Keeping our options open

savingholmes

Hope you all recover quickly. Well done on being at 53% ownership of your home.

becky170

My 5% regular saver matured so I've now opened a new regular saver. The best rate I could get this time was 2% which whilst better than the interest rates on my other savings accounts is hardly anything to get that excited about. I've also moved some of my savings around as I've had notifications that their rates are soon to drop to non existent levels.

Anyway as it's the end of the year I've been thinking about my goals for next year. For 2020 my MSE aims are to:

1) Overpay the mortgage by £200 per month
2) Save £100 per month towards a new car
3) have a no internet shopping January (well apart from the food shop)
4) eat out the freezers and cupboards in January

My other goals for 2020 are:

4) get a cleaner (not very MSE but might be needed for my sanity)
5) declutter two items a day
6) plan more family day trips (hopefully having a cleaner will help make this one happen!)

savingholmes

Hi Becky - I like your 'get a cleaner' goal. Ditch the guilt. Best thing we ever did - saved our sanity and probably our marriage.

becky170

Thanks Savings Holmes, you always say the right thing

becky170

Right our first overpayment of 2020 has winged it's way to our mortgage. As our savings aren't earning much i decided to overpay £500 from our savings as well as our normal overpayment of £200. To be honest we probably have too much in savings but I like having the security of readily available money if needed.

£100 has also been transferred to the new car fund. We currently only have £500 in that account so let's hope we don't need a new car just yet

For my daily declutter I put three cardboard boxes in the recycling which had been cluttering up my bedroom. The only problem now is that both the black bin and blue bin are full so any further decluttering for the next couple of weeks is going to have to involve tip runs or stuff going to the charity shop. Now I've just got to persuade DH that he wants to help me visit the tip this weekend as my car is too small to fit much in.....

Cornish_mum

Sorry to hear you were ill over Christmas that’s rotten luck, well done for powering through. I second getting a cleaner- expensive but worth every penny. It’s something I won’t give up during operation frugal. Good luck with your decluttering, and happy new year. CM

savingholmes

Great news on the OP and the decluttering. My cleaner has had 2 weeks off - I really struggle without her lol. I don't plan to give up having a cleaner ever!

becky170

Right I've bit the bullet and booked a deep clean followed by fortnightly regular cleans starting in two weeks time. I'm really looking forward to my house having a good scrub as it really needs it! We're going to see how we get on with fortnightly cleans and if we don't think it's enough we'll up it to weekly.

I'm going to try and do meal plans again so that we try and minimise food waste. The plan for this week is:

Saturday - Quiche (from freezer), potato wedges and veg
Sunday - Roast dinner
Monday - Macaroni Cheese
Tuesday - Eggs of some sort and hash browns
Wednesday - Curry
Thursday - Pasta and Sauce
Friday - Fish and Chips

I'm also planning on tracking my food shopping spends and sticking to my £400 budget. So far I've spent £1 on a loaf of bread and I've got an online shop coming on Sunday.

yogavibes

well done on the OP - I found having a cleaner has been helpful whenever I'm feeling stressed out by the cleaning. I've had one on and off for years and am currently considering starting to have one again.I always think it is money saving in a way if it means I am able to keep working because I'm not exhausted!

Nicky_Noo_Na

Great progress so far!

Have read your diary all in one go. My children are a similar age, one started school in Sept and youngest is 14 months. We haven't started overpaying the mortgage yet as currently saving up for a new kitchen.

Feeling you on childcare costs - got a letter on Friday from nursery and fees are going up to 58 a day (sob).

Do you work full time? I do 3 days so DH feels we can't justify a cleaner but I'd love one! Hope it works out well for you