Challenge of a lifetime!

kaycastle

I don't know how you keep on top of all of that and 5 kids! You are amazing! Wow!!! Definitely makes me think that all the times I've said I'm too busy in my life was not remotely true and I will avoid saying that again for a long time.

Good luck and congrats on your mortgage progress - I'm also close to getting under 200k and I can't wait. Its going to be so nice to see the mortgage start with 1.

cotswoldaccountant

Thanks Kaycastle! (we have six children actually, there's a DD (10) as well as DS1-5)!

You are so close to being under £200k - I'll be watching your progress!

cotswoldaccountant

A frugal start to the day today - I'm usually tempted by a cafe visit on a Friday morning, but DS2 had made a lovely Victoria sponge cake last night, so I had a slice with coffee this morning, followed by a free children's singing session at the library, and coffee at a friend's.

Cheap weekend planned too - we've been invited for drinks in a friend's garden tomorrow afternoon, and a board games evening with other friends is planned for the evening. DS3 has a party to go to on Sunday - I've for once been organised and bought presents in advance (it's for two eight year old boys) so don't have to do a panic (and overly expensive) shop the day before. I think i will get him to make cards too, which will be a nice activity for him, and I do hate spending up to £3 on a card that an 8 year old boy is not going to appreciate!

We've been spending too much money on "lunch" items recently - cold meats, quiches, cheese etc which really add up, so I've bought some salmon and watercress and plan to make an enormous quiche which should last the whole weekend for lunch at a fraction of the cost. I have some dried apricots that need using, so might make an apricot and walnut loaf cake, given that DS2's Victoria sponge is almost gone, despite only being made last night!

I have a John Lewis voucher for free coffee and cake (I do like coffee and cake, can you tell?!) so think I will take my laptop and sit in their cafe while the party is on nearby, and hopefully DS5 will sleep in his pram so I can catch up with some work too.

kaycastle

Wow, 6 Even more impressed.

Thank you. I think I'm going to need to save more for renovations in the next few years. Need to save 40k for a loft conversion. I'm going to try to keep up my regular standing order of over payments but my top ups might disappear.

Making cards is the best idea - the price of them is getting a bit ridiculous these days.

Busy_Mee1

Wow just wow. A £575k Mortgage to £250 k and 6 children. That is so impressive.

We had what I considered a big mortgage (£280 k is a big mortgage in Yorkshire!) and managed to offset it to £150 k. You have done brilliantly well.

I will be interested to read you next instalment on your journey.

cotswoldaccountant

DS3 despatched to birthday party, free coffee and cake at John Lewis enjoyed. Unsurprisingly, DS5 has not gone to sleep and I have got no work done. Have managed to update my bank account though and found a payment for the holiday let which I hadn't realised had arrived. I'm going to set up a separate savings account for my mortgage overpayment and this will be the first payment to add to it.

Also had some success this weekend with facebook selling, which can be variable in my experience. £10 of building materials left over from 2015 work collected this morning, and a further £50 due to be made tomorrow. Fingers crossed the buyer turns up!

Lazy afternoon planned - hope to get the house sorted ready for the week ahead, which will be a busy one. At least the weather forecast is looking glorious for a change!

greent

Hello!! Lovely to see you back on here - and with 2 more children, too! - congratulations!!!!

All sounds fab - and very busy!
x

cotswoldaccountant

Last week was ridiculously busy, although did well on the selling front with various garden items sold for £45. I must get on with sorting out the house as I am sure there are other things to sell!

Ended the week with a nice weekend away with friends, although came home to find there had been a power cut and the freezers were totally defrosted. Luckily we don't keep too much frozen food, but it feels like a terrible waste of what was in them (and the fridges too of course, as it all had to be thrown away).

Pleased to have heard from almost all of my clients now that they are happy with my new fee structure, and the first few payments came in today - I've asked everyone to pay monthly from now on which is much easier to manage. I've also signed up a new client and had another enquiry, so that is good. I'm trying to get back on top of my work, now that DS5 is starting to sleep in the evenings and I have a little bit of time back (although it's all gone out of the window the past few days with him not going to sleep till after 10).

So the plan for this week is:
- clear a bit more clutter and hopefully find some things to sell / charity shop / donations for school fete

- get the cars cleaned - not very MSE but they are filthy inside and out, and it would make me feel happier to have them sparkling!

- work on some special offers for the rental properties - had a cancellation from a long term business guest the other day, which hopefully we'll be able to fill, but it might need a bit of work on pricing.

cotswoldaccountant

I feel I have done quite well to manage less than a year's break between diary updates! I always feel so guilty when I remember my mortgage free diary, but actually perhaps I should just resign myself to being a bit hopeless at keeping it going the whole time, and just enjoy updating as and when I have time. 

July 2019, when I last updated my diary, seems a lifetime ago. A whole lockdown later, here we are. The past few months have been so strange - I am absolutely sick of reading the news at the moment, and so I'm making a concerted effort to read other things online - and am especially looking forward to catching up with other diaries, to see how the lockdown has been for others. 
Lockdown for us has been quite a mixture - ridiculously busy in the sense that I never have a moment to myself, but also very relaxed without the usual pressures and commitments. We went from having four children in full time school, one at pre school four days a week, and a baby who was about to spend a couple of mornings a week with a lovely childminder, to having all six at home full time. It took some getting used to! We eventually got into the swing of home schooling, but it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to contend with, and I don't think I'm very good at it. Trying to keep up some sort of education on such a mix of ages - school years 10, 8, 6 and 4 - along with a pre schooler and a rampaging almost-walking baby, along with actually getting some work done myself from time to time, has been very hard. I've tried to focus on DS1 (15) who is doing GCSEs and is not great at self-motivated study, and DD (11) who is in year 6, and quite sad that she has missed out on all the usual transition fun like school performances and the school trip abroad. DS2 (13) is very good at just getting on with his work, DS3 (9) is pretty relaxed about the whole thing and happy to potter about at home, DS4 (4) is fine as long as there is someone to play with, and DS5 (1) just wants to climb on everything.

Financially, we are very lucky, as OH's job is secure, and my accountancy work has mostly continued. Our holiday lets have been forced to close, but we were able to secure a couple of short term lets for guests who met the very strict requirements for still being allowed to use holiday accommodation - basically keyworkers or people moving house. We will reopen on 4th July which is exciting, and bookings are now starting to come in which I'm really pleased about. Lots of cleaning protocols and new requirements to read up on first though!

Our mortgage deal came up for renewal in January 2020, and we stayed with our current lender but moved to a fully offset mortgage on a variable rate, rather than a mixture of offset and fixed rate.  Our earnings can be quite sporadic so I like the flexibility of the offset arrangement and particularly of knowing that every penny we pay into our bank account reduces the interest that we pay each month!

cotswoldaccountant

I realised today that the car was almost out of diesel - must go to the garage soon, but it will only be the second time we've filled it up since March. We just haven't needed to drive anywhere, with just a weekly trip to the supermarket (10 minutes away) and one hospital appointment a 30 minute drive away being all the driving we did for several months! We have also gone down to being a one car family for a while - we have lent our second car to a friend who is a newly-qualified doctor, and started work during the pandemic but needed transport. As life slowly returns to normal, our friend is still using our car so it will be interesting to see whether we actually need it. We only bought a second car a few years ago when it just became a bit much trying to get all of the children to their separate activities in one car.  We currently have a huge Hyundai 8 seater which is fantastic for transporting everyone, and a Citroen 7 seater which doesn't fit us all in, so is a bit pointless. Or perhaps we'll just buy a small run-around car for local trips with one or two children, as DS1 will be starting driving lessons in a couple of years (eek!) and will need a small car for practice.

In contrast, our food bills have absolutely rocketed during lockdown. With eight of us at home full time for every meal, including two ravenous teenage boys, I feel I am providing a never-ending supply of food. They literally never stop eating. DS1 gets through a pack of apples every 2 days. I read back over my previous diary entries where we seemed to be spending about £150ish a week on food. Now it is easily £200 a week. I keep thinking there must be savings to be made, but I feel we're really quite frugal when it comes to food shopping, as we have always been - we don't buy particularly expensive brands, meat from the butcher is a treat rather than routine, we make everything ourselves from scratch. As always, I should probably be better at meal planning... I keep trying but always seem to run out of time and end up thinking of things at the last minute!

Today has been ridiculously hot. Too hot to do anything apart from sit around in as cool a room as possible. An expensive day too as my credit card bill arrived - we'd had to buy a new washing machine and new steam generator iron during lockdown as both of ours had broken. Also have had bills for music lessons and an upgrade to our holiday cottage booking system - but hopefully it will pay for itself by resulting in more bookings!