£161,044.25 reasons to be mortgage free

wantabetterlife

Hi Michelle...i havent been on this board a lot recently over the last couple of weeks as apart from the normal monthly payment there has been no progress with the mortgage.
It really annoys me that we cant make any overpayments but i am on SMP and we are just trying to get the books to balance at the minute and save a few pounds for our holiday in July.
I am back to work at the end of august so hopefully i will be full of renewed energy when i am getting paid again I have been keeping up with your diary though and you are doing so well with your extra earnings :j. I am sure you are delighted DH s student loan is paid off....think it will be about another 4 years before mine is paid off, atleast then i will be £113 a month better off

cha97michelle

Yes, we both finished student loans this year so it has made a difference, and even better to get £500 back from them to go to the mortgage that we weren't expecting.

You must be finding it hard going. I found it harder on SMP than now when i am not working even though now we have less. Most bizarre.

Just keep plodding. You will get there in the end. I'm sure you will soon catch up when back at work.

wantabetterlife

Hi everyone...just returned from a weeks holidays...had a great time. We managed to spend about £700 but the kids and us had a great time so am not going to worry too much about it.

The good news is we have finally managed to get the mortgage below 140k :j:j......
OUR NEW TOTAL IS £139667...WHOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO

It feels like it has taken such a long time to get below 140k but we are both really happy that we have done it. Even though we made no extra overpayments £512 has come off the capital :D

My maternity leave is coming to an end in a few weeks so am trying to get organised. Am gonna work out our daily interest :rotfl:

Daily interest is now £17.67

CathT

wantabetterlife wrote: »

Thats great being able to spread your maternity pay over the nine months...i work in the NHS too but our trust didnt provide that option.
Yeah we are really looking forward to getting below 140k, it will be a big achievement for us.
Hope the pregnancy is going well, it seems like no time since you told us all you were expecting!

I am actually going to change my mind about the 9 month equal pay and have it the 'old way' as I have found out they can't deduct childcare vouchers from SMP so if I have occupational maternity pay the whole way through I think I will be worse off. (i personally think that's why the payment option changed!)

Yes pregnancy is flying, 9 weeks to go!

Well done on hitting such a great milestone on mortgage. Are you returning to work full time?

cha97michelle

Fantastic work hon.

Onwards and downwards.

I'm glad you had a fab time away. We go in a couple of weeks, and I will try not to go wild but we need a good one, so I am going to chill out a bit and not worry.

wantabetterlife

Hi Cath T, i didnt realise that about the childcare vouchers. Unfortunately i am returning to work full time, OH's job is not overly secure and if i reduce my hours i would be so afraid that i would not get them back if i needed to...there have been so many cuts accross all departments. On the plus side i will be phasing in four the first four weeks..basically this allows me to work 27 hours for the first four weeks but i get full pay...dont know if all NHS trusts provide this but might be worth checking out. Also i have a full years annual leave to use before april which will break me in gently

I have managed to negotiate a daily rate with my childminder who is not registered. Previously i paid her for all the days i was off. It was a bit akward approaching the subject with her as she is family but hopefully it will work out ok.

Thanks michelle, thats a good saying, onwards and downwards .
Hope you have a great time away, i tried not to think to much about the cost of things and we did end up eating out a lot!
On a MSE note i went to tesco and iceland today and stocked up on loads of food which should keep us going for a while and used a £6 off a £40 spend voucher in MrTs :j

Lois_E

Do check whether you can use the vouchers with an unregistered childminder. I know that you can't get the childcare element of working tax credit for anyone unregistered, but I've never used childcare vouchers so I don't know about those. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for those, though, so it's probably worth finding out for definite.

wantabetterlife

Hi Lois, for me to get childcare vouchers my childminder needs to be regitered. However because she is family and she is not registered it works out cheaper. Swings and round abouts really. Thanks for posting and i hope your enjoying your summer off

wantabetterlife

Quidco have paid me £7.30 and the halifax rewards have been paid and thats another £10...so have rounded it up to £20 and paid it off the mortgage :j
Me and OH were watching the film "just go with it" the other night with jennifer anniston and...cant remember his name. Dont know if any of you have seen it but part of it is filmed in Maui, Hawaii and the hotel resort is absolutely gorgeous...this is now on our wish list once we are mortgage free...the list is growing rapidly .

superwoman247

Good idea, I need to do a wish list of places I would ike to visit wen all I will be paying is council tax, phone, gas and electricity:cool: