Mortgage free by 2021?!

lippy1923

How did the push ups go?

hiddenshadow

:rotfl: I knew someone would keep me accountable!

4 whole push-ups, and as a bonus, 4 whole roll-ups (sort of a whole body sit up? they're hard, anyway!)

Need to work on doing them better - had good form but couldn't lower myself as much as I'd like on the push-ups, and had to jerk myself up a bit on the roll-ups.

My abs are hurting now, though, so that's a sign of progress, of sorts.

cazmanian_minx

Oooh, I think I've done those whole roll-ups - you start lying on your back with your arms stretched out on the floor above your head, sit up, touch your toes (or beyond if you're flexible enough) and then back to the start position? A year ago I could do 30 without stopping - doubt I could do one at the moment!

hiddenshadow

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Oooh, I think I've done those whole roll-ups - you start lying on your back with your arms stretched out on the floor above your head, sit up, touch your toes (or beyond if you're flexible enough) and then back to the start position? A year ago I could do 30 without stopping - doubt I could do one at the moment!

Yep, that's it! I skipped the touching toes step because I forgot about it - getting to upright was challenging enough. (Rolling back down was easier than going up, but still...)

Not sure when I could have done 30 without stopping as a teenager I once spent an afternoon while bored doing situps and probably did several hundred. Have not repeated that since!

hiddenshadow

Back to work today, and wow it was tough getting the brain back in gear. Doesn't help that I'm - still! - lagging a bit with a cold.

Paid off a credit card balance that was stoozed at the mortgage for 9 months on Sunday. It's left the H@lifax current account, has yet to arrive in the H@lifax credit card. Will check again tomorrow.

£16.62 interest from N@tionwide last month. Should get T$B tomorrow and a p-base deposit later this week. With all of that we'll be on track to top-up the new ISA with £100!

(Decided my plan for that would be to put a max of £100/mo into the ISA until I reach my goal there, and then throw anything left in the month/year at the mortgage. If everything's storming ahead well all year I'll evaluate over the summer, might be worth buying another fund for £500 in the ISA.)

Not much else to report. Did manage to run yesterday (in the rain ), but couldn't catch/keep my breath so it was mostly walking. May have to ask the GP about the possibility of exercise-induced asthma.

9 tricep dips done tonight. Think I'll follow the 150 dips/150 pushup programs for the days I do those exercises.

Ali-OK

Ooh I keep forgetting about the T$B interest, am glad of your reminder

15 mins/4 miles on the exercise bike here - slowly building it back up. Not heard of some of the exercises you're doing!

Did the stoozing save alot on the mortgage interest? Just curious as another potential weapon to attack the mortgage I could potentially use

hiddenshadow

T$B is weird with when they pay interest (midnight-end-of-day on the first banking day of the month), so it's easy to forget.

We stoozed about £6k between two cards last year, which saved ~£250 in interest for 2015 (+ compound interest savings). I'd say it was worth it, but our mortgage was also higher interest than current accounts at the time (4.19 vs 3), now we're in the opposite scenario (2.39 vs 5). If we stooze again it'll likely be to replace our central heating sooner than we would if we had to save in advance for it (likely end of 2017) so that we can get the energy efficiency sooner.

£21.23 interest from T$B, bringing the ISA savings pot over £100, so it's mortgage OP time! £5.96 on its way to the mortgage.

Will wait to pull the trigger on the ISA £100 top-up as we have to take the animals to the vet for their annual checkup at the end of the month - hoping for ~£30 each, and have another £100 in the vet savings pot anyway, but you never know.

Payment on the H@lifax card has cleared. :j

hiddenshadow

Work trip went ok - managed to avoid gluten, unlike last time (France is horrible for its awareness of coeliac).

Nice surprise today - went through our budgeting app cleaning up various things and found about £2k of unbudgeted money. It's not "extra" money in that our bank account balances are still the same, but now the Emergency Fund actually has money in it (had cleared it out to pay for the solar panels). Also topped up the home maintenance fund to cover the water softener install (should also get paid for the doors from MIL, but we're in no hurry for that as she's on a small income). Finally topped up the car fund to £3k.

Also OPed £32.41 today - £20.04 of the extra budget money as the 30k goal requires an extra £25.92/mo on top of our regular OPs (I rounded up to £26 to be tidy ). Also threw in 99p because I bought a kindle book with the no-rush delivery credit and £1.38 cashback from ordering takeaway last month. P@nelbase money came in at £11.70 so put £10 of that to the mortgage (£1.70 towards the "new" emergency fund).

Beginning to look at cars. BIL is willing to help us shop, which is nice as he's more experienced with cars/car buying than us (I've done it, but in the US which is a much different market; DH still needs to take his test so that makes test driving a car a bit of a challenge). Hoping that prices near BIL will be better than here as well - so far the cars I've seen this morning range from £1.5-3.5k, which isn't too bad - would ideally like to spend about £2.5k but if something really nice/low mileage is available it makes sense to pay a bit more. We're not in a hurry, though (much as I'd like this decision/process to just be done so that we can have the flexibility of having a car already!).

Not much else to report - thought I was recovered from my xmas illness prior to this work trip, but yesterday on the flight back my throat felt very sore/scratchy and it's worse this morning. Will see if it improves over the weekend, my (faint) hope is that it was due to the altitude/cold weather on the trip and being back in blighty will fix everything.

smallholdingsister

Ha ha. My French vegetarian option at a wedding was a steaming pile of steamed vegetables covered in chicken gravy.

Ali-OK

Hope you feel better soon

I've started drinking hot water with honey and fresh lemon as a daily anti-bacterial/help digestion/help lose weight (allegedly) quicker. Has perked up my body in a week.

Good to find and allocate the £2k too.

Thanks for sharing on the stoozing, think that's off my agenda too now with the new rate and I quite like my empty CCs after my DFW journey!

Happy car shopping Usually found them cheaper by going further north.