Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

sweetdaisy

I’ve picked up my new car and love it :heart2:. I have amended my insurance policy and paid out an additional £211 to cover me on the new car. It doesn't need an MOT until next year and has been taxed for a year.

I have reached my monthly mortgage overpayment target of £300, so no further overpayments until 1st March. I have added £20 to my weekly Spending allowance (£5 extra a week for each of us for fuel and £10 for spending). As the boys are getting older we are spending more on activities for the children, however any weekly under spends will be going straight into Savings.

Npower have recalculated by bill (despite saying it was not due until August!) and I am now £100 in credit, rather than the £531 they originally stated :think:, however they have refunded me by £47.21. My monthly payment for dual fuel is now £80,which is a saving of £14 a month.

I have received my monthly Cashback credit card statement and earned £48.50 last month and my cashback threshold is now 1% on all purchases.

Sent off DS2’s application for School Nursery to the local Council and it looks like his Year won’t be affected by the proposed changes and he’ll be in school full-time in September. I am pleased with this as he is ready for full-time school and it will also save us quite bit of money each month.

Other jobs done:

• Defrosted the freezer
• Done a freezer inventory and a Menu Plan for the fortnight
• Took the children to a local Family Fun Farm
• Turned over the vegetable patch ready for planting and added manure and ash to the soil
• Washed all bedding and spent around 1.5 hours ironing
• Cleaned out the vacuum cleaner (pulled most of it apart), washed the filters etc

sweetdaisy

Monthly interest has been added to the mortgage £157.01 - an increase of £5 compared to last month. However I am not surprised having taken money out of savings due to replacing our cars.

Mortgage balance is now £63,601 .

sweetdaisy

Pay Day yesterday and transferred extra money from working On-Call into Savings. DH gets paid tomorrow and will receive extra in his pay as he worked an overtime shift last week; he is also working overtime this weekend.

Received my recalculated bill from the Water Company and my monthly direct debit will now be £20.50 a month - the same figure as before my water meter was changed :think:. I have no idea how they have worked this out, but won’t be surprised to receive a letter in a couple of months saying that I need to pay more as it seems cheap to me for a family of four, where the washing machine is on almost every day, plus all the bathing and showering.

I attempted to jog yesterday . I used lamp posts as markers and ran between every other one. But, my skin became so itchy it was hurting and I couldn't stop scratching my skin. I am Ok using the cross trainer, fast walking or skipping, but when it comes to jogging/running my skin becomes raw as it itches so much.

Feel a little silly, but after having Sky Freesat for over 9 years I now realise that I have the free Fitness TV and Active Channels. There is no excuse for me now not to do a workout when the children are in bed and DH is working nights. I did a 30 minute Beach Bikini workout tonight and I have to say that my legs and bum are killing me, I think I am going to be in agony tomorrow :rotfl:.

sweetdaisy

Had a lovely day yesterday, did lots including taking the children to a party and going for a nice family walk in the afternoon, however I have spent half the day in bed today as my body is aching and I'm full of cold .

Went to Morrisons for my food shop yesterday (I have not been there for many months) and spent £15 over my weekly food budget and that was including using a £10-off voucher :eek:. I am so used to Aldi that I had forgotten how much more expensive it was. But, I did get some nice treats and a 10p off litre of fuel voucher so used that and saved myself £3.00. I shouldn't need to buy any more diesel until the end of next week.

Gone through my online survey sites and redeemed some money for the ones where I have reached the payment threshold, as it is better sitting in my account offsetting rather than being in the survey accounts.

Attempted to try and potty train DS2 (who is just over 2.5 years old) and he is no where near ready. Luckily I have laminate flooring downstairs, so I pulled up the rug but he was weeing everywhere like a little puppy, so will try again in a couple of weeks :rotfl:.

sweetdaisy

I am finally starting to feel like my normal self again, having had a terrible cold which wasn't helped by the fact that we keep on passing it back and forth to each other in the house, plus I twisted my back putting DS2 into his car seat. I have managed to do some walking, but not as much as usual as I don’t want to do too much.

I am continuing with my monthly overpayment target of £300, but not feeling as motivated as usual. I think it must be down to life being busy at the moment and I am constantly feeling tired. I am building up my savings accounts and can’t wait until I get to a figure that I am happy with, so that I can then start ploughing more money into the mortgage.

Received a Council Tax letter this week and the monthly amount has risen by £6, taking my monthly payments to £150 from April. It is another ‘free’ month in March, but this money has already been put into Savings.

DS2 was supposed to have his operation this week, but I had a phone call a few days before stating that the Surgeon has had to postpone as DS2 needs more scans and tests before the surgery goes ahead. Feel disappointed as I have been worrying sick over this and building myself up for him to have the OP , but hopefully we will get another date soon.

Just finished another e-book, this time about the First World War. I am currently reading an interesting book titled ‘Why I stopped taking Vitamins’. It is intriguing and I am learning a lot about what chemically synthetic ingredients are put into multivitamins and supplements and the side effects it can cause. I am hit or miss with Vitamins and go through stages of taking them, but after reading this I think I will steer clear of them.

sweetdaisy

Credit Card statement came through yesterday and I earned £12.77 cashback last month. Total to be paid in January 2015 is £61.27. At this rate I am going to earn more than I did last year.

I have reviewed our finances and re-organised my financial spreadsheets. I am now going to make my £300 mortgage overpayments on the 1st of every month, instead of making smaller weekly overpayments. This just makes thinks simpler and means my quarterly mortgage statements will be shorter. Any extra money coming in or weekly underspends is going straight into Savings and I love seeing the balance increase. I also need to repay money into the children’s Savings accounts (used to purchase the cars) and I will make a large lump sum payment into their accounts at the end of the year.

Our shower pump has decided to pack in. It has been working intermittently for the past couple of months, but now nothing. DH’s mate is a Plumber and we are having it replaced next week at a cost of £150 approx.

Had someone come around to clean all the gutters and fascias. It cost £45, money well spent I think as this is not a job that I or DH would do, as I would probably end up falling from the ladder.

sweetdaisy

Wishing everyone a happy Easter :icotbaske.

We are going to an Easter Egg hunt later on and according to DS1 he saw the Easter bunny last night :rotfl:. I gave up Chocolate for Lent and am looking forward to eating some later on.

sweetdaisy

It's been a busy few weeks. I have done lots of planning and did the usual Spring Cleaning of the house at Easter .

MFW news:

• £300 overpayment made on 1st April.
• Quarterly Mortgage Interest summary received from December to March. Total savings made since offsetting is £2,949.94. Monthly minimum mortgage balance has reduced by £19 (due to overpayments) and is now £553.
• Current mortgage balance is £61,848 and I hope to be in the £59,000s by the end of August.
• £16.84 cashback earned last month, total to be paid in January is £78.50.

Other:

Attended a Wedding for a close friend a few weeks ago where I was Maid of Honour and thoroughly enjoyed. The children spent the day and night with my parents (the first time that DS2 has stayed out overnight away from us) and both boys had a whale of a time and got up bright and early for my parents at 6:10am!

I think I am having a mid-life career crisis :think:. I have had some Careers advice from my local Careers Centre and done lots of research as I have an interest in a complete change of Career/direction and would like to work in Finance/Accounting. I have had a look at some courses and have taken the plunge :eek: and applied to my local college to study a part-time ‘Association of Accounting Technicians - Level 2 Certificate in Accounting’ from September.

I have been thinking about this for a while but didn't have the nerve to do it. But I thought that if I don’t do it now I never will. I have another 30 years of working before I retire so I should do it while I have the chance. Besides, things are not looking very secure in work for the next financial year (2015/2016), so I need to start planning what I am going to do and would like a complete change in direction.

In preparation I am reading the ‘Dummies book of Bookkeeping’ and am doing a free online Microsoft Excel 2010 course to increase my knowledge before my interview with the college Tutor. I use Excel daily in work and have a basic knowledge of bookkeeping, but want to improve my skills and knowledge in this area.

I understand that if I am successful in getting on the course and go down this route, it will mean taking a massive pay cut to start at entry-level, but this is something I have thought about, DH is supportive in my choice and it’s what I would like to do .

LauraJo

How's the new car? I got one of those recently and LOVE IT!! Soooo economical too!
Good luck with the new career. It may be a pay cut but life is too short to not do what you want to do

sweetdaisy

LauraJo wrote: »

How's the new car? I got one of those recently and LOVE IT!! Soooo economical too!
Good luck with the new career. It may be a pay cut but life is too short to not do what you want to do

Hi LauraJo

I love my new car . I like driving higher up and feel safer in it. It is not as good on fuel as my old car, but it's doing around 52 MPG on average based on driving around 350 miles a week, so I am pleased with this.