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

ruby_eskimo

Thank you both for the hype, feel like that's all the progress you're getting out of me for a while though 🤣

Just made our first official, proper OP to the mortgage of the year - £405.77 which takes us to £243,900 now.  Usually I would have just rounded it down to the £244K but that would have meant I'd only contributed £16 to the OP so wanted to up my game a little bit.  We're basically just paying the exact same as were were with the old Halifax mortgage each month and then I'm paying my £100 + change that I was doing too.  Feels good to see the numbers dropping a lot faster now we aren't held by a ridiculous interest rate.

ruby_eskimo

Well it's been an interesting few weeks over here:

- Went to our first "event" in a few years, a joint 40th birthday party which was very enjoyable even if DH picked up a minor cold bug from it
- DH treated me to a stay in our favorite fancy hotel for valentines day with dinner.  We don't usually do anything for it so it was a nice surprise
- The various storms caused our greenhouse to blow over (it was attached to the wall of our house 😳) but luckily it was just covered with plastic and not glass.  DH did get a £50 B&Q voucher from work on the same day so we know what that's going to be spent on
- Went to see Ross Noble which was DH's Christmas present from me in 2019 🤣  Never laughed so much at a comedy show before and it was a lovely evening doing something "normal"
- Then the next day I started coming down with a cold myself and have spent 3 days in bed 😒
- But being stuck in bed meant that I heard our neighbour's cat in distress yesterday morning when it got it's claws stuck in a concrete fence post and was hanging about 2 feet off the ground 😰; the noise it was making was so loud and distressing that it woke me up.  They were out, no one in our road has their phone number, but their back gate wasn't locked properly and we could open it just enough so that I could squeeze through the gap.  Managed to wrap it in a towel and unhook it's paw and then one of our other neighbours drove us up to the local vets as it was bleeding from where it was stuck; not too much damage but obviously the poor thing needed some rest.  Vet's called the owners and they ended up coming round last night with a bottle of wine and some chocolates for us as a thank you 🤗  The cat's ok, just a little grumpy but definitely made for an interesting morning, especially when I was standing in the vets in my pajamas, looking worse for wear with an angry cat burrito in my arms 🤣

Feeling so much better today (I can breathe through my nose finally) but for a moment there I thought it might have been CV19 again because the last time I felt that ill was way back in March 2020; shivering, body aches, raging temperature, feeling like being hit by a bus etc.  Easing myself back into work today as I have over 100 emails to get through and some reading to do, won't be travelling into the office tomorrow and I have Friday off so a short week really.

It's payday tomorrow so will do the monthly shuffle then but have maxed out the LISA for the year finally 🥳  There's also a bit of cash leftover so will be splitting that across the long term savings and the emergency fund.  

debtfreeoneday

Hope you’re feeling better. Well done on rescuing the cat though I smiled at the thought of you pyjama clad at the vets!

ruby_eskimo

debtfreeoneday said:

Hope you’re feeling better. Well done on rescuing the cat though I smiled at the thought of you pyjama clad at the vets!

It was definitely not something I want to repeat 🤣

ruby_eskimo

Morning all, last day of February so time for a goal update.

Money

- Overpay the mortgage by at least £5000: Up to £465.02 / £5000 now so making progress.  Should be at about £800 gone by the end of February
- Max out the LISA: Done 🥳 for 21/22 at least!  Should hopefully max out 22/23 a bit quicker than this year though.
- Build the emergency fund to £10,000: Have added a little bit to this over the month thanks to cashback and surveys, need to make a bit more of an effort though
- Reduce my personal spending: While the NSD's in Feb haven't been as many as January's were, I definitely continued to cut back on the spending.  Bought a few replacement toiletries, a new travel mug for my coffee as the lid on the old one broke and then a couple of coffee and cake treats.

House

- Declutter 365 items: No change this month as haven't really had a chance to look at decluttering, just been focused on trying to keep on top of housework and failing miserably!
- "Renovate" the Kitchen: Still need a new blind but saying that this job is done
- House to Home: I think the next job on the list is insulating and boarding out a little more of the loft just to help reduce the heating costs a little more.

Personal

- Learn a new skill: Haven't had a chance to start my calligraphy classes yet but will get around to it at some point in March
- Visit a new (to me) place in the UK: I'm lucky to say that I've visited a lot of our wonderful homeland but there are still places yet to be discovered Booked to go to the New Forest in May so this should tick this off the list.
- Visit a new (to me) country: This one is of course dependent on external factors but I want to tick another place off the list Hopefully going to Lisbon in October 🤞
- Read 52 books: 13 down 39 to go
- Build healthy habits: Apart from being ill last week, I managed to keep up with the habits in February.  Lost an average of 2.5lbs over the month which isn't bad, plus quite a few cm's from all over so hoping to have similar results in March.


Also had a win over the weekend with managing to negotiate down our Virgin Media contract and saving over £20 a month 🥳  I know this will get swallowed up by the rise in energy prices probably but at least it's a little bit extra that we don't have to find from elsewhere when the time comes.

ruby_eskimo

Office is closed this week due to the tube strikes in London so saving some money on fuel and have managed to move my parking booking to April so that's good 👍  Money shuffle completed and we managed to make an OP to mortgage of £394.65, bringing the balance to £242,800 now.  It's so refreshing to see the balance go down by over £1000 each month and feels like we're really making progress. 

Which is good as we have a few big goals on the horizon that we need to save for; namely a big trip in 2024 which is probably going to cost about £10k 😳  It's being prompted by my MIL's plans to get married abroad, and while we're not technically invited (they're already going on an American road trip with friends and will get married along the way), DH really wants to go out there and surprise them.  And just like when we went to Korea, it's turning into a case of "well while we're here..." and a little jaunt to Arizona might turn into Arizona, LA, San Francisco, Hawaii and Vancouver.  Did a little planning based on dates this May and worse case scenario it would cost about £8500 so I think we could get it a bit cheaper from booking a bit further in advance.  Nothings set in stone yet but its definitely a goal to aim for.  We've essentially paid off our trip to Florida this year including spending money now (although the money is still in my bank account earning interest rather than earning interest for the holiday company!) and Portugal is paid too.  Next year we're planning on a cruise possibly but that will be paid for using DH's inheritance money, so this is the next big thing to focus on.  Having a goal really helps me with those odd possible spends - do I really want to spend £4 on a coffee or would I rather put that money to better use elsewhere.

South_coast

Ooh, that sounds like a fab thing to aim for, what a lovely surprise that would make 😀!

ruby_eskimo

South_coast said:

Ooh, that sounds like a fab thing to aim for, what a lovely surprise that would make 😀!

Thanks, I'm just hoping we can pull it off!  Had to tell DH to be a bit more subtle when he speaks to his mum about the wedding because he was really pushing her for details last night and she ended up asking what was wrong with him because he never usually asks her so many questions about her life 🤣

ruby_eskimo

Is anyone else finding it difficult to buy shoes recently?  As in your feet may have changed size? 

I'm trying to replace my everyday trainers but it seems that either my feet have got even wider than they were or shoe sizes have changed.  I've had to send back 4 pairs that I've ordered online and then spent all of Saturday driving between outlets and stores trying to find something but my usual size were either too narrow or when they did fit width wise, the arch support in the soles was in the wrong place in relation to my foot so felt really uncomfortable.  Going up a size to get the width wasn't an option because then they're too long and I start tripping over - I have nerve damage in my legs which means I can't really feel my feet anyway so walking is a bit of a hope and prayer most of the time anyway, let alone with clown shoes on!  And trying to explain that to the not very helpful shop assistants was a nightmare also - they just didn't get that having a shoe that was too long was an issue.  Even Sketchers with their wide fitting shoes were really uncomfortable.

My last ditch effort is to visit the Nike store in Oxford Circus after work tomorrow and if I can't get anything there then I give up. 

Maybe 2 years of not really wearing "proper" shoes has caused my feet to spread a bit more 🙃 

badmemory

ruby_eskimo said:

Maybe 2 years of not really wearing "proper" shoes has caused my feet to spread a bit more 🙃 

Definitely this.  I am struggling to even get my feet into my trainers after mostly wearing pumps.  I find its not just the spreading though but not being used to the constriction.