Mortgage Year 5

Well despite life's little hiccups this last year I managed to overpay £2000 for Year 4 of my mortgage :) very happy with that! That's a total of £17000 in the last 4 years!

Now for a big push for Year 5!! Plotting and a planning coming up!

I drove to London!!

Well on Thursday I did something I swore I would NEVER do......I drove to London!! OK it was Twickenham so it was the outskirts and not Central London but even so! Very proud of myself. :) As the travel was for work I got mileage allowance and they paid for lunch....win, win!! I went to my favourite coffee shop Harris & Hoole for lunch. Got home late and had cous-cous and goats cheese stuffed pepper (all from stores) for dinner so notched up a No Spend Day (NSD).

Friday a work colleague brought me in a Latte and a Cinnamon bun as a treat - the bun was so big I didn't want any lunch, I had a bag of crisps (70p from vending machine) mid afternoon instead. Picked up OH from station for the weekend. Dinner was Chicken with Goats Cheese and Tarragon, home-made potato wedges and salad as had all the ingredients except tomatoes already. Took out new £50 grocery budget for the coming week and promptly spent £37.90 of it, bought things like loo rolls (enough for the next 2 months) as well as food for the weekend/week though. I got some really good bargains too like 2 packs lychee's, reduced from £1.99 a pack to 19p!! They were lovely a juicy too.

Today we had a lovely lie-in, I made cooked breakfast and then ran into town just in time to pay in my £145 before the bank closed. I couldn't do the MS because I had stupidly forgot to print off the briefing notes when I printed off the questionnaire earlier in the week....doh!! We went to Westbury Manor Museum for an hour or so and also had tea and cake (£7.20 from remaining grocery budget), they are a small free museum, they also have changing main exhibits and currently it was bikes through the ages. This is a Spacelander... originals from the 50's are apparently worth around £27k now!!! This is a reproduction from the 80's.

OH had an afternoon nap whilst I pottered around the house catching up on jobs. Tonight's dinner will be ginger & garlic chicken in a chilli tomato sauce with rice picked from my massive pile of recipes ripped out of magazines. Hmmm, might have a nap myself now....

Over the Hump

Trying to stick to the no spends still - I had totally forgotten I had to buy my Fakefest ticket to make sure I got the earlybird discount for my next visit up to to my friends, sadly the 10% extra discount code on top of the earlybird price didn't work - still it was only £16.50, we went last year and it was really good fun. I also charged my phone at work both days and printed off my MS paperwork ready for Saturday.

Tuesday

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work
L: Baked beans & toasted cheese muffin (stores)
Snacks: cake left over from meeting and tea/coffee
D: Treated to chicken dinner out by OH as stayed at his :)

Wednesday - Hump Day

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work
L: Baked beans & toasted cheese muffin (stores)
Snacks: apple & crisps left over from meeting, jam doughnut brought in by Recruitment Agency and tea/coffee
D: homemade potato wedges & crustless broccoli quiche with goats cheese stuffed portobello mushroom (all from stores).

Back home tonight, spent the evening chilling in front of the TV. Off to Twickenham for work tomorrow, I am driving myself up for the first time.....still I get paid mileage and the journey is fairly straight forward so fingers crossed the traffic is OK!!

Working Monday

It was a beautiful sunny day today, shame I was in an air-conditioned office that seemed to want to pretend it was still winter .....wish I'd worn my tights!!

Food for the day:

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work but didn't eat it in the end
L: Chicken fajita kebab wrap (left over from Sat dinner)
Snacks: kitkat (from works biscuit tin) and tea/coffee
D: 3 x Turkey rashers, potato pattacakes, tomato, fried egg (all from stores)

When I got home I planted the stocks and yellow daisies Mum gave me yesterday, more flowers to make my garden look beautiful :) Off to pack an overnight bag, visiting OH tomorrow - haven't done that since Sep when Sakuma became ill - he's off the antibiotics now :)

Getting back on track

So, now I have a regular monthly wage coming in again (well at least till the end of October) it's time to get my money back on track.

First on the list is to get my £500 "buffer" back on my current account for either emergencies or overpayments on the mortgage. It looks like I will be about £200 short for normal bill payments this month (I was £500 short last month) so I can't spend on anything that's not budgeted for :(

I have already spent my £50 weekly grocery allowance this week so I have to make all meals from food already in the house.

Today:
Breakfast: 3 Turkey Rasher Sandwich
Lunch: Lidl version of Twix (provided by The Olds)
Dinner: Mashed potato pattacakes, portobello mushroom, 2 turkey rashers & fried egg

All washed down with fresh decaf coffee (sachet from hotel) and tea (the Olds/home)

I have re-listed some stuff that didn't sell on Ebay and have a mystery shop scheduled for next Sat (must find log-in and get paperwork). I have also gathered all notes in my various piggy banks (from underspent groceries/roadkill etc from the last year) and have £145 to pay in at the bank...just need to be able to get there during opening hours sometime soon....

Let the games commence!

On a rather cool note...I have a blackbird nesting on my bathroom windowsill!!

The Next Assignment

For the last 5 weeks I have been doing the most awesome assignment! I am helping with the integration of an acquisition into a company and am learning so much.....it also helps that I am staying in London all expenses paid :D

So currently I am working with a great bunch of people, learning loads, travelling and saving money ..... all of my favourite things!! Long may it last!!

Good Morning Vietnam!

It worked out incredibly well, the lovely temp job came to an end just as our holiday to Vietnam was due :)

We had an amazing time, Vietnam is a beautiful country filled with incredibly friendly people.

We started our journey in Hanoi on their Lunar New Years Eve, everyone was greeting us with "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới" and we quickly learnt to say it back. We were just on the outskirts of the Old Quarter and were treated to a spectacular firework display!

We visited Halong Bay staying overnight on an amazing junk visiting the limestone karst islands, fishing villages and Surprise Cave (Sung Sot Cave).

We had a couple of days back in Hanoi then flew to Hoi An. This was my favourite place, it was beautiful with all the lights at night.

After a few days relaxing in 33ºC temperatures (it was 3ºC in the UK) and taking in the sights we flew to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Our hotel was just around the corner from the night market, we ate freshly BBQ'd prawns, they were delicious! We also visited the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Next was a boat tour of the Mekong Delta visiting floating markets along the way to Can Tho.

Our last leg of the journey took us further along the Mekong for a ferry ride across the sea to Phu Quoc where we spent the last few days chillaxing by the sea and pool and eating the freshest seafood.

We were very sad to be returning home after 2 weeks in this stunning country. I so want to return one day, the country has so much more for us to see and experience.

Life after redundancy

I managed two whole, glorious months off which I spent pootling around the house (allegedly doing housework/de-cluttering) and indulging my creativity with craft projects. My area has free 4-5 week courses available to all so I signed up and completed Pottery and Digital Photography. Bliss!

Crafty Christmas recycling

Then out of the blue I landed a lovely temping job in early Dec, so nice to not be stressed at work!! It also means I can carry on with MFin5 for the time being :)

This year I’m trying to be more organised so I can get on top of the housework and then get on with the structural jobs I need to do on the house – new conservatory being the 1st job on my list. I’ve been hit with a bad cold the last couple of weeks which has put me back a bit but I am determined that this will be the year I finally get on target! On that note I have put regular tasks into my phone  calendar so it reminds me to do them!