Changing mortgage rates-advice required please.

Dear reader,

Just popping in this morning before work to ask a bit of advice.

We are nearing the end of our rubbish fixed rate and want to change to a cheaper interest rate. Easy you would think?

We had the house revalued as we had made some improvements and we now have a LTV of 69%.
We were very pleased as we had only managed to put down 10% less then 2 years ago.

We have been offered two rates- 2.49% and 2.79% both to last 2 years.

Now, the 2.49% costs £999 and the 2.79% costs £200

I thought it was as easy as working out how much each one cost you to repay and that was it but each one gives a different end mortgage balance with the 2.49% being better. Sadly, as we are debt reducing elsewhere we haven't got the £999 to pay upfront. They said I could put it on the mortgage but I have always avoided this.

After hours of mind bending maths, I worked out that the best way was to add the £999 to the mortgage and then overpay the mortgage by the monthly difference between the two rates which was about £40 a month which we can afford to do.

I wonder if there is anyone out there in blog land that is able to give a free bit of advice or who is very good at maths?

The difference was about £400 a year, not much on the scale of things but I'd rather have £400 than give it away.

Please could you contact me with any advice?

Thanks
X

Girls who eat Snickers wear bigger knickers!

Dear reader,

I just wanted to let those of you with blogs know that I am trying hard to leave comments as I know how nice it is. Unfortunately some of the blogs with encrypted codes that need to be entered are just unreadable. I'm not sure if its because I use an ipad but I tried and tried the other day to leave a comment to a lady who has recently returned to blogging and I just couldn't.

Maybe I'm getting old and the eyes are going but I don't think it's that.

Anyway, short blog tonight as I am working over the weekend and need sleep. I got so tired at work that I sneaked off to the vending machine today and I'm ashamed to say I got a snickers bar.
Shamed!

So here are a few shameful photos for my blog to keep me focused.
(They are not me......yet)

Goodnight and good health. X

What do you snack on?

 Weigh in Wednesday which happened to be on New Year's Day had some great results.
Rambler did not put on any weight over Christmas and has maintained a 3lb loss-that is brilliant considering the temptations of this time of year. Lynne has a 1.5lb loss which I know you weren't thrilled with but look how much that is in the picture plus half again.  Eileen T has also lost a pound-as has Karen. Well done. Treaders has lost 5lb in 2 weeks although I know you were rather poorly which is never great. Hope you are fully recovered. I remember being slimmer of the week once after a nasty bout of  Gastroenteritis (I never admitted though).
Pam has a great idea of donating her excess foods left over from Christmas to a food bank-I like it.
Julie@Dragonfly Gems has done the hard part-getting on the scales! I'm at the heaviest I have ever been but I keep telling myself that I will never weigh this much again. Miss PiggyBank has also got on the scales and weighs a very respectable 8.8 pounds less than she did a year ago. I'm sure I can put that on in about a week! Welsh Poppy has also lost a pound-brilliant!
Denise and I both had a small gain over Christmas but we are going to lose it again.

Wow 12 pounds lost since we started this challenge and that was at a really difficult time of year to start a diet. I know some people don't like the word diet. Call it healthy eating, they say.
It's a diet for me and its because I am too fat. It's as simple as that for me. I'm putting in more fuel than I am outputting. My tank is overflowing. Ooh err.

I wonder where she is going? 

I find that I have to be organised when I want to lose weight. If I get hungry because I haven't been organised, that's when bad stuff happens. That's when I grab and go. Crisps, chocolate and other bad choices happen when I don't prepare.

I now keep a stash in my drawer at work of mug shot soups. I find they satisfy me and keeps me busy while I make it too.

I know some people keep veggie sticks in the fridge or homemade soup ready to heat. Mini Babybel cheeses and an apple are a favourite snack for me along with Ryvita and low fat cream cheese.

Frittata or thick omlette are a good snack for work too as it can be eaten cold. 

What snacks work for you? 

What do you open in case of emergency? 

Have a great day.

X

Weigh in Wednesday.

Dear reader,

Sorry have totally lost track of the days. Thank you Rambler. I thought yesterday was Wednesday!

Happy NewYear to you all.

Today is Weigh in Wednesday and I am 14 stones 4.4 pounds.

Am off to work today so will catch you later. Have a great day.x

Slimmer New Year.

Dear reader,

I'm sure everyone is looking forward with planning and good intentions. Today is Wednesday and the  
Weigh in day for those who have joined in.
I was worried this morning when I placed the scales on the floor (carpet adds pounds) I got on very gingerly and discovered I was back to where I had been two weeks ago. 14 stones, 4.4 pounds.

I was a little bit happy as, despite good intentions, I didn't hold back over Christmas.

Tomorrow starts the new year when I will really go for it again.
I have still not food shopped and used the rest of the chicken in some yellow stickered rolls in the freezer for today's lunch for Big Man.I got up really early as I had to work today and made some lemtil and tomato soup for me to take to work.
Soup is the way forward for me in both money saving and healthy eating. I put onion and tinned tomatoes in a saucepan with a chicken stock cube and two handfuls of red lentils. Left to simmer for about 20 mins and stick blended. Took in my food flask with a small brown roll with a mere scraping of low fat spread.

I had found a small tin of tuna in the cupboard last night and have some Approved Food instant mash pots and lots of spices. Result! Thai fish cakes with some of the savoury rice I made yesterday.
I added some chopped onion, chilli flakes, Thai curry spice and the made up mash into a bowl with a tablespoon of flour. It was still quite wet so I made them into little cakes and flattened them onto a saucer with some lemon and herb crunchy crumbs, also an AF purchase.

It made 8 so hoping to have some left over for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrows dinner will be the pork mince mixed with herbs and rolled into tiny meatballs. I will make a curry sauce and use my butternut squash and tin of chickpeas along with the meatballs. Served on the rice again.

These are things that I would usually have left in the cupboard and freezer and I'm chuffed to have used them up.

I will do a food shop on Saturday and will be keeping to a £50 budget. We are hoping to be debt free (excluding the mortgage) by Christmas 2015.

A huge motivational hug to all my weight loss buddies. I hope we can really get some great results next year. If you would like to join us, just drop me a line and I will add your name.
There's no pressure to divulge your weight, it's just a friendly, supportive bunch of people who might just make themselves a little more healthy next year. I'm hoping to start with some easy recipes. I know I have got some great ideas from other bloggers and readers, perhaps we can share some more.

Lastly, have a wonderful evening whether you celebrate the NewYear or reflect on the year just going. There will be people coming into our lives and people leaving. Some will have had terrible years, some great years, maybe the best is yet to come.
A wise person once said to me, treat every day as your last, one day it will be.

Happy New Year.
Xxx

My frugal kitchen.

Dear reader,

I must welcome new followers so hello to Denise, A Suffolk girl, Julie @ Dragonfly Gems, Tollyterrier, Laurie, John Gray, Flips100, The Silver Bunny, Angela, Helen Graham, Doo, Sue15cat and possibly others on bloglovin. A huge hello and thank you for following.

I am still off work and as we have decided that 2014 is absolutely, totally, without doubt going to be the year for us to bash, batter and destroy our debt, I decided I would be frugal in the kitchen today.

After a load of washing had been put on and several cups of tea and reading the papers online. (Terrible news of Michael Schumacher who fights for his life,they report) I trotted out to the kitchen to see what there was in store. I knew there was hardly anything in the fridge but I like to be creative

I had frozen the remains of a roasted chicken, there was probably about half left and had put that in the fridge last night to defrost along with two yellow sticker pork chops. 

We're £3.10 reduced to £1.88.

Pork chops were put into the slow cooker with a sliced onion, a packet mix of sausage casserole, a small tin of baked beans and a carton of Approved Food chopped tomatoes with another carton full of water.

I also found the lest of a sack of onions and peeled them all and chopped them in the food processor. I always do this so I have a ready load for cooking.

I made a huge saucepan of savoury rice with onion, garlic and Indian spices. I fry them first then add rice and double the amount of water. Once boiled I turn it off and let it steam.

I saved two portions for tonight with the pork and will freeze another two portions for another day. I find that freezing my own rice is fine and never have any problems with it.

I didn't have anything much to make for lunch so got some flour, water and yeast and made a pizza base. I topped that with BBQ sauce, again from Approved Food and topped it with an out of date ( only by a day) mozzarella cheese, onions and a bit of the chicken shredded up. It was really tasty.
Here's a link to make pizza base Easy peasy

The log burner is on and the washing is drying in front of it. We don't have the heating on as we are just in the lounge and its warm enough with us both in fleecy bottoms and tops.

Tomorrow will see what else can be rustled up from nothing. I have half a cooked butternut squash in the freezer and a tin of chickpeas in the cupboard so I'm thinking of a curry.

In my freezer is a half bag of parsnips, same of sweetcorn, a packet of pork mince, frozen chips and some cooked apple. I have some instant mash so was thinking of a kind of pork burger. Think fish cake looking with some sweetcorn and chips. There is also a pack of frozen rolls. Maybe pork burgers?

I have lentils, rice, chopped tomatoes, flour, loads of sauces and spices, a tin of mixed beans, instant mash, some salami that came back from my mums, some tins of baked beans, also from mum and some lasagne sheets. Maybe a pork lasagne? Does that sound weird? I'd like to not do any food shopping until the weekend.

We are just about to look at our energy suppliers and see what savings we can make there. At the moment we pay a set amount of £40 electricity (they have just reduced it from£50 after a refund and £44 a month for our gas. 

I hope you have a good day whether you are back at work or at home.

Tomorrow will be the last of the year and I can't wait to save, save, save.

X

Fallen trees and giveaway winner.

Dear reader,

I'm so sorry I haven't been able to blog. I had hoped to do our weigh in despite it being Christmas and also my giveaway. I have been without the Internet  since the 24th.

I may have told you that big man and I went to my parents on Christmas Eve. They live in Kent and although they didn't have flooding where they live they did have terrible weather on the 23rd.

The two elderly neighbours opposite planted fir trees some 50 years ago which are now huge and one of the branches of one broke and fell across the phone lines. It has completely snapped and several houses in the road have no phone lines and hence no Internet. BT hope to fix it next week. I wonder if they charge the tree owner?

We have just got home after a long drive, roads were bad especially the M25 and took us 3 hours but we had good discussions on our forthcoming frugal year.
We had a great time there with lots of dog walks in the countryside and enevitable, lots of eating.

I will recommence the weigh in on Wednesday but for today I will announce the giveaway winner for the Moneyless Man book is........

.*****Everyday Life on a shoestring.******
Please send me your address, I won't publish it.

So many people wanted to read this book, I wish I had more copies. If I ever see it cheap somewhere I will buy it and pass it on. It is frugal living hardcore.

Am a bit jaded tonight so will be back tomorrow. (I'm also a bit scared of getting on the scales but I promise I will be truthful) I've had a wonderful time with my family and big man so if  I've gained, so be it. I will get it off soon.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful and you all had a great time.

Speak tomorrow.

FIB. X