Bracing for impact - re-mortgage free wannabe

edinburgher

I think £38 for 3 in London for food is fine - think we spent about the same on a chain pizza restaurant lunch for 3 when we were on holiday there recently

sabsob

Thanks @edinburgher - this was for both lunch and tea together, so I'm not too disheartened We splashed out on M&S food for lunch, which was £16.50 for the three of us, then £10 in the Chinese bakery for a sort of afternoon snack/just because we love the food, then a TGTG bag for tea, but had to top that up with more M&S food, because it was less food than anticipated (essentially, it was for one person), and our train was nearly leaving, so we had to dash and buy a few more bits. All good though, in the scheme of things. Even though this wasn't a holiday, we've hardly been anywhere, so splashing out a bit made it special

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

Hi sabsob did you get your crafting done? i have been busy sorting things to sell which has now had an improvement on our home. I think you did very well on the food spend in the city. I know what you mean - i often think in those terms about meals - it's 1 meal and i could feed us for a week or more' but like you say it made it special being able to do this x

sabsob

Hi @StripeyTightsSpottySocks, thank you so much for commenting I didn't get any crafting done, but I spent a good hour in the attic, tidying and looking for things to sell. I found three things to list yesterday, a couple to give away, and a pile to take to the second-hand shop in town. Today, I'll be back in the bedroom to hunt down further listings, and hopefully, everybody pays on time for the listings due today, so I can package them up and clear them out of the room ready to post tomorrow.


I finally got lucky yesterday at the co-op with the yellow stickers, and for a tenner, I got:

- 3 packs of sausages (2x ten packs and 1x 8-pack), that's at least four meals for the meat eaters, with extra for sausage sandwiches
- 1 pack of two fish cakes
- 1 pack of chicken mince
- 1 pack of vegetarian mince (will be 2 or 3 meals for the one vegetarian in the family, or one for everybody)
- 1 large beef and ale pie
- 1 huge pack of mushrooms
- 1 pack of grapes

I didn't catch a Lidl box yesterday, but I *did* get a pack of clotted cream, for the princely sum of 20p, so that was a treat with some stewed apples I made over Christmas and froze. So, the freezer is full again, and, apart from some fruit and veg, we are easily sorted until beginning of February and beyond (I reckon I have at least two week's worth of meals in, counting staples).

We still don't have final mortgage figures, but if the one big item I have listed for today sells (it has 6 watchers, fingers crossed), I should be able to pay another £500 off the old mortgage before the new one even starts, which would make January's OP a lovely £1000. It's weird, psychologically, my brain doesn't recognise paying off the old mortgage, because it'll go up again soon, so subconsciously, I want to wait until it's high again, and *then* throw money at it, to watch it come down, rather than watching it come down now, only to see it go up later. I keep reminding myself that 

a) whatever I pay off now won't get added to the new mortgage, so it'll start lower
b) whatever I pay off now won't count towards the new 10% overpayment barrier (right now, we don't have one)
c) if the new mortgage starts off lower than anticipated, interest will be lower from the start...

...so I give myself a telling off, and keep going

sabsob

I have listed, and I have decluttered. My target is 6 listings each week-end, but last week and this week I managed ten, reasoning that there will likely be times this year when I won't manage to keep up, so I'd better work ahead

My "big ticket item" didn't sell this week, so it's re-listed for next week *sniff*

I have two bin bags of clothes "not worth listing, but good enough to donate", and one bag of "good for rags only" clothes, so I'll get these out of the house...and then, I'll try and enjoy the tail end of the week-end, before it's all systems go again with work tomorrow.

edinburgher

Your dedication to decluttering is admirable. I still feel that our house is full of rubbish, but not rubbish that anybody would pay for

*If* we ever find a builder I will probably need to get another skip to clear out rubbish. We've filled two? skips already since we moved into this house. While much of that was knackered wardrobes etc. from another family, it feels like a bit of a failure, I used to consider myself a fairly successful minimalist Skips are expensive too - hundreds of pounds these days. Might try and see if it would be realistic to use bulk uplifts from the council more cheaply. £50 a pop and they will take as much as a couple of guys can hurl into the back of a van in 10 minutes (a very exact amount)!

sabsob

edinburgher said:

Your dedication to decluttering is admirable. I still feel that our house is full of rubbish, but not rubbish that anybody would pay for

*If* we ever find a builder I will probably need to get another skip to clear out rubbish. We've filled two? skips already since we moved into this house. While much of that was knackered wardrobes etc. from another family, it feels like a bit of a failure, I used to consider myself a fairly successful minimalist Skips are expensive too - hundreds of pounds these days. Might try and see if it would be realistic to use bulk uplifts from the council more cheaply. £50 a pop and they will take as much as a couple of guys can hurl into the back of a van in 10 minutes (a very exact amount)!

I definitely go through phases, and thankfully, I've been on a bit of a high since August Work has been super busy, so I never get as much done as I want.

"The amount two guys can hurl in the back of a van in 10 minutes" deserves further investigation...maybe you should ask for ...photos of the guys? Photos of a past-van after 10 minutes?

I have been surprised what people buy, and the idiosyncrasy of it all - some things I'm convinced will fly have no interest, and others, people go wild over. I'm obviously too eclectic to understand what's in demand

If you don't mind about getting money, but would prefer not to pay money for it to be gone, local "Free" groups are really amazing. I've seen people give away stuff that's broken, old, etc. and pretty much everything finds another home. I'm no minimalist, but part of my decluttering is about becoming a bit more conscious of what we own, use, and consume, so I'm always glad when stuff finds another home, even if it's for free, as long as it gets used  

sabsob

It's Monday...time to package and send (well, it would have been time to package yesterday, but I'd not got round to it for some reason).

I managed to snaffle a TGTG box from my favourite shop, so tonight, we'll go pick that up, as I chant under my breath "please no onions, please no onions" - previously, the chants were "please no carrots" and "please no Brussel sprouts", but we more or less cleared that backlog (I lie, there are still some of both in the freezer). The one thing I genuinely enjoy is how TGTG and Ol1o have influenced meal planning and cooking - there are still lots of favourites being made, but more experimentation, too. Not wasting food makes me just as happy as the savings do. We could still do more, I know (I have only boiled my veg scraps for veg stock once, when I knew I could use it up the next day, and I have yet to boil a chicken carcass), but we've come a long way.

Another week until January ends - I'll wait with my final OP until then, but it might be as much as £1K, on top of the 500£ I've already done this month - this is not sustainable, and due to a set of lucky circumstances, but it would be such a huge boost to start the year with, and get the re-mortgage to start as low as possible.

sabsob

My Dad died in the night. I went to the shops and bought anything I fancied for me and the family (£26), and we are having a take away tonight. That's all for today.

sabsob

Our re-mortgage has come through, the figure we'll be nibbling away at will be £131,423. I'll re-set OP and adjust my signature.