Busy Mee's Last Leg

themadvix

All sounds good with you Busy Mee. I hope you enjoy your weekend away. We’ve talked about booking something but haven’t actually made any plans yet - but then we wouldn’t go until the kids are back in school, so it seems a bit soon to book (whether there’ll be any availability by the time we get round to it is another matter!).

 I agree with the people not wearing masks - what is there not to get? I feel judged for wearing mine and leaving space now, which is ridiculous!

South_coast

Better to be the first person wearing a mask than the last though Vix x

teapot2

Financials all sounding great and good to have some planned trips even if you are feeling apprehensive.  

beanielou

All sounding good on money matters.

savingholmes

Glad the money side of things is going so well. Great as you say to have the extra financial cushion. Your upcoming holidays sound fab. We are doing our kitchen up instead LOL.

Busy_Mee

Good Morning. I am up early, it is my last day at work today before leave and I have lots to do. I also woke up starving hungry ....I am trying to diet but not very successfully at the moment.

We had a lovely weekend away last week, with a night it a very nice hotel ( a groupon deal originally booked for March) We did lots of walking. Our planned 6 mile walk turned into 11 miles   

We also did lots of eating and drinking, hence I am back on the diet.

 It was so lovely to see friends and feel some semblance of normality.  The hotel was very clean and all the appropriate measures in place so felt very safe.

I can't quite believe we are at the end of the month and pay day again. July seems to have whizzed by. So here is the July Update:

Repayment Mortgage.         £43,468.31
IO  Mortgage.                     £161,500.00
Total Mortgage OS.            £204,968.31
Reduction in mortgage.         £1,950.64
Ringfenced savings.           £212,500.00

savings offset mortgage to.   +£7531.68 (Forever Fund)

Odds and sods account        £213.53

Principality.                           £1125.00

Chipped off Mortgage.         £1000.00

Total.                                     £2,338.53

The finances haven't been very exciting this month. We have managed to chip another £1000 off the IO mortgage, in addition to the regular payment. The odds and sods have just been a trickle of steady Tilly Tidies. We have had no interest on our ringfenced savings.

We have paid the deposit for the tiles for our deck and they will be laid in a fortnight's time.In the end we chose outdoor porcelain tiles to match the indoor ones, so the space just flows outside. I have also bought a new rug in the sales to break the floor area up. 

We are waiting for a new patio to be built at the bottom of the garden and have seen the summer house we want to order. In the meantime I have ordered some external grey paint to tart up our manky wooden garden furniture. 

All of the spending for the house is coming from the unspent  holiday pot and we have just received another small refund from Emirates for the seat booking we had on our flights.

I am feeling very fortunate/guilty that our finances are so secure at the moment. I know lots of people are likely to lose their jobs this year so I keep donating to our local FB

I think that is all. It is supposed to hit 30 degrees today, so enjoy x

beanielou

All good. 😊

savingholmes

You are doing really well. Lovely to see. The new decking tiles sound like they will be fab too.

Suffolk_lass

That's a great update @Busy_Mee, all going well. I hope you can post a link or a picture of the tiles (please!)

Busy_Mee

Good morning. Great excitement here as H@lifax have bought back £100 switching bonuses . You qualify if you haven't had one since April 2018. Luckily I could scroll back through my diaries to check and my last switch bonuses were before that date. So I spent yesterday afternoon switching a couple of dormant T£sco accounts and sorting out a £1500 standing order to swish through the H@lifax accounts. £200 for an hour or so effort   The added bonus is that you can earn £5 per month cash reward if you hold £5000 in the account. This equates to 1.2% interest by my calculations, so £5000 deposited in each account. This is great news as I think my Barclays double up reward of £12  is due to end this month, so this extra £10 a month will replace that.

If the £200 switching bonuses are paid in August ( from memory H@lifax are very quick) I should be able to chip another £500 off the IO mortgage this month.This pleases me immensely because the balance at the end of August was going to be a very untidy £160,500.00 

Goodness me this has perked me up a bit. I had lost my MSE mojo a bit over the last few months. This is largely I think because money saving has been so passive. We have been saving money but simply because we haven't been able to go out and spend any. Anyway  It feels really good to be actively doing MSE stuff and focussing on financial goals again.  Off to walk the pup now and do some mulling......I may be back with some new targets