Mrs. P's Savings, Paying Off CC, being more organised diary

MrsPorridge

I've spent money today as I needed to get milk and a few basics.

Just checked CC balance and its down to £7,739.74.  Seven something sounds a lot better than eight something!  Thinking about that, am going to give it till after Christmas and then really get my teeth into paying off as much as I can and using some savings.

Done my budget for Christmas.  Luckily it's only 3 of us.  We normally give DS money for Christmas and his birthday which is also in December.  However, we had to lend him a chunk of money a few months ago (again why I'm hesitant to touch savings at the moment as we had to lend him so they are depleted at the moment). 

He will start paying us back at the end of January - so by then I will be able to really think hard about the CC and paying off chunks of that.  To that end we are not giving him money for his Christmas and birthday - we have deducted it off the amount he owes us, so that has freed our budget up slightly.

Weather looks quite mixed today.  Not planning to do too much this afternoon, we have a jigsaw to finish and of course my sewing.  I am using Britbox a lot and have discovered the old Heartbeat TV programme on there.  Started watching that last night and forgot how much I used to enjoy it.  

We had porridge for breakfast with berries, lunch will be salmon, potato croquettes and peas.  Supper is beans on toast.

MrsPorridge

Forgot to say, we also had heating oil delivered today - that came to £323 - I used savings for this - normally would have used the CC.

EssexHebridean

MrsPorridge said:

savingholmes said:

Did  you come up with a plan on how to clear the debt?

Just plodding along at the moment attempting to pay off double the minimum.  Still looking at savings and trying to decide whether to pay a chunk off - still don't feel happy doing that as its a good low rate of interest on the CC.

Is it higher than the interest you are receiving on the savings though? You really need to ignore the "lowness" of the rate on the debt and put it into that context. It *is* tough to let go of money that you have worked hard to put aside, and clearly you wouldn't want to use so much that you leave yourselves in a vulnerable position financially overall, but to use some just means you are making your money work for you, rather than allowing it to work for the banks. Once the debt is gone, you will be able to rebuild those savings astonishingly fast, remember. (And savings interest rates are also likely to be higher then, too!) 

MrsPorridge

Thank you Essex, something to seriously think about.

Today is an NSD as we are not going out.  Its very overcast and windy, but no rain as yet.

We had a treat this morning and had bacon and eggs.  Was really nice for a change, I can't remember the last time I had a cooked breakfast.  We will skip lunch!  Dinner tonight will be jacket potatoes with leftover bacon badger filling which I froze.  I have added some mushrooms and beans to it (leftover from our cooked breakfast).

This afternoon I will make carrot soup and ginger cake with a plum and ginger filling.  I will cut the cake in half and run half up to my friend up the road.

Also a bit of housework to catch up with.

another_casualty

Well mrs p, you are certainly eating healthily 😼
What are bacon badger fillings ? Black and white hairy things ? Too heatlthy and spicy for me no doubt .  Your breakfast sounds great tho ..

joedenise

What is bacon badger?  Never heard of it!

MrsPorridge

If you google Sainsburys bacon badger you will see the recipe for it.  No badgers   The recipe calls for bacon lardons but I used gammon.  Was really tasty, but I had lots of filling left over so froze it.

joedenise

Thanks for that.  Have had a google and found it.  I think DH would really like that and we often have lardons as DH smokes his own bacon so anything which isn't really sliceable gets chopped into lardons.

Will keep that recipe handy for when he next makes some bacon.

MrsPorridge

NSD yesterday.

.Today went shopping and got a few more bits and pieces for Christmas.

Tonight its fish and chips, but not take away doing our own with oven chips.

MrsPorridge

NSD today.

Two Victoria sponges baked and filled one with ginger and plum jam, the other with pineapple and lime jam.  Both then chopped in half and put into freezer. So I'm stocked up with cake for the next month.

We had constant rain overnight but woke to sunny and windy weather.  I did a load of washing and its now line drying.

Home made sausage rolls and carrot soup for lunch.  Pizza night tonight, not home made, but from the freezer.

During the first lock down, we had Silly Saturday which consisted of watching a "silly" film.  We are starting that again tonight as winter is knocking on the door and the nights are getting darker.  Tonight we will watch Man of Steel - it looks like our kind of "silly" film.  I think it will be enjoyable escapism.  Its Superman.