We will get this debt down & the savings up

Makingabobor2

Forgot to mention yesterday, I had another letter from Mr S credit card. They apologised again for saying they were cancelling my card & assured me its all been restored to its original limit. They say it was an administrative error.....mmm...lol

So now a day of sorting out spread sheets & looking for surveys. See you all on the other side

Blackcats

Talk about MrS's left hand and right hand not knowing what they are doing!
very shoddy service though

EssexHebridean

Sounds like perhaps your complaint to the credit card people had an effect - well done! 

Makingabobor2

Just wanted to assure you that I am still here. Been busy but really trying to make more time to update.  
Lots of house and garden jobs being done and trying to find more ways to save/make money. 

Been decluttering and got rid of quite a bit to CS as well as on freebie FB page, so that has made me feel much better. DH has also had quite a bit of success at selling a few bits lately. 

Today has been particularly busy with studies, P/fc seems to have been one after another. Maybe everyone else in my demographic is on holiday....lol.  Not that I am complaining, I am extremely grateful for them, especially as a couple of them were actually very interesting and thought provoking. 

Yesterday I popped into Mr M while filling up the car and found quite a few loaves of bread reduced to silly prices....16p, 25p etc and some reduced eggs. So have stocked up with those. Do love a yellow sticker...lol.  

Also yesterday I went to large garden centre to use my last free coffee of the month, and they had a HUGE sale section. Of course I couldn't resist a look.  Found a lovely fucshia reduced from £15 to £5.79, and whilst I didn't "need" it, I did have a space in a large pot in the front garden and there was money in the house & garden pot to cover it.  It does look nice, so I don't feel too guilty.  
Garden wise, the veggies are coming on slowly, and I am very grateful to all who contributed to my questions about tomatoes on @foxgloves diary. It is lovely what we can learn from this forum. 
 
So Monday is pension day, which means the start of the new 4 week period and I will be spending some time updating spreadsheets and budget book and moving money around. Can't believe how quickly the year seems to be going. Hopefully some big mortgage OPs next week, as well as working on the next creditor F&F deal. They keep sending me letters and I really need to work out the best one to accept, or is it best to put more to the mortgage at the moment as obviously other debts are already interest free and I really want this mortgage down. Decisions!

Petrol pot has ended the period with £1 left in there.   Always grateful no matter how little is left.  Although the housekeeping pot is empty, the good thing is that we have plenty of stuff in cupboards and freezer, so won't be spending too much in the first week. This is good as I want to start to get a bag of goodies up together ready for when we go away for a few days at end of Sept. We are self catering, so like to take tea/coffee etc, cereal, biscuits, tinned stuff etc and will then get a cold box up together at the last minute with other stuff. 

So jobs for the weekend are

 Planting some bits in the garden
 Doing a meal plan
 Shopping list for next week
 and hopefully going somewhere nice for a nice walk and maybe take a picnic to make the most of this weather. 

Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

foxgloves

You are more than welcome to tomato advice. I quite enjoyed the discussion. Agree PA surveys have been pretty plentiful this afternoon. I am thinking if thia continues, I should beat my monthly £40 target. 
F

joedenise

foxgloves said:

You are more than welcome to tomato advice. I quite enjoyed the discussion. Agree PA surveys have been pretty plentiful this afternoon. I am thinking if thia continues, I should beat my monthly £40 target. 
F

I'm thinking the same!  I'm already over £30 and that's my target for the month!  Anything extra is a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

Baileys_Babe

I too enjoyed the tomato discussion and it answered a few questions about my own (lacking in) tomato plants.

If it was me I would focus on clearing the mortgage, but I wouldn't pay any early redemption charges, if I had overpaid the maximum for this year I would then save the extra towards next year. 

The mortgage is both secured on your house and you are paying interest, where as the remaining debt is interest free.

Once the mortgage has been paid you can then start saving hard to pay F&F so your are debt free as quickly and for as low a cost as possible.

joedenise

Agree with @Baileys_Babe.  Definitely overpay the mortgage first as you're paying interest on that but not on your debts.  F&Fs can come once the mortgage is paid off.

Makingabobor2

Afternoon all. 
Finally got round to updating my budget book. It just wasn't working for me in the format I had, so tore out a few pages and started again. All my savings pots and spread sheet have been working fine, but I like a physical book as well with different sections in, for savings, debts, OPs,  budgets, credit card spends,  lists of things to save for, any holidays we have booked with amounts and dates due etc.  So it is now looking sparkly new in nice coloured pens and I can work with it properly. I think I was over complicating it before and now its much simpler

Mortgage is still going down...thanks to an extra £10 OP yesterday. Might be small, but it all helps
Todays survey cash out went to the 1p a day challenge, which I am saving for when we go away at Christmas.  Also saving my Nectar points for the food, and so far up to £32, so well pleased with that. 

Yesterday I nipped into Mr M's when I stopped for petrol and gfot some bread reduced to 32p. I'd forgotten that I'd already bought quite a bit of reduced bread in L!d! on Wednesday and also the other week. Think we now have enough bread to last us about 3 weeks, so have written in big red letters on my list on the fridge, NOT to buy an more bread. 
Also got some orange stickered minced turkey in L!d! as well, 2 packets which were bargains. 

Think I've not been exercising enough lately and starting to feel bloated and porky. Must do something about that. 

Well, best get dinner on as DH will be home soon and I want to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics.  He will moan, but I like it, so he can put up with it for a while....lol.  
Then I need to read some more of my library book. Discovered an author I'd never heard of before, Heidi Swain. Really nice escapism, easy reading stories. On my 2nd one of hers now and really enjoying it. 

Have a nice evening everyone. Will try and catch up over the weekend. 

Makingabobor2

Hope you've all had a good week and a good start to the new month. How can it be August already?  

So the new month has started with the latest mortgage payment and some OPs, meaning we are now down to £14,440. Is anyone else like me and have to have a nice even number? I can't leave it with an odd amount of pence...drives me mad.   And now the interest rate is starting to drop, that should help as well.

Savings pots are still going in the right direction, just wish they would grow quicker. 
Had a really good July with P/fc though, so that helped no end.  

Another piece of good news, had a letter today from H/fx, saying when they sold DH's credit card debt to C*b*t, they sold the wrong amount....taken them a long time to decide that.... and we actually owe just over £100 less than we thought we did.  They are writing to C*b*t to get the total reduced. So once we hear from them to confirm they have done that, I can update signature...every little helps. 

Saw a friend this morning who has given me a lovely cutting from a plant, cant for the life of me remember what she said it was called though....lol.  Must message her and ask. It will look lovely in a bigger pot though.  After that I popped in to the garden centre and rescued a few of there poor dying plants reduced to a couple of ££.  I normally have luck with things like that, so fingers crossed. Also got 2 lovely, big terracotta pots reduced to £2.50.  So tomorrow I will be up early before it gets too hot to get some potting and gardening done.  
Veggies are coming along ok, starting to get some tomatoes at last, courgettes are very small this year, but carrots have been good so far.  Still waiting to see if the squash I planted from some dried out seeds, will come to anything. There's certainly plenty of leaves and flowers. There's so many more things I want to try next year, just need to try and make more room and talk DH into letting me have some sort of greenhouse. He was going to make me a cold frame with some old double glazing his dad gave him, but it hasn't materialised yet...lol  

So that's about it really, not very exciting here. But I like it like that, no nasty surprises and everything ticking along nicely. 
Hope you are all enjoying the sunny weather and also the Olympics. There's been some cracking contests so far and still more to come. 
Have a nice weekend everybody.