Project Mortgage Neutral Begins

ajmoney

June spends:

£156.07 Food

£32.37  Toiletries

£1.50 Cards

£3.19 Cleaning products

£40.48 Household

£233.61 Total for shopping budget of £250.  This used to be called food but actually is my budget for anything bought in the supermarkets.

I also spent £299.50 on other things; my watch, roasting tins to replace my dead ones, work and club kit that I had forgotten about, a virtual challenge officially for July but paid for in June and a flute lesson but everything was cleverly covered last month's pay and my tax refund with a bit left over.

savingholmes

Good luck with the remortgage. I am sure they will be impressed with your budgeting.

ajmoney

Productive morning so far.  I have started setting myself 2 or 3 tasks to do each day, sometimes I manage them all and other days I don't so this morning I decided to do them all before I start work.  One email sent about my swim goggles that are letting in water, a message left with the doctor to try and organise a telephone consultation and have just booked a mortgage consultation for next week.  The woman on the other end of the phone is as confused as me why my 2 year mortgage product is coming to an end this month when I took it out in April 2019 so has put a note on my appointment and hopefully next Tuesday I can get everything sorted.

So I now have an OP and saving plan for the rest of the year, my budget gives me between £100-140 a month unallocated for any unexpected spending.  For the next couple of months I may still have money left over from my fuel budget and I am debating what to do with this money.  My plan had been to save it while I am trying to boost my cash savings but I am now debating an OP with it to my smaller mortgage.  I have mentioned on here why I OP my bigger mortgage with the smaller interest rate and am leaving the other one until this has gone, I wouldn't be making any large payments to it, just enough to cover the interest I am paying, around £57 a month.  I haven't decided whether I will do this yet or continue saving it until the end of the year when I plan to reassess everything but I will take this month to look at different options, the saving interest rate vs the mortgage one seems a no-brainer but I want to make sure I am not missing something obvious.

I may need to follow up the doctor appointment later but for now I am going to start working.

ajmoney

My morning has been less productive, it turns out if I don't work straight away it is harder to get motivated although I have managed to do some, if I can manage another 20 minutes I will be happy.

I have booked an oven clean for next week, part of me thinks it is a waste but he did a really good job last year.  I also have a coupe of weird things going on with my hob, 2 rings aren't working very well after I cleaned it a little enthusiastically and when I use any cleaners on the hob I get a strange residue that makes it look dirtier than when I started.  He is going to advise me on these, I have also asked him to help me order the correct replacement door for my top oven after I fell into it last year.  I find it a bit of a minefield working out what I need to buy so then end up not doing anything.

Today seems to be a get things done day so around some work calls that I need to make this afternoon (separate to the 20 minutes I want to do) I am going to try and do some of the other things I have been putting off.

ajmoney

Just had my pre-remortgge chat on the phone so she can get some stuff together for next week's appointment.  I have only ever had a tracker mortgage so find it strange when people start talking and suggesting fixed products to me.  She is going to look at various different options with me, fixing both products, just remortgaging one as a tracker or both and different terms.  Initially though to change my lifetime tracker which is currently £134.43 a month and 2.68% to change to a current product the interest rate would drop to 1.54% but the monthly cost only goes down to around £120.  If I leave it as it is the interest rates have to rise by 2% before my payments would change, right now I know what I will be doing!  I have given the maximum I would be looking at paying a month so we will be working with that.

She also started talking about life insurance, I won't be taking it but I will listen to what she says. 

savingholmes

If you have no dependants you don't need life insurance. After that it just depends whether you want to leave some money for someone above and beyond the equity in you home. Some mortgages require life insurance - ours did.

ajmoney

savingholmes said:

If you have no dependants you don't need life insurance. After that it just depends whether you want to leave some money for someone above and beyond the equity in you home. Some mortgages require life insurance - ours did.

That was what I thought about life insurance and said as much on the phone yesterday.  I know what information I need to get for Tuesday, I will also do more research on fixed rate vs tracker mortgages seeing as there is so little difference in interest rates at the moment.  I think the main key will be how much is 10% of the mortgage and where will that reduce me to at the end of the term.

While I was putting my daily mortgage figures into my spreadsheet I decided to look back at this time last year, I have reduced my mortgage by £13541.89.  The MSE credit club also seems to like my approach to finances.

So from today we can now travel any distance for exercise and the weather gods are having the last laugh as the weather is horrendous.  It was meant to clear up tomorrow but even that is looking doubtful.  I have a few inside jobs to do but then I will put full waterproofs on and go for a wander.

Suffolk_lass

When you have your chat, don't forget you already have life insurance in the form of death in service benefit, which could be used to pay off any mortgage

ajmoney

I am in work for 2 afternoons in a couple of weeks time, that will be a little weird!  We then officially have 3 weeks of leave as we are having to try and use some of it up before we go back to work properly.

I am bored and not really sure what to do in this rubbish weather, think I definitely need to find a way of getting away from constantly thinking that I need to be doing something.

ajmoney

I have just calculated my net worth for July. I am going to try and get in the habit of doing this monthly to see any differences, it is slightly lower this month as I decided not to include all my savings.  One of the accounts is the pots for all the annual expenses so I have classed this as already spent/planned so not an asset.  My net worth figure is still ok though, £132667.43 which comes out at 41%.

Even though we have high winds forecast for the day I am going to get out and make the most of the first blue sky we have had in quite a few days.  I don't really have any plans though, probably a walk and some dead heading in the garden.

I know when I finally go back to work the money will start dripping out of my account again, especially when all my hobbies start up again.  Until then I am trying to keep the spends down, I am aiming for only spending money every other day.  It might sound like a strange approach but it helps me stay motivated with my shopping lists and also if it is a non-spend day it gives me time to see whether the purchase is really necessary or not.  I think I have become a little too strict with my spending while I am trying to increase my savings but I need to think about the investment of where the money is going.  My main thing is in the garden, I have stopped buying and plants etc but I know if I do it will give me things to do, especially if I buy edibles.  Today is a non spend day so I am planning what I would like to buy when I go shopping tomorrow and I will pick up some seeds.  I think maybe a gardening section budget may help here as it doesn't feature at the moment, I have £150 surplus a month so I have room to include it.  I will wait and see what the new mortgage payments are likely to be and then make a decision when I update my budget.