Climbing the Mortgage Mountain step by step

savingholmes

Best of luck with your plans. I had intended doing a few months with no/low clothes spend but fell off that wagon two months on the run. Hope you do better than me... I do like what I bought though... 

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

savingholmes said:

Best of luck with your plans. I had intended doing a few months with no/low clothes spend but fell off that wagon two months on the run. Hope you do better than me... I do like what I bought though... 

@savingholmes I have really over done things this year but I think total cold turkey is probably the way to go, I seem to get fixated on certain styles and have to have them, I need to stop looking at the website (one in particular I use), I think I should delete the App so that it is not so easy to browse.  I do like nice clothes and I think it comes from years as a child of not having the latest fashion (until it went out of fashion and became cheap then my mum would get it and say 'but you wanted one before').  I also have finally found some self-confidence, something I have never had before and so want to wear flattering stylish things and look as good as I can.  

All visitors have now gone and DD returned to Uni, the house feels very empty.  I did treat DD to a few things before she caught her train yesterday, some t-shirts, underwear and toiletries mainly.  Her father has finally sent her some money but no contact to indicate if this a one off or a weekly/monthly contribution, I've told her not to assume it will be regular.

Saturday night we just had nibbles as we had had blts for breakfast and been for a cream tea in the afternoon, I cooked some homemade sausage rolls and a big apple and white raspberry crumble and raided the freezer for other bits and pieces.  We had chicken curry from the freezer yesterday and tonight I think will be jacket potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn as we have some errands to run after work.  I may make a chilli later in the week with some more of the frozen burgers and we have the last of our homegrown potatoes to use up so may do salmon with those or I think we have some chicken kievs tucked away.

Payday yesterday but I haven't worked out my payments etc so will update at some point this week.  Read my meters yesterday, BG want to increase my DD from £182 to £218, not sure why you can't just simply op for them to credit the £66 COL payments to your fuel account each month rather than it getting paid from them to your bank account

That's all from me, busy day ahead.

MvTMM

South_coast

My supplier are crediting my energy account and reducing the direct debit - I think they're all treating it differently 

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

Hi All

Its a really wet, blustery, wintery day here, I may actually succumb and put the heating on when I get home.

I've updated my signature following payday, made another £8.11 'rounding down' payment to the mortgage today as well as the usual £750 over payment, coloured in another block on my chart as now in the £114Ks, my loan has also now dropped into the £5Ks.  I have added on my Premium Bonds, I have held some of these since I was born (the grand sum of £13 but that was from 50+ years ago) and have decided to top up by £25pm, I now hold £138 worth, I'm just going to leave that running and see what happens.

Meal planning this week, we had the jacket potatoes as planned last night.  Tonight I'm going to do salmon with pesto topping, mixed veg and the last of the homegrown new potatoes, I'll take a packet of burgers out of the freezer to make either a spag bol or chilli for the rest of the week.  I'm away on Saturday night, a free night in a hotel with a couple of friends, so DH can have a frozen curry or order a takeaway (seems mean to say he can't when I'll be eating out!).

I have booked our Christmas delivery slot with Asd@, they were almost all booked up already!  I've just popped a few bits in my basket to hold the delivery slot and will finalise the order nearer the time, I just can't bear the last minute grocery shop in store.  I've cashed in some of my Airt!me rewards so that I don't have a phone bill to pay next month, have enough to cover half of January too!  I'll cash in my T0pCashback towards the end of this month so that I have it for Christmas presents, currently £140 payable with more pending.

MvTMM

savingholmes

Thanks for the reminder re xmas slots - just sorted mine. 

Nice amount of pending £

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

Hi All

Another cold, wet day here but I have still resisted putting the heating on!

@savingholmes, glad you managed to get a Christmas slot.  @South_coast, I wish my suppliers would do that, it seems a far more sensible approach.

We had a lovely dinner last night, the salmon as planned but found a different type of pesto lurking in the cupboard, a roasted vegetable one, and it was really tasty.

We've been doing a few odd jobs around the house and one of those was replacing the old bath panel, it was a flimsy, cheap looking, plastic thing that was splitting.  We had previously taken apart some old Ikea cabinets that had been in the kids rooms, then relegated to be used as storage in the garage until they finally gave up the ghost.  We dismantled them and used the frames as fire wood but the backs and sides were proper tongue and groove and still in good condition so we put the planks to one side for a future project - hello new bath panel!!  It went together surprisingly easily and I am really pleased with it, looks so much better, we just need to decide whether to leave it as wood or paint it white, I'm erring towards the wood as it makes the bathroom seem warmer.

I made a 5th phone call to that big electrical store as I still had had no contact from them and no sign of my refund, I was told my refund had been declined but then when they looked into it said it was because their agent had used the wrong process!  I am now waiting for a partial refund to my credit card and the rest to a gift card, which in itself is annoying as I used All40ne cards which can be used in numerous shops but the refund will be on one of their own gift cards and so will have to be spent with them   I fired off a complaint to their CEO which has been acknowledged and I will wait to see what the response is.

Minimal grocery shopping tonight and then our usual fish n chip supper.  It looks like my night away might not happen as one of my friends is poorly and the other has unexpected visitors this weekend now, ah well a cosy weekend with DH it is then!

MvTMM

savingholmes

Annoying about the gift card - good news the refund is coming though.

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

Hi All

Hope you have all had a good weekend.  My trip away was cancelled so we've had a really quiet, fairly relaxed one.  Friday night DH treated us to an Indian takeaway, which was lovely.  Saturday he made breakfast in bed and that night we had venison steaks with port sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, mushrooms and veg and I made a plum and berry crumble, all of which came from our freezer.  Sunday was my turn to make breakfast, smashed avocado and poached eggs on toast and in the evening I made chilli from some of the burgers in the freezer, we had a large portion each yesterday with home made wedges and there is enough for chilli and rice tonight and another meal's worth has gone in the freezer.

We started another upcycling project this weekend.  It's a bit hard to explain, but I'll try.  We had a large mirror with coat hooks right by the front door, but when there are coats on there it stops the door opening fully, its been like that since I moved in, nearly 6 years ago and has always bugged me and there was a wall in the hallway that would be a far better place for it.  We also had an Ikea wall unit in the spare room that we wanted to remove.  I have always wanted a nice hallway unit so I had a plan to put this wall unit at skirting board height so shoes could go under it and router, landline etc in one of the cubbyholes out of the way and hats, scarfs etc in a basket in another; the mirror with the coat hooks could then go above and some panelling in between to bring it all together.  DH has done a great job, he had to cut down the wall unit as it was too long for the area we had, he has removed one of the cubbys and moved the end piece along so it has gone from 3 to 2 cubbys, this has been mounted on the wall with a hole drilled in the back so that the wires for the router etc are out of sight (they used to really annoy me).  He had to relocate the socket for the landline and router as that was in the way.  He has relocated the mirror and found an old tongue and groove door in our stash in the garage that will be perfect for the panelling, we just need to strip the old paint off of it and cut it in half and fix to the wall, once it is all painted it will look like a unit, I still need to decide on a colour, I'm leaning towards white as the cubbys are already that colour (and in true MSE style we already have white paint) but I'm also thinking a dark grey might look nice and more modern?  Either way I can't believe how much this has opened up the hallway, it looks twice as big!

I have finally received my refunds for the kettle and microwave, partly to my credit card but the bulk has gone on to a C*rrys giftcard, which I am thinking of using towards an air fryer once they have a decent size one in stock at a fair price.  I was one of the many frustrated people who was on the Aldi website before 8am yesterday to try and bag one of their air fryers when they went live only for the site to crash at exactly 8am!    I don't want to pay a fortune for one as I have never used one and am not sure how much I would use in in reality, likewise I don't want to get one and then find it is too small!

Have a great Monday!

MvTMM

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

https://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/a334c3874524a0def29b57c46605f5e0/w/w/ww64-ww65-cheshire-cream-painted-hallway-tidy-coat-rack-1_1.jpg

This is the sort of thing I'm aiming for but it will be completely wallhung and have a mirror above the coat hooks   Actually I'm quite liking the cream colourway too!

Me_v_The_Mortgage_Mountain

Morning!

What a wet and windy night!  Grey and damp here first thing but the sky is slowly turning blue

One of my colleagues told me that the C00p are running there 2 steaks and fresh fries for £4 offer again, managed to get 2 lots yesterday, steaks have gone in the freezer and the chips will be used for dinner tonight with sausage and eggs.  This is perfect timing for me as I used the last of of venison steaks at the weekend and I like to have something in reserve for a spur of the moment treat, I'll try and get a couple more packs whilst the offer is on.  I also told DD about the offer, but she wasn't sure she should be buying steak as a 'poor student'! 

Have a lovely day

MvTMM