Getting a Grip and Saving towards the mortgage

Busy_Mee1

I can't believe it has been 2 weeks since I last posted ( thanks for popping in ETE and Try Harder). I have had what I think they call a perfect storm. DS got the keys to his house and we have been helping him with some jobs, work has been manic and I have been spending week days in London and we were away at a wedding last weekend. I am now on my way back home from London and making use of the free WiFi to catch up.
It has all been a bit of a whirl and very very spendy - I am dreading my credit card bill next month :eek:Luckily we will both get our annual bonus, which should hopefully cover it :T

In MF news I have just received £200 cash back into my Nutmeg S&S ISA which I had forgotten about and will boost this month's savings total. There is now £2498 in this ISA, all free money from last year's odds and sods account. It has lost £2.00 but I am gritting my teeth as I am viewing this as a 10 year investment.

I haven't been to the gym at all this week and have a stinking cold. I need to get a grip and focus on myself next week :A

Busy_Mee1

So made it to Saturday and hoping for a less frantic weekend. These last few weeks have been manic.

Work has been interesting over the last few weeks, and I have a number of irons in the fire with regards to new jobs. Hopefully I will be in a new role by September :T I am not sure I can sustain the level of pace and pressure required in this job for much longer and it feels quite good having some other options in place.

I went for a long walk last night with DD and we had a good chat about finances, she is currently switching her bank account to FD for the £125 switching bonus :T It made me smile really, some of my MSE ways are rubbing off :money:

She is trying to get her boyfriend more interested in his finances. He comes from quite a well off family and has never done without anything and his parents bail him out fairly regularly. She is really trying to get him to stand on his own two feet and has had some success. They have had just had to find some extra money for a tax bill, and although it has left them short, he has actually paid it himself without asking his parents for money.

It does make me realise how lucky I am, that my two are fairly financially astute and are financially independent. We do help them out occasionally, usually by treating them, but they never expect it.

DS has moved into his new house and it is lovely. He has been quite stressed though, there has been a lot to do, a lot to buy and I think he has found the decision making quite hard. I think this is harder on your own as you don't have a partner to discuss with or share the burden. We have been trying to help him as much as we can, Mr Mee has been helping with all the jobs that need doing ( blinds up, washing machine/ dishwasher plumbed in etc). I have been helping him choose stuff Anyway he now has all the basics and he has a couple of his university friends coming to visit today, so we can have a break.

It is funny I haven't really noticed our empty nest yet, as I have hardly been at home. I think I will notice it this weekend, particularly when I go to the supermarket. I am expecting a substantial drop in our grocery spends

The weather is a bit grey here, I hoping it might brighten up so that I can get some gardening done this weekend.

try_harder

Wow your free money pot is A mazing you have worked at it so hard and it really has paid off .I have put our money from the Millionaire challenge into my ISA with some of our other savings and it goes up and down but im looking at it as a long term investment so i try to ignore the drops but it is hard .
Your children both sound really lovely you have done a great job and thats all we can ask for ,i am so proud of my children and the kind ,compassionate adults they have become it has been my greatest accomplishment ,whenever i look at them i cannot believe that they are mine .
That sounds very intriguing ,a new job by September i hope it will work out for you and be more relaxing you work so very hard i dont know how you sustain it i certainly could not do it but you are very organised and that certainly helps but im keeping my fingers crossed for you .

Busy_Mee1

Urgh what a grey and rainy start to the school holidays - I hope it brightens up for all those families heading off on their summer break. I wonder where you take kids on rainy days at the seaside now that Woolies has closed. Mine spent many happy hours in there choosing what tat to spend their holiday money on

I have spent all this week at home, which has been lovely. I was feeling a bit meh earlier on in the week so I cancelled at my trips away and just stayed local. I am feeling much better now, it was just a virus, but it floored me, I think after having so many weeks working silly hours. I am back to it next week and will be spending most of the week in London.

I feel like I haven't had much focus on MF activities over these last few weeks and need to start recording some of the smaller gains again. We had a small windfall from British Gas this week, a refund of £14.95 that they had overcharged us, with an additional £10 compensation. We also have:

Topcashback £87 tracking
Barclaycard cashback £46.45
20p jar (approx £70) - saving for cottage holiday in September
£195 claimed back (expenses)
£100 Debenhams voucher and £20 M&S vouchers ( saving for Christmas)

I have also got Mr Mee to load his Santander 123 lite debit card on to Apple Pay as they are offering 5% cash back on payments using your phone until 30 September.

I need to sort out another Direct Debit to go on my TSB account which I will sacrifice in September to switch to FD for the switching bonus and to open another couple of regular savers.

Despite having quite a spendy month, the savings are looking healthy and we have already topped £1500 ( largely due to the £200 cash back received into the nutmeg account). Next month is likely to be tight though, as the credit card bill from hell needs to be paid, along with final payment on holiday accomodation. I am still hoping to keep on track though as we have annual bonuses to come ( fingers crossed ).

I am having a big clear out this weekend now that DS has moved out, and have some big black sacks at the ready. I think there will be a few runs to the tip :T

Have a great weekend and hope it stops raining soon.

themadvix

I'm glad you're feeling better now BusyMee! And I love how your lack of focus still seems to have netted you quite a few bits of extra cash!

Busy_Mee1

Slightly early with the July update, but we have been paid already and there is unlikely to be any more movement across the accounts.

So the scores on the doors for this month are as follows:

Amount into savings £1,501.90
Total savings. £53,097.60
Mortgage. £245,778.50
Savings:Mortgage. 21.60%
Average monthly savings £1,583.32

Target 1 £60k December 2017
Target 2 £70k. July 2018
Target 3. £80k. Feb 2019
Target 4. £90k September 2019
D Day October 2019 ( OH retirement)

I am starting to feel the pressure is on with Mr Mees retirement date looming and only 21% of the mortgage is covered by savings. I need to work out how much the mortgage will have dropped to by that point because of the regular payments ( I think about £220k). The only consolation is that we know we can manage on half of Mr Mees salary ( which will effectively be what his pension is) I can carry on paying the mortgage out of my salary, but we won't be able to save anything like the amounts we are currently saving.

I need to focus a bit more on this but unfortunately I don't have the head space at the moment, and won't until probably September. We just keep doing all the things that have become routine for us, with standing orders to regular savings, harvesting interest and rewards and shopping at Aldi/Lidl and Homeb@rgains. We shop around for everything we buy and maximise TCB and cash back on CC and the Santander Lite/Apple Pay.

Actually when I read that back we are actually doing quite a lot ....which I think was the point Madvix was making :rotfl: Probably the only thing I am not doing at the moment is Eb@ying ...

themadvix

I think that's the thing BusyMee, it all becomes the norm, so you don't feel like you're doing as much, but you are, it's just not new anymore.

Busy_Mee1

It has been a while since I last posted for a number of reasons - some good and some bad. So brace yourself this is likely to be a long post:

The bad stuff
DD and her boyfriend have split up again and this time it is final. Her nice boyfriend has turned out to be not so nice, so will no longer be referred to NB but @rsehole ! I am just glad this has happened now before she got in any deeper. She is back living at home, so our empty nest only actually lasted a couple of weeks. She has handled it all remarkably well, she says she feels relieved rather than sad, which I think says it all. I think the stress has got to her though as she has been physically ill this week and is now on a strong course of antibiotics.

The good stuff
Our B&B reopened it's doors and we have had friends and family stayed over the last couple of weekends, which we have enjoyed and has taken our minds off the bad stuff. We had some friends staying the first weekend and the weather was great, so lots of long country walks, drinking and eating. We are away with these friends again at the beginning of September, which we are all looking forward to.

DS had his housewarming this weekend so we went along to that and it was lovely to see all the young people we have known since they were children who have now grown up into lovely adults. I think DS discovered how much work entertaining is though.

Last week we had our old folk to stay, which again was lovely but I must have made a million cups of tea :rotfl: I really noticed this time how much they are both slowing down - Dad is 81 now and it is really showing.

DD and I took Mum for afternoon tea at the local hotel for a bit of girls afternoon. We had a really good time and Mum gave DD some good advice ( I bet @rsehole's ears were burning !)

That was the first of two afternoon teas I have had this week ( thanks to Groupon)
I also met a good friend after work on Thursday, although that afternoon tea included a bottle of Fizz and 2 for 1 cocktails (hic)

Health and Fitness
Despite all the eating and drinking over these last few weeks I haven't put any weight on :T but I haven't lost any either :mad: and I really must start trying to sort my eating out. I am however running again and managed 2x 4K runs this week. I am aiming to start Parkrun again next Saturday.

Work has been slightly quieter, and so less stressful. Another boss has bitten the dust ( this job just chews them up and spits them out !) The new one seems very competent and supportive, so I am feeling more positive about work (although I am still working on getting a new job, until I see how this one pans out).

The money stuff
All the usual things happening and everything is on track to achieve the savings target this month. I just can't quite believe that when I started my first diary in January 2015, I started by setting up a standing order for £200 a month into savings. This gradually increased over time and last year I was working hard to put £1000 a month into savings. This year I am comfortably saving £1500 per month. We havent had that much increase in earned income in that period ( around £250 per month) But I think this shows that it does take time for all your MSE efforts to kick in, and this becomes a way of life so that you have got your outgoings down to a minimum, and you have increased your passive income by making your money work hard.

That said I have been doing quite a bit of spending over the last couple of weeks. I have bought some much needed new clothes and a pair of shoes. I have been eyeing a number of things up over the summer but have waited for the sales ( Fatface and Dune) before buying. All half price or less.

This has enabled me to have a good clear out of some very tired clothing, and along with DD who also had a good clear out when she moved back in , we took 5 black sacks full to the charity shop. My confession is that some of this would have been suitable for eb@y but I just couldn't face it at the moment and having a good clear out felt quite cathartic. Hopefully someone else will benefit from it though :T

Grocery shopping has been all over the place over the last few weeks, because of visitors and the return of DD. I am hoping to get this back on track this week, and we are off to @ldis today to restock. I did go to L!dls yesterday to take advantage of their weakend deals and stocked up on fabric conditioner, bacon, burgers and chicken Kiev. I also bought a couple of their bottles of £2.99 Cotes de Rhone to try....if we don't like it I can use it in cooking.

I think that is all .... a bit of an epic update I am afraid. It looks like it is going to be a nice day today, Mr Mee and I are heading into the city today to use a restaurant voucher he was given for Christmas. We having been meaning to go for the last 6 months :rotfl:

themadvix

Sounds like you've been really Busy BusyMee! Sorry to hear that things did not work out for your daughter and she's been hurt, but it sounds like she's definitely better shot of him!

Your monthly savings figures are amazing - how much they've grown is a true testament to your hard work and the benefits of MSE!

Busy_Mee1

Thank you Madvix. I think she has learned a lot from the experience and she definitely deserves better, so I think it will all turn out well in the end.

Working from home today, but heading down to London tomorrow.
We didn't manage to get into the city yesterday so didn't use our restaurant voucher. We are instead going after work on Wednesday for a mid week treat : )