Up for a laugh? A 23 year old's guide on how (not) to be mortgage free

greent

For Ziff1t and Mus1cMagp1e you get a label to print off when you've completed the transaction (can get one sent to you if you don't have a printer, I believe) - stick this to your box of books/ cds etc and take to relevant place (I think it's C0llect+ points, but I haven't sent any off for around 6months, so can't fully remember) Use any old box youo have hanging around/ can get from supermarket

greent

OOh - and don't forget to go through tcb or quidc0 first for a bit extra!

Blibble

Cool beans, thank greent. I'll make a point of having a gander at that later.

Me and OH were naughty last night - we had a friend over and I had to run off at 7:30 for a friend's birthday up the road. What I didn't realise was that it was also his stag night, so include taxis and drinks we spent around £30 which was unbudgeted for. First time that's happened in 3 weeks though, so can't complain too much

Tasks today are to tidy the garage, do the lawn, list some old textbooks etc., and have a Sunday walk (trying to get some exercise, have massively fallen off that wagon since Christmas).

Happy Sunday everyone :beer:

Blibble

Nightmare of a day today - pants day at work and it turns out the TV license people have taken their payment unexpectedly meaning that's £147 not quite budgeted for. Thought it had come out last month, but there we are.

On the plus side, there' an earlier-than-planned promotion opportunity at work which I'll be applying for. It's not a guaranteed one, and I'll be probably be up against the lad I trained up, but is something to aim for. And I haven't given in to temptation of a takeaway or alcohol yet - being very responsible over here

Tjh1412

Well done on resisting the takeaway and alcohol; I know the temptation all too well after a rubbish day. Good news re possible promotion though, wishing you good luck

themadvix

Well done on resisting temptation - especially when you've thought about it - that's when I find the takeaway cravings take over!

I take it you know you can pay TV licence by DD? They don't charge extra - it's £12.12 (or something similar) per month. Might make budgeting easier (next year, anyway!).

Blibble

It is set up by DD themadvix - the issue was that we changed bank accounts a wee while back and forgot to update the lovely people at TV licensing. We notified them of the correct details in November, but they've only taken the payment yesterday.

Very much feeling the post-Christmas pinch right now - had to do a top-up shop this evening. I forget every year how hard it is making 4 weeks worth of budget last 6. But this was before getting serious about the mortgage - will do better next year :wall:

themadvix

That's really annoying about the TV licence - at least you can rest happy in the knowledge that it wasn't your fault.

January is such a long month, isn't it?! But it does have the advantage that we're all super motivated to save at this point in the year.

Blibble

So-so week over here - not much MFW'ing apart from another 6 hours overtime.

We're feeling that the budget we've got is a bit too stringent at the minute, and it's starting to get us down, so come next week we're going to up the grocery budget so we can have some more pleasurable stuff (rather than subsisting on the cheapest meals per portion we can ). As I always seem to, I've gone into this very gung-ho which is fine for 2 weeks, but then becomes very demotivating after that! It's always a question of balance though, and I'm determined to get that right so we can stay motivated in the long run, which is where I've fallen down with previous attempts at getting serious with our finances.

We've had a fairly busy week over here - finally got back into the regime of swimming on a Wednesday (so shoddy at that since Christmas) - feel like I've regressed to the level of fitness I had we started swimming 3 months ago but hopefully it'll come back soon. We had tea round OH's sister's on Thursday and our friends' on Friday, so all we had to bring were some drinks for 2 very pleasant nights out :j. And today we had lunch out on the remainder of my social budget (well, sausage roll and a scotch egg :from the farm shop deli :rotfl:), and a free pint each at the local brewery with a loyalty card we got a few months ago.

Onwards and upwards - 5 days 'til payday

bugslet

Been away last week - work not jolleys:(.

Good luck on the promotion Blibble, that will help with the budgetting.

I promise you, you can't live on noodles, not without killing each other:eek::p