The Fun Starts Here.....

allmannerofthings

Hi Kittenkirst - I wouldn't mind if I could put it right, but I can't edit from my phone!

Today we've been to Rievaulx and Byland Abbeys. Took our lunch with us, but still managed to spend too much on guide books, tea and cake! Having a simple tea in our cottage this evening. I think we might use the money from Mum and Dad later in the week, there is a lovely restaurant over the road.

allmannerofthings

We had a lovely holiday in Yorkshire but the bed was so uncomfortable, me and my aching back are very glad to be home!

We spent about £500 while we were away, which seems a lot but was less than we usually spend. We had most of our main meals out at lunch time, which averaged £20 a day instead of £40 if we ate out in the evening (we only did that once). We made our own food in the cottage in the evenings, so that amount includes groceries, as well as three tanks of petrol, cups of tea and cake in teashops here and there and a few things that we bought to bring home. For the first time we wrote down everything we spent, which was a very useful exercise and made us realise exactly where we could have cut back had we wanted to. I'm planning to continue to write down our spends for the next month or two to get a real idea of what we spend.

The next thing I want to focus on is our grocery spend, currently £400-£500 a month I think :eek: I've joined the grocery challenge thread and set a budget for this month of £240, which should be easily doable as we have a full freezer and larder at the moment. I like Abel and Cole veg boxes and Gousto meal boxes, but we'll be skipping those for the foreseeable, methinks! I'll need to get out my cookbooks and find some interesting things to make, or I'll get bored.

I'm also planning to get stuck into some decluttering this week, and will be putting things aside to sell. I had some success selling books on Amazon a few years ago, so I'll probably do that again.

In other news, the first mortgage payment has been made! Seems like I waited months for it to come out of the bank. Looking forward to making an overpayment very soon :T

allmannerofthings

Online shop arrived today. I only spent about £35, mostly on fresh stuff and a few household things. Stocked up on some toiletries which were at a bargain price, saving myself £15! I ordered some household bits and toiletries from Wilk0 as well this week - I've only just found out they deliver, which is great as I never get to a Wilk0 these days. I found out they are much cheaper that A$da for wood cat litter - A$da has 10 litre bags for £3.50, and Wilk0 is £3 for 15 litres, so that's decent saving. Not that I have a cat!! I get it for my grandcats :rotfl:

Writing down everything we spend is going ok, but it's a challenge to remember to do it. When I've tried this in the past I've only ever managed a couple of weeks. Determined to keep at it for at least a month or two this time.

We had an Indian takeaway Sunday and leftovers from it last night. Tonight I've got to cook and make Mr AMOT's lunch for tomorrow too. I think I'll roast a chicken and give him that tonight, and leftovers for his lunches the rest of the week with salad. I don't eat meat, so will have to decide what to make for me. I do find it difficult cooking two sets of meals, anyone else doing that?

I skimmed a couple of pounds and a few pence over to my 1% overpayment pot today. I've also got some cashback from TC this week - only just found out I can get it on takeaway deliveries from Just Eat, and I got some from Wilk0 too, so those will go in the overpayment account as soon as they arrive. Every little helps! I'll be making an overpayment soon, so looking forward to doing that!

Time to get the washing off the line before it rains.

allmannerofthings

My parents just rang and said can they come over this evening. Usually if this happened I would automatically order a quick takeaway, rather than rushing to cook dinner and clear away before they get here. I'm very tempted, I have to admit! Especially as when they rang I was just about to get in the shower, so I need to shower, dry my hair, get dressed, cook dinner, clear away and tidy up a bit before they get here....argh. I'm thinking that's £20 that could go toward the mortgage though.... and also I'm trying to keep the food bill down this month - the Indian takeaway we had the other day came under last month's budget.

I skimmed a couple of pounds again today into my overpayment pot. I'm not far from my 1% target of £1150, and as soon as I have that I'll pay it on the mortgage and then start saving another 1%.

Off to jump in the shower and then dash around and tidy up. There are piles of holiday washing everywhere and it would be quite good if the parents could actually sit down when they get here! :rotfl: Beans on toast for tea I think. Quick and easy, if boring.

Jessy103

Hi AMOT! Just reading your post about cooking two sets of dinners and I'm a veggie and my DH is a meat eater so I completely understand how difficult it can be! You're probably doing the following already but this is what I do. I've managed to get him eating quorn products and find if they are mixed in with other things he doesn't mind for example a shepherds pie or spag bol with quorn mince. Will Mr AMOT try them if it's something you eat? Otherwise I find recipes that are veggie and then cook some meat separate so that the meat can be added when I dish up. Like I say it's probably what you are doing already but wanted to let you know that I know how you feel! Lol!
Take care x

allmannerofthings

Jessy103 wrote: »

Hi AMOT! Just reading your post about cooking two sets of dinners and I'm a veggie and my DH is a meat eater so I completely understand how difficult it can be! You're probably doing the following already but this is what I do. I've managed to get him eating quorn products and find if they are mixed in with other things he doesn't mind for example a shepherds pie or spag bol with quorn mince. Will Mr AMOT try them if it's something you eat? Otherwise I find recipes that are veggie and then cook some meat separate so that the meat can be added when I dish up. Like I say it's probably what you are doing already but wanted to let you know that I know how you feel! Lol!
Take care x

Hi Jessy! Mr AMOT will eat Quorn, but I'm actually not keen on it myself so we don't have it often. I'm doing Quorn meatballs tonight though with Ikea-style sauce, I do rather like those. I sometimes cook veggie and add meat for him too, as you say. Another thing I used to do when I was (briefly!) more organised was cook for him one night and me the next and warm up the dish for the other person, if that makes sense. So chicken casserole for him, making enough for at least one more meal, then the next night making a veggie chilli or something for me and just reheating his. The night after that I'd cook for him again and reheat my veggie chilli. He will eat vegetarian meals but he doesn't much like aubergines, tomatoes, peppers, lentils, chickpeas.... all the things I Iike to cook with I just need to be more organised really, never my strong point!

Got some money from Top Cashback today, only £1.46 but it's all going in the overpayment pot. Skimmed my bank accounts into the pot too.

I'm sure we're spending less than usual on food now that I'm writing everything down and trying to stick to a budget, but we seem to have had quite a few other spends lately. We bought a bird table a couple of months ago and we had run out of seed, so I bought a massive 12.75 kg bag from Wilko which was much cheaper than the small bags I've bought before but then we needed a big plastic box for the shed to put the seed in, as I'm concerned about mice in the shed (I've seen them in the garden - probably attracted by the bird seed!) We needed a starter for our kitchen light which has been playing up for months, some flower pots and compost... oh well, at least I know where the money has gone instead of feeling like it's disappeared into the ether.

I've got sweet peas to plant out, washing and ironing to do and if I get a chance I'm going to watch a DVD and do some knitting so I'd better get off the internet! :rotfl:

Hope everyone is having a good day

allmannerofthings

First overpayment made today :j:T:j
We're planning to overpay £280 every month (although because my bank are awkward with overpayments under £500, I'll be sending it to the mortgage as £560 every other month) We also saved 1% of our mortgage total (£1150) from Top Cashback payments, some cashback from the bank for taking out the mortgage, skimming my bank accounts and anything else we could think of, and overpaid that too. We'll now save 1% again. I'm hoping we can manage to get to 1% one more time this year, as well as the regular overpayments.

I keep playing with the MSE overpayment calculator - it is so tempting when I see how much we could reduce the term if we overpaid a lot more, and we probably could but then I don't really want to forgo holidays, Christmas gifts etc.... I am trying to reduce our grocery spend though -
and planning to sell some items on Amazon, every little helps. I might even do a boot sale. Any advice about selling?

tattycath

allmannerofthings wrote: »

First overpayment made today :j:T:j
We're planning to overpay £280 every month (although because my bank are awkward with overpayments under £500, I'll be sending it to the mortgage as £560 every other month) We also saved 1% of our mortgage total (£1150) from Top Cashback payments, some cashback from the bank for taking out the mortgage, skimming my bank accounts and anything else we could think of, and overpaid that too. We'll now save 1% again. I'm hoping we can manage to get to 1% one more time this year, as well as the regular overpayments.

I keep playing with the MSE overpayment calculator - it is so tempting when I see how much we could reduce the term if we overpaid a lot more, and we probably could but then I don't really want to forgo holidays, Christmas gifts etc.... I am trying to reduce our grocery spend though -
and planning to sell some items on Amazon, every little helps. I might even do a boot sale. Any advice about selling?

Well done on the overpayment. I love the sound of you saving 1% :j
I still need to work out how much the bills are going to be before I can make a solid determination of how much extra I can pay off a month.

I like playing with the overpayment calculator too-it's addictive.

EatingTheElephant

Congratulations on your first OP

Kittenkirst

Good work on your first overpayment £280 is a nice chunk up pay off monthly too