Another mortgage payment

As we draw ever closer to getting our mortgage under £100k, I made another overpayment today.  Just £1,144 to go until we reach five figures!

I'll have to think about another goal to set myself once I achieve this one!

M
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Well that was 2012

Well, I've started back at work full-time.  It's not too bad and the money is always welcome!

We managed to pay £8,683 off the mortgage and as of the 1st Jan we have £102,000 left outstanding on the mortgage.

I'm dedicating 2013 to two things and two things only.

1. Paying £10,000 off our mortgage (and finding a great new deal when our fixed rate ends in December)
2. Finally getting rid of the baby weight and getting myself a BMI that is normal (I've just gone from obese to overweight since Christmas)

I think that is enough to be getting on with.  Just keeping on top of the washing and ironing while working full time and looking after a toddler is exhausting!

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Student Loan - GONE!

After 11 years of diligently paying my student loan through my salary every month I have finally made the final payment of £500.33!  Feels great to finally be rid of it, although I'm aware that the interest rates are more or less peanuts.  Can focus my efforts on the mortgage now...yipee

M
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Monthly food budget

As part of our new, mortgage busting budget I have set the food budget element at £250 to include food, drink, toiletries, cleaning stuff and pet food (for two cats).  I have been refining the way I tackle the monthly shopping as it is a million times more difficult with a little one to consider.  What is working for us at the moment is this:

• One large online shop to include all the essentials to last the month.  Using mysupermarket.co.uk the cheapest supermarket for us has been ASDA for the last two months.
• Weekly (ish) top up shops usually from Morrisons or Lidl depending what we need.

This month the 'big shop' cost £144 and I've done one top up shop at Lidl which was £13.  I'm happy that with three weeks left I've got £93 and fairly full cupboards!  Hopefully I can keep up the good work when I'm back at work (5 weeks left...) as the meal planning can be a little time consuming.

M

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Going to try making one of these...

We are going to a christening in a couple of weeks and staying overnight in a small cottage.  I didn't want to lug our large plastic high chair around so I started to investigate the possibility of making a fabric high chair that would attach to any normal chair.

I've seen a few of these around but they cost about £15 upwards so my mind began to whirr and I knew I could make my own from the stash of fabric I already had.

I found this wonderful tutorial on this fabulous website.  Just need to find the time to make it now!

M
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You give with one hand...

No sooner do I 'free up' about £100 of my pre-tax salary as I'm now paying my student loan direct than I get a reminder from work about paying the new work place parking levy.  It is almost £30 a month to park at work.  I've got no choice but to pay it with dropping off and collecting Little J.

Grrrr...

Cost neutral Christmas - is it possible

Yes, I've gone and said the 'C' word!  I LOVE Christmas and spend months planning and organising gifts, decorations and I even run the office secret Santa each year.   We dont really go over board.  We set a spending limit for close family and as we now have little J we have agreed with some friends that we will just buy for the little ones now rather than each other plus other halves as well.  I don't want to cut back on our real tree (this may be a mistake in hindsight with a 'soon to be walker' in our house) or the nice food and drink we buy so I've decided to try and make it cost neutral.

I save £75 a month for birthday and Christmas and have built up about £300 so far this year.  My aim is to use the cost neutral Christmas so I can put this extra cash into the overpayment pot.  So far I have:

£220 cashback from credit card
£65 Nectar vouchers
£10 Morrisons vouchers
£2 Coop voucher
£44.25 Quidco cashback

Total - £342.25

I'm rather pleased with this, although we are limited to some shops/websites with some of the vouchers I think we could probably manage most of the festivities with this!

Roll on December!

M
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