The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

Cherryfudge · 26 May 2017 at 11:59AM

That sounds like A Plan indeed! Actually, while it's short of what you are aiming for, the $500 is also a good chunk and gradually the balance will shift so you are paying more interest and less principle... and in the meantime you have life to live and enjoy, which is undoubtedly a bonus.

(Says she, feeling full of the laid-backness of a gorgeous summery day!)

Anavand · 26 May 2017 at 10:55PM

Hello armchair! I am in the process of de-lurking (just started my own diary about my mortgage-reducing mission) and wanted to say that I have been lurking on your diary and have loved reading your own efforts at slaying the mortgage capital beast! I find it refreshing and reassuring in equal measure to know there are other people around (even on the other side of the world) who are focussed on this thing. Most people I know are happy to accept their mortgage term or to take on even more debt and I sometimes feel like an alien among them.
It is interesting to hear about the process you have gone through of discovering what you really can put aside for overpayments. I sometimes come up with some outlandish figures and then reality pulls me back. But you have to keep trying and even some small payments make a real difference. I would be interested to hear how you got on with the YNAB process- I have shied away from that one so far.

armchairexpert · 27 May 2017 at 5:34AM

Hi Anavand! I am evangelical about YNAB, I tried it before years ago and didn't get on with it but it clicked this time and it's magical. I'm just in the process now of juggling money around to cove a grocery overspend - the money's spent, so it can't be there for anything else! It's such a difference from the old days of "Oh well, we'll just be a bit more frugal next month" when next month brought its own inevitable expenses.

I also just paid out for the girls' end of year ballet show costumes plus term fees for them and Mr Expert (painting class for him) plus $500 to the strata corporation for the unit. I'd like to say it's a bad month and next month'll be better, but probably it won't, let's be honest, there's always something.

Gorgeous day at the moment, but there are some ominous clouds on the horizon. The girls have been planning to set up a cupcake stall outside our house tomorrow to take advantage of market crowds (there's a monthly market a block from us, we always get parked in and lots of people walk past our place). They've been planning it all month: they've made handmade signs declaring that proceeds go to animal rescue, they're decorating animal-themed cupcakes with their Dad as I type...and I think the weather's going to be revolting. What a shame.

Anavand · 27 May 2017 at 3:13PM

What a sweet project by your girls. Hopefully they might still be able to sell some, even under some umbrellas.

Thanks for your recommendation about YNAB! I will definitely have to check it out. I hear about it a lot and have had a basic look but I think I have a mental block about the word "budget", even though in reality staying within a limited budget is basically what I am always trying to do. Hmmm. But I might be missing out on something useful so I will need to keep a more open mind and check it out.

Hopefully the weather will stay good for you!

armchairexpert · 29 May 2017 at 1:25AM

What I like about YNAB is it encourages you to 'Roll with the punches'. So I have $75/month down for medical costs (everything from prescriptions to doctor gap payments (we have a national health system but it's being shaved away over time, sound familiar? So there's an extra cost on top of what's subsidised)). This month, Mr Expert managed to rack up $300 in various medical costs. Obviously we can't not pay that, just because it wasn't in the budget. But instead of either throwing my hands up in the air and going 'well, there goes the budget this month, try again next month', YNAB says - every dollar has a job to do, you only have the dollars that are currently available to you, so some of them are going to have to pulled off other tasks and reassigned.

In my case, this month, that meant nothing went in the Christmas pot, or the Holiday pot, or the Home Repairs pot, and also I shaved $30 off the Groceries budget to make up the difference. Doing it like that makes you really, really conscious of what an overspend means. One splurge on a nice pair of trousers (*coughs*) means you have to sacrifice somewhere else, or not pay a bill.

Traditional budgets tend to forecast ahead: this is what I'll have to pay this month, this is what I'll get paid, this is how I'll allocate. YNAB concentrates on the money you actually have. If you haven't been paid yet, you can't allocate money for the electricity bill that's due in two weeks until you have been. Some people worry that this method will make them forget what will be due - so if you don't forecast, how will you remember to keep some money for that bill, next pay? What I do is put the cost and the date due into my category descriptions. So my Car Insurance category is called "Car Insurance $70 28/" which means that by the 28th of each month I have to have $70 allocated there. I don't ever look at my money and think "oh, it's for spending!" until all my categories are filled up, even though between Mr E and I we have income coming in five times a month.

Sorry, I told you I was evangelical!

armchairexpert · 29 May 2017 at 1:31AM

Oh, and my poor girls! A couple of their friends turned up with biscuits and honey crackles, and they put up balloons and decorated signs and then they sat there and sat there. The weather was so dreadful that nobody was at the markets at all,. Usually my street is wall-to-wall cars by 10am and by 11am people are streaming past our house from blocks away, but the roads were just empty. We gave up at noon.

We sold ten cakes, and eight of them were to the various parents (including us) of the girls! All that work, my poor little sausages. Mr Expert has taken the remainder to try and guilt his workmates into buying them.

Tahlullah · 29 May 2017 at 10:00AM

It sounds like your weather is a reflection of ours. So sorry it didn't work out for the girls. Maybe they can try again another month.

I think you should be evangelical about YNAB. It's because you rarely come across a product that really does what it says on the tin.

And paid 5 times a month! What I would give for 2 - I really like the idea of 2 pay slips per month, but I guess it's what you are used to.

I have just paid my annual subscription to YNAB, so in it for the long haul!

armchairexpert · 30 May 2017 at 2:45AM

Well I get paid monthly, Mr Expert is fortnightly, and rent for the unit comes in fortnightly as well. It is good, it satisfies my itchiness to get back into YNAB and twiddle with things regularly. I only mentioned it though because I've seen people say that they feel YNAB isn't as good for people who get paid more frequently - I guess because they prefer to have the whole month's income in place at once to allocate - and I wanted to say that it still works for me.

Sun's finally shining today after a few very soggy days, and the freeloading chickens are all over my garden looking relieved. We're just waiting for the roosters to become unmistakable and then I'll send all but one roo to "a nice farm in the countryside" and we'll be back down from 9 to, I'm guessing 5 or 6. We're going to try and keep a rooster (probably Poddledonk) and see how it goes. I like the idea of free baby chickens (and they're so much easier to rear if they belong to a mama hen then having to use a brooder), but I don't know how annoying the crowing might prove to be so it might be a truncated experiment. I have a largeish block of land, as do my neighbours to each side, and there's vacant land and commercial buildings behind me so no neighbours near the actual coop, so I think it's worth trying out.

Tahlullah · 30 May 2017 at 7:38AM

Oh, THAT 'nice farm in the countryside'... Say no more.

armchairexpert · 31 May 2017 at 2:10AM

I pretty much live in the countryside, which makes that line less convincing, but the family is operating on a 'choosing to believe' basis here!

I went out last night to a school council thing, with dinner provided, so I did a roast chicken and vegetables for the rest of the family with the expectation that there'd be loads left for another dinner. After all, one adult and two small children can't eat that much, right?

People, of a 5lb chicken plus potatoes, carrots, roast onion and roast tomatoes (and gravy!), I came home to a carcass on which one chicken breast still remained, and half a potato. Mr Expert tells me the girls were still hungry after that so he made them fried bananas and a glass of milk each. They're 5 and 8! The teenage years are going to be terrifying.

Anyway I can get a chicken pie out of it, although I will have to top it up with extra veg, but blinking heck.

The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

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