Freedom At 50!

gallygirl

southerndave wrote: »

Well yes, the house seems weird without our boy around - far too quiet! Just checked our bank/mortgage balance and we have dipped under £70,000 which is a milestone and hopefully it will stay under now (the One balance bounces around daily according to what is going in and out). Wanted to get this far by the end of year, so we are a few months early. Think we might try and get under £68,000 by year end now....!

Great stuff, well done :T

edinburgher

This means another DIrect Debit cancelled and another little drip-drip drain on the main finances plugged up.

They really are nasty little b*ggers (I meant beggars, honest). The only DDs I keep going are the ones where we either save money to have them (i.e. our utilities would be dearer if we paid less frequently), or where the Spanish bank pay us cashback.

When is your son back? Nearly Thursday already and I'm sure he's having a great time

sweetdaisy

Congratulations on getting the mortgage balance under £70,000 :j. I am sure that your Son is having a great time on his school trip.

southerndave

Back Friday. Yes, the only DD we have kept have been pension payments, life insurance and council tax. They are all perennials really. The only one that might get stopped in the future is the council tax as it can be paid in cash every month or quarter.

The less going out, the better for the account really.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

southerndave wrote: »

Back Friday. Yes, the only DD we have kept have been pension payments, life insurance and council tax. They are all perennials really. The only one that might get stopped in the future is the council tax as it can be paid in cash every month or quarter.

The less going out, the better for the account really.

Hi, it may be worth checking whether your council lets you pay with a credit card with no fee - we've done this for the last year and pay on a cashback card - although it may not fit your simplify programme, it's free money.

It's difficult when your kids go away for the first time, we were lost to begin with. Now it's like a holiday for us too

Tilly x

southerndave

No credit card, only account charge card. Nice idea though!

HelenDaveKids

Congrats on getting to a noughty, its particularly exciting... I'm hoping to go below one by Christmas (my current goal).

newgirly

Hi southern dave, congrats on getting under 70k , and did you sell the old gold you mentioned previously? As I have used an online one called Hatton garden metals which was recommended by Martin :money: its a much better price than the high street, and they have good reviews . I have used them three or four times without problems

southerndave

No not yet. Got two more places to try over the weekend. One is interested in selling on some of it, not scrap, but we'll see. If not, I did weigh at hoe and entered the amounts into HGM calculator and it came back with a price 30% higher than anything offered so far, so if no joy then might give them a try. Its good to know you have had good experiences with them.

southerndave

Well tried the gold places, utter time-wasters offered less than previous ones! Might give that HGM a go, not much to lose.

Financially, have been messing with a spreadsheet (Thanks to Daisy) to enable me to predict roughly how much sooner our mortgage will end, give or take, based on current balance and likely future payments. With a bit of headscratching and tweaking I kind of got it working to my figures. This is much more of a motivator than just current balance as it brings our goal closer and that's exciting.

I have adjusted the sig to show this revelation and in line with the underlying philosophy as well, which is, er, underlying it! Figures are from today so please the balance has stuck as predicted, sub-£70K!

:beer:

Had a take away tonight to celebrate as well as welcome our son back home from his week away. Lovely to see him again although he is tired and tetchy....and has gone to bed early.

Ah well, new day tomorrow.:D