The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

Silence101

Those are great days. I need to start saving the unspent money instead of splurging once we do have a spendy day!

mfmaybe

armchairexpert wrote: »

Mr E being away appears to have sent a signal to Big and Little that I am at their disposal 100%, and I've struggled to find any time to post! But on the bright side, they're clearly wanting a laid back holiday, which has proven very cheap. They asked for a picnic on the lawn instead of lunch in a cafe yesterday, and today they specifically requested a day where they didn't get out of their PJs all day. They're making pipe cleaner people at the moment, it's all terribly wholesome.

We will have to walk Doggie at some point, but otherwise the agenda is baking, craft, me trying to find an hour to get some paid work done, then we'll watch a movie and paint our toe nails.

Nothing at all money related to share, I haven't spent a cent in days!

Such a positive lovely post. Your girls sound gorgeous and what happy memories you are all making. Wholesome is right

armchairexpert

It's not 100% sunshiney - it became obvious today that part of why Little is so keen on staying home is because she feels sad without her Dad around and doesn't want to be out of her comfort zone. She didn't even want to go to her Nana's for a sleepover today, and that's usually a huge treat. She did cheer up eventually, and was fine once they arrived, but the poor little bean just hates changes to her routine. She didn't even want to go to a cafe for lunch, also usually a huge treat.

Anyway, they're gone now, and I did treat myself to a coffee and a browse around the charity shops for an hour. Picked up a lovely warm long cardigan and a couple of summer tops for $20, which was great.

We did have fun last night. Even I got into my pyjamas to watch a movie with them and paint their toenails!

Oh, and I landed a new client which means my 'anchor clients' - guaranteed income - is now at the next target level and anything else is just a bonus. Very pleased with that.

wishingthemortgaheaway

It's amazing how changes affect them isn't it? Even at 16months my little one is very different when Daddy is home to when Daddy is away.

greent

Great news re new client and increased base level income!
x

armchairexpert

Little cheered up when she actually got to her (beloved) Nana's - I think it was good for her. And I enjoyed an evening completely on my own, which never ever happens. I got home, worked, walked Doggie, and then felt like I should recognise it somehow. Should I drive (a long way) to the mall for late opening and browse shops without children in tow? Should I take myself out to a restaurant for dinner on my own?

In the end, I went to the library and spent a luxurious amount of time choosing books without children interfering, and *coughs* also paid off an old fine, so that's nice to have off my plate, and then ate cheese and ham in front of Netflix. I have very modest ambitions in life.

Next on the sorting-out-finances list is updating my credit card auto-payment form. It's this ridiculous saga from when we refinanced, because the bank can't process the request in-branch, and you can't email the form you have to FAX it, and even Mr Expert's huge government department no longer owns a fax machine, and the postal service won't fax forms with financial information on them, and when we finally did find somewhere that would send a fax for us, for a fee, apparently we forgot to fill in a bit of the form, and now we have to start again, and I am SO BAD at this kind of admin work. But it's coming up to the next month's direct debit, which will bounce again (because it's trying to take from a closed account) if I don't sort it. So! Nag me before the 18th!

(Why are banks so far behind the rest of the world? It is a mystery.)

Tahlullah

Really surprised at this. I thought most home printer / scanners also sent faxes!

But not only banks still on old technology. Some courts and law firms in the UK only accept fax.

armchairexpert

No it's crazy, isn't it? My home printer/scanner does not fax. Mr E's government department doesn't fax. He could instal a piece of software on his computer at work that would allow him to send a digital fax, but that involves getting signed permission from the IT department, and that takes like a week. It's ridiculous.

Over here, the courts accept PDF attachments by email now.

Anyway, I realised yesterday that the bank tried to take the autopay on the 13th, Friday, so that's annoying and will generate another $9 dishonour fee. I have done a manual transfer so I won't get charged interest on the actual credit card balance, but still. Grr.

In other news, I took the girls out to the swimming pool for a treat-y end to our fairly frugal holidays yesterday. As part of the treat I decided we'd eat lunch at the pool cafe, but they were out of plastic cutlery so they gave us metal cutlery and Little Girl managed somehow to slip and fall down while holding her knife and fork in such a way that the knife made a small-but-deep gash in her head, so the we ended up at A&E. She's fine, and she was okay to go to school today, but that wasn't ideal. The poor girls ended up with a packet of crisps each from a hospital vending machine for lunch (at 4.30pm).

Few unexpected spends there, then, but not much harm done!

armchairexpert

Mr E back tomorrow. Kids back at school. Workload evening out. All nice and uneventful.

I paid the quarterly electricity bill today. It came to $1150. Ridiculous. I've been enquiring about solar but my roof is probably too shaded to make it worthwhile.

I'm toying with saving up my clothing money for a while and then going and buying a few basics in different colours so I don't have to think about clothes for ages. Like three pairs of culottes, some plain t-shirts, maybe a couple of dresses with short sleeves, then I'm just basically done. I don't like clothes much.

I did do a clear out of my wardrobe a while ago and on paper I have enough clothes, but somehow they don't go together. I have a bunch of summer dresses, but only one pair of sandals to wear with them and those are cracking a bit, and also only two of the dresses are really casual and I own one pair of summer pants but the fly comes down a lot so they're really unwearable... And now I spend time at the dog park I need some light sneakers or something I can wear instead. I might need to draw up a list and see what's actually missing. And maybe do another clear out and be really, really ruthless instead of having all this stuff that I own but don't wear because it's tight/the fly isn't right/it only looks good with a tunic length top and I don't own any of those/etc.

armchairexpert

Spent time on the phone to the bank again this morning because although I did a manual transfer on the 16th, they decided to charge me interest on the credit card on the 18th. I'm practically on a first name basis by now, but they did agree to refund it.

YNAB is a sea of red this month: combination of all the big bills that I mentioned at the start of the month, plus then I accidentally paid the water bill twice, plus Mr E had a bunch of work expenses that we're waiting reimbursement for. I'm about $500 in the red. His reimbursement should be $800 so once I've repaid all the red categories and then reimbursed his personal spending account we'll end up even. In the meantime, I'm just trying not to look at all those little arrows!

He also arrived home with a bunch of leftover groceries from his trip. There were 6 adults on the trip, and they spent $200 each for a ten day trip: so $1200 in all. I pointed out to him that I spent $180 for 3 of us over the same period. $1200! They went overboard on snacks, I gather, so now I have a cupboard full of diced fruit cups and dried apricots (2.5kg of them!) and cup-a-soups, - very little of this is stuff that we usually eat, but I'll get creative somehow. Someone else apparently kept all the leftover meat, which would've been far more useful.

Cuban pork and black beans tonight, I'm going to eat it without the rice, I have decided I have to do something about my terrible carb-based diet. Not going to go overboard, but just trying to avoid white carbs.