Getting a mortgage and then becoming mortgage-free!

Kittenkirst

Two no spend days (NSD’s) for us due to working from home and eating lots of the leftovers from Christmas. We made turkey parcels for dinner last night using up more turkey. Gf added jalapeños & mozzarella to hers and I had mozzarella and pesto. Delicious and using up pastry from the freezer that’s been hanging around.

The rest of the turkey is in the freezer for later in the month, but the fridge is still full of food. Hopefully means we can skip the weekly shop this week

Yesterday was back to work or us both, I spent a long day creating excel documents for the year, I underestimated how long it would take....the whole day yesterday. Today has been a few calls and clearing down the 2018 emails. My work resolution is to delete more regularly!!!
Right back to it for the afternoon

Kittenkirst

Oh forgot to post about the Christmas present spends vs budget.

Managed to come in at £20 under what I had stashed away for Christmas and still had £240 of money on the gift voucher card!

Gf loved the Tiffany perfume (bought with 20% off and after shopping around a fair bit), her bracelet she kept contemplating buying in the summer (no deal there but still within budget), the nandos piroshki’s salt shaker set she requested and the personalised calendar bought using a deal early December.

Brother and his gf seemed very happy with their gifts- brothers stash had some wireless noise cancelling headphones added after his tribunal as discovered his trusty pair had snapped (& he uses them to help with the schizophrenia by distracting himself listening to books and music) so that added a chunk onto the amount spent but he was super pleased.

I don’t think I wrote about my brothers tribunal, but essentially they stopped his disability benefit back in the summer. He had appealed it but it wasn’t granted, so we attended a tribunal for it just after gf Came out of hospital. Happily he won his tribunal so will have it backdated but also they stated he is entitled to a severe disability allowance too so he came out with more benefits that he was getting before they stepped them. Great result, but super frustrating that he has to go through those hoops. He’s reapplied for his ESA for January so we assume that’s the next hoop he has to jump through!

We’ve had a super serious chat about the backdated benefit and about stashing away in savings a nice chunk of it, however he is very generous and know he will probably spend some on his gf. Totally his money and he is a grown up but I do worry. Will have the chat late January with him again to make sure he does stash some away for rainy days/emergencies etc.

Having a lot of pain at the moment with my back again, so today has been working from home and minimal shuffling around. At least it makes today another NSD :rotfl:

Kittenkirst

Soooo, late last night I couldn’t sleep so I updated my calendar picture with our December overpayment total and the year total.

This came out at

December: £389.12
2018: £4,239.85

I sent the calendar to the gf this morning and said I wanted to Overpay an additional £10.15 to make it £4250.

Gf asked if I had enough to go halves to make an additional Op to take the total to £4500.....so after some money shuffling we have made an additional December OP of £260.15 :j :j

Whilst this may not be huge numbers for some, for us it’s been a pretty fab year for overpaying and we’ve really pushed ourselves, and still funded the holiday of a lifetime to Singapore & Australia.

:money: :beer: :j :j :j :j

Off to update the MFW2018 thread with our final figures (& change our calendar picture for 2018!!)

A_Frayed_Knot

Fab news on the o/p :T

I really pushed myself as much as possible at the end of every year (eg took some out of savings, etc) knowing I could replace in the next couple of months or so,
not that I made it to the limit, mind you, but done as much as I was comfortable with :money:

Thought for the day - Once that 10% allowance is gone, it's gone

julicorn

Well done on those overpayments - and even more 'well done' on coming in under budget for your Christmas presents, that's really not an easy thing to achieve! This year was the first year we actually 'budgeted', and I've got to say I was shocked how easily presents (or money spent on them) adds up. Definitely got to be a bit more realistic next year!

Also good news on your brother getting his money. It's good that you're offering some help and advice, even if not all of it is accepted straight away.

All the best for 2019!

Kittenkirst

So yesterday I finally bit the bullet with my metalsmithing stuffs and listed lots for sale on a Facebook group. The response was overwhelming and I sold all items I popped up yesterday afternoon :eek:

Total sales yesterday was £510 which included my workbench which I’ll admit I did shed a tear when I sold. Sounds cheesy but I really enjoy metalsmithing and had fanciful dreams of one day retiring and being a silversmith by trade. So it was a little hard to accept yesterday but when the money started hitting my paypal it eased the pain a little!

I now have loads to pack up and post out tomorrow, and am planning to pop more items up this afternoon after Sunday lunch. The postage will bring the £510 down somewhat but it’s better than it all collecting dust. I’ve collected some boxes from my local shop to recycle these too and save waste :beer:

I’ve put £100 already onto my c/card which has a small balance from Australia trip and another £140 is earmarked for an overpayment on 1st Jan to kick start us for 2019! :money:

We’ve been to yoga this morning which was fab and now made Sunday lunch if a lamb curry (lamb joint diced up that was bought ys £3.50 ages ago), rice, rotlis, yogurt, cabbage salad and kidney bean curry. Yum!

newgirly

Well done on the great overpayments this year KK :T and a happy new year!

A_Frayed_Knot

Oh wow, what happened ? not enough time, I would have thought and hoped that would have made you extra pennies selling your goods.

but I'm with you if it was the "time" factor, you reminded me I have loads of craft "goodies" and thought it must be around a year or so since I touched them. On giving it more thought - it must be around 5-6 years :eek: must think about what I will do with it all sometime soon.

PurpleFairy26

Well done on the sales kk that's a fab total. It is hard when you have a tie to something but if you're not using it, it's better the money in your bank

Great totals on OP too, I lobve your balance of enjoying life and overpayments :T looking forward to being on the o/p journey with you in 2019

Kittenkirst

Thanks NewGirly, happy new year to you too

A frayed Knot & Purple Fairy- I’m not sure if I talked about the tax debacle that lasted near on 18 months? Essentially I registered for tax to make sure I was legit (even though it was really hobby selling but didn’t want to fall foul of taxman)- anyways this led to demands from them for £420, which I challenged numerous times as I hadn’t really made any profits yet. Anyways they said it was due to student loans (which are already fully paid). I was sent back and forth between tax and student loans company who kept saying the other needed to update systems etc. This went on and on, eventually they ignored my challenge/query (even though every person on the phone agreed I owed £0) and it went to a debt collection agency.

Luckily I’ve worked with debt collection agencies in the past professionally so know the rules etc so insisted they place the account on hold as queried and I wouldn’t be paying the £1k in fees added by tax and DCA.

I finally got through to a lovely hmrc person who talked to me, talked to student loans and back and forth for over two hours and finally managed to gymet it sorted. I did have to pay £420 ish to them for them to refund me £435 a few weeks later (they advised I had to pay, they would then recalculate and pay me back what they agreed they owed me). I then had to send another letter of complaint (included copies of my previous complaints- 4 letters!).
Farcical really and left a bitter taste.

So that alongside time availability meant I just wasn’t getting round to doing it. I’m having a break from the workshop class this term but planning to restart after Easter so I’ll still be playing once a week, and I’ve kept my beads, resin, wireworking and sewing machine so will continue with the creative outlet

I’ve had payments of £650 through now so after postage it’s a nice little sum for overpayments and savings!

Happy New Year all- I hope 2019 provides happiness and contentment for all x