Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

apple_muncher wrote: »

Yay to finally getting the mortgage offer. must be a big relief!

I definitely feel more positive this morning.

redofromstart wrote: »

Hurrah for the remortgage offer, that must be a relief.

On the job front, if the contract is re-let by the client in the same or broadly similar form then you might transfer under TUPE anyway?

That has happened to other teams at my company but this one would just end. A colleague has spoken to the client who envisions changes but not an end to the contract but the budget discussions are still to happen so it may be out of their hands.

Pay day for both of us today and DH again got his guaranteed bonus. Good job too as this is going to be a Tighty McTightFace of a month :eek: On my list/in YNAB so far are:

School trip
School photos
Rest of holiday spending money
Meal and drinks for 2 nights away for DH and I (although I may be too exhausted to eat or drink much)
A couple of bits needed for walk (head torches and gloves - cheapie from Decathalon)
Stuff to fix shed to prevent water damage (suggest to DH to reuse what we can)
Hair cut/colour for me
Increased minimum payments to CC as all but 1 intro rate has now ended
A cardigan for me and a hoodie for DH for our hols and possibly some flip flops for DS

I'm using my £2 savings towards the holiday spending money and will cash in the change pot too. I saved over £40 from TCB, TTs, energy refund and a dividend last month and am loathe to have this disappear into the account. It was saved to go towards paying off the 0% carpet loan by the end of Dec 19 which is one of the small balances we will be left with after the re-mortgage.

Hopefully November will be a quieter and cheaper month. Apart from Christmas prep of course, how did I manage to forget that!:eek:

I've done a meal plan for the month and have split my YNAB categories for groceries so I can see where we are overspending. This needs to be my focus this month as if we blow the food budget it will just end up increasing the debt and we will have less to put in the emergency fund when the re-mortgage goes through.

The mortgage company sent a copy of the valuation through and it was interesting to see that they believe the house would be worth more if some of the bigger maintenance jobs were done. We know we need a new boiler, new fascias/guttering, a garden overhaul, probably work on the roof and repairs to the conservatory. It has gone up nearly 10% in 2 years with what we have done so far which is minor repairs and maintenance jobs like exterior painting and a lot of cosmetic stuff like plastering, decorating, new furniture, curtains, light fittings, new light switches, door handles throughout, new flooring, kitchen makeover which has brought the house into this century. I think if everything was done it would be worth another £20k max and maybe another £15k more if we do the remodel at the back which doesn't seem worth it to add value but would be a more useable and modern family space. None of the big jobs will be done next year except the garden but we are going to do most of this ourselves as it just needs a cohesive design and lots of manual graft and we will use DH bonuses (if he gets some ) to have a new patio, steps and a path laid as there is no place to sit outside unless you put the table and chairs on the lawn. We may also need a couple of trellis or fence panels putting in as a screen, will depend on the design. We will need at least 1 skip if not 2, a small amount of turf, shed/fence paint and some good weather to get it all done!!

Our washing machine thought it would be a good idea to catch fire on Saturday morning :eek: Not a huge fire but the end of the machine. We tried hard to find a decent second hand one in our area but missed out on a couple. On Sunday we went to a local clearance shop that sells Argos end of lines. The washer that we were looking at new was there but no cheaper but we did find a much better model, £90 cheaper than the other one and £400 cheaper than on line. It even has an internal light and is unbelievably quiet, I keep forgetting it is on. Unfortunately this has had to go on the CC as we had no other way of paying for it. Roll on having the funds to build an emergency fund.

There is still no decision about my project so I am going to go for the CV rewrite and start looking about. I will spend some time at the beginning of the week improving it and then give the company a call. This is going to have to go on the CC as well but I do not want to leave it a couple of months before I start to look. I hope it doesn't impact the mortgage offer but the balances will still be lower than when we made our application as we have made payments since then which has reduced the overall balance and this spending will be paid off when it goes through.

I have started to track the supermarket spends into different categories to see what we are wasting money on. DH has decided to cut out the booze until our holiday which will help his stress levels and our budget. I've also rejoined the grocery challenge.