Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

Sundaysgirl wrote: »

Re the car, pet travel was the key reason we caved and bought one.

Yeah, if we didn't have pets, we probably wouldn't bother. At least pets are cheaper than kids, so there's that. Plus we'll get some benefit out of it besides just lugging them around.

Final challenge : can you not grow veg without the fence?!

Ha! Yes, we could, but we'd have to clear the garden for that anyway. We've already bought all the fence materials, so that's a sunk cost. May as well put up the fence (which may or may not increase the value of the house) and then do the veg beds inside the fence. (Also hoping that if we can put a gate in with the fence it'll increase marketability of our house. Our garden is quite small, ~7x5m, but it backs up onto a large field, so if we had a gate going out that may offset that negative point for the garden size.)

I suppose on an annual basis we're getting off pretty lightly - so far we've spent £30 on a lawnmower and haven't used it, so we're at £14/year spend on our garden. Sadly, it shows!

hiddenshadow

Got a £50 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks. £105.63 left to OP (give or take, depends on how much interest is charged for Oct) in 2015.

Sundaysgirl

Brilliant! You've given me the motivation I needed to finally getting around to registering, so thank you.

hiddenshadow

Sundaysgirl wrote: »

Brilliant! You've given me the motivation I needed to finally getting around to registering, so thank you.

I cheated a bit as I'd used it in the past (6+ years ago) so I still had 6k worth of points. £50 gift card is available at 8.4k so it was pretty quick to get that bonus.

That said, if you're willing to put in time clicking on things or answering surveys, it looks like you can get ~200-300 points per day fairly painlessly so you could potentially get a gift card per month? I'm aiming for one every other month, but £300 in "free" money is still free money.

Sundaysgirl

It's boring but like you say it doesn't take too long and I'm almost up to the £40 cashout on OnePoll from doing the same though - though admittedly the surveys are shorter (but carry less rewards). Definitely worth doing, even getting a few cards per year will cover some pressies and mean more for the OP pot!

hiddenshadow

I'm just over £11 on OnePoll but have a pending £10 payout on Panelbase. Also got selected for a spending diary survey which will pay £25. Love getting money for stuff I already [STRIKE]obsess about[/STRIKE] like doing.

hiddenshadow

I got impatient and shuffled around some budget categories so I could make the remaining £105.63 OP for 2015 to the mortgage. (My justification was that it's better to pay it ASAP to reduce interest. Budget wonkiness be damned, right? )

Good news is that the mortgage balance should now sit at £165,769.88, and assuming interest amount is the same as September (should be lower with the OPs), our balance post-December payment should be ~£164,277.88.

Bad news is that I can't make any more OPs until we've "paid back" our budget categories for solar panels. (For any YNABers we've just stolen money from our income buffer category, so no real "loss" as it was already sitting as savings anyway.)

Right now it's looking like the budget will be back to normal in February 2016 (aiming for sooner, obviously!) and we can even manage over £1k OPs that month.

In order to track something, I'll put our self-debt, which currently stands at £2,525.04.

Sundaysgirl

Hehe I thought this might happen - it's a small balance so the temptation to just get it done got too much, right?!


I have a constant battle with myself to keep a savings buffer - so tempting just to pay it off the mortgage RIGHT NOW!


Anyway, big well done on hitting target and I'm sure you'll be back to normal sooner than you think. The pennies all add up!

hiddenshadow

Sundaysgirl wrote: »

Hehe I thought this might happen - it's a small balance so the temptation to just get it done got too much, right?!

Indeed. At least the instant gratification urge is towards paying off debt, it could be much worse!

I have a constant battle with myself to keep a savings buffer - so tempting just to pay it off the mortgage RIGHT NOW!

Oh man, me too. DH and I were joking that if we emptied both of our pension pots (if that were even possible) our mortgage could be in the 5-figures. Old age be damned!

Anyway, big well done on hitting target and I'm sure you'll be back to normal sooner than you think. The pennies all add up!

Thanks! I'm hoping to make a few extra hundred between now and February with cashback, MB, surveys, etc, so I'm hoping we can "erase" that extra month off our payoff date that not OPing in January 2016 will create.

hiddenshadow

Good news! HR handed out pay slips today and I asked if there was an option for a season ticket loan - to my surprise there is. Have to see if the amount I spent in September can qualify, but if so we can reduce our £400 travel budget to £200, and the travel loan money can cover our solar panels, meaning our mortgage OPs can continue as normal!

:j :j