Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

sweetdaisy

Still trying to get into a routine re: work/children/home life/college and I am enjoying my course however, at times it all gets on top of me and I just can’t function . I feel I am constantly on the go and have no time to relax/do exercise which I really miss as it’s the only chance I get to clear my mind. Really looking forward to being off work for the half-term, as I feel I need a break from work and college.

MFW/Finances:

• Monthly mortgage payment made, plus an OP of £81. This has reduced the term by a further month and balance is £56,359. We are now due to repay the mortgage 4 years and 1 month earlier than the original end date - December 2021 :j.
• Redeemed £17 from a Survey site. Half went into the Birthday’s/Christmas savings pot and the other half into our main Savings pot.
• Spent quite a bit of money this past fortnight as there have been a few family Birthdays.

Other:

• Our radiators are now working. Heating has been put on a couple of times, mainly during the evening for a couple of hours when bathing the children.
• Whilst driving to work a stone hit my windscreen, causing a 40cm crack. Contacted my insurance company and having it replaced next week, costing me an excess of £80. I only paid £25 a few months ago to have a chip repaired :mad:.
• DS1 has had his Plaster Cast changed and is very happy, now that his new one is a Camouflage design. It will be coming off in a fortnight, thankfully.
• Purchased tickets to see Father Christmas at a Steam Railway for the beginning of December, so looking forward to this. Hopefully it will be really festive and weather-wise won’t be a damp squib like last year.

sweetdaisy

I am off work next week and looking forward to spending time with the children doing various activities and visiting family. We are all going to a Halloween party next Friday and I dug out the children’s costumes from last year and they still fit, so there is no point in buying new.

It looks like I need to buy myself a new mobile phone. I have had mine for over 7 years and it is now starting to do weird things, so it’s time that I changed it. I am so out of touch when it comes to phones as I don’t even use the internet on mine . I think I need to ‘get with the times’ and try to get something a bit more modern, but I feel completely swamped with the choices available, plus I don’t want a phone that I’ll have to charge a few times a week (is that even possible these days?!)

MFW/Finances:

• I know that it is too early to be thinking about New Year Resolutions, but I have had a little think and I am not going to be making any next year. I am not setting myself any financial goals i.e. reduce the mortgage by?, reduce the term by? Etc. My reason for this is that I am not sure what will happen on the job front as there is likely to be redundancies next year and I also need to be looking to change jobs in line with my college course, so this means taking a big pay cut.
  
• At the moment I am ploughing as much money into Savings as possible and have dramatically cut my mortgage overpayments as I feel that I need to concentrate on getting my Emergency Fund back up to £10,000. Had we not used Savings to replace the cars in February, we would probably have reached that target by now, but things happen and need replacing and that is what Savings are meant for.
  
• Monthly interest of £141 has been added to the mortgage, £10 less than last month. At this rate, we should be under the £100 mark by March 2015. Mortgage balance has increased to £56,500.
• Purchased a couple of Christmas presents – some done through TCB and all paid for using my Cashback Credit Card.
• Redeemed £20 from a survey site (waiting for payment), which will all be going into Savings.

sweetdaisy

Had my car serviced with my local independent garage costing £136. I was expecting it to be a lot more, so am happy with the price and that it is all ready for the Winter.

No College this week as it is half term, but have been studying hard as I have an exam next week.

We all went to the Cinema on Wednesday and saw How to Train Your Dragon 2. This was DS2’s (3.5 years old) first visit to the Cinema and let’s just say that it will be a while until he goes again, as he did not want to sit down . On a happier note, we went to an organised Halloween party on Friday which was good. Children really enjoyed, there was a disco and a good atmosphere.

Had to throw out our old living room rug - we have had it for over 8 years and is cream/beige, but over the years it has taken a battering with everything under the sun being spilt on it. I tried my hardest to clean it with my parents’ carpet cleaner, but I can’t lift the stains. Bought a new rug from Dunelms (which was on offer with 20% off) which has a really thick pile and less likely to stain due to the colour. We have laminate flooring in the living room and it feels really soft underfoot.

Got myself a new phone. Upgraded from £15 a month Sim Only deal to £15 a month Contract. As it was an upgrade I didn’t need to pay for the new phone, so pleased with this. Technology-wise I like things which are familiar so trying to get my head around a new phone is giving me a headache.

£141 Mortgage OP made for October – the same amount which was applied to the account in interest. So in my head, we were mortgage neutral for last month. Mortgage is currently sitting at 21% Offset, so have a long way to go until we are fully offset.

During November I am going to do a mini Digital Detox. I am noticing that I seem to be increasing the amount of time I spend online as my laptop is quite frequently left on and in the background. I have set myself a 2 hour internet limit per day (when the children go to bed). This means that when online I will need to be more selective in the surveys I complete as I won’t have time to do them all, but all in all I am hoping that by reducing the amount of time I spend online I can be more productive in the real world, rather than tending to leave things that need doing and hopefully this will mean that I will also have better nights’ sleep as I will go to bed earlier .

slowlyfading

I spend a lot of time online, either on here or blogging/networking for my blog. I need to watch my timings next week, when I'm back in full on work mode!

sweetdaisy

slowlyfading wrote: »

I spend a lot of time online, either on here or blogging/networking for my blog. I need to watch my timings next week, when I'm back in full on work mode!

Hi slowlyfading. I felt that as well as spending slightly too much time online during the evenings (which results in going to bed later than I should), it has also started to seep into my weekend days so I am trying to set myself a little challenge to reduce my time spent online as a lot of it, apart from managing finances and doing surveys etc, just involves searching for the sake of it :rotfl:

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck with it all, you are working incredibly hard and I am sure it will be worth it. X

Watty1

Brave step with the phone. Am trying to pluck up courage to get "with the times" and change mine for something more modern.

sweetdaisy

I’ve not posted for a few weeks, but it’s been a busy time. I passed my College exam and a test and have another exam in 4 weeks. I am going to have to make sure I set enough time aside to study as the exam is a week before Christmas and I will have a lot on and extra activities to attend with the children.

The children are starting to get excited for Christmas and we took them to a local Winter Wonderland over the weekend, which they enjoyed as there were fairground rides, Christmas decorations, music and plenty of fake snow.

Apart from some wrapping, my Christmas shopping in done :xmassmile. I have a few bits and pieces such as colouring books, pens/crayons and stickers to get for the boys’ Christmas stockings, but other than that I am all organised. This has all been funded out of my Christmas/Birthday savings pot as I put £100 a month into this pot and it does help to spread the cost.

In terms of my job, things are a little uncertain at the moment. There is a consultation process going ahead at the moment and hopefully we will hear soon what our fate will be. I am continuing to put as much money into Savings as possible rather than making Mortgage Overpayments, as I had a feeling that this was coming quite a while ago so started preparing. At the moment I am not going into ‘panic-mode’ as I don’t know what will happen or when, but I am hoping to reach 6 months of all monthly outgoings in Savings as quickly as I can.

sweetdaisy

I’ve not been around much of late, but still taking a peek at some diaries when I have the time. If I’m not on again before Christmas, I just want to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS :xmassmile.

Here is a summary of the financials for 2014:
Mortgage at start of the year: £65,400
Current Mortgage balance: £55,081
Total Overpayments: £5,047

My target for the year was to get the Mortgage down to the £55,000 mark and I am happy to say that I have reached this. I have also reached my original target to get the mortgage term reduced to 4 years. Mortgage is now due to be paid by December 2021 (4 months and 1 month earlier than original end date).

Mortgage overpayments have been put on hold for the time being as all spare money is being ploughed into Savings and I quite like seeing the balance increase .

Still no news regarding work and the planned organisational restructure, however I had a positive meeting with a recruitment agency yesterday and they may have some opportunities in the New Year.

slowlyfading

I hope you have a lovely break, and see you in the new year