Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁

newgirly

I know I know 😆 more it’s cheating drying the washing that way rather than hanging it on the heated airer, I was being lazy 😬

All presents wrapped and I’ve even ordered  a half price Percy pig stocking (£15 delivered!) for ds1 and girlfriend as they are in Leeds all Xmas 😩 will also get an Amazon bottle of Prosecco and wine sent over, they don’t take the presents from us as they have so much stuff to take on the train, so it’s nice to have a little treat delivered from home 🥰 

I visited the guys at work this morning, then came home and felt rough with an upset stomach again, still the upside is the wrapping is done and I’ve done budget for next year :   

• £571.26 direct debit bills 
• £30 car pot - tax/ins/mot & home ins this is temporarily cheap as we have one tiny old hairdryer car 😆
• £100 personal spends dh 
• £100 personal spends me 
• £200 Xmas/ birthday gifts, reduced to £100pp for kids&partners and secret Santa for my extended family of £30, it’s still high! 
• £151 cruise balance for 2025 
• £25 Xmas food and drink savings - we are hosting next year 🥳
• £500 groceries / petrol and misc. 
• £396.18 normal mortgage payment 
• £1898.01 overpayment to clear by June 2025 

That’s working on zero sum budgeting which is where I often come unstuck, when it’s this tight making large op’s you can’t afford for anything to go wrong, but it’s only for 19 months hopefully, so it’s a case of plough on for as long as possible and hope to get as close to it as we can, he who dares wins after all 😆

newgirly

To follow on for yesterdays plans, there’s a few other changes for next year the first being no spending in clothes /shoes/ accessories/underwear etc. for me for a year (until 1st Dec 2024) that should save a bit from my personal spending! I’m not doing it for the savings but more for a reset as I dither over clothes way too much and waste too much energy on it all, plus in the rest of our lives we try to be sustainable. 

I’d like to also like to up the earning this year, surveys are almost daily so I need to look into signing up to more. I’ve just opened a couple of hsbc current accounts and need to follow through the steps for a free £125 each cashback, as well as being half way through signing up to 2 x nationwide one year regular 8% savers which at £200 pm each would make an extra £200 odd next year. 

I’m doing a bit more work for dh from home and would like to also maybe start selling online, firstly with stuff we have lying around that needs getting rid of and then perhaps something else 🙂 The extra money won’t go to the mortgage as we have such high payments every month that it won’t make a massive difference but it will help us to actually stick to such a tight budget for another year, I don’t want to be a hermit 😆 

I think a monthly plan wouldn’t be a bad idea next year, I always do a monthly update looking back but perhaps setting out intentions at the start might be a help too. 

South_coast

All sounding very positive, NG 👍 I agree that there's not much point putting it into the mortgage when you're already doing so much. Better to have it as fun money, then you'll feel more engaged with earning it too 

LadyWithAPlan

I actually do a lot of competitions for local events - so gigs, art things, tickets, meal vouchers etc so I can have a fun life without it costing a fortune. (I live in London ) 

Never worked out pence per hour on my comping but it does yield some fun moments

newgirly

That sounds great Lady with a plan 🙂 where do you find them? 

Not much to report today, dd and hubby popped in this morning for a few hours, dh went to work and then his parents. I did have a quick look on mse for any mini challenges I might try next year, thought about the 1p challenge but that seems a bit silly to me as it gets dearer as the year goes on,  so I’ve settled on £1 a day instead. It will be online saving as I virtually never have cash anymore, it can come from anywhere and I’ve used some of my personal spending money to backdate it from Dec 1st as I thought the start of December will be a nice time to get an extra £366 😊 next year , nothing to do with that being when my no buying clothes for a year challenge ends, nothing at all 😆

newgirly

• £571.26 direct debit bills 
• £30 car pot - tax/ins/mot & home ins this is temporarily cheap as we have one tiny old hairdryer car 😆
• £100 personal spends dh 
• £100 personal spends me 
• £200 Xmas/ birthday gifts, reduced to £100pp for kids&partners and secret Santa for my extended family of £30, it’s still high! 
• £151 cruise balance for 2025 
• £25 Xmas food and drink savings - we are hosting next year 🥳
• £500 groceries / petrol and misc. 
• £396.18 normal mortgage payment 
• £1808 overpayment to clear by June 2025 
• £90 fun fund, intended for fun but probably a safety net 😆

After a second look, there was a bit of leeway to skim a bit more off the op’s (£90) and still end on the same date, not sure why I missed this last time 🙄 that will be a welcome cushion. 

After a lot of faffing around opening hsbc accounts to get the reward I noticed a bank card in an old purse with an hsbc card in it for an obsolete account adapted 2020 - which means I probably won’t get the reward as you are not supposed to have had an account since 2018 😩 I’ve done all the steps except spending on dhs card yet, which we might as well do anyway. That will teach me to pay attention! 

newgirly

Busy day, taking out newish friend for coffee, she’s nice but it’s getting a bit much sometimes. It’s a long drive and she can be a bit firm in what she wants to do and when, I may have to back off a bit in the new year 🙄 This was followed by a nice lunch out with friends though, I thought it would be a Costa lunch but we ended up in pizz@ express, which I haven’t been in for years, very nice and £28 was not too bad considering they don’t do discounts anymore it seems, it cleared out nearly all of my personal spending money but that’s getting topped up tomorrow anyway.

Ive been to lots of supermarkets already this week, instead of doing a big shop I’m only buying what I can carry so I don’t go overboard, this was a struggle in Lidl this morning as I got a box of x6 Proseccos 😆 I did stagger to the car with that and cat litter just about, at £4.75 a bottle it was worth it. Yesterday it was the start of 15p veg week, this is where I force the family to eat “Xmas” veg as it’s so cheap for the week before Xmas 😂 roasted mixed veg all round! Lidl even has 15p shallots this time, plus I got a swede as big as a baby’s head. Yesterday was sausage and veg, today chicken. Tomorrow could well be Brussel sprout pasta bake 😬 

I’m running out of money now , I’ve £30 left for the month and still some food bits to get for Boxing Day. Normal food wise we will try and get by with what we have either in the freezer which isn’t much, mainly veg and anything in tins I can use up. Friday we are having a takeaway which was going to be fairly small, but apparently all the kids will probably make it and two partners 😆 so that may be a bit £££ we invited them all so we will be paying, I’m hoping dh might have a bit of cash to contribute or I will be hitting the caravan trip saving pot I stashed a bit in the other day 😩 still can’t complain, it’s Xmas and I might get one meal with all three of them here before ds1 shoots off to Leeds for the week. 

South_coast

NG, I've just done a survey about people travelling to see the Northern Lights - just kept thinking about you!!!

newgirly

Oooh I would have liked to have one about that instead of cleaning products like I usually get 😆

Round a friends tonight to have a quick catch up and swap our secret Santa gifts. Beforehand we watched ds1 open his Xmas presents as he’s off Saturday and will be too drunk tomorrow as it’s the boys annual darts day out at Ally Pally 😂 this year ds2 is a zookeeper (he’s teetotal so in charge) and all the lads are animals, ds1 is a frog. 

Anyway he opened them and had a gift from the friend who came for lunch yesterday, we stopped buying for our kids three years ago, and she said there’s three gifts for the kids and cash 😱 I’ve spend about £5 on chocolates for her two and she’s bought all three a gift and given them £20 each! I did say at the time, oh no we stopped buying why did you buy for them? And she said we must have got our wires crossed, I now feel awkward but I have made it clear a few times that we shouldn’t be buying for our adult kids! Our eldest are now 26 🤦🏼‍♀️ anyway as bad as I feel I’m holding tight in this….

LadyWithAPlan

Ah the present dilemma / you try and stop and everyone keeps on buying .. 
it’s a hard tightrope to walk 

competitions you can see the mse competition threads but for local events and restaurants always worth being on their mailing list and their social media - sometimes the local paper has some in as well 

I am not sure on pizza expre@@ but pizza hu@ app is well worth joining as you get loads free points and extras as you return there