The next chapter!

originalmiscellany

I think it's one of those age things - as you get older, the garden becomes more and more appealing doesn't it! Have been busying myself this weekend in the garden too. Free entertainment and good exercise I think

chocoholic_chick

Yes definitely! Already plotting out what we're going to do, what plants to get etc


So I'm pondering over savings vs mortgage at the moment. We now have a comfortable amount squirreled away for emergencies in an abysmal 0.5% ISA. I've re-subscribed to First Directs monthly savings account which is a 5% rate, and will be paying over the maximum allowed which is £300 per month so as my mortgage rate is at 2.29% (I think, or maybe 2.49%?) Should I only be saving £300 per month and put any extra towards the mortgage? I can overpay a maximum of £1000 per month before penalties, though I don't think I'd ever manage that.


I like the comfort of having savings, and know I can access that money easily if need be, but it makes more sense financially to overpay the mortgage I think. Arghhh decisions decisions

chocoholic_chick

Was supposed to be going out last night but couldn't make it in the end. I would have spent about £20 on drinks, so paid that off the mortgage instead

chocoholic_chick

Evening all! Hope everyone has had a lovely long weekend

Sadly the weather here wasn't too great this weekend so didn't get to get out in the garden really. We were going to go out for the day today, but pottered round the house instead. Did a meal plan for the week, went shopping and did some batch cooking so that's lunch and dinner sorted for the both of us all week :T Shopping only came to £21.92 as well so I have plenty of money left in our food spends pot to last until pay day. Hopefully that will mean some more money left for another over payment before pay day, but our main account is looking a bit sorry for itself so I may have to borrow out of the food pot to top the main account up, we'll see. I'd just really like to have OP by £800 before the end of the month, it feels like a nice round number.

Current OP's £765... £4,580 to go!

chocoholic_chick

NSD today

Realised I hadn't transferred this months £7 barclays blue rewards over to my main account so have now put that aside as a potential OP. Have also siphoned off £65 from my food spends account, I've kept spends down and been using stuff up in the freezer so haven't spent much this month in comparison to usual. I also moved a small amount of £1.46 out of our main account so it ended in 0 (dunno why, just like seeing the balance more rounded I guess?) so have £73.46 sitting as a potential OP. I can't really see why I wouldn't be able to pay it over, I'm pretty sure we'll be fine until pay day now, I really want to get this to at least £100 though, that seems a nicer amount!

chocoholic_chick

Evening all!

Another low spend day (it was going to be a NSD but I've just nipped to the shop for a bottle of wine ) on the plus side though we've both taken in lunches the last two days so saved money there, plus we're both having leftovers for lunch tomorrow so another day of saving money for lunches. I tend to buy one or two a week, DH has them pretty much each day and spends between £3-£5 a day on his, so just by being a little more organised and getting up a bit earlier to sort out our lunches is definitely making a difference.

Looked at our finances, we've got a couple more bills to come out before pay day, but after those we'd be left with just over £300 (food and petrol to come out of this as well) which I think is more than enough to see us through until the end of the month so I have sent another £100 off to the mortgage company (£73.46 from the money I had put aside plus an extra £26.54).

Logged on to TCB but only have £1.34 payable at the moment so it doesn't seem worth it. A couple of apparently faster paying things should be clearing in the next couple of weeks though which will be over £50 so hopefully they'll clear in the time they're supposed to and that will go towards the mortgage as well.

Anyone else watching the Sarah Beeny show about being mortgage free? Thought it would have given some practical advice, but really it seems to be "buy a boat, it's cheap" which yes might work for some, but come on we can't all live on boats or in shipping containers!

Anyway running total is £620 for the month so far and £865 YTD :T

tattycath

I watched the Sarah beeny show. The couple who paid their mortgage off in 8 years sounded a lot like us, trying to cut back in some areas in order to overpay the mortgage.
They did seem to focus more on people who didn't have a mortgage.
I shall still watch it next week and see if I can glean any tips.
Well done on you mortgage overpayment endeavours.
Our mortgage will be nearly 149k when it comes through :eek: it's very scary but makes me more determined to just pay it off as quick as I can.

GardenGirl77

I meant to watch the Sarah Beeny programme and forgot - thank you both for the reminder, will watch it on catch up tomorrow.
Also I'm enjoying your diary chocoholic_chic

chocoholic_chick

TC - I started making OP's on my old mortgage 5 or 6 years ago and its only by doing that that we could have afforded our new house. I wish I had done it from day one, but overpaying didn't even occur to me, I didn't know it was something you could do! Coupled with the fact we had very little spare cash so couldn't have afforded it, but once we had a bit more money I started overpaying. It got us out of negative equity and into a bigger home This time round I had called the mortgage company to ask how we make overpayments before the first monthly payment had even come out! Every little helps, I'm not going to throw every spare penny at our mortgage as life is too short so I want to live a little as well, but it is addictive to see how much difference those seemingly little OP's can make in the long run!

Gardengirl - Thanks! Most of the time I feel like I'm rambling on to myself so it's nice to know someone's reading along


Spent just under £20 at the supermarket today, completely forgot DH is having his mates round tomorrow night so had to buy some things to make dinner for them. Prepped some things tonight so less to do tomorrow Planning on a quiet weekend pottering round the house, still got plenty to get done and it should keep our spends down.

chocoholic_chick

Evening all!

Had a lovely weekend catching up with friends and family. Also managed to get more gardening done today with the weather being unexpectedly nice :T

Spent waaay more than I expected this weekend though. Nipped to B&Q for some screws and somehow managed to spend almost £80 :eek: Also bought a few bottles of wine and case of beer as we had people round most of the weekend which was an extra £50 which means we have about £150 to last to Friday. I'm hoping I'll manage to last until then before needing petrol, but DH will need petrol and he always tops up £30, I need a few things from the supermarket which will hopefully be no more than £30. DH is out on Wednesday which will be about another £30 which will still leave us about £60 so that should be do-able!