MeandO's mortgage-free musings

Forgot to say, I bought a birthday present last week for £12, but deliberately went to a shop that I had a gift card for and used that to pay for it. I do have £200 saved in the gifts/holidays account, but I'd rather keep that for Christmas if I can.

Lunch today is last night's leftovers. OH is cooking tonight for the two of us and DS is at his Dad's.

I have been thinking about summer holidays and, I may be crazy, but I'm considering buying a tent and taking DS camping. I'm wondering if I need my head read...

£59 overpayment sent to the mortgage today from a random tax credit payment I wasn't expecting - something about money owed to me from last year.
So, my mortgage OP target for this month is now reached :jand £10 has been sent to the emergency fund too, leaving a grand sum of 31p swept to the grocery fund.

Totals now:

May OP's : £158.19/£150
Mortgage now: £76,541
Emergency Fund: £860/£5000

Lunch today is leftover roasted veg from last night, with a couple of eggs thrown in to make an omelette of sorts. I really need to buy some fruit and veg, but will leave it a bit later tonight and hopefully pick up some YS goodies.

I'm hoping to get the dining room painted this weekend, so need to go and buy paint tonight after work. The money is in the 'home improvement' pot for it, so all budgeted for.

Monday morning already.

I bought paint on Friday at a cost of £30 in a sale:eek:. Unfortunately the dining room was not as straight forward to paint as I thought it would be and I ended up spending another £32 on wallpaper for the lower sections of the walls. I also didn't use the £10 tin of paint as it looked awful once on the walls. Annoyed at the waste of money, but will save it for a different room. I had to transfer money from another 'pot' as there was only £50 in the DIY savings but I will build it up again once I've been paid. At least the dining room is done (apart from painting the skirting and dado rail but that can wait) and that's another room ticked off the list.

I also spent over £100 on a tent... :eek:

I'm not sure if I've lost the plot and whether I'll regret this idea, but I'm planning on lots of little camping weeknds with DS in the holidays as I really can't afford the exorbitant school holidays prices for any other type of holiday. The money came from savings, but will be reimbursed once I receive the 'extra' child tax credits payment this week.

I used shopmium this morning to get some free sausages, nutella and cereal and picked up a couple of bits for OH as I've got him onto the app now too. I've submitted the receipt so will wait to see if it works. Two kind people have also used my referral code, so £8 has been earned there. Big thanks to anyone who has used my code, it's much appreciated.

Although everything is up to date on YNAB I feel like my money has been pouring out everywhere lately and I don't feel as in control as I was. Time to rein things back in and keep things simple again.

£5 has been paid to paypal for shopmium offers purchased this week.

I've been chasing up missing cashback from TCB too - they seem to make their own rules up these days and not one transaction seems to track and be paid correctly. They have recently declined over £90 I was execting in CB with no good explanation and despite it tracking. I am due over £100 from a life insurance policy which still hasn't tracked at the correct amount yet was purchased in November. I will be kicking up big time if that doesn't come to anything. :mad:

Child tax credit payment in today, so I replaced the money I borrowed from the gifts account and paid £50 off the credit card. There is currently £680 on my credit card for a business materials purchase. I wasn't going to run my little business this year, but OH is going to go halves on expenses and workload and we will split the profits. There was £915 on the card a month or two ago so it is being paid off nicely without an issue.

I've also topped the grocery account up with a little bit for anything we may need before payday on Friday.

£5 made last night from a sale of an item on FB. I could have got more for it, but it was big and bulky and I wanted to clear some space. I also inherited it from the previous owners of the house (who also inherited it from the previous-to-them owners!) so it's not like I paid anything for it. The young lady who bought it was over the moon and sent me a lovely messgae afterwards so I'm happy it made her day.

The £5 made quickly disappeared in subbing the tooth fairy in our house last night anyway...

I've renamed some accounts this morning and rejigged my banking a bit to make things simpler for me. I've also increased the monthy payment to the holiday pot by £25 a month with the summer coming up and decreased the 'home improvements' pot by £25 as there's not a lot more I plan on doing over the summer, other than buying a blind for the bathroom and a mirror for the dining room but both of those can wait.
YNAB has been updated and all is ok. I'm looking forward to pay day so I can start filling the pots again and allocating funds for next month.