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Home > Possible solutions for UK money/airfare, wonderful (and free-spending) weekend

Possible solutions for UK money/airfare, wonderful (and free-spending) weekend

May 26th, 2015 at 05:03 am

After the great suggestions on one of my recent posts, I went back to the drawing board to think if there were other ways to pay the rental management company besides by wiring money. I suggested to NT either charging to his UK credit card or asking if they would take it out of our upcoming rental income.

They agreed to the latter, so we don't have to wire money! The only drawback is we'll be a bit short on July mortgage payments, probably only about 10 to 20 pounds. We're going to try and request an overdraft increase to cover that little bit. Then we should be all right for the July mortgage payments, and we can start paying NT's mum back with the second month of rental income. I think we can pay her back in 4 or 5 months. Hopefully by October since that's what we told her. We can always find another way to pay her back by then if we don't have enough rental income to get it done.

I also checked out credit cards with good travel rewards and bonus offers, and decided on a Capital One Venture card. $400 worth of travel if you spend $3000 in the first 3 months, plus you earn I think 1.5 or 2 points per dollar on spending; no annual fee the first year. NT applied for one first; if he's approved we'll put everything on that card and once it's clear we'll meet the spending requirement for the bonus, I'll apply for one and then AS. With home improvement stuff on top of regular spending it shouldn't be a problem to meet the amount for three cards as long as we stagger the opening of them. That could mean $1200+ off the airfare for our UK/Spain vacation next year!

***

It's been such a great holiday weekend. The kids go back to daycare tomorrow but we adults have one more day off tomorrow.

Friday, NT and AA went to a father-daughter test thing for a study being done at the university. They had fun; there were lots of toys and games worked in to the tests. SL and I did some of the grocery shopping and had some mom-daughter bonding time while AS worked on a freelance project.

That evening, after the kids' naps and dinner, AS kept working while the rest of us went for a walk, got some ice cream, and stopped by a playground for a little while. AS ordered cake and ice cream from a local pizza place later that night so she didn't feel like she missed out. Smile She made good progress on the project and only had to work on it for short bursts the rest of the holiday weekend.

Saturday we had a leisurely day mostly at home. NT did the rest of the grocery shopping. AA, NT and I went for a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, stopping very often to examine flowers and plants. We stopped by the doughnut shop but they were sold out, so we walked to a cafe and bought cookies. Then we passed a yard sale and AA bought a framed photo of a butterfly plus a cup of lemonade from some other kids. A free-standing hammock we'd ordered was delivered and NT set it up on the front porch. It was in high demand the remainder of the weekend! It's wonderful, very comfortable and sturdy.

Sunday NT was at a music festival all day. AS and I took the kids out for brunch at a nearby restaurant. It was raining but not too hard, and we had umbrellas so it wasn't unpleasant. AS and I played videogames at home and sporadically did some chores: laundry and dishes mostly.

Today we headed out to the playground again; it was cloudy but the weather held. We stopped at the pizza place after the playground and had lunch. While the kids napped, AS and I went to a thrift store that had a 50% off sale. We managed to find a lot of really nice stuff. Between us we got 10 tops, 9 pairs of jeans, a dress, a purse, and some costume jewelry for the kids for $95. Less than $4 per item! We stopped off at Subway for drinks because we were dying of thirst after hours of shopping and trying things on. When AS and I got home, NT and I took the kids (and our neighbors' dog) for a walk around the neighborhood. NT grilled veggie hot dogs and apples on the front porch for dinner.

Tomorrow we plan to drop the kids off at daycare, have breakfast together, and then have a full day of shopping: first to Warners Stellian to pick out a fridge, then to Ikea for various household goods (we've got a list so hopefully we don't get sucked into TOO many impulse purchases), and JCPenney for some clothes needs and wants (suit and shoes for NT, shoes for me).

It's nice to have money to play with again. I feel we're all being very intentional about spending it on things we want or need, or experiences that are relaxing or make us feel good. And I'm still tracking everything very closely to make sure we don't go over the amounts allotted.

1 Responses to “Possible solutions for UK money/airfare, wonderful (and free-spending) weekend”

  1. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1432694687

    Sounds like a great weekend!

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