Progress not Perfection

Sun_Addict

Finally I'm back online!

WFH today and battled with the internet for just over an hour. Apparently it was a known issue with VM but of course if you can't get online you can't read your emails to find out! Everything seems to be fine now, I thought I was going to have to get ready and go into the office at one stage.

I've checked over finances and there was an underspend of £69.10 across the spending pots. I've sent £60 to the house pot and £9.10 to the Christmas pot. The underspend would've been a lot more but I had a last minute £40 splurge on clothes in Mr T on Saturday as they had 25% off. 

New budget pots all in place for the next 4 weeks. 

Mr M online order had arrived and was all packed away well before 7am. Nothing missing or subbed. They are doing the 19p veg offer - carrots, parsnips and cabbage so took advantage of that. They also sent me a £2 off chocolate voucher so bought Mr SA some chocolate fingers for £1 and still got £2 off - bargain!

Sent 4 days worth of oddments to the 1p saver pot. Another £100 overpayment has gone to the additional borrowing part of the mortgage, next month it will be down to under £1k. Still need to send money to the three regular savings accounts. Got a bit less spare cash to play around with now the council tax is going out again. 

Today's exercise plan is dog walking this morning, bums & tums at lunchtime and resistance bands tonight. Tonight's dinner is a portion of veg lasagne from the freezer with salad.

After I've logged off work this afternoon I'm going to give the kitchen a good clean. One load of washing on the line and another in the machine so the laundry basket is currently empty. 

RelievedSheff

We have gone back to doing the majority of our shopping at the blue supermarket now.

They price match most staples with A & L now so there is nothing in it and it works out more convenient for us plus we get the vouchers which although they have gone down in value again will still come in handy. We got a fair chunk off our Eurotunnel tickets this year.

Sun_Addict

I've had a productive lunch break and done a few bits towards our upcoming holiday:

Checked in online (boarding passes saved on the app)
Booked Mr SA's mobility scooter €98 (which is very reasonable, they will track our flight and be waiting for him in reception when we arrive)
Ordered currency to be picked up on Thursday from M&S (which means I'll have to swap my in the office day but no big deal)
Booked airport lounge (signed up to airports emails and got a code for 10% off so that's saved £7)

This weekend I plan to get the cases and holiday clothes out. Mr SA is adamant he needs loads of stuff but what's the betting he doesn't. I certainly don't need anything. Might need a few toiletry bits. 

Mr SA is still suffering with his back, he hurt it a few weeks ago now when he brought the bedroom curtain pole crashing down in the middle of the night. He's been trying to get through to the doctors without success but has been out and bought some of those heat pads which are helping. He's mowing one of the lawns at the moment - I don't know what he does but they never look any different after he's mowed them. I usually end up doing them again.

EssexHebridean

That made me chuckle about the lawn mowing SA - sounds like he's somehow managing to lift the blade above the level of the grass doesn't it. Probably best not to mention it mind, I'm guessing that MrSA and sharp things isn't exactly a match made in heaven?! 

I couldn't agree more on price rises at the alleged discounter supermarkets - I think the price matching thing is well and truly to blame as well I'm afraid - they now know that T's, Sainsbugs etc are going to match their prices on the basic stuff at least, so where is the incentive for them price low any more? They may as well price higher and  make more profit knowing that they won't necessarily lose custom as a result - and of course as usual it's the customer who comes off worst. 

beanielou

Price rises are just dire 

enthusiasticsaver

I noticed my shop at L...s today was a lot higher so contemplating returning to  Mr Ts or M..sons as there are some things I can't get at L...s anyway.  I too have been battling with VM outages today.  Really frustrating especially as they have just put their prices up too. 

Sun_Addict

Morning all, happy hump day.

WFH again today as I have the currency to pick up tomorrow. Thankfully no issues with the internet so far.

Have transferred money to the 3 regular savers: £125 to Principality, £300 to YBS and £200 to Cov. Once these accounts mature later in the year one will be for the house, the rest will go into the emergency fund. The front of the house could do with some work on it, new gutters/drainpipes, repair or renew the fence, new drive gates. Mr SA doesn't think we need new drainpipes/gutters. They were there when we bought the house in 1992 and are starting to look a tad shabby! We did have some new drive gates several years ago and Mr SA took them off to paint before he became ill, never got round to it and they finally rotted in the garden!

It's highly likely that today will be NSD 2 of April.

Balances update:
Mortgage £9996.75
Additional borrowing £1207.37
Windows/door £1544.08

Additional borrowing will be gone in September and windows/door in January. 

warby68

I think it makes sense to do the bigger maintenance jobs while you are still working. There are a lot of quite boring but necessary spends to maintain a house and if you do it like you do, planned and something every year, it will hopefully save you facing a mountain of urgent work in the future when you might least be able to manage it. You tend to get better deals as well when the problem isn't quite so urgent and you have the time to shop around etc.

Your debt balances look great too - 8m and only the mortgage left.

EssexHebridean

Great idea to pay in to regular savers from income to then fund needed work on the house - people sometimes give regular savers a hard time but when you have income to save IMO they really can't be beaten as by the very nature of it it comes available monthly - so getting a good interest rate for it from that point makes sense. People who claim that because of the lower "effective" rate over the year regular savers aren't as good as they appear don't always seem to understand the true nature of savings for many people! 

badmemory

I think there is something sadly lacking in peoples maths classes these days.  Most of these accounts now say when you open them that at the end of the year you will have  £  whatever in your account.  Actually it is probably more a case of not applying logic to things.  Perhaps it is time that was a GCSE!