Turning Straw into Gold: Creating Long Term Security & A Solid Home

jwil

Great that you downloaded Borrowbox, I love it and use it all the time!

MillQueen

@jwil, it was free to join through the local library. Can't believe how much is available for no cost! ❤️

I have made £100 from side projects, but it will all have to go in the tax account at the end of the month. I really want to scale back my freelance work as I'm so tired, but financially I need to do more of it to keep everything afloat.

I am going to read a bit of my book now before bed.

MillQueen

I have saved money by working from home today, avoiding driving, and I have had a no spend day.

I have a small piece of work to complete later that will earn me £35.

MillQueen

Today I am having a no spend day, as I don’t have anywhere to be. It’s the same tomorrow, so I could stretch it into a no spend weekend, although I’d like to walk into town at some point and it would be nice to get a coffee. This reminds me that I have a free coffee every month from Greggs, which came from buying my car insurance on the Confused app. I haven’t used it at all though, as it’s just not a place I ever go to.

I have loads of stuff for work to do which will take me all weekend, so I’m going to divide it up between today and tomorrow. This is for my main job, so no extra money. At least I won’t have time to spend any.

MillQueen

I'm in massive procrastination mode, so I have cleaned up in the kitchen, done some laundry, washed the dishes, sorted the recycling and put out the bins. I am resisting the urge to empty the bin in the bathroom as I type, because I actually have some important work that needs doing that will take a while and is not fun.

I have made a little diagram of my house in my finance spreadsheet and labelled all the rooms and calculated how much they each cost as a percentage of the purchase price, so that I can colour them in one-by-one as I pay down the mortgage. Which is a daft thing to do as I don't even know whether I'll be able to stay here.

I have got a specialist surveyor coming out once the roof repairs are done and the scaffolding comes down, to see what's happening with the wall cracks and wonky floors. If it's massive stuff and structural, I'll need to sell up and let someone else deal with those things if they are requiring a forever home budget.

Dakota_Rose

I like the idea of portioning up the house so you can visualise paying a section off at a time. I used a similar mentality when clearing off CC debt in the past. I wrote a list of all the items that had been purchased over the years and then ticked each one off as I paid that amount. ‘We now own the sofas’ etc. I found it motivating anyway.

I think a coffee out is perfectly acceptable as a weekend treat if you have the funds for it 😊

ArtyJ931

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81992458#Comment_81992458

ooooooooooooooooooh this sounds fun! I think I’ve paid for upstairs maybe. 😂

Rhyddid2026

My loan was for my roof so that would make a pretty easy picture to draw and colour in!

MillQueen

@Dakota_Rose and @ArtyJ931, I highly recommend colouring in the floor plan, it was very satisfying. I now own the kitchen and I am working on the lounge. I'm doing the rooms I use the most first and have numbered them by priority. I have even included the basement, the garage and the front and back gardens. (The basement is the last priority because it's horrible and I avoid going in there, though I'd like to renovate it if I ever have the money). For my last house, I drew the outline of a house in my spreadsheet and labelled the bricks as each 5k and gradually coloured those in as I paid them off. Wasn't there long to pay for many.

@Rhyddid2026, you could portion the roof shape into squares, which each being £250 or whatever?

I am still working on using up what I have and I just finished off a box of granola. I persevered, because it turns out I don't like granola and that's probably why it had remained in the cupboard for so long 😂. I am now going onto the perpetual weetabix plan, and I also have a box of overnight oats I have had for a while.

I decided it's time to actually use all of the supplements I have in the cupboard, so I've started on some Vitamin D gummies, which should last the rest of the month, then it's onto Vitamin B Complex…

ArtyJ931

I am deffo doing this. I love stuff like that lol