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

greensalad

Plodding on today through midweek hump.

I was meant to be going into the office today, plans changed due to new rules so I saved £32 on my train ticket into the city which is great. 

I did a bit of a silly spend, thanks Mum for tempting me! For this Christmas I got a full set of lovely Denby plates. I'd been wanting better plates than our old IKEA uni sets cobbled together and, well, you're supposed to get these things when you get married but that's not happening any time soon! So the whole family chipped in for Christmas and bought me the full 16 piece set and I LOVE the design. It's gone out of production now though so I'm always on the hunt for extra bits. Mum stopped at an outlet centre on the way back from her holiday and they had loads. She bought me two shallow bowls (for dips and things) as a "holiday pressie" but they had two lovely square platters in the design that I really wanted too, they were much cheaper than they had been when I was looking online. So I pulled £36 out of the misc house pot and bought them! At least I did actually have cash set aside for them!

I also bought myself a halloween t-shirt and a mug because it's my favourite annual occasion. I wanted to get bits last year but resisted so I thought £20 this year would be OK.

Other than that, we've had to pay for our parking permit which I thought we had done a few months ago but apparently not. Lucky we got away with not having one so I've actually pushed back our renewal to every September which is good! I've set a budget category to save for next years parking too. 

Looking forward to concluding on these two cats I'm doing, as they're AM & PM visits and quite tiring! The two bookings are worth £175 together though so that will be a welcome addition to the house savings pot next week.

Baileys_Babe

Keep thinking of your future house, to get you through these visits.

greensalad

Today
Need to get back into a good laundry routine, the pile is almost as tall as me! 

We're going to Sainsbury's this evening to do a big shop, as we couldn't get an Ocado order this week. Try and get an order every week but sometimes we forget.

Lovely and sunny in the garden today and my onions are starting to sprout up! I'm still waiting for my garlic to arrive so I can plant out. Tomatoes are winding down, still picking red fruit but anything small that's still trying  to grow I'm picking off when I find them. First frost is probably still quite a way away so I'll just keep on going until the frost comes and kills them.

Also decided on tomato plans for next year and am going to grow additional plants down the side of the house in self-watering pots. The self-watering pots will hopefully help with the watering unevenness I've had this year. Despite trying to always water at the same time, I've got some splits still.

Tomorrow
Last day of one of my cat visits tomorrow morning, whoopee. This week has flown by.

Future
Nothing really exciting coming up

greensalad

Speak of the devil, my garlic arrived! 
Hoping that the supermarket is still selling compost because I don't think I have enough to top up my beds and also fill the new planter for my blackcurrant bush. I'm waiting for a good weather weekend to paint the planter, but I should be able to get the garlic planted tomorrow! 

greensalad

Successful grocery shop done for £55. A little over our £50 budget but we got some alcohol free beers to enjoy over the weekend so I'm not feeling too guilty. All meals prepped from now until next Thursday, including using up some bits we have in the house. Happy!

Also one of my cat sitting bookings has cancelled for this weekend. They've offered to not cancel the booking so I still get paid, but I obviously want to provide good customer service so I said feel free to cancel the booking, but I don't know if they will considering they offered it. It's only £16.50 but every little helps. I'd rather have the £16.50 but then I am quite looking forward to a lie-in on Sunday as I won't have to get up for anything!

One of my bookings concludes tomorrow morning, happy about it because it's across the other side of town so a bit of a nightmare to get to as there is a road closure too. But it has been good money.

greensalad

Got paid one of my cat bookings earlier than expected. I haven't used this particular platform for bookings much and usually I get paid a few days after the booking concludes but this one pays a few days after the booking starts.

So that's £97 more in the house fund plus a bit tucked away for tax bill (I'm happy to have made over £1k this financial year but also annoying having to re-register as a sole trader again! Ugh!) I might be able to get rid of the tax requirement by submitting a few expenses though. The income comes half from cat bookings and half from freelance web work (which I do very little of but is more lucrative) and I'm currently using trial software that is normally £70 to purchase so I may "treat" myself and purchase it officially as I do use it to complete my work. That plus a big ream of paper I bought when I had to print out a bunch of stuff for a client means I might not have to pay any tax at all, but I'm setting it aside anyway.

This means we finally broke £6k! 14.3% saved, now up to £6,097.99 in the house fund. I can't believe how far we've come since starting saving in May. 

I can't wait for 15%!

Buy a house in 2021    £6,097.99 of £42,500 / 14.3%

Baileys_Babe

Love love reading your updates as you drip feed your house buying fund.

Very sensible to set aside money for tax and not need it, rather than needing it and panicking. You can add any money left over after paying any tax to the house buying fund

greensalad

I'm glad you love it! I love being able to top it up throughout the month. Everytime I have to go scoop a smelly cat poo (not my favourite job) I just think to myself "this poo is paying for a light switch in my new house"

Baileys_Babe

Thinking of paying for your house scoop by scoop is a good way to stay motivated. 

greensalad

Happy Saturday!

Today
Still trying to get on top of my house maintenance routine. I've stuck to what worked last week which is to just enjoy my Saturday (and use it to do things around the house) and then tomorrow (Sunday) do a full clean of the house. It felt really good doing it all yesterday. 

I finished both my cat visits, finally! I just need to drop the key around the last person when she's back. No more cats until 19th October now. No more extra money either but still! 

Today I worked in the garden for about 2 hours while it wasn't raining. I weeded the vegetable bed and planted out all my garlic - 50 sets! I have extra-earlies which should be ready in May and the rest in June. I also found some garlic bulbs deep in my upper bed from spring planting though they hadn't grown much at all, so I've planted them out too. My onion greens planted out two weeks ago are already starting to pop up. 

I'm hoping that if all my garlic comes to fruition (50 of them!!) then I can plait them up and hang them in the kitchen, which will look quite nice but also if they keep until Christmas I can give them as gifts. Most of my friends and family love to cook, who doesn't want a plait of homegrown garlic?

I still need to paint the new planter but I really need it to dry out for a bit first so praying for a few days dry spell at some point. The blackcurrant is still in its nursery pot but it's outside at least.

Also decided that my next chunk of cat money is not going to go into house fund but instead fund some plant bulb lights for my chilli plants. They're just not going to survive the winter otherwise and I put so much work into growing them from tiny baby plants into what they are now. Lights plus the fact they sit on top of the radiator cover should mean they'll produce all year round and we'll never have to buy chillis again! Plus I want to cut them into bonsais so they don't take up so much space. 

I may also need to pull an extra £50 out of one of the pots as I managed to pay one of my credit card statements a day early like an idiot so I need to meet the minimum. Annoying but at least it's debt payment still.

Off now to carry on sewing my new pair of joggers