A blissful home - mortgage_girl's MF diary

mortgage_girl

BookWorm wrote: »

:j yay for you being finished... I'm excited for you and it helps to get me through the last few days

Aww thank you BW. Despite finishing last Friday, I don't seem to have stopped. There's been all the usual housey jobs to do as well as icing the final xmas cakes (one turned into a disaster...ahem, snow drift ), presents to wrap, cards to write, hospital and hairdressers appointments to attend, so it's all been pretty manic. But it has been nice to have the time to get things done and I finally got my essay submitted too so I can forget about it now. I asked for a few people to proof read it and got amazing feedback off the Head, which is definitely a compliment, so I left work on Friday with a Ready-Brek glow.

I treated myself to a copy of the TV T1mes yesterday and spent the evening snuggled up on the sofa, candles lit, perusing and generally vegging out in front of the tv, it was lovely. I'm going to an 18th birthday gathering today and a small family gathering tonight so it's going to be a busy but chilled day.

Let the celebrations begin!

MGx

BookWorm

Hello MG - well done on getting your essay done and handed in - at least you can totally relax now. I hope that you enjoyed your party today.

Have a wonderful Christmas hun!!

:xmassign:

BW xx

mortgage_girl

Thank you BW. I had a lovely Christmas day with my family and was totally spoilt with presents. I've had a couple of days spent relaxing (one morning I didn't wake uo til 10.00! :eek:) and now I'm starting to potter around and tackle a few jobs on my to-do list. I've washed the car and started to tidy up the garden ready for the new growing season. I've also started to think about my op goals for next year. All being well I'd like to get my mortgage into the low 20's and then I'm thinking it would be sensible to stop op-ing and start saving to become mortgage neutral as keeping the mortgage open for as long as possible will give me access to the op's I've made, which is handy as an emergency fund. So my plan is to become mortgage neutral and then continue to build up my savings to give myself a decent cushion before I pay the mortgage off - which would take just over 3 years once I stop op-ing. It makes sense to me but if anyone can see a massive flaw in the plan then do shout. I have wondered about reducing the payments to fit in with the full mortgage term as at some point in the future it is likely that i'll move, so I wondered if that would save me having to take out a new mortgage product, but I'm not sure. I've got plenty of time to think about it so I'm not too worried.

Another thing I'd like to do next year is decorate the living room. There's no fire in there at the moment, just a radiator so I'd like to get a gas fire fit as well as have it decorated, get a new carpet, sofa etc. So it's likely to be a big (and expensive) job. I'll be as mse as I can though and get my bargain hunter head on.

That's my plan so far - we'll see what else occurs from my scheming over the next few days. :rotfl:

Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas.

MGx

Luckyinlife

Some great plans :] good luck

Always good to have list of things to do achieve :]

sarahevie1

I don't think there's a flaw in keeping the mortgage open, depends how much it is costing in interest, but probably nothing if neutral. Seems like a sensible option if you can get OPs back.

mortgage_girl

Thanks Lil and sarahevie. The interest would be at 2.5% but I'm figuring that I can get a better rate than that on my savings, plus if I needed to dip into it in an emergency then it's a much better rate than I'd get for a loan. It seems the 'sensible' option at the moment so I'll see how I feel in a years time when it's time to make the decision.

Things have started to return to normal after Christmas, my partner went home today after spending Christmas together so I've been doing some tidying and getting the house in order. I ordered some radiator heat reflector sheets from the Am@zon deals so I've fitted those today too. Hopefully they'll prove to be a good return on the investment as my walls are too thin for cavity wall insulation (mid 1920's terrace), so they should help to keep the heat in a bit.

I've been spreadsheet fiddling again and have worked out that I've managed to reduce my mortgage by just over £14,500 this year which is amazing and I came pretty close to my £11,000 op target which I'm really pleased with. As a little treat I've decided to have a bit of a splurge and bought a fitbit, I also bought one for my partner so we can be fitbit buddies and hopefully spur each other on. They're due to arrive tomorrow so I'm looking forward to having a play around. I have had my eye on them on Am@zon and have been waiting with baited breath for the price to drop and it finally did today, much to my brother's disgust who paid £30 more than I did.

I've got a docs appointment tonight and need to soak the ham before cooking it tomorrow. But apart from that I think I'm going to have a chilled evening sat reading. I got the M@ry Port@s book for Christmas and have had it glued to my face (not literally!) at every opportunity. It's definitely worth a read.

Have a lovely evening.

MGx

mortgage_girl

:starmod::staradminHappy New Year!!! :starmod::staradmin

2015 seems to have flown by and I can't believe that the new year is upon us already. New Year's Eve was spent relaxing with my partner and a few drinks in front of the tv - we certainly know how to lead the high life and we actually saw the new year in with a cuppa! :rotfl:New Year's Day was filled with more relaxing, good food and a little walk around the village. I popped to my Nanna's on the evening to have a new year's drink with her. Today has been a steady day, I've returned my library books, done a bit of tidying, sorted some 'treasures' to sell and I've started to get the veg patch ready for the new year, so it's time for a well earned cuppa and a sit down.

The fitbit's have been a massive success. We've been busy tracking our sleep and steps and cheering each other on virtually when we've not been together. I've almost done 10,000 steps today which is a fab result.:)

So far this year I've redeemed a £10 Am@zon voucher, won £5 on a scratchcard and have got a couple of free kindle books worth £3.70 by accepting Am@zon Prime's no rush delivery so I'll be adding that to my op pot.

I've been pondering a few New Year's goals and want to do a bit more than just focus on money goals this year. So, in typical New Year's style I'm thinking on what I want to achieve in terms of health, wealth and happiness.

Health :heartpuls
- Walk 10,000 steps as often as possible.
- Meditate daily.
- Start running again (I am a fair weather runner) and build my distance up to 10km.

Wealth :money:
- Pay £11,000 off the mortgage.
- Continue to build my emergency/freedom fund.

Happiness
- Build 'me' time into my daily routine.
- Read more books.
- Reconnect with 'lost' hobbies - gaming, card reading, getting creative.
- Continue to build my blissful home - through monthly 'blissful' goals.

I've been reading quite a bit over the holiday and it's been lovely. It's so easy to get caught up in the 'busyness' of daily life and forget to take time out for ourselves, so I definitely want to make 'me' time a priority in 2016.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous 2016 so far.

MGx

BookWorm

Coming to wish you a belated Happy New Year MG

I'm glad that you had a lovely Christmas and break from work. Nice to see you have had some more reading time Anything in particular you have enjoyed?

You've also got off to a great start for 2016 and the goals for the coming year sound great :T

BW x

cookie9

Well done on your fitbit deal.


A great idea to build in some "me time" into your resolutions. Hope to do that to this year.

mortgage_girl

Thanks for stopping by BW and Cookie. :wave:

BW - I've read The Rosie Project, Elizabeth is Missing and Mary Portas' 'Shop Girl'. I've got Sue Perkins 'Spectacles' for Xmas but I'm finishing off a few books that I'm halfway through first and then I'll get started on it.

Cookie - I think 'me' time is definitely the way forward this year, I really need focus on keeping a work-life balance as things got a bit manic before Xmas. I'm loving my fitbit, it really is pushing me to do a few extra steps each day and making me walk more instead of using the car. The sleep monitoring feature is really interesting too - it's showing me how 'badly' I do sleep, there's no wonder that I wake up feeling tired! :eek:

It's certainly been a busy week back at work, I sometimes think I must be mad doing that job, it feels like I'm walking into chaos on a daily basis - not because things are disorganised but because there's so much to do! I've started to tell myself that I can only do what I'm able to and not to give myself a hard time.

In line with the work-life balance thing I've been out twice on a week night. :eek::rotfl:Once to yoga and another to the cinema. I signed up for Meerkat Movies so it only cost £4.50 for the two of us - bargain (and we might have smuggled our own sweets in too...shhh...)!. We went to see The Danish Girl which i can highly recommend, it is quite sad in parts though so take a tissue.

I've decided to begin replacing my energy saving bulbs with led ones as the buzzing and speed they take to light up is getting on my nerves a bit. After looking around at various leds I've found that they're not that much more expensive, so decided to give them a try. I only bought one (talk about pushing the boat out) and tried it out in the bathroom yesterday and the light quality is amazing, I'll definitely be investing in some more as my energy savers gradually die.

My blissful home task for the month is to sort all of my photos on my computer into albums as they've literally been dumped into one file. I spent about 2 hours at it last night and will hopefully get a bit more done today. Once they're sorted I'm going transfer the ones on my phone too, as it's very unhappy with all the memory it's using to store photos at the moment. Who knows, I might even get a few printed out and put into some photo albums - how retro! :rotfl:

Have a great Sunday.

MGx