The Last Leg; 6 years later, debt free in 2021

greensalad

Not been very good at updating recently, too busy!

Yesterday I was really proud of myself as I cleaned the whole house top to bottom, every room. Normally I never get all the way through the house. It did take about 5 hours though! But it was pretty dirty, I really need to keep on top of it more. Hopefully every Sunday doing the same I can bring it down to just 3-4 hrs which isn't so bad for keeping my house completely clean (my old cleaners used to do 3hrs per week).

I've been skinning tomatoes and freezing them so I can process them in jars to keep in the cupboard. We eat chopped tomatoes a lot so this has been really great, my dream is that we grow all our own chopped tomatoes and never have to buy them but as we eat them sometimes twice a week I'm not sure we'll be able to make it through 11 months of the year, I don't think we have the storage space! 

Also filling up my chilli bag in the freezer. They freeze really well. We'll use them throughout the year for cooking... we won't have to buy chillis ever again I don't think (I've managed to grow probably 100 of them and the plants will come indoors so we might even get some over winter?)

Not a lot of money-saving recently, just waiting for payday next week. I finished a cat booking recently and have lots more booked soon.

Boyfriend has done his Playstation pre-order. This is a big spend, but we agreed far in advance that he would buy it and it is his birthday/christmas present. At £450 it's a lot of money to spend but I am quite understanding as I know it is 100% his main hobby. He speaks to his friends daily whilst playing games and it's his "thing". As someone with an expensive hobby (sewing) I completely understand that it's not something he's happy living without. I know if my sewing machine broke I'd want to replace it quickly as it's my sanity! 

Anyway, it will need to be paid by 5th December (it gets charged to our CC late November and needs to be paid off by the next month) so I have set up a YNAB category to fund over the next three months. We've agreed that any 'extras' he will pay out of his own money. For his birthday I bought him a book that was only £7, and for Christmas we've agreed a stocking a small present so he has something to unwrap. I did joke about wrapping the PS5 and putting it under the tree when it arrives in November and that went down like a lead balloon!

greensalad

Mmm just had the tomatoes I chopped, stewed and froze for dinner with pasta tonight. Probably some of the tastiest tomato sauce I've ever had at home. Loved it. 

3kgs of skinned tomatoes in the freezer currently. I reckon we'll get another 2kgs at least if everything that's at a good size right now ripens up. I might have to get more jars.

Kakiste

My tomatoes were pants this year! Out of 6 plants I only had 2 fruit and of them only had 6 ones ripen. It must be a weather thing as I couldn't move for tomatoes last year and the year before. 

greensalad

Oh no! That sucks. I've got 6 plants too and I think I will end up with over 300 fruits from them by the end of the season!

greensalad

Payday! Lots of updates! Exciting!

Paid £302.50 off Santander CC
Paid £20.67 off smart watch
Paid £80.71 towards PayPal credit (6 month instalment for our Dyson hoover)

Set aside £384.54 for my credit card payment when the statement comes through on the 7th.
Set aside money for Christmas, Italy holiday, US holiday, boyfriend's PS5 present, emergency fund, car savings (insurance, tax, MOT, service, getting new brake discs and saving up for car insurance annual payment) and annual subscriptions.

Put just shy of £1,000 in the house savings fund. Less than I would have liked this month. I really want to get us up to consistently putting £1,200 a month in. 2021 should drop quite a lot of the amounts we're saving, plus paying off my credit card in January. So I'm looking forward to next Spring when we really start saving much harder than we are now.

Signature updated!

Was: 

Smart watch £82.64 left of £249.99 // 66.9% paid

Santander CC £5,142.50 of £5,555 // 7.4% paid

Buy a house in 2021    £4,684.18of £42,500 / 11%

Now:

Smart watch £61.97 left of £249.99 // 75.2% paid

Santander CC £4,840 of £5,555 // 12.9% paid

Buy a house in 2021 £5,874.92 of £42,500 / 13.8%

I'm really looking forward to hitting 15% of our house saving goal! I have about £250 coming in from cat sitting this month, plus STILL haven't been paid for that web job (though it's because there have been more updates rather than them refusing to pay) but I really do hope I get that in October so I can add £250 more to the pot.

Next month's payday will include some healthy pay as well as I submitted my sales-monitoring. I didn't realise I got paid overtime as well. Bit silly really. I got paid a) for being on call anyway b) for overtime while monitoring c) £100 for agreeing to do it. I'm not complaining but it is a lot of money! I guess they make a lot of money in sale periods anyway so it's a drop in the ocean. Black Friday in November usually has more of these shifts too.

greensalad

Got quite a busy Saturday today.

Had a lie in, woke up about 10. Didn't really do anything all morning though.

We went to the garden centre. Why is it so easy to spend so much in a garden centre?! I went in for a specific planter, to plant out my new blackcurrant bush alongside my raspberry and blackberry. They didn't have the exact one so I had to buy one a little smaller. Ended up coming out with said planter, a fittonia, a calathea, two packs of crocus bulbs, a puzzle, a flagon of cider and a lemon drizzle cake. 

Today I am going to skin all the tomatoes that have ripened up and defrost the frozen ones to make a bunch of chopped tomatoes. I've ordered more jars which won't be here until next week but I think I've got enough kilos skinned now to fill the 5 jars I've got handy. Anything over what can be processed today I'll freeze and reprocess with the next batch when the last tomatoes come in. I'm also picking tomatoes at the house I'm cat sitting for as they tell me to take them else they just drop on the ground, so I always end up throwing in a few more. 

Then I want to get the house cleaning done today so I can have a day free tomorrow with the plan on doing crafty things. I'll paint the new planter and plant up the blackcurrant bush. I also found a few garlic bulbs popping up so I've dug them up and will replant them in rows. I thought the birds had dug them up in Spring but they must've been deeper than I thought!

I've got a lot of cat sitting bookings this weekend. I've got to go and collect a key from someone at 4pm, I'm dreading she is going to talk to me forever because last time I went she kept me there for an hour and wouldn't let me leave for talking! She has ALS and her partner never seems to be around so I feel like maybe she just doesn't get much opportunity to chat with people? So I always stay and have a nice conversation but it's hard when it could go on for hours. After I get the key I've got 3 cats to visit. 

No more money saving, just money spending

greensalad

Well my plans of trying to clean on Saturday and relax on Sunday have not gone to plan! It seems like it's always better to do it the other way round. I enjoyed relaxing yesterday, sewed until 1:30am! 

Today I did a cat visit in the morning and now have three to do this evening, but all quite quick and easy. 

I also managed to do pretty much all my house cleaning. Did the living room proper clean, dining room, kitchen and bedroom. I really couldn't be bothered to do the bathroom and it doesn't look bad at all but I must do it next week. I only gave the sewing room a very quick hoover over as I've got bits everywhere from current project. Once I've finished I'll do a full tidy up. 

Also didn't get much gardening done, but I did bring the chilli plants in for the winter and they look lovely all sat in the kitchen now. 

Haven't eaten a thing all day so very much looking forward to my roast dinner (veggie pie for me) and garden braised cabbage. 

Going to go and do my cat visits, then come home and hopefully sew for a bit while dinner is on! Also trying to give myself each Sunday evening for a bit of pampering so will wash my hair (I'm terrible, once a week does me!) paint my nails and maybe even do a facemask, how frivolous!

greensalad

My cat sitting booking from last week paid out. £48.60, added to the house saving pot + LISA bonus = new saving balance of £5,935.52.

Can't wait to get it over £6,000.

Baileys_Babe

Your house buying fund is looking good 😀

greensalad

Sadly it may all be for nothing (or at least a lot longer than we've planned) if we can't get a 10% deposit, which seems likely. All we can do is keep going.