Mortgage free ASAP

bubblycrazy

You're so close to being rid of that mortgage caeler, well done! 
Yes, the DB pension is definitely one of the pro's of the job. I'll probably end up working here much longer than I would without it. 

I've opened up a club lloyds monthly saver for the full £400pm. I don't have this extra money coming in, so it will be drip fed from my other accounts with worse interest rates. 
If I can keep the money in without touching it for the whole year (bear in mind we're purchasing some land in a couple of months) I'll be super chuffed, and the money can be kept separately to go towards either paying the remaining mortgage balance when the fixed rate ends in just over 4 years or putting in the S&S ISA.

I've been looking at getting a new laptop as mine is ancient and getting slower and slower. The microphone doesn't work, I can't upgrade it to windows 10 or install certain programmes, and it only works when plugged in. Oh and there's a black line across the screen about 2 inches long which is slowly getting bigger!
There's so many options these days I've no idea what to get. All I know is I don't want to pay too much! 

bubblycrazy

I've signed up to Shopmium to see if I can get any good deals. Not really sure how it works but I'm hoping I can figure it out. I do a weekly shop online with Asda, does anyone know how you send those receipts in?  

Oh and my referral code is ti28be if anyone wants to sign up using the app, you get a free tube of pringles and I receive £3 if you then use the app.

bubblycrazy

I had to go to Asda last night as an important ingredient was out of stock in my delivery so I purchased a tube of pringles to try the shopmium cashback. It's worked! However, on getting home I realised the pringles had scanned twice! That's what happens when I try to get something for free   

Today I've changed and washed the bedding, hoovered, showered, cleaned the litter tray, washed the dishes, and put bbq pulled pork in the slow cooker. I'm now at work having a rest  
No home schooling today as DS stayed at his dad's last night, or none of the above would've got done! 

bubblycrazy

I purchased a new (to me) laptop at the beginning of the week and it came yesterday, however when I switched it on nothing happened! After a quick phone call they emailed me a returns slip and I've returned it today for an exchange. Luckily they cover the cost of postage when it's dead on arrival. I'd been so looking forward to playing with it. Hopefully the new one will arrive by Wednesday and be working!

I've received a letter saying my Lloyds CC will be closed if I don't use it before March so I must remember to purchase something with it. It's got an £8000 limit so I feel it's handy to keep for an emergency.

LeighofMar

Sorry about the dead laptop. That's always so disappointing. But I'm glad that they cover return shipping. Aren't credit card companies something? If you don't use it, they want to close it. If you max your CCs, they want to close it. And if you pay your CCs in full every month and they don't make money off of you, they want to close it, lol. Or lower your limits. Sigh. Looking at your MF signature, that's really impressive. You're so close. I'm in the 30Ks too and it's so exciting to put the 50K and 40K bracket behind us, isn't it? The end is in sight. 

bubblycrazy

They certainly are something Leigh, and I bet if I did close it they'd be sending me letters within a month asking if I wanted a CC!
You're doing amazingly well, not long to go! It feels like such a small number now, it makes me a bit impatient for it to be gone. We're in a fixed rate for another 4 years and 2 months so it will be around until at least then, but hopefully not much longer than that! I was going to have a look at our exact mortgage amount, however the website seems to be down 

bubblycrazy

The current mortgage total is £36478 (this was the exact amount, a round number without TT!).
Next month's payment will take the balance to just over £36k so I'm going to try and sort an OP out between me and OH to get it into the £35ks.

I've been reading other diaries with some energetic people decluttering and making plans and I really need to get on with this myself but I'm finding motivation considerably lacking. It's hard at the moment with 'home schooling' taking up so much of my time and energy, and with the charity shops being closed I have nowhere to send the excess clutter. I've got a large porch full of stuff ready to exit the house at some point.

So I'm going to write some goals I'd like to accomplish in February:

- Take photos of items to sell on ebay.

- List said items on ebay - at least 5 items.

- List some stuff on local free facebook page.

- Get mortgage below £36k.

- Read 3 books as my TBR pile is massive.

- Sort out the boxes currently stacked in our bedroom from when the flooring was done. This may be overly ambitious as there are a lot of boxes but I'll at least sort out my stuff from DS's.

- Purchase something with the Lloyds CC. This may have to be next week's petrol as I don't think I need anything else. My food shopping is ordered online and is linked to my dad's card then I work out my share and transfer the money to him.

Ok, let's see if writing it down here keeps me motivated! 

bubblycrazy

I've identified and photographed 2 items for ebay, waiting to see if there's a £1 selling fee weekend coming up in the next couple of weeks, although it won't make too much difference as they're items I'm not expecting to sell for fortunes. 
I'm halfway through my second book of the month. I'm a fairly quick reader once I've started a book, I just hadn't picked one up for a while, and my dad is passing new ones to me at a quicker speed than I'm reading them! He's under strict instructions at the moment to only give me a book if it's not to be missed. 

I've increased my S&S ISA contribution from £50pm to £60pm. I shouldn't miss £10 and although it's only a small amount, it's a 20% increase. 
Still struggling to get access to my old company shares. They said they'd changed my address but when I've went online to register it still has my old address listed, which means the paperwork would get sent there. Another email sent to try and sort it out. 

Cheery_Daff

You're doing so well! Just skimmed through the whole of your diary - you've come such a long way! Not surprising you're finding it difficult to be motivated at the minute with home schooling and everything. So impressed with how much you've knocked off your mortgage, well done!

bubblycrazy

Thanks for stopping by Cheery! 
I made beef stew yesterday (with added chick peas!) which we had for tea last night and lunch today and enough left over for 2 portions to go in the freezer. Got to love a 6 litre slow cooker 

My car insurance is due at the end of the month so I've just done a quote through quidco and got it for £194 instead of the £375 renewal price! Just need to phone tomorrow and cancel the automatic renewal (sneakily they won't let you cancel it online, you have to speak to someone  )

I think I've just got a bargain on fbook marketplace too. My kitchen white goods were included in the house purchase so I've had them for over 5 years and they weren't new then.
They've started to fall apart at the same time over the last year. The timer on the oven now buzzes the whole time it's in use, the washing machine sounds like an aeroplane taking off, and the fridge hums so loudly my dad asks for it to be turned off when he pops over 
Due to a house move someone is selling a bundle of all 3 for £80 and they're not much older than a year!
I'm so happy I spotted them at 3am when I couldn't sleep last night! 

The only problem may be fitting the washing machine in as I currently have a slimline toploader and this is a standard width frontloader. May see if anyone would do a swap, as I don't think the toploaders are massively popular over here? 
I can pick them up next week so fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!