Twinklie returns to the property ladder

jodles16

Hey Twinklie,


Sounds like you are making great headway! Amazing how much you have already payed off the mortgage!


Jodles

twinklie

So I’ve already spent the tax I’m owed back. Just ordered a new mattress. But to contrast the spending, my rotary dryer is out and my washing is drying for free. :j

Was meant to be taking the boys into town, but I’ve decided against it and stayed home. Free play at home day I think. I just don’t have the energy for anything else.

twinklie

Eek. Looks like we have a property dispute with our next door neighbours.

They’ve planted trees very close together all around their garden (over the last week) and 4 of them are within 2 metres of our property. That affects the insurance premiums and potentially future structural damage! :mad:

So when they grown and it gets to 2-3pm the garden will be in shade.
DH is ripping. The only thing we can do is hope they are reasonable when we talk to them about our concerns I guess.

The light in our kitchen and utility room will be affected too.

twinklie

Very proud of myself. My year end mortgage statement shows I’ve worked out my outstanding mortgage balance accurately and reminded me that there is only 18 years and 7 months maximum left to be mortgage free! :j

twinklie

OK so a little update from me. We now own 12.3% of our house. :j And the daily interest is down to £16.11 per day. Another two months and we should be below £16 per day which will be a massive psychological barrier.


New mattress is coming on Wednesday which will hopefully make a massive difference to my current issues - some rib pain, I think it's caused by a combination pulling the intercostal muscles when I was ill a couple of weeks ago and then a bad mattress.


Managing to keep the kids entertained fairly cheaply over the bank holiday, so not costing me much which is a win. DS1's anxiety is through the roof at the minute so there's not many places we can go.


Monthly utility bills are reducing nicely thanks to the lighter nights, heating being on less and using the rotary dryer. Which is a nice win. Although we are going to have to invest in some big curtains for the hallway, which I'm going to have to start saving for. It will cut out a big draft and reduce our utilities over winter.


I'm enjoying making the most of the garden at the minute too, it's a lovely cheap way to spend some time. I even saw a woodpecker out there yesterday which was a nice surprise.

twinklie

We had two cars from when we lived elsewhere and public transport wasn’t great. But we don’t really need the second now. Took it to a friends garage who recommended we scrap it. So he’s done that and has some money for us. I also cancelled the insurance yesterday which gave me £70 back.

So can’t grumble at that. Plus this weekend should be quite cheap. Hubby is finally erecting the trampoline for big in the hope that it will encourage him outside. Little needs no encouragement.

twinklie

Thomas Land was fab - the boys had the best time. Although DS2 thinks we have a house there now (we stayed in the hotel) and he keeps asking to go and stay at our Thomas Land house! :rotfl: He was really hard work actually. He was really difficult in the queues, inappropriate touching up skirts, attacking other kids and just a general nightmare. He was definitely that kid that you see and just presume the family is awful! I heard a few not so muttered comments. :mad: So I'm really hoping he gets his diagnosis too.


His behaviour in general is becoming incredibly difficult. Not to mention he's been getting naked a LOT, which is becoming more difficult to manage. Thankfully he's the same at nursery so it makes it a bit easier for us because they are seeing the same stuff.


So we moved house in November from rented into one we have bought. I cancelled the home insurance on the old house. Imagine my surprise today when I got an email re: the auto renewal on that policy only to realise that despite calling to cancel it hasn't been cancelled. :eek:

So I've just sent a bit of a disgruntled email about the situation - I'm not risking calling again. I guess I'm partly at fault for not checking that the refund from the remainder of the policy had hit my account. But we had a lot going on at the time and with 2 children with additional needs moving house wasn't straight forward. I guess that one slipped by me.


Still ignoring the costs of the Thomas Land trip from last week, it's been a low spend half term.
Saturday - home day playing trains - NSD
Sunday - home day playing trains/gardening - NSD
Monday - home day playing trains/gardening/trampoline - NSD
Tuesday - Local nature reserve - £5 parking, £4.70 drinks = Total - £9.70.
Wednesday - home day playing trains/garden/trampoline - NSD
Thursday - Play Centre - £11.50, Food - £10.50 and hairdressers for boys £14 = Total - £36
Friday - Swimming lessons and home day - NSD
Saturday - ?
Sunday - ?


Current total - £45.70.


We've way overspent in general this month, so time for a couple of frugal months now in preparation for summer.

twinklie

Submitted my meter readings this morning. Is it wrong that I’m super excited to see what our statement says this month? We currently are over £600 in debt to them because of our account not being set up for ages when we moved in. So I’m really hoping we have reduced our usage significantly and have made some serious in roads into it. I refuse to pay it off in a lump though, they don’t rush you pay you back do they! Plus it was their error in the first place.

Anyway, our current DD is for £198 per month, which is fine because the whole time we weren’t paying them we saved the money and have it in an account. But I’m looking forward to seeing the DD reduce at some point to get a true understanding of our bills. Plus we need to be back in the black at some point so I can move when better rates are available.

Going to get some chores done today. Make a dent in the kids toys and tidy the playroom. There’s stuff they simply do not need anymore. I might be able to sell bits but I would imagine that most of it would be charity shop or play group stuff.

twinklie

I've updated my figures but the daily mortgage interest is down to £16.06 and we've paid off over 5K off the capital now. So I'm pretty happy with that.

My debts are now below 2K as well which is a big psychological barrier. So things are starting to look up.

NSD yesterday - walked the boys round to my friends house with a toddler slide which is too small for the boys. So that's one less thing to go. We stayed for a play and then the boys had their swimming lessons (which are already paid for so no cost there). Later on of DH friends brought his son around to play (he is one of DS1's most important friends - so cute together) and the kids were out in the garden for hours!


I'm doing the 30 days wild with the kids, so will go out for a walk later so hopefully another NSD! :dance:

twinklie

So the gas and electricity debt has reduced now from £623 to £519 in a month! Yay.

So hopefully, we should be even by autumn and we can get the utilities reduced back down to a reasonable amount.