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

ruby_eskimo

Just popping in quickly between calls to update you on the mortgage.  After the payments all cleared I ended up making an OP of £270.49 to round everything down to a balance of £252k overall.  We now have at least £30k of equity in the house which is a staggering amount to me comparing where we were a while ago.  We also are on track to OP over £1500 this year, which again is amazing since I didn't think we'd be able to stretch to £50 a month to start with.  Off to go and update the signature while I have 5 minutes before yet another Teams call.

ruby_eskimo

After a few calls and twitter messages I've now received a full refund from easyjet for our flights that were cancelled.  Honestly thought it would be a lot more hassle than it was and thought we wouldn't get all the money back so was pleasantly surprised to see it sitting there on the credit card balance this morning.

I'm on annual leave next week so trying to get all the last minute things tied up before the end of the day, including an article that I've been asked to write for our professional association magazine.  Better get cracking so I'm not running around at 6pm to get it all sorted!

ruby_eskimo

Morning All!  Had a lovely week off - went to the Isle of Wight for a few days to just relax and that's certainly what we did!  Lots of wine and cheese was consumed and DH really loved spending every free moment in the hot tub although he's adamant he doesn't want one for our house, he just likes taking advantage of them when we have access to them   We took all our own food with us and didn't interact with anyone apart from the guys loading us on to the ferry.

On the money front, I've finally paid off my student loan!  Only taken 12 years and never thought it would happen at one point so that's an extra £250 a month that I can divert to savings and the mortgage.  Determined to 

Spent last night writing out some goals for 2021 - they aren't that specific really because you know...*cough* 2020 *cough* but more aspirational things like getting the EF to £5000 finally and then things like creating a routine that works for me, remembering to take my vitamins each night etc.  Also want to resurrect monthly date nights with the husband because going away made me realise that this year we've spent A LOT of time together but it's not been quality time so even just getting dressed up and cooking a nice meal together at home and putting the phones away, would be better than 50 more evenings of sitting in front of the tv and both staring at our phones   There's plenty more things on the list which I need to curate a bit so I'm not putting pressure on myself.

Cashed out £12 from Prolific and have earnt about £20 in cashback already today so things are ticking along nicely for the EF already.  Need to tax the car and renew the home insurance today so will do that after I've come back from my walk later.  Hope everyone is doing well and keeping safe.

Ellie78

Your holiday sounds lovely, I'm glad you had a nice time!   You made me realise how much I miss going to the spa with my friends and sitting in the steam room until I go pruney 
Quite a few people on here seem to use Prolific, I need to check it out.
And well done and getting rid of the student loan.   I can't wait to see my tax return in January without that huge chunk added to it!

Fortune_Smiles

We have date days/nights too @ruby_eskimo and we have a monthly budget for them so we don't feel guilty about the spend if other budgets run low.  My eldest stepson met a new girlfriend this year and because of the pandemic they haven't been able to date much.  We've bought them this for Christmas and a National Trust voucher so that they can do a dating catch up in 2021.  I'm tempted to get a box for Mr F and I 😍

Fortune x

ruby_eskimo

Ellie78 said:

Your holiday sounds lovely, I'm glad you had a nice time!   You made me realise how much I miss going to the spa with my friends and sitting in the steam room until I go pruney 
Quite a few people on here seem to use Prolific, I need to check it out.
And well done and getting rid of the student loan.   I can't wait to see my tax return in January without that huge chunk added to it!

Thanks, it really was, but back to work unfortunately now *sigh*

You really should get on Prolific - I've already earnt another £5.60 just from this morning!  Its a bit better than the other survey sites because this is all university research so some of the things are quite interesting but some of the surveys do take forever for a bigger pay out.  Everything I've had today has taken about 2 minutes and earnt me 60-75p for the time.  But if I can average £5 a week, then that's certainly better than nothing!

ruby_eskimo

Fortune_Smiles said:

We have date days/nights too @ruby_eskimo and we have a monthly budget for them so we don't feel guilty about the spend if other budgets run low.  My eldest stepson met a new girlfriend this year and because of the pandemic they haven't been able to date much.  We've bought them this for Christmas and a National Trust voucher so that they can do a dating catch up in 2021.  I'm tempted to get a box for Mr F and I 😍

Fortune x

That's a lovely gift Fortune, I might have to order it and add it to DH's Christmas pile.  I think our problem is we can never think of anything to do.  When we first got married we used to take it in turns each month to plan something new to do on the 29th (the date we got married).  Worked well for the first couple of years but then work etc. got in the way.  This might help kick start the ideas again, thanks!

ruby_eskimo

Since cashing out on Prolific on Monday I've just cashed out another £5 and have £7.39 waiting to be approved!  We'll get that emergency fund to £5k in no time

Have had so many parcels delivered today - it appears that DH has done all his Christmas shopping on Amazon this year.  Did scare him a little bit last night when he said it looks like his present to me is going to be delayed till January now and I said I'd received a notification that something I'd ordered was also going to be delayed till January.  He looked so panicked that he's bought me something I've already bought so there were lots of questions like "Which country is your parcel coming from?", "Roughly how much did you pay?" etc.  I'm 99% sure we aren't both waiting on the same thing but who knows!  

South_coast

That would be hilarious if it was! A true case of "great minds" 😀😀😀!

ruby_eskimo

South_coast said:

That would be hilarious if it was! A true case of "great minds" 😀😀😀!

It would certainly be an upgrade on the time he bought me pillows as a present