Mouche’s adventures with her first mortgage (while coping with her first baby)

Oh wow, so many MFW royalty visiting my diary! Thank you so much for the encouraging comments and the welcomes. *gallygirl* your comment made me laugh - it's so true!

Just wanted to report that though I can't actually overpay yet since my mortgage hasn't actually begun, I've just hopefully managed a £110 cashback by signing up to Sky through Quidco in my own name. OH was the accountholder in current house so I've signed up as a new customer. I also talked OH into downgrading our package a bit. I would have happily gone with Freeview but I think that may have been grounds for divorce in this house! It should be about £40 instead of £60 per month so better a £20 saving than nothing.

Sorry for not posting for a while but we moved last weekend and have to rely on using the internet at work as Sky can’t install phone line/ broadband till end of October! TV connection was done in 2 days though, which doesn’t bode well for getting all those boxes unpacked. My mum was an absolute star and got us settled in just a day – bear in mind she’s 65 and had a 14 hour flight the next day! I didn’t have to do a thing, which was very good as currently sitting on a chair all day makes me exhausted by 9pm! I’m clearly not one of the women who are energised by their pregnancies!

Anyway, we completed on 23rd and got the letter from the bank yesterday informing us that the first payment will go out on 4th November and will be £1,089, then £914 thereafter. Today was payday for OH and me so I’ve shunted our money around and….made our first overpayment!!!! It was only £130.72 but at least we’ve made a start.

It’s turned out to be a lot less than I expected because I had miscalculated the amount I would need to see me through maternity leave. So a lot of the spare cash this month (and there was a fair amount spare since we don’t pay mortgage or rent this month) went into the maternity leave fund. I forgot to put aside the £550 I’ll need for OHs paternity leave so that will have to come out of next month’s pay. I also think I may have underestimated our expenses this month as we will have to cover the council tax, electric and gas at the rented property till 9th October, which is when our notice expires. We’ve had the water bill through and it was in credit so no need to worry about that one. I have a feeling we may be in credit with council tax as well or only slightly short so fingers crossed. We’re probably going to have to pay a hefty electric and gas bill though – have some emergency savings to cover those until next month’s pay so not too worried.

The mechanics of overpaying are really simple. Since we’re on a tracker with unlimited overpayments, I can just transfer it over using online banking. I can see myself transferring 50p every day just to get that buzz!

I’ve always been quite good about saving for things before buying them so I have a fair sum put aside for things like car insurance and gifts. I also have £10,000 in emergency money – it’s actually a loan from my mum. She doesn’t want it back but I still think of it as mum’s money and am using it as a backup fund in case of disaster. I am very grateful to her for providing me with that security.

From now on, all spare cash will be divided equally between 4 pots:
1. Emergency money – a trying to build up a backup of 6 months living costs so need another £6,000 to add to the £10,000 mentioned. Have saved £800 towards it so far.
2. Building/ redecorating – though the house is in pretty good nick, the bathrooms could use a refurbish, we want to have a downstairs cloakroom installed, and the carpet in the master bedroom is dreadful. None of it is urgent so we’ll pay for them as and when this fund builds up.
3. Private school – The nearest school to the house is a very good academy but is heavily oversubscribed. I don’t think we’re close enough to it for baby to get in even though it’s the closest one to us. The next two have failed their Ofsted’s and look pretty grim from the outside so if baby doesn’t get into the academy, I may want to send him to private school and then hope he’s clever enough to get into a grammar after the 11+. We can’t really afford private school but the earlier we start, the better position we will be in to consider it as an option.
4. Overpayments – yay!

I have also done a YouGov survey today for 25 points and queried my boss about the fact that 3 hours overtime last month failed to show up in my payslip. Turns out he forgot to email Finance about it and that it will now appear in November’s payslip. Without an internet connection at home, I’m struggling to do anything much to raise money but once maternity leave starts (roll on November!), I hope to be able to do more.