Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

I was nicely suprised yesterday as was chatting with gf about the OPs and she wanted to match my tilly tidy from my savings account. So we swiftly overpaid another £50 last night boosting the July OP.

It's now a nice chunk of change at £356.59 meaning the year to date OP is £2539.56 only £460 away from our target for the year :):)

Today has been a work from home day so a minimal spend day- woke up early and we went to the gym where I ran 3.5km and then joined gf for a leg session. After work I got into town for yoga- paid £3 to park- got home to find the gf has made a veggie mince chilli with sweet potato slices as nachos yummmm and healthy :heartpuls:

Plan for tomorrow is a 7am yoga class, followed by eye appointment to check how they are healing post surgery, then work from home with a gym session after work. Pretty good start to the week

Kittenkirst

This morning didn't quite go as planned- alarm went off at 5.35am but I foolishly closed my eyes for what I thought was ten minutes but when I opened my eyes it was 6.25am :eek: not enough time to change, drive to yoga and get into class. So instead I snuggled back down until 7am and then got up and showered for opticians

Eye check up went all okay, I have slight dryness in one eye so am to continue using the lubricating eye drops regularly but otherwise all okay. Nipped to the market in town as had 15 mins left on parking. We spent £4.80 on some cherries, 3 punnets of strawberry's, big bag of onions, a huge white cabbage and a few bunches of coriander to top up the fridge for this weeks meals.

For lunch I warmed up some leftover chilli (one portion now in freezer for another day) and chopped a wrap into triangles and toasted in the pan, added some red jalapeños, chopped coriander, courgette and the tiniest sprinkle of protein cheese. Tasted delicious but nutritious.

Really enjoyed the veggie mince bought for 60p using Shopmium so far and there's still 1/3 of the bag in the freezer and one chilli portion so it's stretched far!

Planning to use up the lonely chicken breast for some buffalo shredded chicken with the last of the lonely new potatoes with some form of veggies after the gym.

Have lots of work to do but the MI team are messing around with the data which is pushing my stress levels up. Planning an early gym session at 5pm and then a late night working to get it all done- fingers crossed they sort the data before I'm back!

Kittenkirst

Gym session went well, Work not so well so will be pulling my hair out tomorrow

Dinner tonight was a YS special- honey & siracha sizzle strips with homemade coleslaw and loads of veggies. Overnight oats are in the fridge for my team breakfast meeting tomorrow in the office to stop me spending in the canteen. I've added some chia seeds, chopped strawberries from the market today and half an overripe banana (from the free fruit in the office last week).

We've poached a big chicken breast ready for lunch tomorrow - will douse it in some buffalo sauce in the morning, chuck it in a wrap with the leftover coleslaw from this evening. Packed some cherries from the market and Greek yogurt and strawberries. Hopefully that'll stop any naughty (waistline & financial) purchases from the Work canteen/vending machines!

Packing gymkit to go straight to the gym after work tomorrow, then home for something from the freezer. We have some nice looking salmon sliders from tesco bought ys some time ago! Think those with some stir fried veggies would be tasty!

Kittenkirst

Morning lovelies, time for the July round up!

July 2018- Payment 22
• Mortgage balance 31/7/18 £156,897.12
• July OP's - £356.59
• July net reduction - £830.81
• Daily Interest charged - £7.08
• LTV - 77.68%
• % Loan Remaining - 92%

Diary figures
• Total mortgage Reduction - £25,882.97
• Cumulative OP's - £5388.91
• Ave OP's - £244.91

Happy to see things moving in the right direction, some eBay sales have helped boost the OP this month plus some small swipes of odd values from savings accounts.

Interest is now at £7.08 a day, down from £13.32 at the start of the year thanks to the new Mortgage deal and paying small OPs too.

Yesterday consisted of work- had two canteen coffees at £1.30 each but ate my overnight oats with chia strawberries & banana, and also are my packed lunch of a mini wrap with the poached chicken in buffalo sauce with leftover coleslaw. Really didn't feel like the gym but went anyways and then dinner was some (ys) frozen chicken beeadcrumbed steaks with new spuds. Only a few and it was dead tasty!

Went to 7am yoga this morning so £1 on parking today for that and working from home so all food will be from stores. I have dance class tonight which is the first since the eye surgery so that will be £7.50 but looking forward to seeing my friend and being sociable

Coffee break over best get cracking on with Work as have the day off tomorrow to go to Brighton to see Britney Spears on Saturday :T

Kittenkirst

It's been a busy week-weekend in Brighton was fab- Britney Spears didn't disappoint and the pride parade was good fun!
The weekend was a bit spendy- meal out on the Friday, food atthe Park for Britney concert, then we picked up gfs nephew on Sunday so took him out for dinner Sunday evening.

We took him trampolining with a friend and his kids on Monday which was great fun- also adab workout 400cals for the hour of bouncing around like a loony!

Nephew was picked up on Tuesday afternoon, so we headed to the gym for a workout. Back to work on Wednesday so went to yoga and referred two of gfs family members (will get me £10 off next months membership :money:) went to yoga again this morning and dance class this evening- have paid for a non rolling membership for pole which means for August I pay for four classes but get the fifth free

EasyJet have confirmed the compensation for the flight delay- £445 for the gf and I. Annoyingly we've had to resubmit her claim (she booked for her parents) twice already and still not had a confirmation email. That £445 will clear within two weeks which is fab timing pre- Australia.

We are five weeks away from the fight to Singapore so we have a tick list of things to get sorted:
-car hires to be booked on payday (15th)
-confirmations of all bookings to be printed and filed
-Australian visas to be applied for (Friday night plan!)
-practice snorkelling with friends full face masks at the pool
- get some more swims in
- 2 Paddleboard yoga sessions
-at least 1 more kayak practice session
- exchange currency
-sort out suncream that's suitable for use on the reefs
- weigh suitcases to work out if we need to get some lighter weight ones

This month will be our last OP month until October payday, so just waiting for payday to roll around so we can money shuffle.

We're also on a mission to clear down the freezer before Australia- tonight was veggie Bolognese using that low cost veggie mince from Shopmium. Hoping this will reduce the grocery spends as well in the run up to our holiday.

Currently Cat sitting two sets of friends cats so daily feeding of 8 kitties! Love it they are all so affectionate and adorable :heartpuls:

Reached £12 on prolific so requested pay our last week and OP'd it, alongside a £3 Pinecone survey and £1.35 Quidco. It's all slowly mounting up...

Kittenkirst

We are in the last few days of our 'month' as it's payday on Wednesday and both gf and I are at the limits of our accounts (staying out of the overdrafts!) but with nothing else to spend on until after payday. I think of that as being a success (I transfer savings out on payday to avoid the temptation to spend!).

Two small tilly tidies sent late last week to the Mortgage of 2p and 32p. Payday on Wednesday so the usual money shuffle will take place. Planning to overpay £220 ish on payday for August as other than tilly tidies/surveys/eBay we won't make any more overpayments until mid October payday comes around.

Had a fab weekend- kayaking was adventurous. Girlfriend tried standing at the front of the kayak and toppled into the river taking me sat in the back of the tandem in too! It was a bit of a giggle andwe were soon 'rescued' by the instructors who righted and drained our kayak (it was a sit in one) and we were back on our way! Amusingly the little flower the gf picked for me stayed in my hair despite the little dip!

We then had a good gym session and made a 'freezer dinner' of cod fillets (bought with cashback from Shopmium), some veggies from the market and some peri chips (freebie from Shopmium and resigned to the freezer as we weren't keen!)

Yesterday started with yoga for me, gf went to gym and then we took her parents to ikea. They bought us meatball lunch and cinnamon rolls after for taking them and helping sort the last few furniture pieces they wanted. We tried to be restrained and ended up picking up two new frying plans (a crepe style one which we use for bacon, eggs, onions etc & a deep one for normal cooking- stirfrys etc so the trusty old ones have been binned today (they were more 'extra-stick' than non stick, and we eat a lot of eggs!) we also picked up two multi USB plugs- they charge three appliances per plug which is perfect for reducing energy usage and means we'll need less adaptors for the holiday!

Yesterday evening we met up with friends for a Nando's dinner which was lovely, and much cheaper than the steak house (!) they were suggesting.

Off to stand-up paddle boarding yoga this evening and very much looking forward to it! Then tomorrow is a day in the office. Have picked up some YS chicken breasts this morning for dinner and planning to take leftovers in for lunch- thinking of doing chicken with peppers, onions and salsa on top of some mixed quinoa/rice for us both to take in.That way it's healthy and enticing and keeps me out of the Work canteen and away from the chips!

Money from easyJet hadn't yet come through and gf awaiting her confirmation- she's going to tweet them this evening to chase it up as that'll easily cover our hire cars for Australia ::money:

Kittenkirst

Payday and working from home so the payday money shuffle has been completed and trackers updated on my lunch.

1. Savings have increased by £250 via my workshare saves and the SIP
2. Pension pot has had a healthy increase as I logged into the account to find my old (no longer adding to) one has increased by £1169 and the new one has had £415 added (mine and the work contributions today!) as well as £560 growth :money:
3. Mortgage op made of £227 to round off the overpayments/capital repayment vs interest charged to £710 capital reduction.

Girlfriend asked this morning about making a separate OP from her quarterly bonus- she has had her sharesave payout recently and had an old rebate on a previous agencies deposit owed for her flat so is feeling a bit flusher than normal

The focus on increasing overall net worth and future proofing are going well- £25 DD also sent to the lifetime ISA.

Tonight hoping to book car hires for Australia and sort out the transfers to/from the airport here....not long now!

EasyJet refund received but gf hasn't had a confirmation email yet for her claim for her parents booking annoyingly. Is £222.44 each as compensation which is better than nothing and more than our initial flights:T

Yoga tonight and then thinking of makin something gammon related for dinner tonight- will have a browse for some recipe ideas whilst I finish my cuppa and then it's back to work for me...earn the pennies to pay for Oz.....

MichaelDH

Hi KK

Still doing great with the OP's I see!

Not long to wait until your big trip now. Bet you can't wait to go!

My brother has just landed in San Francisco after 3 night in New York, 3 nights in Las Vegas and 8 nights in Hawaii. 7 hour wait until his flight from San Francisco to Heathrow, then got to drive back up to Birmingham. He's back to work on Friday, bless him! Hope you guys have got a few days to recover before you are back at work!

Kittenkirst

Hi Michael thanks for popping back in just caught up with your thread- great news on your re-valuation after all your hard remodelling work on the house!

It's a working from home day today so I'm sat with a cuppa chilling before logging in for the day. I skipped my 7am yoga class this morning as a I went to a pole stretch class then a pole dance class last night. The classes were fab but brutal on the body so my shoulders and hips are a bit tender this morning. Will still gym after work tonight though- 4 weeks today we will be in Singapore.....:T

Payday has been, which means my work vouchers have been topped up too- they've moved the shopping vouchers to one 'Pure' MasterCard which works much better as means you can use in loads of places- and they give you a monthly rebate of cashback dependent on where you spent.

With a fresh top-up and saved funds from previous months I popped to boots to get some things I had added to my online basket- annoyingly you can't use the card online with boots but this worked in my favour. I bought some sleeping tablets from the pharmacy counter and get gave me a £5 off No7 voucher. I wanted two pieces of Suncare from No7 for the holiday (a spf 50 BB cream for my face and a 50spf sunstick for face too)- the two items are on a 2 for £20 deal (saving £7) and they accepted the voucher (despite it saying not for BB creams!) so I got both for £15- essentially the sunstick was free and gf is super happy. We had a Neutrogena one we bought (70spf) in America and finally used it up- I much prefer sunblock sticks to cream but struggle to find reasonably priced ones.

Also picked up other things for the holiday- boots own diahorrea relief, boots rehydration salts, some effervescent vitamin boosters just in case, batiste for hair, new shampoo for me as I've used my last TIGI up yesterday (replaced with £1.99 decent one instead!) etc so starting to feel more prepared.

I also 'treated' myself to an embroidered tee for £18- it ties at the middle and shows a bit of tummy so will try tonight with my holiday shorts and jeans to make sure I'm comfortable but it's very pretty!

Also managed to spot Shopmium have a cat food offer on Harrington's- our boys both enjoy it so I managed to get the different flavour 2kg bags for £2.75 instead of £5.50. As gf also has a Shopmium account I paid in cash and got her 4 also. All cashback claims submitted and confirmed so 16kg of cat food for £22 which is a massive saving :money: just need to work out where to store it!:rotfl:

I was super pleased as our tesco never has anything on the Shopmium deals(even if they had it the week before!!). I got the cat food a few hours after it appeared so not sure if that has anything to do with it but we'll have happy furries for quite some time now!

7p OP made as a tilly tidy this morning making August total so far a nice £241.93 off to read some more diaries and get some inspiration on OPs for the remainder of the holiday countdown!

Kittenkirst

Gym session was great last night, however I had an awful nights sleep due to a bad back playing up. Today's yoga and trip to see my brother have been cancelled due to the pain so instead I've managed to list my old suitcase on gumtree (as got a new lightweight one from Argos with my pure card- it's fantastic so gf is going to get one also as we will be changing hotels sometimes nightly so want our luggage leightweight as possible).

Also posted my old sleeping bag, roll mat and camping pillow on gumtree too. Fingers crossed for some sales- will put that towards the Singapore slings in Raffles (Singapore). Did some research and it's a princely £18 per drink in there so think we'll just be having the one ;P

Going to FaceTime the brother so can still have a chat and see him, feel bad about not visiting but my back couldn't handle a 4 hr round trip today.

Today's plans have been changed to investigating a new phone for me and the cheapest way to do it- I've got very used to paying £10 a month for a phone so not sure I want to change.... and also looking at currency conversion rates to get the best deals for Singapore dollars and Australian dollars.....as well as bookings the hire cars today :T