Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst · 7 April 2018 at 9:32PM

WOW shanghaiJimmy that is certainly an awesome reduction.

We're so pleased as it means we are paying £157.50 less interest a month, therefore more against capital and more working for us

:j :j

Had a great sweaty yoga session today and got groceries and some veggies from the market today- £9.05 spent which isn't bad.

I did have the first of my bought coffees today- I am aiming to cut it down to one per week for April, with a view to one per fortnight in May. It will be better for me both financially and nutrition-wise!

We've been looking at hotels for Singapore for the Grand Prix and some of the hotels are staggeringly eye-watering. We think we've found a decent hotel not too far out from the action but clean- will book it tomorrow and then start looking at the Australian hotels for the trip!

Only £4.91 overpaid this month so far- planning the £312.45 on payday which rounds up our monthly payment to £1000. I am also going to OP £200 from my bonus & my regular saver which pays out this month so it should be a bumper OP month for us if all goes to plan!

Busy_Mee1 · 8 April 2018 at 7:28AM

If you can manage a night in the Marina Bay Hotel in Singapore, you will get to swim in the infinity pool at the top (57 stories high) . A real bucket list moment and the best selfie you will ever take x

Taxis are quite cheap in Singapore and everywhere is very safe, so don't worry if you are a little way out.

Australia is eye watering expensive so we got an apartment hotel in Sydney so could make some meals in. It also had a laundry which was useful, if you are there a while x

Kittenkirst · 8 April 2018 at 8:11AM

Busymee- we had looked at Marina Bay but due to it being the Grand Prix weekend it's £1600+ for the three nights

plus as gf wants to watch the Grand Prix so I don't think there would be much time to make use of the infinity pool. It does look spectacular spectacular though!

Good thought about the Sydney apartment- we are there four days three nights so an apartment could work well for us- willhave a good nose today. I do love all this itinerary planning!

Off to gfs friends house for a roast with her family after yoga today. It's been ages since I had a roast dinner so I'm very much looking forward to it.

Our wallpaper has now arrived and the workman is coming on Friday to put it up. The blinds for the kitchen patio doors, kitchen window and the small front room window should be arriving this week too ready for fitting and then that's two jobs ticked off the list! We've gone for those perfect fit blinds for in the patio doors- they sit snugly in the frame (hopefully stop then becoming a kitten toy) and they can be clicked up and down independently so the one in the door with the Cat flap can nicely stop just above the flap. We've gone for a light teal to pull out the colours of our kitchen tiles so hopefully they will look pretty once in and fitted

We've been debating what to do about our downstairs loo- it's pretty small but is the one guests tend to use. It's just white walls and three tiles on the sink. We wanted to do tiling halfway up all of the walls and then have a mirror that goes around the three main walls. However, it's pretty pricey anda room we barely go in to be honest.

So, after a bit of chatting we are looking at wallpapering two or all of the walls and putting up a standard pretty mirror & some of those free standing small shelves above the toilet to put some decorative bits on. It will be an awful lot cheaper but still look lovely. Just need to decide on wallpaper now- I'm thinking something fairly light as there is no window in there, only a vent! The plan is to start looking at that in June time.

Time to get up and get some chores done, have a cuppa then head t yoga. Hope you all have lovely Sundays

Busy_Mee1 · 8 April 2018 at 8:46AM

:eek: to £1600 for Marina Bay....never mind you can still go up to the viewing platform, if you get time. I hope you do get time to do a few other things in Singapore - there is so much to see and do. The orchid gardens on the bay are lovely, Raffles is worth a visit- but just have a Singapore Sling as the food is expensive and not worth it. Definitely take the boats along the river too. The food courts are great and very cheap, you just need to be quite brave as it is difficult to know what everything is. I am excited for you :j

michelle09 · 8 April 2018 at 6:54PM

Wow! We are looking at the Marina Bay Sands for our trip, but have moved it a couple of weeks to avoid the GP. OH was disappointed but now I can quote those figures I may have him onside again.

(It's £270 for our anniversary, feel I can pay that for once).

Sounds like a great month for the mortgage!

Could you get a couple of framed pictures for the downstairs bathroom? Not too pricey but make it a little less bare?

Kittenkirst · 8 April 2018 at 10:46PM

Busy_Mee1 wrote: »

:eek: to £1600 for Marina Bay....never mind you can still go up to the viewing platform, if you get time. I hope you do get time to do a few other things in Singapore - there is so much to see and do. The orchid gardens on the bay are lovely, Raffles is worth a visit- but just have a Singapore Sling as the food is expensive and not worth it. Definitely take the boats along the river too. The food courts are great and very cheap, you just need to be quite brave as it is difficult to know what everything is. I am excited for you :j

Definitely will try- we're there from Friday until Monday night (11pm) so hoping to be able to trek around a bit in the mornings and on the Monday. We've now booked into a Hilton which is 35 min walk from marina bay but metro looks easy enough and we're not shy of walking. It was very competitively priced, we did look at the pod style places they have there but can't say I was keen at all. Really looking forward to all the street food :heartpuls:

Roast dinner was lovely- friend is a wonderful cook and it wa great to be around her kiddies- so adorable and they say the funniest things!

Working in the office tomorrow so have made some more of those banana and strawberry bodycoach muffins and cooked some chicken for in mini wraps for lunch. Will prep some fruit in the morning- strawberries from the market and satsumas and possibly another snack- pretzels maybe. Trying to avoid spending tomorrow and aiming for a NSD- will go to gym and yoga tomorrow night to get Monday off to the best start too!

Kittenkirst · 12 April 2018 at 7:41AM

Morning all,
Just one more day until payday- hurrah!

I've been working away the past few days ooop north so have had return drives followed by the gym & yoga (a bit dull I know but I'm enjoying it!) however went out for a friends birthday last night to Las Iguanas and it was a bit of a disaster. We had a voucher for 25% off the new menu but ended up with a round and a half of free drinks too due to the abysmal service- over 1 hr wait for two people to get their first drinks, then the waitress just said nonchalantly we're busy (it wasn't even half full and plenty of waiting staff!).

Such a shame as we really like it there usually but it ended up being £25 for our two shares of the bill to the discount and awful service!

Managed to avoid the siren lure of the frothy coffees in all the services up and down the motorway this week so I'm pleased with that. Gf and I have a freebie on our Starbucks card so going to use it tomorrow night after the gym and share a huge frothy almond milk latte I think :heartpuls

We've had two (dead) mice this week!!! :eek: one from each cat and they always leave it on the only carpet in the house (stairs & landing) or the living room rug. Terrors!!

April money shuffle tomorrow and will be my bonus month yay! Then next week the regular saver matures too so will pay off my portion of flights from the 0% points credit card and a chunk for my teeth work.

Last trip to dentists today for my whitening treatment and also to rebond a bit of my retainer as it's come lose (she struggled getting it to fix in that spot as the tooth kept bleeding- I have small teeth so it was a battle to hoover up the blood and get it bonded last time). Fingers crossed it's fairly straightforward today although I'm not looking forward to it at all!

themadvix · 13 April 2018 at 11:33AM

Hope dentist trip goes well!

From friends I've heard that it's worse if the mouse isn't quite dead... then they creep under something to die and you're none the wiser until the smell starts!! :eek:

CathT · 13 April 2018 at 8:17PM

Hope dentist went ok.

A_Frayed_Knot · 14 April 2018 at 3:52AM

Sounds as if trip is coming together, what a terrific time you are both going to have.

As for bathroom decor, ever thought about wall stickers, you can get scenes or sayings from ebay - beach view through windows or bathroom/life sayings.

Thought this would make you smile -

https://www.rosegal.com/wall-sticker/cat-animal-3d-removable-bathroom-1207456.html

Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

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