Hurrah, my MFW quest has started

abouttimetoo

Thanks TG, yes, It's a heck of a price isn't it I've now decided to renew it next month as I had 'forgotten' I have £125 I need to spend on family occassion this month so as I've still got plenty of time I'll do it early next month

I've made my standard OP of £500 today which takes me below the magical £150k outstanding which is a lovely milestone to pass. Hopefully I'll make a couple of further OP's this month too.

I've also sent £100 to CC which takes the balance to £3k which was my stretch target for the end of March so I've beat that and hopefully will be able to send a little more to before I have to re-schedule it.

I've got a busy week at work this week so I expect that my expenditure will only be around the £20 mark

Had a delicious indian take-away at the weekend. I've not had one since December and really enjoyed it; my share was £9 and I got three meals out of it lol so definately worth the money

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning ATT, thanks for the heads up on the passport application. Both DD and I need new passports this year so I will wait until <9 months and send them off.

Well done on hitting anther milestone - it feels so good doesnt it.

Have a good week and I hope you have a quietish weekend ready and waiting for you.

Best wishes Tilly x

abouttimetoo

Morning Tilly, sadly no, I've anything but a quiet weekend ahead and that's what is adding to my busy two weeks.

I'm away this week for 4 days, will get home late Thursday night, work from home Friday then off to a family event on Saturday morning which is about 3.5 hours travel away, I'm in a hotel Saturday and Sunday night and then will travel on to work on Monday morning as it's too awkward to come home and then travel again on Monday morning.

By doing it this way it will 'save' an extra 6 hours travel but it will mean that I will have a suitcase the size of a house with me on Saturday with both my weekend stuff and all my work clothes/stuff for the following week, this means I won't be home until fairly late the following Friday so the bottom line is I've only got one night in my own bed between now and 2nd March

To complicate matters I'm also doing it by train rather than a flight for the final leg of the journey (which I would normally do) as a combination of flight times and lugage restirctions made it all too awkward :eek:

Just realised the above makes it sound like I'm not looking forward to the family event, but I am looking forward to it a lot 8:)

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Goodness ATT, I see what you mean about the travel. Good idea to stay over and travel from the hotel. I am sure you will have a fab time and have an image of a wheelie case hopping in and out of cabs, trains etc with you running behind - no clue where that picture came from.:rotfl:

Your Eurostar trip sounds great and I may ask some advice on that as it would be good to book something near to Xmas for the Tilly family to go - no first class for 4 of us though, but would like to do that just its DH but a few years to wait first.

Have a great time and look forward to catching up when you have some time (end of March by the sounds of things).

Bat wishes Tilly x

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi ATT, just checking how your manic two weeks are going. Hope you had a great family weekend (I think it was this w/end). You will certainly have had gorgeous weather for it.

Best wishes Tilly x

abouttimetoo

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Hi ATT, just checking how your manic two weeks are going. Hope you had a great family weekend (I think it was this w/end). You will certainly have had gorgeous weather for it.

Best wishes Tilly x

Tilly, thanks for your post on the 26th, I could have sworn I'd replied but clearly not

I survived the two weeks and had a lovely family weekend in between, however, despite only having about 7/8 nights away since then I can't say things have got any quieter but as they say it keeps me out of trouble

Regards
ATT

abouttimetoo

Oh my goodness, nearly a month since I updated my thread :eek:

To be honest I can't remember everything that has happened so I'll just keep to a few key things that I can remember

In the end I made a couple of extra OP's for February which took me to a total OP figure of £635.24. I also got my first monthly gas bill which was £61 so about right for the cold weather we had had as well as the amount of time I had been either home on holiday or working from home.

For March I have already made an OP of £500 and hope to top that up by a minimum of £214.50 which will keep me on track for making capital reductions of £1000 per month

I've also been given a small payrise which while not much I'm grateful for as these things cannot be taken for granted these days and I know others who have not had a pay-rise at all this year, or in some cases, for longer

In addition I've also been given a bonus which was more than I was expecting There are certain restrictions to the bonus which means I can't have it all at once but I've already received the first part which after tax was c. £1300 so I need to work out how best to use this; maybe more of this in a mo

I've re-scheduled the stooze money onto another credit card. I got the balance down to £2973 which just beat my stretch target of £3k. Unfortunately this has not gone smoothly with the new provider so has ended up me paying off the old card balance with my savings in order that it be paid off in time to not accrue interest. I also can't stop the new balance transfer so this will mean that the old card goes £2900 in credit, grrr, lets hope it's quick and easy to get that money paid back to me! I did pay a handling fee of 2.9% but I think the fee is worth it to give me cash flexibility IYKWIM

I think that's enough for one post but never fear, I'm moving straight on to another :rotfl:

abouttimetoo

I'm also really liking my new way of paying my expenses weekly straight to the credit card balance which means that every time I look at the CC account on-line I can see exactly what I personally owe. I was trialling doing it this way and I'm definately going to stick to it now.

In other news, my tenant is still with me and likely to be for at least another month, we've been working on a month by month basis since December now which I don't mind at all as he is a good tenant. Mind you, it's a good job I'm organised and the BTL savings account is healthy as the rent has not been paid regularly of recent times. It's not the tenants fault as his company pay the bills, what is it with these large international companies that can't pay their bills on time

I've just had a look at my Amex card and so far I've accrued £34.11 so that is going nicely

On Topcashback I've got £36.35 waiting to be paid out and a further £40 pending. I forgot to mention that I got £10.10 cashback when applying for my new credit card

Although we have two months off paying council tax around now I don't 'benefit' from this as when I do my budget I only account for it being 10 months not 12 but that works fine for me.

I've now also repaid £3048 to my parents re the tax bill so only another £2200 to go so that is going down nicely. I'm aiming to have that paid of by September.

The only unusual item I have to pay for this month is the balance due for my trip to Paris. I don't have the figure to hand but I think it's around £320 that is due.

So, in terms of how do I allocate my bonus. The two main contenders are the CC and my parents. Saying as my parents are very laid back and don't need the money in any hurry I'm tempted to prevail upon their good nature and keep to the original September plan and put £1000 of the bonus to the CC. If I'd known how much my bonus was going to be a month ago I would have only done a balance transfer for £1900 and paid less of a handling fee, hey ho, still can't complain

TallGirl

Nice to see you back in diaryland, time flies doesn't it.

abouttimetoo

Hi TG, ain't that the truth!

Looks like I've loads to catch-up on your thread too, you've been so busy in your garden, it's looking lovely :j