Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁

South_coast

If it gets the job done....

newgirly

🤣 Our accountant seems clean but often needs chasing! 

I’ve just made the last payment to our March cruise trip, I’m happy with that as it’s earlier than expected. I have been throwing everything at it, vinted, cashback, odd extra bits here and there and due to dhs weekly pay I could pay the remaining £348 today 😁 Next one on the hit list is the Nov 26 Arctic one which has £1489 left to pay, we should have one more weekly pay packet not needed this week plus hopefully dh will pay out one more month from the business. The big family anniversary one comes beforehand but the balance due is vast so I thought I’d start with the smaller one 🙄As we are over a year to travel I will put the money into premium bonds until it’s due mid next year, you never know 🙂

£1000 budget until Dec1st is currently at £253.76 spent not including the Tesco gift card for £20 (must spend that it’s annoying!) so as it’s only 16 days in I’m not doing very well at all 😩 that’s an average of £15.86 a day instead of the £10.98 it’s supposed to be 😒 today should be a NSD but I’ve still got more catching up to do. 

Conversely I’ve just booked a posh restaurant for while we are in York in October 🤣 the fancy one next to Betty’s is doing a “heritage” menu for £21 each for two courses which is the same as one cheap main usually, so I’ve booked it early and on a Monday before we go to our show as a treat. We have a little spending money so I’m hoping we can squeeze that, maybe a roast dinner at the pub and a few of the meerkat 25% off pastries and coffees first thing in the city, I’ll be very happy if we manage that and the food and electric charging plus a ghost bus tour on £300! Perhaps I should take all our food this time rather than do a Lidl shop when we arrive 🤔 will see how the £1000 challenge goes, it may be tricky!

themadvix

Excellent news about the March cruise being paid off! And that sounds like a good deal for dinner in York too. 

Makes sense to get the smaller (more achievable) cruises paid off with extras, assuming you’ve got a plan in place for the big one/you’re making the 0% payments.

newgirly

Thanks Vix, lots to to pay for but making small inroads 🙂

Well this is a woeful tale of unplanned spending 😩 We had an invite by ds1 on Friday to go to dinner with them and his girlfriends parents last night, we have met mum once for an hour or so in York a couple of years ago but never dad, it’s the first time they have visited their flat ever and they were coming to stay. Bearing in mind they have been together now for four years we really had to go. We had a great evening and they were lovely so all good there, but spending wise it’s cost a lot.  So dinner which was split between us all was £88 per couple -this was probably one of the cheapest restaurants in their town, then a couple of rounds in the pub was about £70. Then to top it off dh has just left for work and instead of a nice cup of tea has handed me a parking ticket off the car 🥲 

He had said get the bus it’s easy however I looked up the car park and said no it’s free it will save the bus fare let’s do that 🤣 The website says 7am-6pm then a list of charges, we went at 7pm so I assumed it was free after 6pm, I didn’t even check the sign, which I should have but didn’t think to after I’d been on the website, apparently it should have been £10 for 4-5 hours 😱 Grrr, I’m so annoyed. 

I’m got two choices here, quit my £1000 challenge as there’s no way I can afford to lose just over £200 from it for this lot, or cheat and set it aside and don’t count it and carry on, which I what I will do. The money to pay for it all will come from payments we were going to make off the cruise so we will be a bit more behind. 

Moving on, a little more spending done before that yesterday as I’ve changed our March cruise, we are allowed to transfer it once so I’ve switched it to another week long one in April on a different ship, prices weirdly for this one were lower and we like the ship, so I’ve upgraded us to an aft facing balcony from the original inside cabin. We love the original ship as it’s the one we went to the Arctic on but she was a bit basic in the buffet section and restaurant choices. So it’s cost an extra £61 on top but I’ve got an extra £80 room credit added so actually it’s “cheaper” 😆 it’s also three weeks later so hopefully not as chilly. 

In other exciting news ds2 and dil are going to collect their new cat today! I have a new granddaughter!! They drove all the way to Coventry to see her in the week but couldn’t collect until today so are going back as ds2 has allergies and they wanted to check he was ok with her- she’s a rescue from the RSPCA, a I think he said nine year old girl who was used for breeding ☹️ she’s a sphinx so unusual looking and probably not everyone’s cup of tea, she’s rather wrinkly 🤣 I’m going for a visit tomorrow I’d she’s settled in ok, hopefully she will as she was very friendly and confident on their first visit. 

themadvix

Get yourself over to the parking tickets board NG - sounds like the signage was unclear to me, so good grounds for not paying (it’s an invoice not a fine remember!). Eek to the other costs though, but agree you had to go. Glad they were lovely!

newgirly

Hi Vix, I’ve messaged ds1 to go and take a photo for me if he goes into town today, I fear the sign is more clear and I only checked the website 😩 it’s council issued too which doesn’t help. Our council have lately been ticketing cars that have paid and have proof,  they really are dodgy and it’s why I never pay to park in our own town. If the sign isn’t clear I shall do that, I’ve had help from them before and got let off a ticket in York when I used the wrong machine at the cinema -  for free cinema parking you needed to park at the furthest car park section not the one on front of the cinema 😳

daisy_1571

Well I would say that something like this shouldn't come out the £1000 but I suppose it depends how you categorise your own challenges?   

I have ongoing categories so my food comes out of one, presents comes out another,  'fun' stuff comes out another,  etc etc.   Money gets put aside throughout the year, money gets taken out throughout the year.   In my system the unexpected one off meal wouldn't come out of normal weekly household shopping money, I'd likely take it our of the fun category.  But thats my system.

I suppose it comes down to one question- what are you trying to do with your £1000 challenge?   

If the challenge is to 'only spend £1000 on everything up to the end of the year' then it needs to count.  And you need to make savings elsewhere as you go.  Theres still a long way till the end of the year.  The point being though that you have decided to not spend more than that figure therefore you have to put your big girl pants on and work out how you're going to do that.  Olio, food banks, reduced-food- price shopping, reduced amounts-of-food shopping, no new clothes whatsoever, maybe stop some expenses that were going out - tv package for example- give up something else thats getting paid for.  I don't know, I'm not asking for all the reasons why you can't do any of these, im just chucking things about to get you thinking.  Its your life and budget but if you want to get to the end of the year within your challenge then you are clearly going to have to do something.

If your challenge is £1000 for only some categories then you're fine, take it out of other categories and continue. 

It depends mostly on your own parameters.   Is it an actual challenge where you are going to try everything to succeed or is it just you are writing down things you'd normally spend on till you get to £1000 and thats it over?

Anyhoo, glad you had a great evening, thats important (and no, sorry !!!!!! cat isnt for me thanks!  Not keen on these poor hairless cats and dogs but if it helps your sons allergy then thats great for everyone involved 👍 😀 )


Dxxx

Greying_Pilgrim

I agree with daisy, and that your challenge is your challenge, and whilst you might have 'some' socialising leverage in that £1,000, in effect, this meal with the in-laws has been an 'unexpected expense'.  OK, from the outside, it's a 'nice' unexpected expense.  What would happen if it was '2 punctured tyres', or the oven went 'pop', or emergency dental work was required?  Would you stop your challenge?

The parking ticket is an irritation, and could happen to any of us.  I agree with the advice to check if it can be waived.  For one thing, if it's a local council one - how unsupportive are they of the night time economy of that area?  

Only you know if you can 'jiggle' things around to fund these unexpected expenses, but you also don't need the additional stress right now, of werriting over unforseen costs, nor trying to magic money out of thin air.  If you can calmy and methodically make the numbers work, then I say go for it.  If you're going to make yourself ill with worry, then it's not worth it, change your focus.

Greying X

newgirly

Hi Daisy,

The £1000 was for sept/Oct/nov - purposely swerving December 🤣 I used to do Oct-Dec years ago for £1k. It’s to cover everything that’s day to day spending not including Xmas /birthdays. I’ve separate pots for car stuff, dentist, vet and holiday and cc payments are coming from wages as and when. So this should be coming from the £1000,  it I know there’s no way I can manage on even less for everything.  I’m batch cooking the cheap stuff at the moment so they only real savings are coffee out once or sometimes twice a week for a few pounds each time which I’m loathe to do 😆 usually though this type of expense would come from our personal spending pots, that’s why meals out are so rare, they are so expensive now 😱

I guess the reason for doing it is two fold, free up a little extra as I’m not using my personal spending money of £125 pm, that will go off the cc or holiday balance and also to stop me rolling into a downward slope of spending towards Xmas 😆

newgirly

Well todays miserable mood lifted after seeing the new kitty. We weren’t due around until she had settled, but she is already settled 😆 wandering about, sitting on us playing and eating, very unusual!  Dh and I went to he cinema before we popped over too and saw the long walk, my favourite King short story so I was keen to see it,  it was ok but I much preferred the book as is often the way. 

Had a quick look at the finances as all is ok at the moment, I made a bit extra on vinted this last couple of weeks and had a £54 topcashback payout so all that’s helped balance out last nights expenses a bit. Really need a food shop though, everything is nearly gone 😩