Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

Tropically · 19 April 2017 at 4:54PM

mfmaybe wrote: »

I think you don't have debt outwith your mortgage, and you are living within your means so it is hard to find the impetus to cut back.

Could you work out something like - every £20 you spend in a pub could save you £30 (or whatever) if you paid it off the mortgage now? Set yourself rules about how often you eat out, or how many hours you spend in a pub during a month.

You are right on the money. Every £20 saved from the pub would mean £11 of interest saved, so £31 later. My rate of discounting is probably such that I would rather have £20 now instead of £31 in 25 years time... We are 27 and 29, and are spending about 18% of our salaries on entertainment at the worst. We are saving 18% of our salaries as well, plus 5% going into a 'house float' fund, outside of mortgage overpayments If I look at it that way, then it makes me not want to cut back at all... I guess the point is to not feel bad, but to plan so that the food I eat out is food I want to eat and the drinks I have out are drinks I WANT to have, rather than just because I am out of the house.

michelle09 wrote: »

Hmm... what is it about the pub that appeals to you? The atmosphere or the drinking? Can you replicate it anywhere else?

We started making our own cider at home (obviously it requires planning in advance) but we can produce 40 pints for about £30 ingredients. Then we invite friends over where we provide the cider and games, and everyone brings a pot of food.

Without being rude, is the cider good? I have seen there are some good things at Lakeland which appeal to me. I love making new things. Games is a good shout. I should organise a games night.

Jessy103 wrote: »

Hi tropically! I might sound a bit of a bore (I'm 30) but I love reading so to save money I swap a lot of books with friends, my MIL likes doing jigsaws so I borrow them when she's completed them, I also like to do a bit of crosstitch and I grow some vegetable in pots on the windowsills and in my little garden. It would be good if you could find a hobby that doesn't cost much that would keep you entertained at home instead of going to the pub. x

I should read more books, definitely. It's a lot of fun. When it gets nice again I could sit outside and read books in the garden!! I have many solo-hobbies but it's the social part that I need to get better at. Maybe I should really really try for board games and beer at home. I get a little bit of anxiety at inviting people to my house, and when hosting I want to go all out with 10 course fancy meals. I could just relax about it. My mum is always stressy about having people over, for example at Christmas we usually have at least 15 dishes for 6 people attending... My boyfriend on the other hand doesn't want to even tidy before guests arrive. A balance is in the middle of course.

So in other news, I was a BrewDog Equity Punk and should be getting a payout on some of my shares! I will be getting about £200 from their recent buy out so that'll be a nice bonus. I have to research the tax implications but I hope it's alll mineeee.

I am also going to diligently record my garden produce and transfer savings into my OP fund. So far, I have saved.... £5.00......... so not the greatest yet but I hardly have anything in yet.

mfmaybe · 19 April 2017 at 8:16PM

Ah, DH was also a punk and he's a bit annoyed about it at the moment. Something to do with the number of shares you are allowed to cash in, but they've just done a share split which means he can only reap 10% of what he thought. There's quite a lot of noise about it apparently. Still, it's a nice return on investment!

So on your entertainment budget; you sound in an incredibly good place financially for the age you are. If you don't actually want to cut back your entertainment budget, then don't. :cool: Within reason (Such as not getting into debt) then do whatever makes you happy. You are only young once

michelle09 · 22 April 2017 at 12:01PM

It's not rude - it's a reasonable question! I quite like it, although it's a little drier than my normal preference. My OH loves it. No we're getting the garden redone he's checking apple trees so we can start from scratch (rather than the puree).

The first time we did it, we had a party and I bought a few bottles of wine just in case people had preferences/didn't like it etc. Only one bottle of wine got opened between the seven of us.

My main tip is - leave it after bottling as long as possible. It's drinkable after two weeks, but much better after six months.

Tropically · 24 April 2017 at 2:43PM

I have a lot of apple trees on the nearby streets, and we back onto a park which was formerly an orchard. I bet we could harvest a lot and make cider. I will look into it. A trial run now with the puree, plus a harvesting in the summer sounds wonderful.

So, the refugee that was staying with us has moved out. Although we lost about £200 pm in Airbnb income since January, I wasn't too sure about the whole Airbnb thing anyway. It wasn't that much money for the sheer amount of cleaning and washing I had to do. He cleaned the house almost every day and was a really nice person to have around. He never bothered us and was clean, tidy, and respectful. My MIL was incredibly grumpy about it, and was telling my boyfriend that he should 'kick him out onto the street'. Actual words. Of course that provided me with motivation to have him stay with us for even longer, but I have relatives and friends coming to stay in the summer so all good things have to end.

The programme we hosted him under said DO NOT give your guests money. I brought it up with my boyfriend and asked if we should give him money. My boyfriend said something to the effect of, "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, why would you even suggest it? Why did you bring it up?" This from the man spending £1300 on booze since Jan! Anyway, I just said, "oh, okay, never mind."

I got some cash out from the cash point, and put £40 in our guest's suitcase as he was leaving. It's my own money, so I didn't tell my boyfriend. Our former guest sent me a text message sayin, "Oh my god I am speechless, I wish I knew a word that's much stronger than Thank you. After everything you did for me, you gave me money on top that I just found this morning. You have no idea what a difference this money will make as I don't even have £1.50 for a single bus fare. Thank you so much. I wish you guys all the very best. God bless you."

He followed up about an hour later, "Too bad, there's nothing more that I can say or do than to say thank you once again." English is his second language so you'll have to forgive any grammar mistakes.

It made me feel really good. Much better than the couple-of-pints-and-a-crap-meal-out we normally waste our money on. I kept my little happiness inside and wasn't going to tell my boyfriend, even though I know for sure that it was a good thing to give him that money.

It didn't last long as his case worker sent us both an email saying, "I just received a text from Kofi saying how much he appreciated everything you did for him and especially for the surprise he rec'd in his bag of £40! That is so kind and generous of you both. He is totally chuffed."

So, my first attempt at keeping a secret didn't last long at all!

mfmaybe, I was a little cheesed off about the limit as well, along with the almost £15 fee! I only bought two shares (which are now apparently 100 shares). My boyfriend missed the deadline so will get neither free beer nor ROI. See, he needs me!

Pay day tomorrow! We had a cheeky weekend away over Easter, so hope to make an overpayment tomorrow after the dust settles. We didn't manage one last month due to the (hopefully now resolved) cash flow issue.

Moneyfordreams · 24 April 2017 at 3:54PM

How lovely are you :T:T :T

Jessy103 · 25 April 2017 at 10:09AM

What a lovely thing for you to do! I'm a big believer in what goes around comes around, so I'm sure you will have some good karma coming your way! x

Tropically · 25 April 2017 at 12:06PM

Overpayment woooooo!

Given that our bank doesn't give us a mortgage balance, I think our balance is £308,611. We are close to having paid off £10,000 since we took out our mortgage last June and will have next month! Of this, £1,729 has been overpayments which we started in earnest in January.

House-related savings: £9,260 - This has decreased because our yearly council bill has come out
Original Mortgage (July 2016) - £318,000
Mortgage Balance - £308,611
Mortgage Overpayments - £1,729

Next monthly, I want to Tilly Tidy by overpaying £751, which could get us to £307,000.

Incywincy21 · 23 May 2017 at 1:36AM

Hey,

What a fantastic blog/diary... I've just read from the beginning!
How are things this month?

I think it's fantastic that you are so committed to overpaying the mortgage and therefore reaping the benefits of owning a property outright reasonably young.

Yes, I understand your quandary about how much you spend on entertainment - but reality is, looking at your SOA from January, that you can afford to spend this if that's what you want to do. You have money left at the end of the month even after allocating for all the things you spend. You give to charity, you are up to date on all your bills - and ultimately you're both still in your 20s and are wanting a life.

If you are really wanting to cut it down, and you are frustrated by it, have you tried the cash envelope system? Just with you mentioning that your boyfriend likes to use cash anyway, it seems it could be a way that you could cut the entertainment area down quite easily (should you really want to).

But like I say, you're in your 20s, doing an amazing job of overpaying the mortgage, you've had a new kitchen fitted, and still need to live/feel young!

Incy x

Tropically · 30 May 2017 at 9:02AM

Incywincy21 wrote: »

Hey,

What a fantastic blog/diary... I've just read from the beginning!
How are things this month?

I think it's fantastic that you are so committed to overpaying the mortgage and therefore reaping the benefits of owning a property outright reasonably young.

Yes, I understand your quandary about how much you spend on entertainment - but reality is, looking at your SOA from January, that you can afford to spend this if that's what you want to do. You have money left at the end of the month even after allocating for all the things you spend. You give to charity, you are up to date on all your bills - and ultimately you're both still in your 20s and are wanting a life.

If you are really wanting to cut it down, and you are frustrated by it, have you tried the cash envelope system? Just with you mentioning that your boyfriend likes to use cash anyway, it seems it could be a way that you could cut the entertainment area down quite easily (should you really want to).

But like I say, you're in your 20s, doing an amazing job of overpaying the mortgage, you've had a new kitchen fitted, and still need to live/feel young!

Incy x

I think the cash envelope system will really work for us! I will try and persuade the boyfriend to go for it.

I didn't do my normal pay day update because I was really distracted. My boyfriend decided to do the very un-MSE thing of proposing to me! Yikes! He didn't have a ring, and said I could pick the one I wanted and choose the budget I wanted. I think that was the first test...

So, once that arrives and the dust settles, we will have to start saving for a wedding. For this reason, I haven't made an OP this month. My family has been super excited and I've had several hour-long phone calls where I hardly said a word because they had so many ideas.

try_harder · 30 May 2017 at 11:59AM

How lovely -Congratulations

Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

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