Mortgage free in 10 years

NorthernMonkey1

I'm at work today, working away in London. I don't really like working here, but I'm an IT slave, so have to work a lot when offices are closed. I'm currently in a mega-flash corporate office in a super posh skyscraper, all on my own. It's a bit creepy, but the view of a soggy city is good.

I get to be all un-MSE while I'm here, as long as I keep the receipts. So costa coffee for breakfast, pret for lunch, then somewhere else in the evening. For some reason, it's a bit less fun when you don't set yourself the challenge of being a bit frugal, but I can see how people can easily waste £20 a day on rubbish without trying

michelle09

Wow, £67 a month drop is enough to inspire most people to be MFW. Ours has dropped but partially due to the BoE drop in base rate which doesn't really count.

Least your trips to London mean they're covering costs you would normally pick up yourself!

NorthernMonkey1

Around £20 is from the overpayments, and about £45 is from the moving of £15000 to a credit card at 0%. There was a £253 free to transfer, so It'll take until March to break even with the balance transfer.

I have to make a payment to the CC, of 1% of the balance per month, which is £150. This means that the minimum payment I can make has increased from £625, to £625 plus £150 per month, so there is a very small amount of risk in doing this

NorthernMonkey1

Decided to do a bit of a pensions health check today. I have a main pension which I currently pay into, and another, worth about £14000 from a job I used to work at 15 years ago. It's not doing very well, so I've got the transfer forms today, and I'm going to transfer it into my lower fee, better performing current pension.

I also realised that my car needs an MOT at the end of the month, so today I changed the oil and filter, and gave it a quick once over. It needs a couple of new bulbs (one sidelight and one numberplate bulb) which I've ordered on ebay, and one of the rear tyres is looking a bit iffy, so I've booked a fitting of 2 new ones from BlackCircles. So far it's set me back £72 for the tyres, £4 for the bulbs, and £20 for the oil.

It's ran pretty much without issue for the last 12 months, for about 15,000 miles so thats not too bad

NorthernMonkey1

Not many updates this month. A few small OPs, but mainly a decision that I need a much much better emergency fund than I have now.

On that basis, I've put £1100 away in a S&S isa from HL. I've bought into a US tracker fund while brexit floats about.

Because we pay our mortgage on the 31st of the month, some months we end up with no payments as the DD comes out on the 1st, and others we get 2 payments, one on the 1st and one on the 31st. This month was a 2 payment month, so as well as £675 in overpayments, we've got the 2 x £625 normal payments, but also 2 x interest. It makes the total payments for this month look a bit better, but there wont be a scheduled payment in Feb. As well, still £1500 off the balance since the beginning of the year, so pretty good progress

I've also paid an the normal £150 off the 0% CC, so in total, £825 in OPs.

£74386 + £14950 credit card = £89335
Wall fund £3800 / £3800 (builders booked for April)
Emergency Fund £1100

Hopefully some big news on the financial front soon as well. keeping my fingers crossed, but don't want to jinx anything

NorthernMonkey1

I've sold my Flat!!!!!

At last. It's been hanging around for ever, not moving, but at last it's sold, and the money has all been transferred to my current account. All £75000!!!

I've just made my biggest ever mortgage payment of £60960, and the remainder will be invested in a S&S isa as soon as I get round to it. It's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. No more 2 sets of Council Tax, no more 2 gas and electric, no more 2 water payments.

I'm going to celebrate with a take away Chinese, and maybe a bottle of Stella

£13525 + £14950 credit card = £28475
Wall fund £3800 / £3800 (builders booked for April)
Emergency Fund £15240

SuperSecretSquirrel

Wow great news NM! Fantastic set of figures in your latest update! :T :j :beer: :money:

NorthernMonkey1

Thanks SSS. Today is all the fun of cancelling gas, electric and water.

There is a 'big announcement' at work tomorrow, and I'm slightly nervous that redundancy might be on the cards. If VR is available, I've already decided I'll take it, as I've been there 12 years now, its probably a good time to move on.

Being in a much better place financially before Monday is definitely a good thing.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Looking at your current stats, plus the extra that you don't count there (sharesaves etc) you are already well past mortgage neutral with a chunk of ready cash left over. Plus you'd have a reasonable redundancy payoff on top. I wish you luck, but am not entirely sure what that really means - keeping your job, or getting a payoff and the ability to move on to something new and exciting

Don't stress about it, you don't need to, and it wouldn't achieve anything anyway. Good luck

NorthernMonkey1

If I cash in my sharesave @ £11900, and include the £3800 wall fund, I'm about £2400 in the Black, but since I'm not including the wall fund, as its earmarked for something else, I'm got about £1400 to go until neutral.

Either way, I'm in a fairly good position regardless of what happens.