Finally have a mortgage now to try and get rid of it asap

egoode

It seems longer than a week since I last updated but maybe that's because I've been quite busy.

I had a walking weekend away with a few friends and it only cost me £39 as we stayed in a hostel and self catered. It's the first time I've had a break like that and I really enjoyed it even though my legs are still aching a bit. I clearly need to exercise more!

I also managed to open my Stocks and Shares ISA. I'm still transferring some money across but I should have £15k in there by the end of the week. I ended up going for iWeb as the fees seemed the most reasonable.

I also had quite an interesting evening last night. There was a meeting to set up a new WI in my area and I went along to mainly learn more about it but got so inspired by it all I've ended up on the committee as the Treasurer (so another spreadsheet I need to create - good thing I love doing that ). I think everyone was a bit overwhelmed by the interest as there was almost 80 people who turned up and they ran out of chairs. I'm really looking forward to it and hoping to make some new friends in my local area.

egoode

I had a really spendy day yesterday but I don't care as it was my birthday and I definitely feel that's a day you should splurge on yourself. I went to a lovely restaurant with a couple of friends and the food and wine was amazing. Luckily I work at home on Fridays and a few people were off work today as I really wasn't in the mood to do much.

I've also been quite active with my financial plans this week. Yesterday I transferred the £15,000 from my offset account to my new S&S ISA. When the new tax year starts in April I think I might transfer another $15,000 straight into it and I'll at last feel like I'm moving forward with my long term financial plans.

I've been pretty bad about not using ISA allowances and actually didn't even know they existed for the first few years I lived here! The plan now is to use my full allowance every year.

I've got a really busy weekend planned so all I'm doing tonight is watching Eastenders (I've been totally hooked this week with the reveal of Lucy's killer) and then I'll be heading straight to bed.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

egoode

Well I haven't had the best week as I fell down my stairs on Tuesday. I'm still a bit bruised and sore but as I don't currently have a handrail for the stairs I'm thinking of getting one installed and hopefully stop any more accidents. I remember when the building control person came to inspect the loft when I was trying to buy this place he mentioned I should have one so he was clearly right.

I've contacted the handyman who's helped me out with a few other things around the flat some hopefully he can do this and it's not too expensive.

I've also been really bad at meal planning this week I completely forgot about a couple of dinners out so seem to have too much food in the fridge. Some of it can freeze which is good but I think some will have to be thrown out and I really hate wasting food.

Hopefully next week I'll be a bit better at planning.

egoode

Signature has been updated and it's really sad to see how little the mortgage amount goes down by each month. The daily interest has risen to just under £20/day after I moved £15k from the offset account to the S&S ISA. It seems a big hit short term but I think in the longer term this was the best decision to make for the money. I'm going to aim to use the full allowance in my ISA each year but this is part of my plans to hopefully not have to rely on working much beyond my 50's.

I'm still in a bit of pain from my fall last week especially in my back. My handyman who's helped with a few things around my place is coming on Friday to measure up for a handrail and give me a quote for it. Finger's crossed it won't be too expensive.

I've also been reviewing my YNAB reports and I seemed to have spent a few hundred pounds less this month than previous months on my everyday expenses and bills (not including the sofa order in this!). Not sure if it's just because it's a shorter month or if I've been better with my spending. Next month will be a bit higher in spends as I have a few annual expenses coming up like my water bill and also my ground rent and service charge for the flat. It appears I've underestimated the costs so need to re-jig a few of the buckets.

I did get a bit of a bonus this month. An ISA account which I had used for my flat deposit must have had interest paid annually as I got alert the balance had changed in the account and found almost £70 in interest. I hadn't really expected anything as the bonus interest rate had expired and I had pulled the money out of the account about 8 months ago but it was a nice surprise

I think my plans this month are to concentrate on reducing my groceries bill as I feel I spend way too much money each month and could probably feed a whole family on the same amount. Also I think I might review my Virgin Media package. I love TV and watch a lot of it but I think I could get rid of the sky movies access as I'm not sure I use it that much to make it worth the cost.

egoode

So the handyman came on Friday and has provided a quote for the handrails on the staircases. It's going to be £370 for the materials and his time to install them. I have no idea if that's a lot to charge or not but he's been great with other work in my flat so hopefully this will be as good. Luckily I've got £500 in my home maintenance budget at the moment so I don't have to find the money from anywhere else. He's coming back next week to install it so I won't be so scared to go down the stairs any more soon.

I've been having a cheap week as I've been working at home so haven't been tempted to buy any afternoon snacks. Although part of the reason I've been working at home is my back is still a little sore after my fall and not really up to taking my laptop into the office. However I'm going to try and go in for a few hours tomorrow avoiding the tube crush and see how I go as I'm having some issues with opening some files and I need to show it to them in the office as they can't find the problem when looking remotely. I'm hoping my back is better soon it's defnitely feeling like it's on the mend but it's a slow process.

Not much else to report I hope everyone elses week is going well.

egoode

Can't believe it's been over a month since my last update. Work and life has been really busy these last few weeks!

Recap of what's happened since my last update. I got my handrails installed and feeling much safer going up and down the stairs now. It also ended up being £320 so £50 cheaper than he had quoted.

My sofa got delivered last Thursday :j I've been spending hours sitting on it and loving it. I may have also had a few naps on it It is so much more comfortable then the Ikea futon I've had for the last 18 months. When I moved the futon I discovered a couple of the slats were broken so I offered it for free on gumtree and someone picked it up the same day. Personally was just glad to get it out of the flat with as little effort as possible.

Had some good news on the work front. My contract has been renewed to the end of the year. However I think once it runs out it might be time for me to move on. That would make it over 4 years since I've been here and the longest of anywhere I've worked and I really feel I need to find a new role with new challenges.

I'm still using YNAB and seem to have cut my monthly costs by about £500/month from when I first started using it. Which is great news as my flat mate has now moved out so I'm no longer getting the £500/month from her. I've been tossing up whether I want a new flat mate or not but I'm loving having the place to myself again so think I'll leave it for the moment. I've also got a lot of friends and family visiting me from Australia in the next 12-18 months so would be good to have the spare room for them.

Interest is now £17.70/day and according to my online account I've reduced the term by 36 day so over a month now :j

Plans now are to continue working on reducing my monthly spending but I do have some costs coming up I need to cover. Like painting and installing coving in my bedroom, I'm also thinking about getting built in wardrobes as well. Also I found out my downstairs neighbour and I are third in the queue for buying the freehold from the council so will have to put some money aside for that as well. Estimate for that is between £5-10k I'm really hoping it's closer to the £5k mark!

egoode

Well I haven't been tracking my spending as much this past month so need to get back on top of that. However I've finally managed to organise someone to paint my bedroom and put some coving in which looks amazing already even though he thought it would look bad as I don't seem to have a straight wall or ceiling in the room! Can't wait for the painting to start tomorrow as I'm going for a dark blue which will be a massive difference as I've always lived with white walls. I'm hoping it's all finished soon as my bedroom contents are mainly in my lounge room with some stuff up in the loft and can't wait to have it all back to normal.

I think I might also need a bit of a declutter as I had a lot more stuff then I thought in my bedroom and a lot of it I'm unlikely to ever use.

egoode

Well my room has been painted dark blue and it looks fabulous. I was a bit nervous about doing a dark colour but I'm so glad I went with it.

In other exciting news I've been told I should be getting some paperwork this week to start the process to buy the freehold for the building from the council. Hopefully it won't take too long to sort out then once that is in place I want to get the loft extension done and the kitchen.

So none of that seems terribly money saving but hopefully it will make this flat even better to live in and hopefully even increase the value of it.

egoode

So I've just updated YNAB and it had been quite a few weeks since I had made updates to it and I've been quite slack recording my cash spends on my phone so there was about £100 I couldn't remember what I had spent it on and it was probably nothing I needed so really need to get back on track with this.

I think part of the problem is it's only in the last couple of months that it's really sunk in that I own this place and now I keep wanting to spend money to make it my home and look less like a rental place. I guess that's the downside of having rented the place before you bought it. I've currently been obsessing over beautiful looking storage containers for my kitchen although feel I should wait on getting anything like that until I replace my kitchen as planned. I think I really need to list my priorities i.e. Buying Freehold, make kitchen open plan and do loft extension. I think I need to keep reminding myself those are my priorities and everything else should wait until after they have been completed.

LannieDuck

Hi! *waves*

I'm dead impressed you've taken on such a huge mortgage by yourself. i'll have a read through your diary and catch up-to-date this evening. But I spotted something at the top of this page as I was scrolling to the bottom - you've calculated your interest per day. What a great motivation tool! I'm almost too scared to do that with my own....