Hope is not an Effective Financial Strategy

Cheery_Daff

Hmm. Mind you, I've won on the premium bonds every month since we bought them in April so I can't really complain 😂

Karmacat

Rigged!  The lot of it 

**dances away, chortling**

debtfreeoneday

You certainly have luck with that lottery SJ!

shangaijimmy

Luck has no bearing... luck is where preparation meets opportunity... (or words to that effect  ).

And to add to it, I've claimed another £25 premium bond win! So I'll knock off £25 from next months round of buying and OP the £25.

shangaijimmy

Well the month of August has slipped by in a blur of surviving school holidays with working from home, excursions here there and anywhere whilst having a very nibbly puppy in the house. The 2 little ones head back to school tomorrow so we're trying to have a day of calm today, and then DS1 heads back to high school on Monday.

Accounts and progress is all very sedate at the moment. The customary £450 has been added to the neutral pot and i've chipped away with TT's and other bits and bobs which are direct OP's. This months total was £66.74 as direct OP's to keep scratching that itch. As much as our neutral pot is the right way forward it doesn't provide the same glee as the mortgage balance directly going down.

As part of said itch we've made good headway on the 1% mortgage challenge and currently have £138.70 remaining, which works out at £34.68 a month. So a few more premium bond or postcode lottery wins may be needed!

Overall our current forecast is to be mortgage neutral during December 2025. This would be an amazing Christmas present but it would be 10 months outside of our initial 10yr plan. So plenty to get my teeth into. Its actually a £10k difference...which would mean either a lot of PB or lottery wins, or Mrs SJ getting a good payrise, or us selling one of her kidneys...

Karmacat

No kidneys to be involved, thanks very much  and you're doing really well in any case.  Though I totally understand that feeling of sort of boredom ... 

Here's to many puppy nibbles  

LadyWithAPlan

Had a overall read of your great detailed diary, wonderful to see the consistent focus over years of life
I had thought about doing TT's just to round up my savings (no mortgage yet just on my deposit and starting flat hunting)  but I see you do your daily, is this against just your current accounts?

No doubt I will be reading as you  get to mortgage neutrality and beyond.

Suffolk_lass

Good to see you back @shangaijimmy - I always feel a degree of normality has resumed when I read your posts. I know what you mean about the mortgage neutrality thing. I think it used to leave me feeing a bit too comfortable - sort of feeding my smug filter which resulted in me spending a bit more from the "I've got this covered" perspective. I would encourage you to swap back at the end of that process. Calculating all the savings from paying it off early and saving all that interest did it for me

shangaijimmy

Karmacat said:

No kidneys to be involved, thanks very much  and you're doing really well in any case.  Though I totally understand that feeling of sort of boredom ... 

Here's to many puppy nibbles  

We wouldn't get much for Mrs SJ's pickled kidneys anyway!

LadyWithAPlan said:

Had a overall read of your great detailed diary, wonderful to see the consistent focus over years of life
I had thought about doing TT's just to round up my savings (no mortgage yet just on my deposit and starting flat hunting)  but I see you do your daily, is this against just your current accounts?

No doubt I will be reading as you  get to mortgage neutrality and beyond.

I use the TT technique to round down my current account to the nearest pound everyday. Its a daily habit now when the kettle is boiling for my morning brew. I overpay these immediately into the mortgage and my smallest payment has been 3p! Although now it the amount is less than 10p I add a £1 to it!! I love it when the actual paper mortgage statement arrives and its 10 pages long!

shangaijimmy

Suffolk_lass said:

Good to see you back @shangaijimmy - I always feel a degree of normality has resumed when I read your posts. I know what you mean about the mortgage neutrality thing. I think it used to leave me feeing a bit too comfortable - sort of feeding my smug filter which resulted in me spending a bit more from the "I've got this covered" perspective. I would encourage you to swap back at the end of that process. Calculating all the savings from paying it off early and saving all that interest did it for me

I'm comfortable with it I suppose rather than being motivated. I added 2 columns to my spreadsheet thinking that looking at the "To Neutral" figure would inspire and have the same feeling of glee, but my eyes still get drawn immediately to the "Balance" cell. So maybe I'm stuck in the 'middle' area of progress being steady, and with that notion of "I've got this" now ingrained. Which is exactly the place we want to be in!

Case in point is this. My "To Neutral" cell tells me that this month will go under the hugely significant £50k barrier. However I'd barely noticed it and instead was looking at the "Balance" cell for December and wondering if I will make up the £66 needed to nudge under £65k for the New Year!

Maybe there's a figure where the "Neutral Savings" becomes the motivator?? 

Or perhaps I need a spreadsheet that now counts down??

Thank you for your message, I have been keeping up with your bee antics. Strangely enough Mrs SJ suggested we get bees and thanks to your exploits I was quickly able to rule it out for us