Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

sweetdaisy

Thanks Southerndave, didn't even realise that people have been successful in billing their Council. Some of the pot holes are unavoidable .

southerndave

Have a read:

http://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/how_to_claim

http://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/pothole-damage-how-to-claim.html

http://www.highways.gov.uk/our-road-network/land-property-and-compensation/claims-for-damage-caused-by-potholes/

Most people don't claim because of the small amounts involved and the effort, but the council knows this. However, like everything, if more people DID claim, it would force the issue as the expense of claims would start outweighing the savings of simply ignoring the problem of poor roads, which seems to be the current Government policy. Personally I'd prefer to see the government sending a little less of our money overseas 'for aid' ironically to build roads in the developing world, whilst ours in the 'decaying world' are left to go to 'pot'..... Be interested to hear how you get on.:)

sweetdaisy

Thanks for all the info Southerndave .

Having read it, I won't be making a claim as the potholes are on an extremely busy dual carriageway and I'd probably end up getting knocked over whilst trying to take a picture/measure etc. However, I will definitely use the Potholes site to report them.

sweetdaisy

Done the usual Sunday shuffle of money between the accounts. Had an underspend this week of £24, so divided it between mortgage overpayment and savings.

Booked some leave from work and working a 3 day week next week. DS2 has a medical appointment and I also have an annual review with my bank. They are a waste of time usually as all they do is try and get me to change to a fee-paying Current Account - which I won't do .

I am off the following week for Half Term and am hoping to get some painting done. It has been on my To Do list for absolutely ages, so hoping that I can make a start on it before Christmas.

DH celebrates a big Birthday next February, his 40th _party_. We don't really do much for our birthdays apart from go out for a meal but we are looking to go to Center Parcs for the weekend. We went in 2010 when DS1 was 2 years old and he enjoyed, so the children will love it . Just need to ask School for permission if he can have the Friday and Monday off.

southerndave

Good luck with the time off, I suspect the answer will be no. You might be lucky and time it right for an inset day or more strikes....seems school absences are only judged one way...

sweetdaisy

southerndave wrote: »

Good luck with the time off, I suspect the answer will be no. You might be lucky and time it right for an inset day or more strikes....seems school absences are only judged one way...

DS1 has not had any time off from school, but his school does allow up to 10 days authorised absence a year, at the Head Teacher's discretion. Will just have to wait to see if his Head Teacher grants the leave before I book anything. If not, we will look to go somewhere for the Saturday/Sunday, such as a Theme Park etc.

sweetdaisy

Had my annual review with my Bank this week. The outcome - the Adviser told me (as I expected) that there was no advice she could give on making the most of my accounts and products. She picked up quite quickly that I wanted to be mortgage free, by the streams of overpayments made into the mortgage account .

Pay day this week and a new Spreadsheet for the November finances has been set up. Got extra money in my pay for being ‘On-Call’, so paid this into Savings and moved money between the accounts.

Cashback credit card statement received this week and Iearned £17.81 in cashback last month, mainly due to Christmas shopping. Total to be paid in January 2014 is now£135.07.

£159.15 interest added to the mortgage (£8 less than last month). Due to offsetting this is equivalent to an overpayment of £76 and this has reduced the mortgage term by another month to September 2022 (3 years and 4 months earlier than original end date) .

I contacted Natwest and was informed that my new monthly minimum mortgage payment is £588, so I am automatically overpaying by £162 a month. They also provided some projection figures as well, which according to my spreadsheet are accurate. Based on additional overpayments of £300 a month the mortgage end date would be November 2019 and based on £400 overpayments it would be April 2019 (approx).

Had a good discussion with DH about the finances and heis now getting excited that we are making inroads into reducing the mortgageterm. It helps to show him the mortgagespreadsheet so that he can see how much money we will save.

Spent 25 minutes on the phone to Npower yesterday as they have the wrong address on my account :mad:. This has been an on-going issue for a number of years where they have my electric meter registered at another address. Thankfully, after informing them that I was concerned about my details being forwarded to the other address and asking them if they are breaching the Data Protection Act (seems to have done the trick), they are going to update the National Database and correct their error.

Just finished reading another free book on my Kindle. I have another 47 to read on my‘To Read’ list. I have some very random books on there and subjects I wouldn't usually buy, but as they are all free, I may as well try and increase my knowledge of different subjects.

Hope everyone will be Ok with the Storms forecast for this evening/tomorrow. We are definitely going to be hit by it and if last night was anything to go by, we are in for a horrendous night :eek:. We have put a big plank of old fencing against our fence as it is starting to lean over already (actually it’s next door’s fencing). We lost the fencing on the right side 2 years ago and had it all replaced, but luckily that it looking solid. We have secured everything in the garden and hope that not too much damage is caused.

southerndave

You've been busy! Yes, last night was a bit windy, so fingers crossed for tonight but the weather you can't do much about.....just have to grin and bear it.

sweetdaisy

southerndave wrote: »

You've been busy!

I had two days off work in the week, so made the most of it and got lots done .

I am off work next week as it's Half Term and have some fun things planned with the children, going to an organised Halloween Party, taking DS1 to the Cinema, going Christmas shopping with my Mother in Law for the children and hopefully I'll be able to finish some shopping as well. Not sure I'll get round to painting though - I just can't get motivated to do it.

sweetdaisy

_party_Today is the 2nd Anniversary of my MFW diary and my quest to become mortgage free.

A year ago our mortgage balance was £77,804 and it now stands at £67,756. In one year we have reduced the balance by £10,048.

This time last year we were on target to repay the mortgage 1 year and 8 months earlier than original end date. Now, we are set to repay 3 years and 4 months early .

My original target when I started my Diary was to be Mortgage Free 4 years early (January 2022). I have not yet reached that as I am 8 months away from this target, but hope to reach it by the end of 2014.

I would like to thank everyone for the advice and continued motivation and encouragement to keep me on track.