Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

Tescodealqueen

I love the library reservation system.I have worked my way through several series of books without Having to hope that 5he next one turns up in my branch. Our library also has a form where you can suggest books for the town to buy. I guess they have to consider whether more than one person will read it so probably something not THAT obscure

KajiKita

Tescodealqueen said:

I love the library reservation system.I have worked my way through several series of books without Having to hope that 5he next one turns up in my branch. Our library also has a form where you can suggest books for the town to buy. I guess they have to consider whether more than one person will read it so probably something not THAT obscure

I * think* that any library can pull from any other council library though?

KK 

Crazycatlady2

I love the library reserve function and use it all the time for new releases by my fav authors

the fire ticket thing annoys me as sofa I wanted to donate said I couldn’t cos no ticket. When they was delivered my toddler pulled it off as it was in such a daft place grr

then my new ones I have now I spent £1800 on and the ticket was pulled off accidentally by delivery guy but was also in a really annoying place so I wouldn’t have left it on for years just so I could donate after grr

rant over 😂

badmemory

Our library you could borrow from local libraries free but had to pay a fee from other libraries.  I have not long since had an email to tell me that they can get now from the city's library free.  But saying our local has gone down from over 10 (13/14) libraries to only 4 it has become more necessary.

Tescodealqueen

KajiKita said:

Tescodealqueen said:

I love the library reservation system.I have worked my way through several series of books without Having to hope that 5he next one turns up in my branch. Our library also has a form where you can suggest books for the town to buy. I guess they have to consider whether more than one person will read it so probably something not THAT obscure

I * think* that any library can pull from any other council library though?

KK 

Possibly for a charge though my library has stopped all fines etc so not sure if they have stopped this too to avoid collecting fees will have to check though I’ve never had to since my preferred crime fiction is usually popular enough to warrant purchase. My tastes are pretty pedestrian

KajiKita

My book tastes are not particularly esoteric, I just fancied challenging the system! 😂 I shall resist and behave myself 😉

NSD yesterday and today 😊 I doubt I will hit my target of 20 days this month, but I am still convinced that tracking them is reducing / making me conscious of my spending. 

My ‘doing one thing’ tonight was a parcel of small things:
- topped off my sweet peas so they thicken up
- watered my tomato seedlings and refilled my watering bottle so it will be at seed mat temperature when I come to use it again
- sprayed the ornamentals in the conservatory with insect spray and rubbed off the green fly from the winter lettuces I have growing in there 🙄
- started looking through recipes for what I will cook next week on my week off, as home cooked treats, self care and filling the freezer with batches ready for better quality than ready meals, easy eating at a later date 😊 I always have a food delivery at the start of a week (Saturday this week) so if I don’t plan what I want to cook / eat just for me next week, I will have to waste time going shopping. Feel like I am adulting quite well on this one! 

I am tired but content this evening 😊 

KK

KajiKita

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear …… I sat down with my spreadsheets etc this morning and realised that I haven’t updated my spends etc for almost a month! (Last time was on 21st January.) OMG …. I am quite shocked at how quickly the time has slipped away from me …..

I suppose I’d better just do an overall summary:

The not so good: 

- Grocery spend went significantly over budget between January and February’s paydays …. Target is £500, we spent £572.46. Some of that is due to one off spends like protein bread and Korean chilli paste which will last months, but there is a lot of miscellaneous spends in there too.

I really need to try and rein this in. Unfortunately, I have already spent £211.66 of this month’s groceries budget! Partly because I want to do a lot of batch cooking next week and have been getting ingredients in for it. 

But …. just as in my gardening, where I have a habit of buying plants and not having a space for them, I have a habit of buying food and not consuming it in time. I am posting this here for accountability! 😉

- There was a lot of gardening spend last month £167.33 v. a budget of £50! There was underspend on things like clothes which helps offset this I suppose, but I will need that clothes money at some point, so I need to either, find a way of increasing my gardening budget or getting better at getting what I want / need for less …. some of this spend (c. £60) are for things that will last 2 x watering cans and Bocking 14 Comfrey roots, but even so, that overall number came as something of a shock! 

I am trying having all gardening spend as ‘pocket money’ cash this month - any money I spend for gardening online will get taken out of that cash and put in an envelope to be reallocated physically, iyswim (maybe for next month’s pocket money?). 

The good!: 

- I have been trying the tracking of NSDs. I think this made a RADICAL difference to my sending in January - to the point that even after I paid off my credit card today, I was still able to transfer £1,110 to my savings just now. I am SO chuffed about this! Once I have got all my YNAB pots filled and have a reasonable amount of ‘emergency fund’ saved, I can see it could be possible for me to really start impacting our mortgage. I can’t tell you how much better this makes me feel! 😊

- Even though QM33 has been a bit limp this year so far, with those small contributions and some TCB I have sent £81.29 as mortgage OPs so far this month - best OP figure since October last year. 


In other news: 

Mr KK is selling one of his spare Jeep engines and crank. He has discussed it with me and these funds are going to be split between his savings (in his shiny new @tom account) and an OP to the mortgage. This will be the first contribution to this OP ‘project’ since I started and should be c. £250 or so. He was going to give me more to send as OP, but tbh, I’d rather he had some savings / safety net of his own and not just rely on mine if his van blows up or some such. 

My savings are now at £7,488 (even after taking off the V1rg1n c/cd debt). The next thing I want to do is ‘fill up’ the pots I have for various categories for where they should be now (e.g. 9 payments still to go for saving before November for Christmas etc.) and then calculate how much 3 months of required minimums would be on top. I want to set this as my savings target. I am likely to get a lump of money from my mother in March, so hopefully I *might* be able to start diverting all extra savings to OPs to the mortgage from perhaps May onwards? Starting to feel really possible now ….! 😊

KK

SandyShores

Sounds really positive Kajikita.  I know you have overspends but at least you know where it went, and gardening spends are worth it (IMO ).

KajiKita

@SandyShores - Get thee behind me, you temptee!! 😂 Don’t go encouraging me on gardening spends …..!! I so don’t need help with that!! 😂😂😂😂😂

Thank you for the positive, reinforcing feedback. I *can* see progress, albeit slowly. I had another interesting conversation with Mr KK just now, about how much *I* have OP’d on the mortgage so far and he’s like ‘I need to catch up!’ 😊❤️🤩

I love the idea that it might even become a competition between us!! 😂😊

KK

SandyShores

Sorry Kajikita , it wasn't intentional - probably trying to make myself feel better 🤣 🤣 🤣 .  I've spent quite a bit this month, and I'm telling myself its all worth it (it is, I think ).  

The competition is a great idea, MrShores' is often comparing his credit card app nowadays to see who has a zero/the smallest balance. I'm more than happy for him to win. This is such a difference to a few years ago, when he never gave any thought to running up thousands at the drop of a hat on several cards with no way to pay them off.

I am going to start serious saving etc. next month though, so I'll get on board the programme then and tut/shake my head at any spends appropriately