Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

Cheery_Daff

Wow, that's excellent progress for the year, well done you! What fantastic achievements!

KajiKita

Goals for 2023: 

1. Read 52 books - hoping this will drive less screen time for me.

2. Drive down our food and grocery spend. As part of this, eat down the vast store of vegan ingredients that I have in the house through new and favourite recipes. Sweep that money off to savings.

3. Try to earn more monies. Qmee is very slow and limited but Matched Betting seems terrifying (and I have something of a moral quandary about it) …. I’m hoping there is a middle ground somewhere 😉 

As part of this ask for a substantial pay rise in January when it comes time for pay review (I’ve been in the job a year and it’s tough, hardest one I have ever done and a lot wider than I understood when I accepted it!). 

Sweep this off to savings or OPs to mortgage. 

3. Declutter enough to make house more home-like.

As part of this get rid of spare bed, bedding, bedside table etc and turn this room into a creative space. 

Use this space regularly, particularly for Neurographic art, embroidery etc. 

4. Tame the veggie patch. Produce food from veggie patch. Use that food! 

Finish clearing the unwanted plants from the front garden and allow that area to become ‘grass’. 

Extend Maple bed, take out viburnum and hazel. Move fuschia and winter honeysuckle into that space and underplant with bugle and London pride. Keep everything else weeded / tidy. 

Need to start with s ends review and plan from that. Might just add some Night Scented Stocks seed if I have already got some though …. 😉  

6. Improve my eating habits, moving more (8,000 steps per day?, more gardening), do more stretching. Stop gaining weight (currently 11 stones 12) and lose slowly without really noticing ….

7. Buy no clothes until autumn. Might need some shoes though. 

8. Post more regularly, here on my thread, to keep me motivated.

KK

KajiKita

Keep trying to log into our mortgage account as I know they add the annual interest on 31st December but it just keeps showing as ‘Undergoing update’ and won’t let me in! Grrr …. I want to see how bad it is and update my mortgage bricks tracker ….

Found a TT which I forgot to check yesterday. Moved £9.88 from the joint account to the linked savings account 😊

I shall be making a batch of vegan bolognese today, using up left over sweet peppers from Christmas and some of the store cupboard tins of ‘stuff’.  Feels like a good start to the year 💪😊

KK

Cheery_Daff

Sounds like an excellent start to the year to me! 

Well done for asking for a pay rise 😊 Fingers crossed they give it to you! 

On the extra earnings front - do you do Prolific Academic? That can be a nice earner and it's straightforward and often fun. Not sure whether they're accepting new people at the minute but worth getting on their waiting list.

Of you do ever want to give MB a try, I highly recommend the free trial of Team Profit - they walk you through each step in detail (with videos showing you what to press etc) to get you going. It's a steep learning curve at the start, yes, but they're very helpful.

Obviously not something to do if you're remotely tempted towards gambling, of course. And also obviously not something you ever have to do at all!

Enjoy your bolognaise 😊

KajiKita

Morning @Cheery_Daff 😊👋

I can’t seem to get accepted by Prolific - I’ve tried signing up a couple of times and it just rejects me, too many of the same type of person already apparently 🤷‍♀️

I will look at the free trial of Team Profit, but not atm. I will need to concentrate on that and I have enough to do as it is! However, hint / advice saved and filed away for future use 😊 (I’m not a gambler by nature, very risk averse, so hopefully that will stand me in good stead! 😊)

We will have baked spuds with the bolognese (Mr KK will use up one of his frozen batches) - all time favourite of mine! 🤩

KK

Cheery_Daff

Quite understand not wanting to use up the head space on it right now! Very annoying about Prolific though. 

Ooh, not had a baked potato for ages!

KajiKita

Just checked the food list and bolognese is tomorrow!! Tonight is a plastic bung in the oven to eat with hubby’s accompaniments to roast beef (this will mean he cooks tonight though 😊). 

Instead I shall make my batch of jackfruit and beans casserole for work lunches 😊

KK

KajiKita

Had a big session on clearing the patio - it was engulfed by cotoneaster and various weeds as well as pretty things I want to keep. I have managed to clear a path to the bird feeder and cut down the big stuff but Mr KK will work with me tomorrow to lift the slabs and get some of the bigger roots out (huge self seeded Dill plants!). Another good session on this tomorrow should finish this and again it is something that can be seen from the house so will be encouraging 😊 

Emptied another 4 pots onto the cardboarded veg bed and took another two straight down to the compost heap (too root congested to be worth trying to recover). 

Have a Jack Monroe Chilli Non Carne bubbling away on the hob now for work lunches. This has cleared two tins of out of date beans and two packets of out of date Jackfruit as well as the last two of my homegrown onions 😊

KK

KajiKita

I have joined the NSD challenge - aiming for 15 days. 1/15 so far 

KK

KajiKita

Busy day for me here.

Didn’t sleep well. Think my back and hips kept waking me up last night after working in the garden yesterday. I must remember to take some pain killers tonight. 

Got up reasonably early and have done some Duolingo 😊

I currently have 6 portions of rice cooking on the hob to go with the chilli non carne I made yesterday for work lunches, then I shall portion all of that out and get it in the freezer, apart from one I will keep in the fridge for tomorrow. 

Finish the patio with Mr KK’s help (once it gets light!), YNAB budget (really, really want to knock this over today - or at least my first pass at it!), organise myself for tomorrow (everything work related is currently scattered to the four winds here!) and possibly de-Christmas the house. 

Cook a batch of vegan bolognese to have with bakers. Portion that up and get that in the freezer too. 

KK