MeandO's mortgage-free musings

MrsSave

MeandO wrote: »

What a lovely idea gallygirl, although I think we’re in the same part of the country but not Close iykwim. You made me smile with your description of discussions - I wonder what people think if they overhear, perhaps a difference language!

I *think* we're different counties, but I may have completely misunderstood and we're in different countries!! :rotfl:

Brilliant news on the new mortgage rate (and well done on the housework - I really need to do some today!).

MeandO

I'm by the 'Sea' MrsSave

MeandO

I miscalculated the mortgage by £1 - in my favour - so current balance is £ 77,276.44.

Had a shock this morning when I got a text from the bank to say my account was 'on or over my limit' and I needed to top up to cover any payments today. I use YNAB so I know there was money in there, albeit not much. Logged on and it was fine. Turns out it was one of my e-savers I use as my house/DIY pot which I transfer money to and from the main account regularly. It's balance is at £0 as I transferred funds to cover bits bought for the house and to cover a shortfall in the main account. There's no overdraft on it and no payments come out of it, so no idea why they decided to surprise me with that all of a sudden but it wasn't appreciated! :mad:

The plan I have for the cheap-fix for the flooring won't work afterall, and I've come to my senses and realised I'm trying to take too much on with no time (or sleep!) to do it, so I've decided to bite the bullet and instruct the builder to do the work. In total, it's going to cost me just over £500. Savings will cover it, but it does mean my savings pot will be halved, so I need to work on building that up again. I'm pleased it will all be done though, it's been in the current state for over a year now.

I have leftovers from last night's tea with OH for lunch today and I've taken out some homemade 'hidden-veg pasta sauce' out of the freezer for DS to have with some pasta and garlic bread tonight. I'm leaning towards a prawn stir fry for my tea, I have some prawns in the freezer I can defrost and plenty of veg in the fridge.

If I have a bit of spare time tonight I may try and list a few more bits on ebay/gumtree to bring a few extra pennies in.

MeandO

£5 Amazon voucher ordered from surveys.

MeandO

...and promptly redeemed against paint for my table and other projects around the house. A couple of items I'm hoping to renovate, with the view to selling them.

MeandO

Feeling fed up about my lack of money to make further overpayments this month, I browsed a few frugal blogs about paying your mortgage off early. I felt quite inspired and came home and listed items on eBay/Facebook and gumtree which, if sold for the asking prices, would bring in £168. Unfortunately, there!!!8217;s not been a sniff of interest via any site yet, but I shall wait and hope. Patience is not my strong point! I may have listed a couple of the higher value items a bit too high, so may have to reduce them, but I will wait until tomorrow and see.
I also have something else I could sell which, I have discovered, could be worth around £80-£100. Whilst I have no sentimental value to the item, I do like it and it is currently on display in my house, but I think i!!!8217;d prefer the money off the mortgage than the item in question still stuck on a wall. I!!!8217;ll have a think about that one.

I also decluttered a bit of junk from my wardrobe earlier before picking DS up from school. A couple of items were put in the charity shop bag, and some boxes and packaging thrown out for recycling. I found 3 or 4 more items that I could eBay, so I have added them to the eBay box. I will attempt to list a few more items tomorrow evening and also declutter a bit more and see if there is anything else I can part with either to make a few ££!!!8217;s or for charity, i!!!8217;m sure I can find plenty!

MeandO

No sales yet and barely any interest in the items which, I have to say, I'm a bit surprised at as it's the usual child-related stuff which has sold well in the past.

As I typed the above, one more person has just emailed me about it so hopefully that will be £15 made. Update - hopefully item has now sold, pending collection next week.

I decided to change the high value item to an auction with postage rather than Buy it now/local collection on ebay as, although it is incredibly heavy, I've found postal quotes aren't as high as I'd feared. Hopefully it will get some interest that way and go for a good price. I do love the item, but I don't use it often and I don't need it. It gets moved out of the way around the kitchen frequently and the money will be more beneficial to me.

I may need to transfer a bit of money out of the 'school holidays' pot at some point to cover a few more essential groceries for DS's lunchboxes next week. £10 should do it, but I also need diesel although I have £21 left (and that is all in the main account presently!) to cover that and I won't be filling the tank.
There's only £60 in the holiday pot presently, so that will take a bit of a dent. I guess the only positive is that previously I would have resorted to using the credit card long before now...:o

gallygirl

Have you tried the parcel2go website? I use it for sending stuff to Spain when I'm in the UK, amazingly cheap (20kgs collected and delivered door to door was £30 including insurance!). Oh, and there's cashback

MeandO

That’s actually where I got the cheap quote from gallygirl, but I didn’t think of checking for cashback, so thank you!

gallygirl

MeandO wrote: »

That’s actually where I got the cheap quote from gallygirl, but I didn’t think of checking for cashback, so thank you!

Oh - it's not on quidco, was sure it was