Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁

themadvix

What she said ^^ 😆 Also, I think you can get a trial of a water meter for a year and swap back if it doesn’t work for you. For reference, with occasional top ups of our pond, for a two person household, we spend £27/month on water - so potentially a big saving to be made there!

 You’ve set yourself quite a challenge for this weekend! Can some of it come out of your personal spends? (Apologies if I’ve missed that this has already been allocated elsewhere) I know I use my standard monthly personal spends if we go away for a weekend, rather than dip into holiday fund - especially if it’s for something that I’d buy with personal spends at home (ie a cuppa out). Will you take a packed lunch for the journey up? (Imagine so…) You’ve got my brain thinking now about how to make the money stretch! 😁

newgirly

Hi sc, we do need the multi room, I watch tv upstairs a lot and it’s impossible to get a signal without it,plus dh likes chick flicks and cowboy stuff and I like horror 😆

Hi Vix,that’s very low for water, how much is your
sewerage if u don’t mind me asking? 

I would probably use some personal spending money while away but would rather not as it’s all the kids’ birthdays in July and extra spending may occur. Currently I’m havering a good sort out of the Xmas box and bedroom to see what I can find to list 🙂 

daisy_1571

£2400 on Xmas and birthdays a year - imagine a whole row of blue shocked face emojis !     Lol.  I think that could be trimmed (halved! quartered even !! Lol)  thats a lot considering the youngest in the family at the moment is your sgd and she's not an 8year old any longer.

Just a small note on the finance that I picked up, I know ul do things the newgirly way 😆 😻 💜 

Dxxx

(Ps move to Scotland, your water bill would be about 8quid a month paid in with council tax,  jeez thats a lot of money you have to pay)

newgirly

😆 I’ve reined it in there daisy! It’s now £100 each for all kids , partners, us etc. birthdays and Xmas, we have a £30 secret Santa for my family and one for friends for £10 so it could be way worse 😁 if we really needed to cut it we would, but it would be one of the last things to reduce, mainly as I am Xmas crazy 😬

£8 a month?! 😱 wow.

Today I’ve been clearing out old toot and listing bits on vint@d , sold old trainers, couple of dresses, an unused little umbrella and have drum roll…..£52.90 pending 🥳 it’s taken all day as one messy thing led to another and it was dusty and hot, but something has been achieved. Speaking of which I’m wondering how ds1  and gang are coping at glasto this weekend, got to be the hottest yet and he usually gets burnt when it’s not this bad. I love watching on tv but can’t imagine managing from weds to Monday with just baby wipes as a shower 🥵 

themadvix

Our sewerage is included in that but there’s not a separate breakdown that I can see. Supply is Affinity, sewerage is Thames. It’s gone up 30% with this year’s rises - it was £19.

Glasto did look rather warm when we were watching on TV earlier. I would definitely want better facilities than a tent and baby wipes… was looking at the glamping options earlier!

newgirly

Wow that’s so cheap compared to us then! I need to look into this thanks Vix 😊 

If you are considering glasto, treat it like a like a military operation to get tickets, ds2 and group have a spreadsheet of who is trying for whom and in what order, (limit of 6 tickets can be bought) each person tries on multiple devices and so does all their family and friends who are not going, so there were over 50 people trying on multiple devices for ten tickets, about half the time they don’t get any tickets for that year, sometimes you can get lucky on returns day but glasto tickets are not transferable and have the strictest methods for ensuring no resales. Don’t blame you for thinking of doing the glamping though 😁 I love the idea of going but the bathroom situation means it’s a no 😆 my brother was so upset he couldn’t get a ticket this year he went to Amsterdam as he didn’t want to be in the country and not there 🤣

Dh is at work again today, he didn’t go yesterday as his “popping in assist the plumber” turned into all day at ds2 ‘s flat as it was very problematic, they now have no basin in the bathroom so is back Monday night to finish it. Not sure what I’m going to do today yet, dh bought home a couple of paint samples I requested as he was already the big orange diy store, so no need to pop out for those. I’ve lots of parcels to post and have had an offer on an item thats £45 so I’m waiting with bated breath to see if they actually pay as it was made last night, fingers crossed! 

I’ve also got cracking on spending next months personal allowance 🙄 I might have offered on two evening dresses for my August 50th cruise with the girls, it’s a posher cruise line I’ve never been on and the few posh dresses I do have from years ago are too small now 🥲 waiting to see if they except my offers of £5.60 / 8 each, if not I’ll probably buy full price anyway but I usually knock a little off. Oooh it’s just pinged through and I’ve paid £5.60 for one plus postage. I do love vinted, I have bought a few autumn comfy items this month, all brands that I wouldn’t usually buy as I buy cheaper, I’d say most were great and one item was too small so I resold it straight away. 

Anyway, time to get up and see what I can make from what’s in the freezer today, I think it will be a curry for dh and for me the same as yesterday, halloumi wrap with sweet chilli sauce and salad, and probaly the same for dinner as it’s lovely. 

newgirly

What a scorcher! I dislike hot weather and much prefer waking up to a crisp autumn morning. Yesterday my watch picked up some afib for the first time since last year, as I’ve recently had an echocardiogram I’m assuming it’s just heat. So it gives me a great excuse to take it easy until it cools 😆  didn’t see much of dh when he did get back from work as he was downstairs watching tv and I was upstairs lying in the bed with a fan I found in ds2’s room, I can’t wait for when he stops working 24/7 and we can start doing stuff! 

Anyway, off to the shops with mum today, payday as well and the money shuffle is done. I’ve just applied for a water meter, looks like we should save, perhaps £30 a month 🤷‍♀️ gas and electric is still just about in arrears so it will be a couple of months until I can reduce the dd, that should go down a fair bit even with an electric car to charge. We have lost two humans, one fish tank, one bearded dragon and two geckos, one teeny tiny gecko as big as your thumb nail,  (as well as many rats and mice who don’t use electric😆) 

I’ve made a payment towards next Aprils cruise of £118.25 - this per month until December will pay half of what is due, I might start turning it into a mini challenge to find the difference so we don’t have to add it to the 0% cc. Is this wise when we will still have a balance on the other cc which will be charging interest on the remaining balance from Nov? Probably not, but that will be a higher amount and perhaps I can move it over to a new cc 🤷‍♀️

Personal spending has taken a small hit and the £42.12 surplus towards York I had has gone, paint, decorating supplies and two bottles of beer from the corner shop for an exhausted dh as treat 😊 But the good news is the vinted sales are now up to £109.90, I sold the dear item, hooray. Dh is still saying it’s up to me if we go to York but he’s really behind with work. I think the kindest choice (although he really needs a break) would be to cancel, as if he goes he will just end up having to make up that time after and before work to catch up, he’s taken on too many private jobs as he’s on a countdown to giving it up and is getting quite stressed out with it all. He was too tired yesterday to go to the cinema to see mission impossible which I offered to do out of the goodness of my heart, as I’m not a Tom cruise fan 🤣

Shopping needs to be bought today but I can’t use the grocery cc until weds 😩 I’ll have to use my personal spends or vinted money, I shouldn’t have run out as they moved out so costs reduced the last week, but I was a bit disorganised this month and bought extra cleaning bits for the new flat. Will try and keep it to just the essentials until weds 😁

themadvix

Your electric should definitely go down now you're not paying to heat those animals (I do mean the pets, not DS and DIL!)!

Fingers crossed the water meter saves you money - it definitely should, especially now there's just two of you (we have a pond we top up and we're not generally penny-pinching with water, although more so now it's gone up in cost so much!).

Think the cancelling of York sounds like it's probably a good idea for DH - can you persuade him to have a lower-work weekend instead though? 

How creative can you get with the groceries?!

South_coast

newgirly said:

I might start turning it into a mini challenge to find the difference so we don’t have to add it to the 0% cc. Is this wise when we will still have a balance on the other cc which will be charging interest on the remaining balance from Nov?

You could always do the challenge and still put the costs on the 0% card, but pay your challenge money off the November card so it's going towards reducing the balance. The net result is the same, but you're reducing the balance on the earlier of the two cards. Not sure I've explained that very well, but it's what I've done with my cards - spend on one with a longer date and pay the same amount off the soonest

daisy_1571

Ignore me re the water, I was clearly thinking back a few years as I came across the council tax bill when trying to file yesterday.   300odd for water and similar for waste water charges for the year, that has definitely jumped in last couple of years but I tend to only look at what we have to pay a month not the breakdown 

Dxx