And now we go again...

Sun_Addict

My regular saver with them is maturing shortly too and have opted for some of it to be used to open the 6 months one. I've already got another 6 months one with them plus the Christmas saver which matures in December. 

EssexHebridean

In other MSE news I have done the TeeSBee Bank switch using my sacrificial Sant-and-Er account - it will be good to see that gone. Who knows - if I get on OK with them maybe I'll make use of my other current account with Sant to do another switch elsewhere. All being well I'm on for £150 switch incentive, plus a £25 big river voucher as well. There's the possibility of more cashback on top, but that will rely on 20 debit card transactions per month, and that might not prove that straightforward... 

Noticed that the TeeSBee people also have a decent reg saver so that's more food for thought... 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, well done, especially as you've been so poorly! Glad that's abating a little now xx

You've reminded me about regular savers - we don't have any at the minute!

EssexHebridean

I suddenly seem to have quite a few again - all manageable thank goodness, but still! Mind you a regular saver with a decent interest rate is a decent way of keeping things ticking along - and as we've got the majority of our savings in ISAs etc these days, it makes sense to make use of those good rates when we can find them. 

WELL - the big news from here is that we have reached our next mortgage target! You may remember that we said that the next thing we were aiming for was to have the mortgage balance below the amount we paid for the flat when we bought it - and as of this morning, it is indeed sitting below £93,500 which is the sum in question!  Most exciting - we're really pleased. So I guess the next target will be to get sub £90k - or perhaps to see the monthly interest routinely below £300, I'm not sure which of those will happen first to be honest as the interest amounts are definitely visibly falling each month now. We are very definitely mortgage-neutral now as well, which is always a reassuring thing. 

Grocery spending for October sat around a quite pleasing £150 which I was happy with - and I'll be aiming for roughly the same this month. I've got a meal plan drawn up through to the middle of the month, and will be aiming to add to that as the month goes on to avoid running into that point where suddenly nothing is planned and it all feels like a big mountain to climb to start again!  I made a cracking soup on Saturday based on a delicious one we had on holiday ages ago at a lovely cafe (sadly now no longer being run by the same person, which is a real shame). It was a slightly odd combo of sausage and cabbage, which sounds like a most peculiar soup, but somehow worked...O think hers had caraway seeds and bulb fennel in it too. My version on saturday used chorizo style sausages (squeezed out of their skins and broken up in the pan) alongside some of our home-grown kale, plus a leek, a couple of small diced carrots and a diced potato, chicken stock, and I used fennel seeds and some smoked chili flakes as the spicing. I also lobbed in some macaroni to add a bit more bulk and make it more winter-suitable, and once everything had cooked through it got a couple of handfuls of the well shredded kale and a bit of cornflour to thicken. SO tasty - and really budget friendly as well as I only used two of the sausages and it made two good portions - everything else in it was just basic stuff I'd always have about. The second portion is stashed away in the freezer ready for next saturday's lunch, and I have a note to make another batch of it at some stage to feed us both in the week at some stage - that's now added to the meal plan for later in the month! 

Some spendiness has occurred - I went into London on Friday afternoon as I'd been invited to take part in a marketing photoshoot for the Hidden London tours at Euston. MrEH kindly dropped me off at Epping and picked me up again in the evening - which saved me £3 each way bus fare) so that just left me with tube fare each way. I hopped off at Holborn and had a wander round the British Museum for a short while before heading through to Euston on foot - via a rather excellent Falafel place in the churchyard at St Pancras Church - a delicious Falafel & halloumi wrap for my lunch cost a very reasonable £7 and I would certainly go back there again! I popped to the Euston Tap for a quick beer after the tour but just had a half before heading back to the tube again to go home. 

£31.50 on grocery shopping this week, plus an additional £9.22 in Bee&Emm and just over £5 in our fabulous local hardware shop. Did an immediate cash-in on the free bakery item in Lils too for a little Saturday treat! There were green boxes, but they all had crazy amounts of bananas in, and every single one had something that we simply wouldn't use, so I walked away and left those for others.

No plans through the week this week, but I will be back in London again next Friday as we are out in the evening so MrEH is going to do that as one of his office days this week, and logic says I may as well travel in with him. That means I have an entire day to fill - although one thing I definitely plan to do is to head to what looks like an interesting photography exhibition at Bethnal Green - it's free admission and I suspect quite small but it's the perfect opportunity to see it as MrEH probably wouldn't be that interested. From there I'll almost certainly walk up to the old Spital Fields Market for a wander, which means lunch will be one of the lush folded pizzas from Sud Italia! Undecided about the afternoon at the moment - it might partly depend on the weather as to inside or outside activity, but I'm sure something will suggest itself! (And if nothing else I could go for a stroll around the LT Museum, of course!) 

PennysIntoPounds

Congratulations on mortgage neutral 🥳🥂

beanielou

Mortgage neutral is fantastic. 

Blackcats

Congrats on your latest mortgage milestone!

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my relatives from Oz went here as part of their travels.  Might be nice for Friday afternoon?  It's free too.  In fact the relatives were really impressed about how much free stuff there is to do in London.  They loved changing of the guard and the Kensington based museums.  Made me feel proud of our Capital city.

jwil

Congratulations on the mortgage target!

rtandon27

Ooo - mortgage neutral - what a lovely place to be!

edinburgher

Thank you for the savings tip(s). We currently have 2x RS with said institution, think they mature in January.

MSE has a 7% 12-mth RS with Progr355ive BS listed which might be better than the Christmas saver you referenced?