New Mortgage, New Marriage, New Allotment - Oh My!

SeekingFlight

It's my New Year   

Decided this year that I'm prepping my new budget on the 28th December rather than for Jan 1st as I get paid on the 28th of the month. 

Serious re-commitment to moneysaving this year, the building work has gone over budget. It's not way over budget but were not done yet. We discovered such fun articles as 

• Severe woodworm all through the ground floor
• More splitter boxes than you can shake a stick at and unsafe electrics
• half the kitchen used to be outside buildings and has no damp course (that was a fun one)
• the kitchen ceiling was insulated with polystyrene and carpet offcuts....

Thankfully the roof and upstairs woodwork is sound. The 10 weeks without a kitchen was a rough go.

Went out today and resisted the sales, bought 3 birthday cards for my January birthday's, personal goal not to miss a single birthday this year, everyone gets at least a card. Grabbed some veggies from the market and a couple of bits from Mr S. Having a go with buying giftcards with cashback for my shopping this year, so far so good an every little helps. 

Also scored some Banana Maple Peanut Butter from one of the posh supermarkets for £1.32 and some Mexican wildflower honey for £2. Will enjoy both of those and they have long dates, they must be having a clear out. I didn't want to take too many so i got one of each but if thyere is another honey tomorrow, i will get a second one.

Hope you planning and prepping is treating you kindly

SeekingFlight

Well that's a wrap for 2025

£1778.66 of £2025 made in 2025 - respectable effort
£81,318.75 paid off the mortgage only £136,484.06 to go (i had some shares for 13 years ago finally become accessible, so don't be too impressed)

This year I'm aiming to declutter along with make £2026 in 2026 and pay off even more of the mortgage.

Just had a little tidy round the house and came up with £107 in cash from my random change pot, plus ive got £25 of nectar points so let's see how far through January that gets me. 

I must stay on budget this year, last year went feral oh so quickly

debtfreewannabe321

Wowsers I'm still impressed! That's brilliant work on the OPs! Did you have an ERC because of the amount? Good luck with 2026!

SeekingFlight

debtfreewannabe321 said:

Wowsers I'm still impressed! That's brilliant work on the OPs! Did you have an ERC because of the amount? Good luck with 2026!

Hi @debtfreewannabe321 no I was just so lucky that I got the money in early February and my OP allowance resets on the 23rd of February so I was able to back to back the 2 OPs. 

SeekingFlight

First full week back at work is done, was that a shock to the system. It dosen't take a lot of days off for me to start 100 projects and then get stressed oput when i can't finish them all due to suddenly having less time 

This month has been tough on the budget already. I forgot to include Mr Fern's (white rabbit) repeating meds in the new 2026 budget. I also did treat muself to some vintage Portmerion from Vinted. Evri managed to smash the show piece and they knew because they dumped the box which was making broken sounds and fled. Still soreted it out with the seller and we're all happy. I paid half for the surviving pieces and didn't have to post anything back.

I've also had both physio and counselling this month so that has unexpectedly chomped on the budget. Going to have to try and be stricter until I get paid. Though i've got £165 is in refunds and expenses due back to me so hopefully that will just close the gap.

Still trying to get Everest to confirm i cancelled my contract with them, they are terrible people. Asked to cancel and then they were like "oh, we will get the area manager to ring you to see how you can go ahead, we could do you a finance deal" - assuming it was a financial decision this is thge worst advice. Also he did not call. Definately do not want anything to do with them now.

Right got to convince myself to get up and do things