And now we go again...

jwil

That is a brilliant result, well done!  Here's hoping you smash next year's targets as well

Cheery_Daff

Excellent work on the mortgage there! We've not made any OPs for ages (focused more on building savings and having a few bits of time away) but our fix is up in October and obviously the rate will be going up so that will,  I think,  be the time to start small OPs again. Maybe survey money or something to start with - savings still aren't really where I'd like them to be...

EssexHebridean

Cheery it is SUCH a balance trying to work out where to prioritise. Really we ought to still be throwing everything we can at savings, with a view to them OP'ing a chunk when our fix ends, but we're already below the LTV that will make a difference to the rate of course, and quite honestly, I know we won't want to part with the savings at that stage either so...! At least the interest rates for us now aren't hugely different, so it makes the decision slightly easier. 

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to cheer us on - it's massively appreciated!

And now it's back to the usual humdrum stuff
- mostly quiet on the  banking front at the moment as expected.
- £34.99 will be coming from my clothing fund to cover my new trainers - those arrived yesterday, once again fit perfectly, and I am wearing them right now! 
- MrEH has paid Neil The Mechanic for his car service & MoT test, and we need to note that there is a fairly significant advisory job on the notes which will need attention before next year - that's one for him to ask Neil about. 
- I need to sort out what is happening about my breakdown cover. 
- Home Insurance is dealt with - ended up paying £270.XX which is slightly less than last year for better cover - and far less than the renewal quote. Money will come from the household fund, and it's fully covered from there. It's on the CC at the moment.
- That should give us access to the MSMkt "Supersave club" which might be useful/interesting. 

Wordle: 3 attempts today. Glad I got this after a couple of days of making a start, drawing a blank, and then forgetting to go back and think about it again.

Food is under control - we've been eating a lot of salads which suits me just fine, that chicken fed us again last night and I will be picking the carcass and the wings this evening - the results of that will go into the freezer ready for another meal for us both I reckon. I've already got stock in the freezer so won't be doing anything more with the bones this time I don't think. Tonight is going to be stir fry which will be handy for using up some oddments of veg! 

The garden is ticking along - harvested another cucumber last night (plenty more coming) and ate that straight away. Another few tomatoes went to the fridge.  There are plenty of runner beans setting, and masses of flowers on the bush beans as well, and the chilli plant is also looking well laden! Having had a good clearing session around the courgettes the other night, I'm hopeful we might see some better fruiting from those going forwards as well - they've been a bit disappointing so far but I think that was due to lack of light and airflow. 

Last night's main activity was making use of the remaining foraged plums before they went over - and the decision was to make another batch of the spiced plum sauce we made at the weekend, as this would use the lot up and is a pretty easy process. We did this batch without any chilli added (the first batch had smoked chilli flakes) as that means we can then pass a bottle to MrEH's Mum who can't eat chilli at all. For my money the background warmth makes a slightly nicer sauce, but the depth of flavour in this batch is still excellent. 

milann

Chilli is the food of the devil…..I often make 2 batches of things…..1 with for Dh and one without for moi 😁

Blackcats

MrBC can eat ridiculously hot chili flavour in his food.  Sometimes I have to remind him that my mouth isn't as robust as his.  His curry of choice is vindaloo, naga hot 🔥

well done on the mortgage figures - your focus and thorough budget management is inspiring.

savingholmes

Well done on making such great mortgage progress in a year. Really exciting stuff.

Love how you balance the bigger things like that - with having pots to do lots of things including fun.

foxgloves

Mr F is another person with an asbestos mouth where hot curries & chillies are concerned.

Going back a few posts. Yes, I do have a specific Tech Replacement Pot as one of our 10 savings pots. It covers things like cables, relevant repairs, as well as phones, laptop, TV when necessary....that kind of stuff. I split it off from our Appliances Replacement Pot a few years ago to ensure that we always have the funds in that one to cover a couple of white goods unhelpfully carking it very close together, which is what happened last time with our freezer & fridge. 

Hope those cucumbers keep coming, @EH. We have picked 20 so far this summer. The plants are declining now, but after a bit of a rest, look to have decided to kick out a couple more so will see how those go.
F

EssexHebridean

Morning all! Foxgloves, we are loving the cucumbers! I think they tailed off a bit when the plants got a bit on the dry side for a few days on the trot - but they seem to be forming again now on the two older plants, and the two newer ones are yet to really get underway so hopefully we have plenty more to come. We've already agreed that growing them up trellis seems to be the way to go for the future as well as the 4th plant is going great guns that way and is now producing plenty of flowers! 

Milan & BC - I'm fine with a mild level of chilli - I love flavours like chipotle where the emphasis is on flavour rather than just heat - and I know that is the level we will get from the Hungarian Black chilli too. Thankfully although MrEH  will happily eat a bit more chilli than I will, he's not one to want his food massively hot. 

SH - we've had the "fun" pots for as long as I can remember in MSE terms now really - they date back to when we were OP'ing the first mortgage and wanting to be sure that we did budget for some fun as well as getting the mortgage gone! The deal with the entertainment type stuff is that it either comes from those pots or from our personal spends, same with personal fritter type spending - it's fine if that's what either of us want to do, but if we don't have the personal spends to do it, then that's that! 

The weekend up north was fabulous fun, well, once we'd got past the hell that is the M6 on a Friday anyway! Actually this time we'd have been OK if it hadn't been for getting stuck on the A14 for over an hour, as we'd have then got to the M6 before it really got bad. Anyway, we finally arrived after a 7.5 hour drive, the accommodation was fine, and we met up with pals who had also booked accommodation in the same town for the night and had a thoroughly pleasant evening discovering some fabulous pubs! After breakfast the next day pals and I headed through to Blackpool for the airshow while MrEH went off and did his own thing. After the show I headed back to the accommodation to meet MrEH and then we hopped on a train to the town where our pals actually live, and did some more exploring of pubs there - another brilliant evening - it was so nice to have a proper catch up with them! Airshow again for me the following day, and then I got caught in train chaos trying to get to where MrEH was going to pick  me up - eventually I diverted to somewhere a bit different and he got me from there instead, but it was a bit of a pain! Finally got home a bit after 11pm - and let's just say that current me was very appreciative of past me's foresight in booking Monday off work! 

MSE Stuff:
- weekend was spendy but not unreasonably so, and will come from fun/personal spends anyway.
- There was a B00ths store in the town we stayed in - and we know from experience that they often have a great range of beer and decent prices for it, so we re-stocked the beer cupboard at a decent price.
- a curiosity-wander into a greengrocers in the town also gained us a pack of beetroot at 49p which was a bit of a bargain!
- beetroot got roasted at the same time as MrEH had the oven on for making rolls on Monday.
- I have put in delay repay claims for the train tickets on Saturday night and mine on Sunday as both trips had long enough delays to qualify. Whether we get anything back remains to be seen. 
- Came back to courgettes, tomatoes and some beans all ready for harvesting - the toms in particular are providing a steady trickle each day, now. 
- Been gifted some runner beans and a small marrow/large courgette plus a couple of cooking apples from a local pal - not sure the courgette might not be a bit dried out but we'll see. Will be foraging for blackberries at the weekend to add to the apples! (Might even make an apple cake, we'll see!)
- Shopping on Monday was decent - £36.xx but included some household and storecupboard stuff so I'm fairly pleased with that. Spin to win netted me a free croissant which I'll probably claim on Friday.
- I need to sort out my breakdown cover for the car - looks like I will be looking for a new provider as my existing one hasn't even sent me a renewal quote and comes up double the cost they are charging MrEH when I do a quote on their website. Not wonderfully impressed with that allowing that our cars are the same age, pretty much!
- Ordered a delivery of the rapeseed oil we use from the locally small company we've been buying from for years - the money for that will be coming from the money we save towards our Good Food Show trips - we're not going this year but when that company exhibited there that was something we always came back with so that's where it is budgeted from! 
- Food this week is broadly similar to last - with the hot weather neither of us fancy spending a lot of time cooking or eating anything too heavy so salad on Monday, stir fry last night, couscous this evening (probably with halloumi) and I think a risotto tomorrow is the way to go. Friday is up for debate currently. 

Plans:
- we have an idea which might let us increase our growing space a bit - so we have earmarked a couple of hours at the weekend for exploring that a bit further
- Farmer's market at the weekend - might buy another bit of bacon so we can have another go at curing and then smoking this bit, we'll see! 
- Planning a possible weekend trip in September but currently debating between two different options on this...we'll keep musing on this one for now. 
- hoping to keep grocery spending to a minimum this week - after the various bits of stocking up on things we need to get that grocery budget back under control! 

EssexHebridean

Breakdown cover done - £39.25 for the full level of cover we usually have, from a company who although I hadn't heard of before, look to be pretty decent. Hopefully I will have no need to find out! 

badmemory

BR hasn't changed much.  Back in 1977 I booked a ticket at the station as I was about to travel from M/c to Gloucester.  Pity they didn't bother to tell me Glos station was closed.  I didn't find out until we'd left Cheltenham so got stuck in Bristol at gone 9 at night & fiance at Glos & no mobile phones.  Thankfully he very quickly found me at Bristol & speed cameras were not a thing because I am prepared to bet that he exceeded 120.