Pay off mortgage and start having even more fun 😁

newgirly

Indeed! Might be our new weekly date 😆

Lovely weather again here today, I’m out tonight with best friend and friend back from Thailand at pizz@ express, our first evening date together for a very long time as we usually meet for coffee in the day, will check for offers as I’m sure prices are higher than I’m used to! 

I’ve just cancelled one of the four excursions I’ve booked for the northern lights trip in November, it’s a 7 hour coach trip across a famous scenic road across the sea. I was a bit unsure of this one and the refund will virtually balance the books as it was £197 😱 this is still half the price of the husky one we have booked too, I don’t want to cancel that though. 

themadvix

That sounds like a reasonable compromise on the excursions NG - I definitely wouldn't be cancelling the huskies either!

newgirly

Haha I shan’t Vix, best friend has been to Finnish Lapland a few times and says it amazing 🙂

newgirly

Last night meal in pizz@ express was nice, but without tip was £35 each, the days of cheap deals are clearly long gone 🙄 I’m a little bit skint now! 

Whilst I was out splashing the cash on dinner, I fed my family partially on some very cheap Lidl leftover boxes 😂 did a top up shop and saw a whole ledge past the tills of them, nobody even looking and they were jam packed so I bought two, now we have a million bananas and potatoes plus lots of other bits that need us in up quickly, suck fantastic value! 

newgirly

Oh my goodness, I thought I had not popped in for a couple of days and it’s a week 😱

We are in York, dh booked a half day today and tomorrow off, so we arrived about 5pm and went for a Wetherspoons as we missed lunch 😬 dh is paying for all of this as I’ve currently no money at all, but we are on a very tight budget. Hopefully going to Whitby tomorrow and then maybe the railway museum at some point which is free and we can walk around the wall to from the flat. I’ve borrowed mums car as we only have the Aygo now and it’s a hybrid so hopefully will be quite cheap to refill when we are done, plus it’s quicker than mine. 

newgirly

Lovely weather here still luckily, whitby was great as usual 😊 we had a breakfast bap when we got there early and chips for lunch so nice and cheap. Dh did buy me a little jet necklace and earrings while we were there (I wanted to look for Xmas 😆) and I bought some Parkin cake for ds1’s girlfriend as she’s a Yorkshire lass living in London and it’s her favourite. 

On the way back we went to the worlds emptiest large cineworld just outside of York, very nice and quiet.  Dinner was Colin the caterpillar sweets 😬 
Off to Filey today for the first time, best friend loves it there so I have high expectations! 

daisy_1571

We are just back from that neck of the woods- stayed at Robin hoods Bay and visited whitby and Scarborough.   Wasn't impressed with Scarborough im afraid but had a lovely couple of hours at the Scarborough steam fair museum.  Thats at the Filey end just out of Scarborough, just 5 minutes from Filey.   We chose not to get a cuppa in the tearoom, which looked lovely food but has no windows, and drove half a minute over the road to the stained glass centre.  We sat out in the gorgeous garden with toastie and cuppa.   It was glorious.   Plus looking at the gorgeous stained glass.  Definitely recommend both places

Daisy xxx

newgirly

That sounds nice Daisy, will keep an eye out when we go back again, we went to Filey yesterday 🙂 had a nightmare parking as all the machines didn’t work and the app had problems but we managed eventually. Then back for a wander around York and a couple of its many bars, then an early dinner in The cosy club with vouchers I got from ds1 and girlfriend for my birthday a while ago. We skipped dessert as it was about £8 each and we were quite near the flat so we got ice cream in M&S instead, I think dh is now noticing I’ve got more tight in recent times 😂 

We have been eating out all the time but it’s been a sandwich from the bakers, a bag of chips type thing except last night, today he’s coughing up for Sunday lunch though 😬 I’ve found a pub near us with great reviews and we popped in yesterday for a quick one to have a look and book it. This morning we are going for a coffee and toast at spoons and then a walk around the wall to the railway museum before lunch. 

The finances are hanging in there as dh is paying and we are eating cheaply and visiting free places, I’ve done a food delivery arriving today at home as we are having veggie burgers with sides and ice cream and strawberries tomorrow night when we get back as it’s the finale of succession 😩 I’ve scraped through this month, however I need to find money to get the cat spayed (£75 ish apparently) and I can’t use the card again until 2nd june. 

If I can get through until then it means I’ve come in at £450 for living costs this month instead of £500, it sounds great but it’s not as I also pre spent to £200 we are being given by nationwide for being members 🙄 spent mostly on the garden and on paint I think, oh well! 

Time for a plan for June I think, we have zero spending budget for Norway in November so that needs addressing but I’m not sure how 😆 anyway: 

  

• Stick to £450 credit card budget for food/petrol/everything else really 
• Find £75 to spay cat 
• Sell stuff on eBay to do that perhaps 
• Start surveys and stop being so lazy about it! 
• Come in under my £100 spending money budget this month for once 
• Save SOMETHING towards the Norway trip 
• Get though to 2nd June without doing a proper shop if possible or use personal treat money 

newgirly

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙MONTH 8 OF THE 33 MONTH CHALLENGE💙💙💙💙

Start balance 1st October 2022: £61,452.11

Balance today: £48,218.48 😁

Total reduction since month one: £13,233.63

Total reduction for May: £1989.08

Finally back under 50k (for the second time as we were a few years ago but had to put money into the business to help clear the factory mortgage)

It feel like real progress again now, although it’s all getting a bit extreme if I’m honest! An invite to a friends birthday dinner which should be great is now feeling like more work to find the money, it’s what the personal spending budget is for but I was hoping to steal from that for the cat 😆 I WILL still go though as life is for living challenge or not….

Mrs_Money_Penny

Amazing figures. Your doing so well. Totally understand what a hard slog it is. Nice things that crop up need paying for just adds more pressure. But your right to still enjoy these things xx