Viking's Diary

Viking_mfw

Oh no. DH did not realise his stuffed crust pizza needed to go on a tray, not directly onto the bars... 

bubblycrazy

Oh dear         

savingholmes

Congrats on being published. Hope the membership fees prove worth it. Didn't know you had to register for those. 

Viking_mfw

@savingholmes you don't pay the membership fee for ACLS up front - you just don't get any payments until you've earned more than it, essentially. PLR doesn't require membership fees, but I suspect few people will be borrowing my academic book from public libraries and it doesn't apply to uni libraries. As I say, may pay for a pizza in a year or 2.

Viking_mfw

Had a rough few days and the post I did write got lost. Feeling better today after a good long turn in the fresh air with DS1 - it's been too cold to go out the past few days - and picking up a couple of books from our local bookshop. 

I checked the mortgage total and worked out that it would remain under 273k by the end of March if it had an extra £35 paid off, so I made a cheeky £50 op from the savings waiting to buy PBs at the end of the month, since with OPs it makes sense to do it sooner rather than later. Part of this was funded by £30 from we buy books. Expecting another £10 from music magpie soon, and around a fiver after fees from fleabay items that ended today. Items out, cash in! 

A larger top up expected from external examining next week since I've had the remittance slip. That will go straight into PBs but some of it will have to be sent to HMRC in due course. In the meantime... might win me the million. I'm constantly surprised the top prize hasn't been won by one of the MFW diarists  

Valentine's day tmw, cue a slightly nervous enquiry from DH this afternoon if we were doing cards. (We never do cards.) I shall probably tell him his present is downstairs in the morning for the amusement value. Poor man. 

savingholmes

Well done on the sales. Good luck with the PB. Viking_mfw said:

Valentine's day tmw, cue a slightly nervous enquiry from DH this afternoon if we were doing cards. (We never do cards.) I shall probably tell him his present is downstairs in the morning for the amusement value. Poor man. 

Love this. That's my husband...

Viking_mfw

Well a delightful Valentine's sorting out the final water butts! 

A few more bills have gone out leaving me looking nervously at my current account even though I have the same amount as before, ie the amount for the rest of the bills plus 150-200. Weird how psychology works. Enjoyed 2 of the books from my mini splurge and the third one is a great deal more meaty to read so will last me a while. One of the books I read was Year of Less - about a woman who put herself on a year's shopping ban. Inspiration for mfw I guess! I am quite interested in reading the book by the woman who lived on a pound a day for a year - by Kath Kelly. Has anyone read it? I know there are problems with it but I am also enjoying those kind of memoirs right now. 
 

Kantankrus_Mare

Just wanted to pop in and say how inspirational your journey is!! I think I remember you from the Make £10 a day thread? Not sure if it was you that gave me the push to start claiming an old BT pension as I had turned 50. Will be 55 this year.....where does the time go?
I have always read peoples MFW journeys on here as I cant wait to be mortgage free. We have just gone below the £30,000 mark but considering our mortgage should have been paid off in 2013, ( if endowments had worked as promised) the sooner its gone the better.
My Mam passed away a year yesterday (Valentines Day) and she left me £8000 in premium bonds. My plan is to keep these in bonds till my OH turns 55 (a year in April). He is hoping to take 25% of pension and along with my £8,000 we will pay off the damned mortgage!! (Should be about 20,000 owing then)
I know pension boffins would say its false economy and I would be better saving into pension but to pay off the mortgage 3 years early and be almost £600 a month better off is priceless to me.
I like your ambitions of growing as much of your own food as possible. I have an allotment and my daughter often says is it worth it? Wouldnt you rather just buy the stuff from Tesco? It cant be that much cheaper.
Well NO. Even if it doesnt save me money, (Im sure it does!) Just the process of planting seeds and watching how they grow into something that can be used in my cooking is priceless and like you say, I need it for the mental side. Im never happier than when Im weeding and making my plot look good, on my own with my radio on. Bliss!!
Good luck on your journey......Ill follow with interest!!

Viking_mfw

Hi KM I may have been on the £10 a day thread - I have been on a few over the years but I don't particularly remember that one. 
Your mortgage is a lot nearer gone than ours, although I take your point about the endowment - ouch. 

Posted the fleabay items, paid the fees, paid the postage, transferred the resulting £7.03 profit (! whoop!) into the savings account. External examining got paid, immediately bought Premium Bonds with it, except for the £40 we used for a takeaway at the weekend. Also finally got the 0-3 months baby clothes sold, so that's a box of carp out of the hall, and a further £11 into the savings account. Now to list the 3-6 months.... I might go in smaller packs because apparently selling large quantities for bargain prices is not the way people want to go with baby clothes judging the time it's taken for those to go.

DH helped me (did most of the work) put up the irrigation system for the wall planters for the strawberries. The solar powered pump is now charging. It will presumably start working in about April... The kit did not come with anything to fix the pipes to the wall - I assume because not everyone uses them on a wall - so I've ordered some of those little things for tying telephone cables to the wall from Wickes, and also a couple of stakes which I need to set up my squash growing trellis. Didn't sow anything yesterday despite the excitement generally of the gardening community around Valentine's Day. Hopefully the irrigation system will start working soon and then I can start my chain reaction/ musical chairs of transplanting of various things!  Then it will be time to start planting I have plans for a keyhole bed in the front but am not willing to pay for bricks so it will have to wait until I can accumulate enough free ones. 

Viking_mfw

WELL. 
I did as I had intended to and tracked down my Teachers' Pension membership (thanks @Cheery_Daff) which it turns out is a lot easier than the last time I tried due to the fact they just need your NI number and not your pension scheme number. Lump sum is just over 3k and annual pension is just over 1k, which is not terrible. I updated my address from the 13 year out of date details... however, I was a little confused as to why my pensionable service was less than 3 years, which was the time I spent in teaching. Discovered that I'm missing a chunk from between the end of a tax year and the end of an academic year, so have followed TPS instructions to take this up with my employer of the time (which was the local authority although the school is now, as with so many, an academy now). A pain to have to sort out but I am jolly glad that I looked for the damn pension because it would certainly be more of a pain to sort out 45 years out rather than 15 years out! 
I think this is all my goals for February done and dusted. Just got to keep the spending down for the rest of the month now