Getting it Gone

Shortie

Hello!

Where Life Has Travelled in 2015
After one heck of a year which started out debt free and remortgaging for major extension work (the remortgage paid for the shell only), a build that took more than twice what was quoted to take (which was HUGELY stressful) and taking out a loan to get the post-build work done (eg, electrics, flooring, plastering, plumbing, doors, etc) and still have some surface decorating to do with no loan money left to fund it, it's definately been a year or personal growth.

Oddly, the pressure of the buiding work helped me to grow personally - I take less carp from people, made me realise how resilient I can be with home being a stressful mess, ongoing health issue for DS1 and a majorly busy few months at work in the middle, and it helped me to project mange which has been helpful in prooving myself and I think instrumental in some positive changes that are going on at the moment

What I Want to Achieve

In August I took out a loan to cover the bulk of the 'post bricks and mortar' part of the build work. It is a 5 year loan, taken out for £25,000 at 3.9%. My aim is to get as much of this cleared by the time our fixed rate mortgage comes to an end (April 2017). We won't have it cleared but I want to have a darned good go at geting as much gone as possible

While doing this, I will be starting a savings pot on a smaller scale

Eventually, I want to start overpaying the mortgage, once the loan goes


I'm able to cover repayments, and I want to enjoy life as I go along but will be using this diary to keep a check on myself

I'm not great at keeping diaries, or being consistent with posting. I go throuh phases of posting quite a bit, and then going silent for a while - I can't access forums from work to do lunchtime updates and also have got out of the habit of going on the laptop of an evening and currently do most of my MSE browsing on my work train journey through my phone. So, apologies in advance if I'm a tad 'bitty'

If you managed to get this far, you have the concentration and patience of a saint :A

Shortie

List of Goals/Plans for 2016

- Over pay £1,000 off the loan (360/1000)
- Aim for as many days taking my own food to work as possible
- Have a good crack at growing fruit and veg in the garden this year

Shortie

Today I'm working from home, so am able to update during my lunchbreak. I'll be off work (though on call) after today until we return to work next Tuesday. I'm then in the office until the Thursday, so 3 days of work food to cater for. I can see there Christmas left over featuring a lot in the food I take to work :rotfl:


Christmas dinner has been a fairly frugal affair this year thankfully... We are cooking for both sets of parents at ours, my folks provided the meats and we had a side of salmon in the freezer. All meats were bought reduced through the year, so we were lucky there otherwise the meat is the most expenive part of the meal! I bought the veg at 39p a bag (mulitples of - think of the bubble and squeak!). The desserts were also aquired, reduced recently and frozen

Boxing Day will see leftovers being consumed at my folks' house.

Right, off to pick the rest off a chicken carcass to make chicken and sweetcorn mayo sarnies for those that would like them, and the rest of the meat will be frozen in lunch portions to defrost and make into sarnies for work at a later date - I doubt there will be enough left for a dinner

Shortie

Day 2 of being back in work, yesterday was so quiet but we have to have cover. I think today I'm going to see if I can rig up earphones to the work computer (without having to keep my head on the desk as the box is down under it :rotfl:) and have a nose for some online training on the intranet

We had some seriously cheap meat bargains in between Boxing Day and now, and I'm using up some of the bargainous turkey along with some sweet chikli sauce in rolls today. Tomorrow I might try it with mayo and sweetcorn to see if it's a good chicken alternative. Yesterday was some leftover cheese and crackers.

We were still using up leftover meat and bubble and squeak yesterday, I'm hoping tonight will feature jacket spuds with beans and cheese. I could do with something simpler after the excesses of Christmas.

New Years Eve will see us chilling out with the children in the games room with a Chinese. Budgetted for but I'm actually starting to wonder if the monthly food shopping budget can cover it. If so, I'll move the £30 I put half aside into the over payment account and the other half into the emergency savings pot.

I still have a lot of pay month, and while I've been shuffling bits across to both accounts each week, I think I'll go carefully for a couple of weeks - I'm worried that if I over-squirrel, I'll dip into one of the accounts before it gets transferred and that might open up the temptation for me to keep dipping in :eek:

I think I've just talked myself into making the overpayment now with what I have squirrelled away so far. So today will be about checking how to overpay my loan and doing work-based training as it's so quiet at the moment

Shortie

Overpayment of £290 just made. The system automatically recalculates the decreased monthly payment and I can't spot where to keep the repayments the same and just decrease to loan term. I'll email them in a moment but in the meantime I've added the £5 monthly payment reduction as a note to add to the overpayments next month

It felt really rewarding to see that extra payment made

brizzledfw

Well done Shortie. Great goals..

Here's to a fantastic OP'g frenzied 2016

Brizzle x

Shortie

Thanks Brizzle xx

Frenzy, hehe, I like thought of that

Shortie

Another overpayment was made today of £70 which felt good. Okay, not life changing, but it is a small step in the right direction still and I think that breaking it down into a couple of smaller chunks does a few things:
- is a good boost throughout the month
- stops the temptation for it to be spent as it's out of sight quicker
- helps keep the momentum going

I have realised than the next few months will be very small overpayments as we will be booking at holiday to see family in the summer and will need to pay upfront for the flight and car hire, and I am trying to pay the balance on a weekend away in May asap, as well as my eldest's school trip in 2017. I want to get them paid up asap so the flight and car to see fakily will be laid in my Jan pay packets, the May weekend will be paid in the March paypacket and the school trip in installments wherever possible

I still want to make at least one over payment per month though, even if it's just a token payment

Off to update the original goals with today's overpayment

brizzledfw

Well done on the OP and also planning how you will pay for the other treats. Good discipline!

Shortie

Thanks Brizzle x. It won't be much for a couple of months but I'm keen to keep making some kind of progress

Shortie

... dusts off diary...

Dear diary, firstly apologies for leaving you alone for quite a long time. I've been on the boards all this time but had nothing positive to report debt-busting wise so didn't

It's been a financially hars month and I learnt a lot from them. I over paid the debt which felt great, and quickly became unstuck in Jan when my washing machine and car battery died shortly after over stretching myself by paying for flights to visit family in summer

Feb-Mar pay packet should have been my time to recover but a workman turned up (wih bits he'd ordered and paid for) after not actually confirming he'd be coming so I hadn't budgetted for him. Needless to say, this month has also been 'hairy' financially

I get paid in a couple of weeks time and I need it to be a stable month as I've found the last couple quite stressful.

I have learnt that I need to make sure I have an emergency pot sorted before I overpay again. So that will be my focus when I get paid again - I will post that progress on here. After that, the over payments restart