all.  Hope you all had a nice bank holiday weekend.  DH decided we needed to landscape the front of our house - every time it rains we end up with a moat so he spent Saturday digging a trench and then Sunday filling it in with slate chippings.  He also made some planters out of more old decking and we've filled them with some small alpine-esque plants.  All looks quite nice and will be even better when we get the stupid canopy replaced.  Only about two weeks to wait hopefully!  The whole project cost about £150 (mainly for the slate) which DH paid for out of his own pocket so the house pot remains intact.  Asked him what the next project is on the list and it's a toss up between a new front door, new internal doors or new carpet.  All of them can wait for now so just going to keep adding to the fund and see what happens.

Did the money shuffle and looks like we've increased our net worth from £37,918.94 to £40,660.60 in August.  Will do a proper update on the money situation tomorrow once the mortgage payment and OP have cleared.  Talking to our friend's over the weekend I'm feeling more determined than ever to reach our goals.  August was rather spendy as I've already said so trying to keep September as spend free as possible.  Think I managed 15 out of the 20 NSD's that I aimed for in August so going to try and aim for 20 again in September and see how it goes.  

Have answered a few Prolific surveys already this morning which should get me to the payout threshold when they hit my account.  Now I've finished my coffee it's time to crack on with some more actual work.

ruby_eskimo

Morning all. So the monthly money shuffle has completed and as things stand:

Mortgage = £253,600 (LTV 89.9%)
Emergency Fund = £2311.22 / £5000 (46.2%)
LISA = £1670 / £4000 (41.8%)
House Pot = £1408.29 / £2000 (70.4%)
Car Pot = £894.56 / £1000 (89.5%)
Holiday Pot = £3820.95 / £5000 (76.4%)
Christmas Pot = £282.06 / £375 (75.8%)
Long Term Savings = £1552.55 / £2500 (62.1%)

Made a £107.43 over payment to the mortgage to round things off and would still really like to get that to 250k by the end of the year but will just have to wait and see.  Overall I'm at 60% of the way there with my various savings goals and am on track to hit most of them by the end of the calendar year.  Think I might struggle a little with the LISA and the EF but as I said yesterday I'll be throwing all the extra cash I have between those 2 pots going forwards.

ruby_eskimo

And another £6.20 cashed out of prolific and added to the EF pot.  At this rate I'll be at that £5000 in about 3 years time!

ruby_eskimo

Morning all.  Cashed out another 7.65 from Prolific and sent that to the EF, so getting there slowly but surely.

Having a bit of a war over twitter at the moment with Dunelm as I ordered a new kitchen bin from them which arrived yesterday and when I took it out of the box, one side had a massive dent in it!  Sent them pictures and they offered me £10 refund or a replacement.  If they had offered me 50% of the price back then I would have kept the dented one, but when you pay £65 for a bin (which is a ridiculous price anyway I know!) you kind of expect a new one that isn't dented.  The whole reason for buying the new one is that our old one is falling apart; it's literally in about 4 pieces taped together and the new one is one of those ones that has a recycling part to it as well so we wouldn't have to have our recycling box in the kitchen taking up space and it can live in the garden where it belongs.

Toilet gate is still ongoing and I think at this point in time I have almost given up hope of getting it fixed.  DH is going to let all hell break loose on the phone later so we'll see what happens then.

Just need to get through this week and then a week off, can't come quickly enough!

South_coast

Bins really are an insane price for what they actually are. I needed to get one for a temporary office at work last year and cringed when the cheapest I could find was about £6 in Tesco. Even though it was going on expenses, I really begrudged paying it!

Fingers crossed for DH and the toilet phone call x

ruby_eskimo

Hi All!  Back from a week off and really wish I could still be on leave   We didn't really do much but had a lovely day out in Bournemouth where much ice cream was consumed (pistachio for me, salted caramel for DH) and then another day out at Blenheim palace walking round the gorgeous gardens.  We're now annual members so will be sure to go back when autumn really hits.  Other than that we just chilled out at home which was bliss.

Managed to get a replacement bin from Dunelm that arrived today and looks really good in our kitchen.  It actually looks like we have more space in there now which is strange. 

Toilet-gate is almost over - the plumber has the part but has no time to come and install as he's on back to back jobs with Wickes.  Hoping he can find a spare hour somewhere at the end of the week and then we just have to worry about claiming the money back from Wickes for the extra water we've been charged for.

Finally made my first DD payment for my student loan (after a bit of faff because someone their end had refused to authorise the DD details...) so that should be gone in December and then that will be an extra £250 a month to throw into savings.

It's payday on Thursday and while I have money leftover, I need to reign in my spending more.  Determined to not buy anything really in October because I don't need anything.  Although I keep looking at different planners and diaries for next year already.  Not that I've really used the one I paid £30 for this year

ruby_eskimo

Morning all!  As tomorrow is payday I've moved over the extra money I had left over this month so have added £150 to the EF,  £151 to the LISA and £40 to my Marcus savings account.  Have some money to cash out from Prolific and Topcashback at some point in the next week and they'll both be added to the EF.  Realised yesterday that when I hit the £5000 target, that will be 6 months of expenses saved (excluding mortgage payments...) so feel a bit more relaxed about things.  Will of course keep adding to it to make sure we have enough to cover 6 months of mortgage payments too eventually but for now feeling a bit more settled about things as I have 3 months of expenses in the bag already.

On a house note, my FIL is coming down on Friday to help Mr Eskimo replace our front door canopy finally.  That will be the last big outside job done on the house until we get the front door replaced, but that can wait.  Think the next project will be replacing the internal doors as none of them match in this place!

ruby_eskimo

Morning everyone.  Don't know if I'm being crazy or just crazy organised but I've just bought most of my Christmas presents for this year

Had to buy an anniversary present for Mr Eskimo (5 years is traditionally wood so I got him a personalised takeaway decider dice) and while I was perusing the site, I found something that I thought would make a good gift for a couple of our friends.  That then led me down a rabbit hole where I just ordered gifts for my mum, dad, best friend and one set of other friends.  The best part is that it came to about £120 which I put on my credit card for the tesco points and then I received an email telling me that I was getting a full refund for the bin I purchased so that £65 back on the credit card can pay for most of it!  Just have the husband and a 3 more friends to purchase for and I'm done.  Think this is the most organised I've ever been and it's looking like I'll definitely be under budget this year.

Father in law is here to sort out the canopy.  There was lots of banging and now I can hear drilling so hopefully they're making good progress.  Staying well out of the way so we can maintain distancing - DH and FIL are both wearing masks and trying to keep as far away from each other as possible, which is fairly ok when you're trying to put up a canopy that's over 2 meters wide!

South_coast

Well done on the Christmas presents, that's very organised! I haven't even thought about it yet, but you've just made me realise it's actually 3 months to go today 😮!