Balancing not just the budget

RosaBernicia · 5 April 2017 at 9:31PM

Well dashing in to record that yesterday I paid almost £1000 off my mortgage :j

I got my rent deposit back and have used it to clear the mortgage fees (because they are technically a separate loan, you are allowed to pay them off at any point). I couldn't quite stretch to paying them up front at the time but as I have the money to hand now, and it saves interest over such a long period, I have booted them!

It's a lovely motivating feeling as well and has made me think that perhaps the mortgage is really just a bigger version of a debt like all the others, and can be crunched with a little applied cunning! I'm going to look up how much I can overpay per year and try to pay something, even if it's only a little bit, every quarter so that I can feel I'm progressing.

In other :money:news

I have a vets bill for a poorly little moggy but she is feeling better and I had the savings pot ready, so grateful that was available. It will be topped back up again over the next couple of months.
I also got the bill for the car repair and it isn't great - over £300 :eek: - but that is better than I had been worrying about, so could have been worse. I've reshuffled the budget and fortunately my switching bonus for the new account just arrived so that has buffered things by £100 - not that I couldn't have found better uses for the money, but hey ho.
Revised bill for water has arrived and I now have a water meter - was expecting that to take months, but walked out one morning last week and it turned out all the noise in the street was a meter outside my house! Hoping that will end up as lower costs and at least I have more control this way.
Council tax bill now all online so much easier to see - not much of a drop from the 10 month schedule but OK.

Tried out the new tax calculator but it's not really any use to me as the final figure doesn't account for my pension contributions... so will have to wait to payday to find out the real result of the tax changes and the measly measly less than 1% pay rise. Still, I suppose nothing is to be sneezed at, it's all money in the pot.

Oh and have a new employee benefits thing that will get me money off B3nsons for Beds and Arg0s and Curry5 - so must remember to look at those when looking at home shopping.

Still to do:

Get the electricity sorted so that I know my bills per month. Must phone them, as now they have readings I should be able to swop tariffs.
Sort through loyalty cards and do something about keeping them in the car together with vouchers. I have some good deals with myWaitrose that saved me about £20 today and I often use T3sco for petrol so if I was organised about it I could do something with the Clubcard vouchers.

Getting back into the swing of things

Rosa xx

RosaBernicia · 5 April 2017 at 9:33PM

Another still to do I must look at - INSURANCE.

I need to review options for:

phone
laptop
pets
critical illness

Something for an evening when I've got the paperwork back under control.

Rosa xx

EssexHebridean · 6 April 2017 at 10:35AM

Aww hope pusscat is soon better Rosa.

Ace work getting rid of those fees early on - definitely no sense in paying interest on that sum over the term of the mortgage.

On OP'ing - the sooner you start the better, and even £10 a month makes a difference. We worked on the basis initially that every time we made a saving on a bill - utilities, Sky, that sort of thing, we added the saving on to the OP - so that reduction in the water from rated to metered for example - you could divert that straight there too. we called it the "money we didn't know we had" approach on the basis that when you've been paying £40 a month for something, and suddenly get a saving dropping it to £30 a month, you didn't have that £10 in the first place so you'll not miss it! It really worked - I still have an account that a set amount goes to each month that is these very savings - we're up to somewhere about £146 a month now if I remember rightly so it really mounts up. We also diverted a proportion of any pay rises over there on the same basis.

A mortgage is definitely just another debt to be busted - no question!

RosaBernicia · 6 April 2017 at 9:04PM

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Aww hope pusscat is soon better Rosa.

Ace work getting rid of those fees early on - definitely no sense in paying interest on that sum over the term of the mortgage.

On OP'ing - the sooner you start the better, and even £10 a month makes a difference. We worked on the basis initially that every time we made a saving on a bill - utilities, Sky, that sort of thing, we added the saving on to the OP - so that reduction in the water from rated to metered for example - you could divert that straight there too. we called it the "money we didn't know we had" approach on the basis that when you've been paying £40 a month for something, and suddenly get a saving dropping it to £30 a month, you didn't have that £10 in the first place so you'll not miss it! It really worked - I still have an account that a set amount goes to each month that is these very savings - we're up to somewhere about £146 a month now if I remember rightly so it really mounts up. We also diverted a proportion of any pay rises over there on the same basis.

A mortgage is definitely just another debt to be busted - no question!

Thanks EH :A

I'll think about that when I've got a bit settled and know my monthly bills. And perhaps after other things have calmed down because I've just spent a totally :eek::eek::eek: amount in Ikea... I know I need furniture a month ago, I know I don' t really have time to source it secondhand and upcycle... but why do glorified boxes cost so much?!! :eek::rotfl:

Rosa xx

RosaBernicia · 10 April 2017 at 7:44PM

Belated Sunday shuffle... overall score a bit :eek: and :mad:

I've bought furniture on the credit card, and it should be covered with this month's paycheque but is technically borrowing til then. I suppose it's a good thing that I no longer like this feeling :rotfl:

I put together one of the small items and am very annoyed to find that it doesn't fit where I wanted it to go. I forgot to take the wider skirting boards into account. Haven't found anywhere else it can go yet so it may have to be rehomed. Really cross about this as with the bill for bumping neighbour's car that's over £400 this month that could have been better used elsewhere.

Another vet bill today but mog is doing better so hopefully this won't get to be a regular thing. I need to call up and cancel their care plans at the old vet's - will try and get that done tomorrow.

Still too many things to do in the house, so looking forward to the bank hol weekend :T

Rosa xx

MuffinTops · 10 April 2017 at 8:52PM

Congratulations on everything Rosa. It's so overwhelming, isn't it? I hope your moggy is ok. You've had so much going on that I'm not surprised you had a reverse accident. I hope you're feeling better about things now.

I like EH's money we didn't know we had plan because not only does that money go somewhere without you missing it, but overall it becomes more because you're no longer paying interest on that extra £10 or whatever it is. Great plan.

Good luck with those insurances. Do you Use the cash back sites? They offer good returns on insurance policies. If you have the time to do a bit more digging, that is.

MTxx

RosaBernicia · 11 April 2017 at 9:18PM

MuffinTops wrote: »

Congratulations on everything Rosa. It's so overwhelming, isn't it? I hope your moggy is ok. You've had so much going on that I'm not surprised you had a reverse accident. I hope you're feeling better about things now.

I like EH's money we didn't know we had plan because not only does that money go somewhere without you missing it, but overall it becomes more because you're no longer paying interest on that extra £10 or whatever it is. Great plan.

Good luck with those insurances. Do you Use the cash back sites? They offer good returns on insurance policies. If you have the time to do a bit more digging, that is.

MTxx

Thanks MT

I didn't use cashback for insurance this time as I got a good deal with the company who now have my car, buildings and contents - very happy with their service, their renewal has been as good as online quotes and they let me be flexible with fees over moving.

Planning on using the money I don't yet know I have in this year's pay adjustments to go to cover critical illness insurance for the mortgage.. and save anything left over for overpayments

Rosa xx

doingitanyway · 11 April 2017 at 10:26PM

It is almost 1 year since you became debt free and here you are in your own home. Wonderful

RosaBernicia · 17 April 2017 at 9:14PM

doingitanyway wrote: »

It is almost 1 year since you became debt free and here you are in your own home. Wonderful

Wow, that's a very, very good point DIA! Thank you for the reminder. :A

I've spent all weekend building furniture and feeling very impatient at how long it takes to get everything sorted... but also noticed how different I feel in this house. It's very light and just the right size - it's going to be gorgeous when I have it all the way I want it. And in the meantime I will try to enjoy the journey because as you say, things look a whole lot different now than they did this time last year!

I think a DF anniversary thread party will be in order

Rosa xx

RosaBernicia · 18 April 2017 at 9:42PM

Well a rather belated Sunday shuffle report...

I am overspent in a few areas. I have signed up for some 'style' courses with a lovely friend of a friend, on big discounts, but it wasn't planned spend and this month has no leeway because of the neighbour's car costs and furniture. However, I do have a refund due which I have now chased up and that will cover most of the overspend. The furniture is due to be paid off the credit card on this payday, hopefully - if not, there may have to be a balance carried for a week or so.

I sorted the bedroom furniture on the weekend and am really pleased with the look of it but a bit freaked out to find that it seems to have set off my asthma. I've had the windows open all this evening and hopefully it will go off in a few days together with the chipboard smell. But it's made me aware of trying to buy real wood in future. I've also had a good tidy in the spare bedroom now that I could move some things out of it into the new wardrobe, and that now looks much better. I've got an idea what furniture I need there and things are gradually moving into piles for packing in the loft/ fleabaying. The kitchen things will be done on the weekend. So progress

I'm hoping to have a bit more time to look around for second hand furniture over the next few months and save some pennies there. Paying off the mortgage fees has saved me a whole £4 a month and I'm still thinking I want to be tweaking the mortgage just so it doesn't get comfortable

:rotfl:

Hope everybody is OK after the back to work shock!

Rosa xx

Balancing not just the budget

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