It has been yet another manic week of house buying stress stuff going on. I sold my house last week, two days after I had the first viewing and accepted a full asking price offer. I can’t believe that the housing market is moving so quickly. My house was sold for £45k more than it was valued just 15 short months ago.
This is fourth house I have sold in my life, never before has a house sold so quickly and for asking price. Next stage is buying a house. We viewed four houses on Saturday and have made an offer on one of them and discovered this amazing bike track at the same time.. BIG fingers crossed that it works out and house buying stress ends. I have had so many wishes of good luck and thoughts from from incredible followers on Instagram and Twitter, that’s got to have an impact right? THANK YOU
I wrote this post last week sharing why I am selling, with the full process of buying and selling, along with full costings. Turns out buying a property is much more expensive than selling a property. A lot more. Damn that stamp duty cost. If I had bought and sold a few months ago I could have saved a small fortune. But then I wasn’t ready. Now I am. This is going to happen. I had a good feeling and I still do. Fresh start is a coming before Christmas. Intention stated.
I’ll be writing regular updates on the journey on my website, keep your fingers crossed for another update this week to say I have bought a house. Buying a house feels bit like dating. I’ve had my first date (the viewing) and I’m really keen. It could all fall apart and we could end up never having a second date, or we could end up in a relationship together. Haha.
Headline Money Awards
On Tuesday night of last week I headed into London for the Headline Money Awards to celebrate with 500 of the best of financial journalism for a black tie event, with drinks, dinner and dancing. Always a brilliant night out and this year was extra exciting as I was sat with my friends from Zopa Bank. I have been every year for the past four years and was even nominated last year for the Best Blog Category (but last year it was a covid virtual event, damn, and I didn’t win). This year no short-listing but that does take the pressure off as you can just drink and have fun.
Here are my favourite pictures including Faith, of Much More Less, Becky O’Connor of Interactive Investor, Laura-Ann Moore, Money & Mindset Coach, Charlotte & Lucas from Zopa Bank and Lotty from Lotty Earns. It was a very drunken night, but I am very happy to report I made the last train home, avoiding a £90 Uber bill. Total spend for the night included £10 on a round for Faith and I who met early to catch up on life/work/money. And £13 on the train ticket (travel in after 10 am using a annual Network railcard to save 1/3rd everyone!!)
Spending Diary
My spending is going down! I love it. I am going to correlate this with two things. Firstly the kids are back at school, no more summer holiday expensive entertainment required. Secondly my healthy eating means I am eating out and ordering takeaways a lot less. And I also had a date (with a chef!) where I was cooked dinner and he brought all of the ingredients. Dating and money saving, perfect, haha.
Food Spend
My grocery spend for the week was just £39, this included a refund of £30 from Hello Fresh who totally messed up my order last week. The box was ripped, all the recipe bags were wet and everything had fallen out. Including non existent recipe cards. I WILL not be carrying on with Hello Fresh. The meals are often missing ingredients and are not healthy, often only have one vegetable included. Mindful Chef is so much better, each meal always includes three to four vegetables.
If you want to save 25% off your first four boxes of Mindful Chef, quote my email in the referral friend box. Lynn@mrsmummypenny.co.uk. I will also get a £10 credit to my account to say thank you. If you sign up THANK YOU xx
I spent £108 on eating out. This was mainly with the boys over the weekend. We spent the day in Royston on Saturday along with coffees, ice creams and lunch at the really nice Weatherspoon’s. It was £20 for three big meals with drinks, bargain. We also had a Fire Jacks treat dinner in Stevenage after DJ’s football game on Sunday, this was way more at £55. But was very lovely. I treated myself to a steak, I’ve not had red meat for such a long time.
Bills
The second week of every month sees a few bills hit. Namely EE broadband £24 and EE mobile phone. My mobile phone is £54 a month, three phones lines, one of which can be cancelled this month! Saving a whole £10. Every little helps. Plus Netflix was paid at £9.99. TV packages have all been rationalised right now, Amazon Prime and Disney+ both cancelled. And I must say the cancellation process for Disney+ was incredibly simple and easy. Well done Disney. £89 was spent on bills this week.
Personal Fun Money
I spent a fair bit on myself this week. Firstly I needed, yes needed, to get my nails done for the awards show on Tuesday. Red nails for £25. Still looking very beautiful one week later. I also had an appointment for an anti aging facial with my friend Gena at Beauty By Genevieve, that was £40. It was so lovely, I will definitely be booking in for more of these, my skin was GLOWING afterwards. It was very sunny when we were in Royston house viewing, and I didn’t have my sunglasses, spent £28 on some new Katie Loxton ones. Total spent £93.
Other Smaller / dull costs
I spent £40 on fuel, I am spending a lot on fuel at the moment due to DJ’s football commitments. There are a lot currently. I’m back and forth to Cambridge, Newmarket or St. Neot’s at least twice a week, sometimes three times. I already save much money here by having my Toyota hydrid CHR, of course now 100% owned by me. Perfect timing was clearing this debt for the soon to happen mortgage porting from one house to another.
I put £20 into Dylans HyperJar account as his pocket money for September. Have you discovered HyperJar? Its a brilliant and FREE way for your kids to get to understand spending and budgeting for themselves with their own payment card. I have a review coming soon on this. Ill let you know all the good and the bad. A fully balanced review post as always.
There were bits of business expenses, the train to London, parking, postage that cost £18. Some pharmacy items, £10 and a tag for Trev cat who returned after his latest 9 day disappearing act. The tag to go on a new collar says ‘DO NOT FEED ME’ as some other selfish person in this village is feeding him. I AM NOT IMPRESSED.
Total Spend
The total spend for last week was very palatable £426. I feel like my spending is getting back under control again. Life feels so good at the moment, when I feel in control of my mental health and physical health my financial health improves as a consequence! But please house buying stress, go away!
New Podcast Series – Mrs Mummypenny Talks to….
My new series of Mrs Mummypenny Talks launches tomorrow Tuesday 14th Sept. I am going to be focussing on twelve chapters from my book that is celebrating its first birthday this month. Episode 1 will be just me sharing my money story and an introduction to the series. Ill then be talking to a different financial expert on every subject from my book. Faith Archer will be joining me to talk Budgeting. Laura Ann More will joining me to talk Money Mindset and early memories. Hollie of Thrifty Mum will be joining me talk family money saving idea. Just a few of the incredible experts I have lined I’m so excited to launch this latest series 4 of the podcast. Its going to be amazing!
You will be able to listen to it via ALL the podcast apps, Itunes, Spotify etc and it will also be available on my You Tube channel.
