PinknSparkly's Mortgage Wannabe savings dairy

Our joint account is with Natwest and I've just applied to switch it from a Select account (the standard one) to a Reward account which costs £2/month but pays 2% cashback on all household bills paid by DD so I we should make about £60 out of it over the year.

Then my next plan of attack is to try and obtain some of the switching incentives that banks are currently offering. I have a current account with Metro bank that I opened for fee-free debit card transactions abroad but have since switched to using Revolut instead for that. Natwest are offering a £150 incentive to switch to them, and they don't require any DDs to be set up either (which most of them do require) so once our joint account is switched to a Reward account, switching my unused Metro account to Natwest is the next step. £150 for a few minutes works seems too good to be true!

Make another tiny mortgage OP of £3.12 this morning - which is the interest earned on a Tesco current account (used as a savings account).

Have also done a money transfer from my Halifax credit card to my Halifax bank account (no fee, interest rate = 4.9%) and then balance transferred that credit card balance to my new Santander 0% interest credit card (fee-free balance transfers). The money is earmarked for my LISA, that I haven't yet set up, and I will continue contributing to my regular savers to make sure I have the full amount of money available to pay off the credit card in 27 months time before they start charging me interest.

Thanks SW! I also think the biggest bonus is not having the last minute stress of rushing out to get something that is usually both pricier and a less great gift than one I'd give if I planned ahead

I've just ordered an anniversary gift for my husband (two years married, ten years together - we got married on our 8 year anniversary). I can't quite believe that it's been that long (feels like only a couple of years), and when I realise how long it HAS been, I can't believe we've not killed each other yet :rotfl:

After two years, I still haven't had any of our wedding photos printed out and put up though :eek: Maybe that'll be my goal for our third wedding anniversary?!

We had a chap come round this morning to look at our garden to give us a quote for redoing it. We've got no real ideas or plans in our head other than it needs to be low maintenance with a smallish shed to store two bikes and garden chairs. He's suggested levelling it and starting again, reusing what materials he can, to make it all one level. It's not very big as it is (not quite as postage stamp size as some new builds, but not far off!), and it's currently split into two levels (one gravel/slabs, one decking). So having it all one level, and removing the giant bush that keeps trying to take over the garden, will give us a lot more space out there. We'll see what his quote comes back as, but unless it's stupid we'll probably go with him. We liked him, he's got good reviews online and we simply won't ever get round to doing it ourselves!!

The only real update money-wise (other than paying for the garden) is that I've opened a stocks and shares LISA. First time I've EVER owned any stocks and shared. So I'm doing the grownup thing of refusing to look at it.... Usually I check our main bank accounts daily and our savings accounts a couple of times a month but I've decided to check the LISA only when I'm adding money to it. I *think* I've read enough about stock and shares no to freak out if the value drops, but I'm going to try and minimise the potential for me freaking out by checking it reasonably infrequently! I've only put £100 in for now, as that was the minimum for the fund I wanted to select. I'll be sending the rest of the £3900 allowance for 2017/2018 across split over the next two or three paydays (end of Jan, end Feb, end Mar). Then next year I'll open up one for my husband too (we used his cash LISA to buy the house so can't open another one for him til next financial year).

tori.k wrote: »

Its dangerous giving a landscaper an empty plot with no plan in mind we tend to get carried away, so time to hit up pinterest and the likes with a budget in mind as it gets very expensive fast (so my husband tells me) when you decided your budget then double it as that is probably whats its gonna cost :rotfl:

:rotfl: Thanks Tori - when I said we didn't have a plan in mind, I meant that we arranged for him to come round and see what suggestions he'd make. We've come to a simple design plan between the three of us (me, husband and the landscaper) that he was going to go away and quote for. It will involve clearing the garden completely and basically starting from scratch (it's in a complete state and really does need a lot of attention). I'm hoping it won't be too pricey but we're still waiting on the quote I'd just like a nice, low maintenance garden that I can enjoy spending time in! He's going to include one raised bed so I can maybe attempt to grow some veggies (when I've tried in the past, I usually get one or two very sad looking veggies that grow and then the snails beat me to them!!).