Quest for Financial Freedom

Zola. · 2 February 2017 at 6:06PM

All sorted, it worked out well in the end, the plumber I was to book in was going to cost £690 for the work and fitting materials (pipework etc). But he was booked out to end of March.

I got a recommendation from a guy ... £370, pretty much half the price!

Money saved and a little more value added to the house hopefully, solid day.

ch4rly2002 · 2 February 2017 at 8:26PM

Not just extra value to the property, it will help it sell when you eventually decide to move. I'd say that was a very good investment and it will make it more enjoyable for you living in the house. Well done on the price too!

Zola. · 2 February 2017 at 10:05PM

Cheers Ch4rly!

Zola. · 15 February 2017 at 9:59AM

February has been a quiet month so far. We have watched a few movies and taken it pretty easy.

We have wanted a bookcase for sometime so we went shopping around.Most ones we liked were in the £300+ range but I found a lovely pine one, which was perfect and is good build quality. I had to build it up, but it was only £120, and looks great and fits well in our living room. Looks quite elegant. Already half full of books etc.

I also started some work in the kitchen, the last room in our house to get a decorating facelift. I have stripped the wallpaper off and preparing walls for some painting, maybe this weekend..

Nice little side project last week..... revamping an older website for a small business for £400. Was fairly easy work but very valuable to the owner.

I have invested £300 of this in Vanguard Global Small-Cap Index Accumulation and banked the rest in my everyday account for general run around money.

Zola. · 28 February 2017 at 11:59AM

March is basically here already!

Last week I did a full financial inspection of 2016 spending by month and put them into pie charts etc to study. It was a heavy spending year last year... we somehow managed to spend £8k in January, 4k in Feb...(house stuff mostly).

I have compared this with the first two months of this year, and the spending has quartered and halved, and that's including all bills and £800 a month for wedding saving. Seeing the comparative bar charts is very motivating to keep improving.

We have realised that we waste money on certain groceries each week, so we have started doing definitive lists, and using the slow cooker for the past few weeks, which has made for some budget friendly meals, and also very healthy!

I have upped my pension by another 2% which means 12% is going in every month, 6 by me, 6 by employer via salary sacrifice.

I have also upped our S&S ISA Direct Debit to £250 per month from 200, going into Vanguard LS 80%.

I dream of mortgage over-payments but until our wedding is done at the end of the year we wont be able to do so. Our rainy day fund has been floating at about £8500 for a short while and I want to bump that back over 10k ASAP.

Zola. · 19 April 2017 at 2:32PM

Hope everyone is keeping well and making their own progress!

Since last update I have upped my monthly pension contribution to 14% of pay... the 2% jump makes a minimal effect on my net pay, but going in tax free its a decent little jump going into the fund over time.

Usual DD of £250 to investment is ticking along nicely.

Its now under 6 months to we get married, so most things are getting lined up planning wise!!

The current account balance is for the most part staying the same each month. We have been doing some things to the house and are finally in a position where we have it the way we want it, for the next couple of years at least!

We have been putting £800 a side each month into the wedding fund. Once that's taken care of we can really begin starting the overpayments, until then we havent done any, but very keen to begin.

Anyone else in a similar position to me?

Zola. · 9 October 2017 at 10:04PM

Long overdue update - I am now married!

I go on honeymoon very soon...the wedding was amazing. Everyone had a great time, and the reports back were superb. We got so many good gifts also.

I never got a chance to do overpayments as we were so focused on saving for the wedding and were conservative. However, I am very happy to say we did our first overpayment this morning of £1400. If we put £350 a month extra into an overpayment account and pay the £1400 every quarter, we would be basically mortgage free in 10 years, 13 years early. I think that is an achievable target for now, we may be even able to attack it harder. The game has begun!! I plan to keep this thread updated more now that I can actually start making a dent in the bill.

Remaining balance: £120,800.

As of now we have shaved 4 months off the standard time on our mortgage! Our future selves will be glad that we started this...

Silence101 · 10 October 2017 at 6:29AM

Well done on your first OP, and congratulations Mr and Mrs!

Mrs_Money_Penny · 10 October 2017 at 8:37AM

Congratulations happy saving.

Zola. · 10 October 2017 at 2:08PM

Thank you both very much

Getting that first over payment done felt great. One small step at a time !!

Quest for Financial Freedom

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