The 'scenic route' to mortgage freedom...

FatJock

Good luck PBS - working with architects and finding suitable reliable builders can be a real pain in the rear. You'll get there in the end. Keep your spirits up and remember that the (painful and sometimes stressful) journey is part of the adventure. 

PiggyBankShaker

We're back from a week in Scotland - we need to go over all our accounts and work out what we spent and also update our spreadsheet for the time we were away.

I have to pay the balance of DD's horse summer camp tomorrow, and I don't know how much that is yet.

We need to do a grocery shop asap.

DH may or may not  have received a refund from our old energy supplier who left switched from on the 17th August.

I applied for a 2nd job. 

PiggyBankShaker

Okay - real talk. The Scotland holiday came in at £2,394. That was one week for three adults and two kids. The kids' part cost £1320 full-board at a horse riding camp and the adults' cost £1074. We did some really fun stuff and it was nice to have a change of scenery.

The remainder of this week's horse riding camp is £73. The CB went into the bank today, so I can pay it out of that.

I don't want to jinx it but this month we are on track to spend less than last month (holiday excluded obvs) main areas where we have spent less are: Gardening, kids activities, pets, health, groceries, personal development and household. Areas where we have spent more: Eating out/takeaway, gifts (its our wedding anniversary month), clothes and tv/films. But they are not big increases.

Still no refund from the energy supplier.

PiggyBankShaker

The structural engineer has returned his calculations at last so the architect can move onto the last stage of his designs before they go out to tender. Trying not to get excited again because this stage will probably drag as much as all the others and it'll still be months before there's any tangible progress.

The windows we ordered for the front of the house are delayed, don't know how much by, but its not a bad thing as it'll allow us more time to save up for the balance, which is approx. £6,0000.

They gave us the wrong figure for DD's horse camp yesterday. I have already paid £73, so there is actually £94 still to pay today.

My expenses from the start of the month have finally been processed so I should get them overnight, £96.

DH did a small bit of grocery shopping today, really need to try and eek this out until the end of the month. Just six days until payday.

PiggyBankShaker

DH has been paid early, don't know why, or maybe it's not early at all - it's only his third pay from his new jobs so maybe this is normal... Anyway, he's been paid and been clobbered for tax (£300+ down on last month) He might be able to get some back because he thinks his tax code is wrong, but we'll see. Most of it went on the credit card bill, so he has £916 left - this is after putting £60 of diesel in the car.

My expenses have not arrived yet... I definitely get paid next Tuesday.

By rights, other than some school uniform, September shouldn't be a spendy month for us, so we should finally be able to get ahead of ourselves instead of playing catch-up. 

I haven't heard anything back yet from the 2nd job I applied for. Fingers still crossed here. 

Someone is coming this morning to collect a radiator DH listed on FB marketplatz, so that's a welcome £15 for the kitty. I know I've been saying for ages that we need to list some more stuff, but we really, really do. Also there are some local jobs on a mystery shopping app, that I should try and do too - I just need to get my !!!!!! in gear.

DH has renewed the house insurance, £20 cheaper and £40 cashback - yay!

PiggyBankShaker

Right, I rang our old energy supplier and we're owed £141 which there are transferring in the next 7-10 days.

I've been offered an interview for the 2nd job, which is on the 6th September. Yay.

DH is requesting a refund on something he ordered for our anniversary that subsequently turned out to be out of stock.

I've ordered £30 of short date fresh 'mystery' stuff through the TGTW app for £9.99 and I'm just off to collect it along with a prescription.

PiggyBankShaker

The short date stuff turned out not to be fresh fruit and veg as I expected by rather 'convenience' foods that we would not normally have bought, so not the best use of £10. I did get some other reduced, short date stuff in Tesco though, but then it was rather undermined by having to spend £9 on flowers in Aldi because DD needs a purple buttonhole for tomorrow and there were no cheaper bunches. Maybe I'll try for a NSD tomorrow...

Picked up my new medication and gave some of the short date food to a friend. Picked up DD and her friend from horse camp and a sleepover is currently underway. 

Also tried and failed to do a mystery shop in Aldi's. 

PiggyBankShaker

My expenses have been paid. Yay!

DD (and her friend) have been dispatched to the last day of horse camp complete with a purple buttonhole for her jacket that I was making at 8am this morning.

Tonight's dinner preparation is underway, we're going to have chia seed and buckwheat 'rustic' pesto pizza and blackberry crumble. I just need to get some salad leaves.

No special plans for the Bank Holiday, the kids still have their activities on Sat and Sun, so we're just chilling and do a few jobs around the house with maybe a long walk thrown in and a family film with popcorn.

PiggyBankShaker

Today marks the 2 year anniversary since we moved into our house and started pay the mortgage! 

Hopefully by this time next year the extension will be finished and the value will have gone up.

Been tracking all our spending again this month, so will report back tomorrow with figures and a comparison with July. 

Also, DH had an email from the new energy supplier - that we literally just switched to! - to say they are putting up their prices. I didn't realised we'd moved onto a variable tariff, so it look likes switching might be on the cards again.

PiggyBankShaker

SEPTEMBER

Anyone else feel Autumn arrived pretty much overnight? It's quite chilly here, but we're resisting putting the heating on for the time being, so it's jumpers all round and the log burner if we really need it.

This is how the August spending ended up comparing with July. Over all we spent £263 less (we have totally excluded the holiday) but there were some areas where we spent more:

£103 more on clothes (156% increase)
£12 more on eating out (18% increase)
£47 more on groceries (13% increase)
£13 more on TV and films (46% increase)

The challenge for this month will be to bring spending down to below our best figures for the last two months, excluding clothes because we'll need to buy new uniforms, if we do that we might actually be able to put some money into the savings account for the first time in ages!