In the past year a few friends and people I follow on social media have found themselves being asked to leave their home quite suddenly by emergency services. From gas leaks and flash floods to unexploded World War 2 bombs and wild fires, there are a multitude of issues that mean you might need to dash out of your house with a few essentials and not much else.

Various European governments, particuarly the Scandinavian ones, have recommendations of what to have prepped in your home in case of an emergency, including food and water to last for several days. Here in the UK we don't have a history of preparedness and the general cost of living means that many people would struggle to even come close to the requirements set out in other regions.

But a basic emergency bag can be created quite cheaply with things gathered from around the house or purchased in supermarkets. With that in mind I thought I would take a look at how much it cost for me to set up our emergency bag.

(Caveat: This is not a "bug out bag". We are not taking supplies and camping equipment to last us days. We have a car, family who live 20 minutes away, and a selection of hotels in several nearby towns. This is a bag that would simply keep us comfortable for a few days while the issue that has caused us to leave has been resolved).

The bag

I had a sports bag that I bought to use as my hospital bag when I had our toddler. It’s quite deep, has handles and a shoulder strap, and there are a surprising number of pockets both inside and outside. It easily fits enough things for 2 adults and we don't use it on holidays so this is where I started.

In the long run I would prefer to upgrade to a backpack each for me and my husband as they’re easier to carry on your shoulders. But as a starter just using this bag has saved us money.

Cost: Nothing (the bag was originally purchased from Amazon for £19.99)

Clothes

This was the easiest part. There is no point spending money on brand new items that may be uncomfortable, don't fit properly, or are not suitable for the season. We packed clothes that are old but functional and still fit fine. One pair of trousers each (swapping to a skirt for me in the summer), one top each, two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks. No need for pyjamas, in an emergency we can sleep in our clothes.

Coats and hoodies live next to the front door and are easy to grab on our way out, as are shoes. Likewise our toddler’s nursery bag, which we bring home every evening, lives on a hook near the front door and always contains two complete outfit changes and a spare pair of shoes. There’s no need to pack extra for him, if anything his bag is the easiest to remember.

Cost: Nothing

Toiletries and medicine

We have a stock of toiletries (easier to remember to occasionally bulk buy than to remember to refill as each individual item runs out) so I rummaged through the box and took out some essentials. This means we’ll just need to refill the box slightly quicker than if we were just using things normally. But it also means that these are full sized toiletries so they take up quite a bit of room. If you have easy access to travel sized toiletries (perhaps you or family travel a lot) then these will be lighter and save space.

We’re also very lucky to not need regular prescriptions or medication, so all we need is some over the counter painkillers.

The toiletries in our emergency bag are:

• New toothbrushes for the 3 of us - £3.00
• Tube of toothpaste - £2.50
• Bottle of shampoo (Alberto Balsam) - 95p
• One deodorant - £1.40
• Small bar of soap - 95p
• Small packet of tissues - 17p
• 4 menstrual pads (tampons or a cup would save some space) - 70p
• One toilet roll - 60p
• One bottle of Calpol - £3.25
• One pack of Neurofen - £1.90

I’ve put everything except the shampoo (which is standing up in a corner of the emergency bag to reduce the risk of leaks) and the toilet roll (which takes up a lot of space anyway) in a ziplock bag so it is easy to find everything. This was something I did for my hospital bag and it was really helpful to not rummage to find one thing.

We also have a first aid bag which lives downstairs and contains plasters, antiseptic wipes and sterile pads, along with more paracetamol. Should we forget to grab that in an emergency we also have a smaller version in the boot of the car (for excursions with the toddler).

Cost: £15.42

Entertainment

This is where we spent a bit more money, as there isn’t a lot that we could raid from other parts of the house that we don’t use regularly. It has to be analogue, ideally something that at least two of us can do, and can age up with our toddler so we’re not constantly buying new things every year because he’s outgrown them.

This meant that I focused on paper-based games. I bought an Uno pack (£4.99), which comes in quite a small box so it’s easy to store, and it’s something that can be scaled up to more players quite easily. I also purchased a puzzle book (£3.85), and a pencil and paper games book (£6.43). There’s enough variety in each one that we should be able to stave off boredom for at least 10 minutes!

For the toddler we have a small Thomas the Tank Engine book that contains 3 stories, and two Hot Wheels cars. These were things already in the house that we have multiples of, so easy to sneak away and pack without him missing them.

Cost: £15.27

Food and drink

This is where we’ve spent the most money. And the bulk of it was on just two items – 710ml food flasks by the Thermos brand at £22.40 each.

I decided to buy these ones, rather than one large Thermos, as although they’re heavy and a bit chunky they take up the same space as one large Thermos. Having two means that we could keep hot water in one and cold water in another. And the cup lids are small and shallow enough that our toddler can hold them to have a drink without spilling water all over himself.

To make up for all the space they take I have packed them with individually wrapped teabags (£2.00 for a box of 25, 4 are in the Thermos and the rest were consumed at work), sachets of instant coffee (£6.99 for 50, 4 are packed and the rest are slowly being worked through), instant hot chocolate sachets (2 x 50p each), and instant soup (£1.65 for a box of 4, 2 sachets are in the Thermos). There are long shelf lives on all of them, and I have a note in my planner to check them twice a year and replace anything that’s close to its best before date.

I didn’t want to pack any tins or jars as the space is limited and we don’t want the bag to be too heavy. Packets of mini breadsticks (£1.40 for 6, we've packed 3) are light, have a long shelf life, and can be enjoyed by us and the toddler. We also have a few individually wrapped Kiddylicious biscuits (£2.85 for 6) for the toddler, and some Rice Krispies bars (£2.25 for 4). These were part of the usual weekly shop, I just removed two or three from the packs and put them in the bag.

The costs for the individual bits we've packed are:

• 2 x Thermos - £44.80
• 4 x teabags - £0.32
• 4 x instant coffee sachets - £0.56
• 2 x instant hot chocolate sachets - £1.00
• 2 x instant soup packs - £0.83
• 3 x mini breadstick packs - £0.70
• 2 x Kiddylicious biscuits - £0.95
• 2 x Rice Krispies bars - £1.13

Cost: £50.29

Miscellaneous

And of course there are a few essentials that don’t fit in the above categories but were still things I felt we needed:

• Pens and pencils (£1.70) – We have two pens, two pencils, a rubber and a sharpener. They can be used to make notes or fill in the games books mentioned in entertainment.
• Small notebook (90p) – We have a small notebook in which we’ve written emergency contact details for utility services (Cadent, UK Power Network, our GP surgery) and for our families, in case we can’t access our phones. We’ve also written down policy numbers, expiry dates and providers for various insurances, and the numbers of important ID documents.
• Charger cable and plug (£2.70) – We bought a spare phone charging cable (USB-C) and already had a USB plug adapter so we can access mains charging if needed.
• USB memory stick – I had a stack of these as I frequently back up photos. This one has a text file with the same information as our notebook, as well as copies of important documents.
• Cash – We have a small amount of cash in mixed notes (£5 and £10 notes) and £1 coins. This was collected over six months in a cash bag after selling things on Facebook marketplace so there was no need to withdraw anything from our accounts.
• Cotton tote bag – No idea how much this was as I was given it years ago. Easy to fold up and it stores in one of my emergency bag’s many pockets.
• Mini hot water bottle (£5.89) - Should we have to leave in winter and stay a few hours somewhere with less-than-ideal heating then this will help keep one of us warm. Also very helpful for general aches and pains while waiting for the Neurofen to kick in.

Cost: £11.19

The final total

As you can see above, there are plenty of ways you can create an emergency bag without needing to spend huge amounts of money. A basic bag is better than no bag at all, and everyone has different priorities and things they see as essential. You do not need to have a Thermos, I just know that I function better with a nice hot cup of tea. If you don’t have children you won’t need to worry too much about entertainment. If you have pets then you will need to consider food and water for them.

In total our emergency bag has cost £92.17 to set up. This is still a lot of money, but it would have been more if we hadn't reused a bag and clothing we already had. The Thermos' were the biggest chunk of that cost, without them it would be £47.37. If you remove the "entertainment" section as well that gets you down to £32.10.

In the future we may upgrade a few things, especially when we graduate from having a toddler to having a child. But if you’re worried about needing a lot of money to prepare then hopefully this has shown just how much you can use from around the home, or source quite cheaply from the shops.

Mortgage overpayments 2025

If you have stumbled on this blog randomly then welcome! This is my annual post where I look back on the mortgage overpayments myself and my husband have made over the previous calendar year.

Yes, I know the advice is to invest the money in an S&S ISA instead of overpay the mortgage. Yes, I know that in personal finance circles overpaying the mortgage is seen as a waste of time and money. But I don't care. I want the psychological boost of knowing that I own my house sooner than the bank thought I would.

So, here are this years overpayments by month, and the total at the end. I wanted to hit £500 this year. And I have....

The overpayments

Jan - £20.08

Feb - £53.82

Mar - £37.75

Apr - £26.48

May - £37.21

Jun - £32.65

Jul - £42.04

Aug - £22.95

Sept - £22.30

Oct - £42.15

Nov - £30.93

Dec - £36.21

Total - £404.57

Thoughts

...not succeeded XD

No, sadly the combination of higher interest rates, needing to pay for childcare, and all the other household costs going up, meant that we had to focus our money on other things this year. I have also changed some of my side hustle priorities to put money towards other things, so there has been less for the mortgage.

That being the case, I'm still quite pleased with how we did. The fact that we can overpay at all despite increasing financial pressures is something I'm quite proud of.

My target for 2026 is £450. A little more than 2025 but not excessively so.

Mortgage overpayments 2024

If you have been a long time reader of this little blog then 1) congratulations and 2) are you mad or just a bit nosy about other people's mortgages?

Sadly 2024 is the year that we have finally been hit by the new interest rates. The annoying thing about it is that our first mortgage deal was a 5 year fixed one and we got it shortly before rates started their slow descent. Since it was fixed for 5 years we couldn't really benefit from the dip.

When that deal was coming to an end I suggested that our next one just be a 2 year fixed rate one. It was hard to tell what was going to happen to rates anyway and we weren't sure we were going to stay in the house for much longer so being locked in for 5 years sounded like too much of a risk.

More fool me as rates have now bounced back up to far higher than they were when we got our first mortgage deal. Am I annoyed? Yes. Have I stopped overpaying as a result? Of course not!

The overpayments

Jan - £153.79

Feb - £180.84

Mar - £143.58

Apr - £140.38

May - £57.64

Jun - £32.55

Jul - £25.33

Aug - £22.17

Sept - £24.84

Oct - £36.75

Nov - £34.80

Dec - £45.69

Total - £898.36

Thoughts

Can you spot the point where our 2 year fix ended and our new deal (another 5 year fixed because to hell with that uncertainty) began? Yes, April saw us waving goodbye to 1.71% interest rate and in May we welcomed a whopping great 4.57% (and by "welcomed" I mean cursed at).

This means that our monthly repayment is now bigger than it was when we first bought our house even though our LTV has naturally improved through increasing house prices and paying down the mortgage. It's terribly depressing but at least we're lucky to still be able to overpay at all. I'm very aware that similar increases are having a negative impact on other home owners.

Our plans for next year are minimal. We'll need to start paying for childcare (my husband is currently on a career break), neither of us are expecting good pay rises as we don't work in the private sector, and the cost of everything else is going up. I'd love to hit £500 overpayments next year, but I'll be amazed if we manage it.

Side hustle total for 2023

Much like the mortgage overpayments for this year, having a baby naturally meant that side hustles had to take a bit of a back seat.

As you'll see below, in the end I wasn't too far off last years total! I'm quite surprised but one good thing about being on maternity leave with a good sleeper is that I had a bit of time to do extra random money-making tasks during naps, and that had a bigger impact than I realised.

Breakdown and total

Talks- £215.30

Other- £127.32

Surveys- £115.18

Cashback - £32.33

Receipts - £20.00

Total - £510.13

Sources

Talks

Another year in which talks are my most profitable side hustle. This is also where my maternity leave lost me the most money. I did have two talks booked for early in the year but my Mum gently persuaded me to cancel them as there was a chance I'd be too tired for them. I'm glad she did as my iron levels were quite low at the beginning of the year and I felt wiped out by the early afternoon. I definitely couldn't have done a good job with low energy levels.

Other

This is a category that I think I'll change a bit next year. "Other" is all the things that tend to come in with minimal effort on my part, or that I don't really participate in regularly enough to consider as a separate category.

This year it has covered some ebook money (my ebooks were published nearly 10 years ago but I still get the occasional purchase or KENP read), some sales on eBay, and a payout from Zazzle. I think for 2024 I'll try tracking "sales" as a separate category in its own right. The eBay sales have actually been more consistant this year and I'd like to try and increase them next year, as well as try selling outgrown baby things on FBMP.

Surveys

Being on maternity leave really helped with this. During naps I could pop on to Prolific and do a few quick tasks. Prolific has always paid well due to their rules around minimum amount per hour, and doing 50 pence here and 20 pence there, for tasks taking less than 10 minutes, meant that I could build up a decent chunk each month.

I also finally had a Yougov payout of £50. I have been doing it for years (literally) and while the £50 is a big chunk in one go it simply is not worth all the time and effort I put into it. This is one I am not going to be returning to.

Cashback

This continues to be a bit of a slow burner but it's worth it for the occasional payout. I've had payments from Shopmium, Greenjinn, TopCashback, and Hashting. In some cases the cashback has been the amount I've spent on a grocery item so we've effectively got something for free.

Receipts

If "Sales" are going to get their own category next year then I'll lump "receipts" into "other". This used to be a bigger earner but with the closure of ReceiptHog and some difficulties I've had with SnapMyEats, I've given up and just stuck to Shoppix. I always cash out an Amazon voucher as it can just sit in my account and cover the occasional ebook purchase.

Next year

For 2024 I'd like to try and see how close I can get to £600. I'll be going back to work next year so we'll see how much time I have between that and the baby, but I'd certainly like to increase the amount. Perhaps £550 would be more realistic?

Side hustle total for 2022

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As with my recent look back at my mortgage overpayments, now that we're in 2023 (well into it, it's February!) I can look back at my spread sheets and see what the impact last years side hustling was.

This is the first year that I've properly tracked my side hustle money. Most of it tended to go into my Paypal and then just sit there until I bought something off eBay. But with more of a focus on FIRE in the past few years I realised I needed to be a bit more sensible about this as well.

And I'm very glad I did, as I can now see the impact of all those little sums from various sources, that just come drifting in throughout the year.

Mortgage overpayments 2022

Now that we've waved goodbye to 2022 and can look forward to 2023, it's time to reflect on some of the finances over the past year.

To start with I've had a look back at our mortgage overpayments for 2022! I know there's some debate among personal finance bloggers over whether it's best to overpay the mortgage or invest the money instead. For me and my husband overpaying works for us, but I'm very aware that it's not for everyone.

Last year our total was just over £900. My target had been £1000 a year. And this year we managed it!

Birthday freebies

I recently celebrated my *whisper* 37th birthday! And naturally that meant that I could load up a few apps and loyalty cards and get a few freebies and money off vouchers.

This might be one of my favourite rewards in recent years. Birthday rewards for loyalty cards and apps only started up a few years ago, but they do seem to be a slowly growing trend. I don't like things to go to waste so I've only signed up to things I know I want, there are more offers beyond the four I've listed here.

Paperchase - £5 off with Treat Me card

If you're signed up to the Paperchase "Treat Me" card and you've given them your date of birth, then around your birthday you'll get an email saying you have a £5 voucher ready to spend. They give you a code to use online or if you're in the shop just hand over the card and it will be assigned to your purchase.

I used it to reduce the cost of my 2023 diary. For the past few years I've been keeping a daily hand written diary and I generally purchase them from Paperchase as I'm left handed and find their diaries are quite easy to write on both sides of the page.

Although the code is emailed to you close to your birthday, it generally has an expiry date set 30 days later. If you time it well you could combine it with a sale to get a real bargain!

Greggs app - Free sweet treat

If you download the Greggs app and add your date of birth then you'll find it automatically gives you a free sweet treat voucher on the app! I got this delicious sprinkle doughnut but other options include yumyums, gingerbread biscuits, and chocolate chip cookies.

The offer was added to my app on my birthday itself and was valid for 7 days, if you don't have a huge amount of time to use it. In my case though I was going into town to do some Christmas shopping so I just made sure I stopped by Greggs on my way back to the car. If you don't have a Greggs nearby then you might want to decide if it's worth the cost of a trip.

You also need to have had the Greggs app for a few weeks before your birthday, if you download it on the day then I don't think it will work.

Hotel Chocolat - £5 off with VIP Me card

Like Paperchase, if you have the Hotel Chocolat VIP Me card then you'll get an email confirming you have a £5 voucher on your VIP Me card, or a code to use online.

Back when you could get three selectors for £10 this was a fantastic bargain, as you could get great chocolate for half off. Sadly though inflation now means that it's £12 for three selectors and it doesn't feel like quite as good a deal (to me at least, but I understand why the prices went up).

Instead I got one selector and one milk chocolate "tiddly pot", with the voucher I paid less than £2 for the pair of them. It's still a really nice offer though and if your birthday falls just after a holiday like Halloween, Christmas, or Valentines, then you can use the voucher to get some already discounted chocolate.

My birthday falls in the middle of November and the email normally arrives in my inbox right at the end of October, valid until the end of November, so I think it mostly covers your birthday month.

Costa Coffee - Free cake with the app

If you have downloaded the Costa Coffee app and filled in your details, including your birthday, then you can get a free cake for your birthday. Like the Greggs app this is automatically added to the app on your birthday, and you need to use it within the week.

I chose the millionaire slice but I don’t think it limits what you can buy. I was very tempted by the lemon muffin as I really like them, and they had also released their festive menu so there were also Toblerone muffins, large mince pies, and a cake with a reindeer face.

If you want to download the Costa app then you can use my referral code (8XQ6D), and we will both get 5 free beans, which will put you halfway towards a free drink.

Overall a nice little haul that just required me to pop into a few shops, I had a week off work anyway so I was going to a few places with the relevant shops. It's a nice way to get a few treats for free or very reduced.

Side Hustle Total - January to April 2022

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I don't have a huge number of side hustles, especially compared to others in the FIRE world. I tend to fall in and out of them as my attention waxes and wanes. And some of them (such as YouGov) have a high total to reach before payout so there are quite a few that are slow burners.

Despite that, this year I decided to finally start tracking my side hustles and the amount I'm earning from them. When it's a slow drip of £2 here and £5 there it can feel like you're not getting much out of it. But totalling it all up makes you more aware of how much you've actually earned over 12 months and can help with motivation. 

Total mortgage overpayments in 2021

Back in July I looked at the mortgage overpayments me and my husband had made in the first half of the year. 

In that post I mentioned that our aim was to overpay £1000 a year. In the past few years we have missed this target.

How much will maternity leave cost you?

A couple of years ago I sat down and worked out how much money I would need to save to cover a period of maternity leave.

The result was...depressing would only just start to describe it. If I hadn't done my calculations then I would have had a hell of a shock and upset further down the line!

Halfway there! Mortgage overpayments for 2021

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When we bought our first home back in 2016 I knew I wanted to try and overpay the mortgage. Me and my husband had had a good deposit, but it was our first home and it needed plenty of work after years of neglect. The previous owners were landlords and they had done very little to keep the place nice.

This meant that we had a longer mortgage term so that we could have affordable monthly repayments and focus more on doing the place up. We wanted the option of not overpaying in some months if we needed to, rather than having to pay higher monthly payments and being unable to change that.

How I managed to skip Amazon for Christmas

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For the past couple of years I've told myself that I would cut back on my use of Amazon for my Christmas shopping. Bezos has more than enough money, the staff are overworked and underpaid, and there are plenty of small businesses that could use my money and will pay UK taxes with it.

Every year I end up inevitably failing. I will get some things from places like Waterstones, but eventually I'll resort to Amazon as it's cheaper and thus I can "buy more" for family and friends. And then over the course of the next year I read more about the poor treatment of Amazon warehouse staff and feel guilty and resolve to not do it again.

Charity shop haul - October 2017

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October ended up being a bumper month for my charity shop purchases. I've made it a little easier on myself to remember what I bought, but leaving my new books on a specific shelf in the living room until the time comes to write this post! My biggest problem was remembering what books I'd bought, since they tend to be the most common purchase. Having a shelf spot has definitely helped, but it does mean they remain disorganised for a few weeks.

This month I managed to secure a triple hit, with clothes, books and a DVD all purchased from charity shops in October!

Clothes

I'm super pleased about my October clothing hunt, as I managed to get two lovely tops. The first is a Seasalt one in green and cream hoops, with lovely long sleeves. Seasalt clothing is lovely quality, with good thick cotton that keeps you nice and toasty. This was only £5, not quite as cheap as my last Seasalt charity buy, but still a good bargain.

The second top was a Gap one in navy blue, again with long sleeves. It was only £3 and fits perfectly, so it's quickly becoming my new favourite top. The problem I have now is that I can replace some of my older, worn out shirts that are starting to develop holes. However I still love them so parting from them is proving difficult. I need to have a bit of a clear out anyway, so one Saturday I'll just have to go through the wardrobe and be ruthless!

Books

It was also a good month for books. The first one I picked up was a Dorling Kindersley publication on preserving food, mainly jams and pickles. I've never made jam in my life before, but at some point I'll want to give it a try. At only £3 for this lovely thick book I feel happy knowing I can have a guide sitting on my shelf, for when I'm ready to give it a go.

I also purchased another women in history book - Alison Weir's biography on Isabella of France. Isabella was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward II, and led the rebellion against him and Hugh Le Despenser. I really like Alison Weir's work, I also have her books on Elizabeth of York, Katherine Swynford, and Margaret Douglas, and this is proving to be a really good read. I've been struggling through my non-fiction books a bit recently, but I'm getting through this one with no problems.

DVDs

Finally my other top bargain for October was getting hold of the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek Beyond. We'd only just watched it the week before after I borrowed the DVD from my work library, so imagine my surprise when I found a copy for sale in the charity shop's bargain box for a mere fifty pence! This charity shop has a DVD shelf hidden towards the back of the shop, right in front of the door to the staff area. There's no where particularly prominent that they can put them, but it does mean they have to have regular clear outs and put lots of stuff in a box at the front. I'm really pleased with getting it so cheaply, I enjoyed the film but preferred Into Darkness, so getting it cheaply was really good.

Mortgage Overpayment - August and September 2017

Anyone with an eagle eye would have spotted that I missed my regular post on my mortgage overpayment for August. That was because August became a very expensive month after I needed to get some work on my car, so my overpaying was on the small side. So small in fact that the blog post would have been about 100 words XD

I decided to combine it in with September, which had fewer emergency expenses and therefore let me sweep up some extra pennies when I reviewed my accounts. I also had a bigger expenses claim in September, which helped bump up the payment.

So without further ado - in August I managed to overpay £45.41, which was a lot less than my target of £60 a month :( As I mentioned my car needed some work, and I was loathed to move too much money out of my savings to cover it as I'm trying my best to keep money in my savings account than constantly move more out of it.

But on the plus side in September I overpaid £70.96! I ended up with a £25 expenses claim due to a bunch of things we needed for the office at work, and I was so careful with my money during the month that I was able to do a large sweep at the end of September which added an extra £12 on to my payment.

I haven't been very good about listing things on eBay and Facebook selling pages the past two months as work has been getting very busy. I'm hoping I'll be able to find some time in October and November to get back to listing things and go for some bigger payments towards the end of the year!

Charity shop haul: August 2017

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Originally it looked like this was going to be a miniscule post. The charity shops in Cambridge, my usual haunt, have been very thin on the ground for good items recently. The students have all left by July and by August the place is swamped with tourists, so donations are thin on the ground (from what I can tell anyway). 

But as I had another week off it meant that I could take some time to stroll around Colchester, and me and my husband had a day out in Maldon with the in-laws so I had a little look around the charity shops there too.

Sadly there were no clothes this month, one or two things caught my eye but I just couldn't picture myself wearing them. There's no point buying clothes you like if you don't wear them, so I put both things back and moved on.

Books

My collection of works about women in history has expanded again this month! My main purchase was a biography on Cecily Neville, the mother of King Edward IV and King Richard III. She's one of those medieval women that used to only exist on the periphery of history, but recent works have really helped make people more aware of her. 

I've already sat down and read the whole thing and really enjoyed it, I liked the way Amy Licence really tried to focus on Cecily. I find that with many books about women there's a greater emphasis on the men in their lives, in order to bulk out the text as there's often very few resources about the women themselves. This book is a little short, but only because Licence doesn't fall in to that trap, and what information she does have on Cecily is really interesting!

DVDs

My aim to refill my DVD collection with stuff I'm missing from home continues apace! This month I bulked out my collection with the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (I mistakenly thought I already had the second one, so now I need to keep an eye out for that too), Sense and Sensibility (which I always enjoy watching on a lazy afternoon).

I also bought one of the Family Guy "Star Wars" specials. I've never seen the Star Wars movies, to my husband's everlasting horror, but I'll happily watch this parody of them, even if a lot of the jokes go over my head.

I then went in to Colchester for a during in my week off, and what else did I find in a charity shop? The second Family Guy Star Wars parody DVD! So now I own both of them for the princely sum of £2, I wouldn't buy them at full price but I'll happily have them in the animation drawer to watch when the fancy takes me.

Charity Shop Haul: July 2017

This post contains affiliate links. These links do not cost you money, but if you purchase something after clicking them I get a small fee for sending you there. Despite this the information below is an honest review, if I don't like something I will tell you!

July started off slow for charity shop visits, but then I had a week off work and spent the first afternoon of it wandering around the huge number of charity shops outside the Grafton Centre in Cambridge! This was then followed by a morning strolling around Colchester, so in one week I managed to visit a lot of shops, and get some lovely bargains!

Clothes

I love White Stuff, but I find some of their collections a bit hit-and-miss, so I haven't bought anything from their shops recently. I did however find this gorgeous blue top in one charity shop, and quickly snapped it up as it was only £5!

I've actually got quite a few of their tops, but some of them were bought three years ago and are starting to get holes (I wear them every week as they're suitable for work), so my plan is to use charity shops to replace the four most damaged tops!

Books

This month was quite poor for book purchases, possibly because I have quite a few from the past couple of months that I need to catch up on, so I was quite discerning this month. I also just didn't find a huge amount that I needed or wanted to buy, it was a better month for DVDs (as you'll see below). That said I did find two decent books to add to my shelf.

The first is "Nella Last's War", which I've actually read in the past and really enjoyed. This book is an edited version of a set of diaries which were kept during the Second World War by Mrs Nella Last. She lived in Lancashire in Barrow-in-Furness and spent the war actively helping charities, running her house, and worrying about her sons.

The other book was "The Times Obituaries of Notable Women", which is a collection of obituaries about various women who died in the 20th century. It should be good source material for some upcoming ebooks so I'm looking forward to sitting down properly with it at some point and making a few notes.

DVDs

Now that I've moved out of my parents place I'm finding that I need to buy DVDs that I've had easy access to for years. So imagine how chuffed I was to get the first two Bridget Jones movies for £1 each. They're nice easy watching that you can have on as noise in the background without dedicating lots of time to watching, so having my own copies at last is great.

I also got "Made in Dagenham", which I've wanted to watch for years and never got round to!

Mortgage Overpayment - July 2017

If you'd like to find out more about why we're overpaying our mortgage, the post is here!

July turned out to be a fantastic month for overpaying. It wasn't a record breaking month, that's still held by April. But it was still very good and it's all thanks to my expenses claim, my train ticket to a work conference gave an enormous boost to the payment pot!

So without further ado our overpayment for July was £129.27!!

That was made up of our standard £30, which we budget every month. I received £5.39 from Quidco, which was cashback from buying some house items a few months ago, and then £78.66 was my work expenses claim. I also did a couple of account sweeps, rounding my bank balance down to end in a 5 or a 0, and that netted me an extra £5.56, and then I finally rounded down the mortgage balance at the end of the month to pay off an extra £7.66. 

Since we're now just over halfway through the year, I thought I'd take a little look at the impact our mortgage payments, and the overpayments, have had on some of the numbers!

When we started the mortgage we were having £12.01 added in interest per day! It's now down to £11.82 a day. We were due to go under £11 a day in August 2020, but we've now brought that up to June 2020, and of course that will go down as we continue to overpay. We were due to drop under £155k owed in May 2018, that's now fallen to March 2018. I really want to do it before January, but playing with numbers suggests that that might be a little tricky. I'm really happy with how close we're getting though, it's good motivation for the future.

I have a terramundi pot, which I started to save in when I was living in London. I only add £2 and 50 pence coins to it, and it's starting to get a little heavy. But it's certainly nowhere near full ,so I'm now debating if I want to crack it open in December and use whatever's in it to make one last huge overpayment for the New Year. But on the other hand I'd like to know how much it can hold when it's full, so I should hold out.

We'll see what the coming months bring, and see how many more £2 coins I can stuff in to it in the meantime XD

Charity Shop Haul - June 2017

This post contains affiliate links. These links do not cost you money, but if you purchase something after clicking them I get a small fee for sending you there. Despite this the information below is an honest review, if I don't like something I will tell you!

Last month I did a post on a new blog post series that I'm doing, highlighting my finds from charity shops. I got a bit addicted to them after using them to source the china for my wedding, and now that we've had the wedding I'm new enjoying using them for cheap books, DVDs and clothes!

This month my buys are a little thin on the ground. The really hot weather at the start of the month kept me in the office a lot as I really don't like heatwaves and prefer to lurk indoors, and towards the end of the month my time was taken up by a large work event and so running out to charity shops was the last thing on my mind. But I still managed to get a few bargains during my few trips out!

Clothes

The first buy this month was a gorgeous purple top from Phase Eight, found in the local hospice charity shop. I saw it originally and wasn't certain if I liked it, as I thought the detail around the neck was a bit fussy (it has a pattern neckline).

But it was still there when I went back two days later, and since it will make a nice smart work top I decided to buy it. The material is lovely and soft, and I really like the shade of purple it's in, it'll look very nice with my black work trousers when autumn comes around.

Books

As always, I went straight for the history books. I'm particularly happy with the biography of Josephine Butler, she's been one of my favourite women in history ever since I wrote my eBook series, so getting hold of a proper biography of her is a great find.

I'm currently working my way through the "Unnatural Murder" one, which is a little heavy going due to the necessary explanations around English law at the time, but once I've got through it I'll be able to move on to "The Unruly Queen", which is about Caroline of Brunswick, the wife of King George IV.

DVDs

Yes this month I managed to get a DVD! I popped in to Colchester one weekend for a little stroll and found the DVD of Despicable Me for a mere 99p!

I really like the film but normally have to wait until it's playing on Channel 5 over bank holiday weekends, so for a bargain price like that I'm more than happy to have a copy on my bookcase that I can watch whenever I want.

Mortgage Overpayment - May 2017

The end of the month means overpayment time for our mortgage! After April's bumper overpayment I knew that May was going to look measly in comparison, but I've really taken my eye off the ball this month, and haven't found other sources to replace the large Quidco payments that won't be coming in any more.

May's overpayment is £66.97, which although it's not as good as I would like, is still just over my target of overpaying £60 a month. I didn't have a great deal of success with eBay this month, but I did count up my 20p and copper penny jars, which gave me £12 in total.

I also got a tiny payment from Amazon for eBook sales back in March. I published two eBooks on women in history back in 2014, and every so often I get a few sales that give me a little trickle of pennies from Amazon. May's payout was £0.76, which I think mostly came from March as it was Women's History Month and there's always a little spike in activity then.

The rest of the money was made up of our basic overpayment (£30) and my expenses from April, which were paid in the middle of May.

So although it wasn't well over the odds, I'm still pleased that we're just over target, and hopefully in June I'll get back in to my money saving mojo and get a bit closer to the magical £100!

Charity Shop Haul - May 2017

I've been a devotee of charity shops for months now, as they were my primary source of crockery for our wedding. One thing I've said to my husband is that now we've had the wedding, I'm looking forward to it consuming less of my daily life. Even thought we were only having a small wedding, the need to find as much of our crockery in charity shops as possible, meant that I was just going in and out of them to look at the bric-a-brac shelves, before moving on to the next one. I was also trying to save as much money towards it as possible, so if I wasn't buying something for the wedding, I felt that it was wasted money.

But now I can go in to a charity shop and look for things that aren't teapots and cups! I'm also enjoying the loosening of the purse strings, although not too much since we still have to buy a lot of things for the house. May was my first month of being able to buy things, and I'm quite happy with my little haul for the month!

Clothes

I got a really lovely blue long-sleeved top from a Cancer Research UK shop. The material is super soft, and it's from Marks and Spencers so it's really good quality, although thankfully this top doesn't like like it's aimed at the over-sixties XD It'll be good for either work or home, but it's a little thin so I may not get away with it in the winter unless I layer it with both a vest underneath and a tunic over the top.

I also spotted a few skirts that I liked, but if I wasn't overawed with them then I didn't buy them. I've come to regret letting one of them go though as the material was lovely and soft, and I'm sure I would have found something to wear with it if I had tried, so I think I need to be a little bolder about buying such things when I see them!

Books

I've been struggling to get through my history reads recently, and I think it's because I need to wind my brain down a little bit. Sometimes when work is busy and life is hectic, you just need some easy-read to fiction to distract you from everything else.

I'm always a bit "meh" about historical fiction, as I tend to dislike the lack of proper context, or just all-out poor use of history (you can probably guess which author in particular I'm thinking of here). Nowadays I tend to by historical fiction set in the Georgian period as it's a point of history I know very little about, and so I find very little to annoy me in books XD So "How to Marry a Marquis" seemed to fit the bill perfectly, and I then added to it with "Mrs Fytton's Country Life" and "The Runaway Princess", neither of which are historical but both of which seem to come under the heading of "easy fiction". However I have yet to read any of these, as I also bought "What Would Mary Berry Do?" by Claire Sandy, and it was so good that I read it in two and a half days!

Despite aiming to get just fiction books I couldn't help but also purchase "Princesses: The Daughters of George III" as the hardback copy was only £5 in Oxfam. I read a really good biography of George III and his family last year, and I've wanted to read more on his daughters for a while now, so I'm hoping this will prove to be an equally interesting book.

Anything Else?
I was hoping to be able to buy a DVD or two that we could save to one side for a future date night, but despite lots of searching I couldn't find any that I wanted to buy. I'm a bit picky with films, and I tend to find that the ones in charity shops are not brilliant films anyway (otherwise people would keep the DVD to watch again!) I also kept my eye out for any kitchenwares (cake tins and storage pots being the two main ones) but again, nothing really caught my eye.

But that's okay, I don't want to go mad in my first month of buying, we'll see what June brings!