Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

themadvix

Well, joint bills account was looking a bit over full (£4500ish in there), so DH and I sat down this morning and had a look. It turns out I'm over-allocating about £100/month into there!! :eek: Our bills spreadsheet (i.e. what I base my transfers in on) is loosely based on one my mum gave us when we first moved in, so that we'd have an idea of what we needed to budget. So I know that gas/elec allowance has always been massively more than we actually spend, but I wanted to allow a buffer for increasing costs. What I hadn't accounted for was that I was still paying £14/m boiler cover, that the figure I was using for CT was the 10-month figure, not the total divided by 12 and that I was "overpaying" the water bill by £10/month!

So.... we've just paid another £2800 off the mortgage! (This includes the £228.51 in my OP fund, and £2500 from joint a/c, plus a little bit rounded up). We still have enough to cover a whole month's extra bills and any annual bill costs in there (before this month's money hits the account too), so we've not left ourselves short, but it feels great and we've knocked another 6 months off the mortgage!:D:T:j

However, I think I may have been a bit over keen and we've probably upset the Spanish bank by paying it at the wrong time of the month (honestly, I hate them!), so will probably need to ring tomorrow to check it will all go through ok.... can't find the note I made re when it was 'safe' to pay.

We've now OPed £5511.52 this year and today's payment has saved over £1000 in interest :j Mortgage is down to £106659 according to spreadsheet (will have to wait a few days (weeks!) for online balance to update), so getting soooo close to sub-100k... Can't see it happening before 2017, but hopefully early in the new year!

*off to update signature!*

Kittenkirst

How fantastic that you were saving without truly realizing! What a great OP too, very well done

themadvix

Thanks Kittenkirst, OPs like that are the best sort, where you haven't even missed the money! I think I'll probably continue to pay the same amount into my bills account as before and then we can have a 'round-up' day every few months

Forgot to mention that NV cheque has turned up too (not that long in the scheme of things, I'm just impatient!), so that's another £50 to OP

A ridiculously busy week this week - plenty of work on and out four out of the five weeknights, mostly volunteering-related. Might try to get out of meeting on Thursday to give myself a break - except there's something I want to discuss at the meeting! Decisions, decisions...

Quick five mins to catch up on diaries and then I must crack on.

themadvix

My pay day today, and all money shuffles now complete.... Have put another £250 to go into TSB RS - making the most of this now, and then will start to put the £500 in my TSB that won't be earning anything from Jan into this too. Savings balances looking healthy at the moment. Will have to have a rethink come Jan though - 3% is a bit too close to 2.99% for it to make much difference - might be time to start chucking it at the mortgage then. Saw I've been paid £5.14 interest on my NationW Flexdirect bills account money, so pleased about that. Have left it in there for the time being though, as it's earning 5% there! Transferred another £840 of 'tax money' to PBs yesterday (making sure they'll be in December's draw!). Results of Nov's draw not up yet... I'm so impatient (and optimistic!).

Would dearly love to get to a round £6k of OPs this year... £489 to find.... Next month's pay should be good though, so that will help.

Got a few surveys waiting for me to do, but proper work pays more, so they'll have to wait for now!

try_harder

Well how amazingly good was that ,well done ,you must have been thrilled to bits ,i feel sure that you will hit your target by the end of the year ,maybe a pb prize will do it ,im so pleased for you.

themadvix

Not this month TH - no PB prizes for me!

Struggling to stay awake today - was up late last night watching Designated Survivor on Netflix (it's excellent, thoroughly recommend) and reading my book, which has got to the gripping bit! (The latest Robert Galbraith).

OP is now showing as an OP on the mortgage online (not been applied yet of course) and so far it doesn't look like they've taken this month's money.... hopeless! We'll see what happens...

I can't remember if mentioned that I reached payout on YSP at the weekend - so £20 should be heading my way soon.

try_harder

Sorry the madvix ,i didnt mean this month ,i meant this year ,

themadvix

Only one draw to go now TH, never mind! I love the element of gambling without losing any of 'my' money (not that most of it's mine, it's the tax man's!). DH might have won - he's put some of his prize money in there while he decides what to do with it.

He's just told me he's going to be away with work for a few nights this month - is it wrong that almost my first thought was that it would save money on food and fuel?!

try_harder

Isnt it awful really but quite funny too ,i have been wondering lately if i have ocd as i seem to be obsessed with money saving ,oh well ,i suppose it could be something a lot worse and what a great idea regarding the pb ,i had never really thought of doing that ,i know nothing about them ,sounds like great fun .I got given several when i was born and on birthdays and have never won anything yet ,im not even sure where they are ,i havent looked at them for many years .I am intrigued now ,i might buy a few ,just for fun .

themadvix

Haven't been on as haven't had much to report. OP has cleared, so balance is now £106,246.24. There's apparently 46p waiting to be applied as an OP, but I think this is the result of the far too weird way Santa apply overpayments. It's ridiculous...

Had an excellent weekend - it was the London to Brighton veteran car rally and we went as guests of DH's work friend for the third year in a row (we're very lucky and treated to the whole thing, with posh dinner and hotel and passes for the paddock). As this was the third time and I was feeling so guilty about them paying I managed to settle the bill for half of our hotel room before our friend did - other than that, we paid for parking and petrol! Not MSE, but means I won't feel guilty when they ask us to go next year - we love going!

As always, the weekend re-emphasises how much we're determined to move to somewhere with more space for extraneous vehicles (we're unlikely to ever be able to afford something that can do the L2B - strict regulations mean that prices are sky-high for qualifying vehicles). Fortunately our tastes are relatively modest - we might spend a couple of thousand on an ancient car, but have no interest in supercars! It's just the space that's an issue at the moment! (If I keep talking like this Alex is likely to appear!)

Eating veg lasagne tonight, using all ingredients we'd already got and I have a plan for tomorrow's dinner that will use some bits up too.

This week is likely to be busy and stressful - trying to fit a week's worth of work into 4 days, less half a day for friend's dad's funeral, as well as doing lots of other bits (running a quiz night on Saturday for my charity) is unlikely to be a relaxing experience. Had the really awful news that a family friend has been diagnosed with terminal cancer too - really struggling to process the information and can't help but think about the family. Fortunately also heard that a school friend is both visiting the UK (she lives abroad now) and pregnant :T, so trying to focus on happy news, so I don't get too miserable.

Oooh, money news: paid in cheque from NV, so when that's cleared it's the first £50 towards next OP