Project Mortgage Neutral Begins

ajmoney

While I am kind of looking forward to working away for 8 months next year, I am starting to realise how awkward things might be when I come home.  I normally cook from scratch and am concerned about wasted food as I don't know how easy it is going to be to buy the veg that I need for 2 days.  I am cooking some of it up today as I know recipes that mean I can freeze them.

I am determined to enjoy the time away for what it is though.  I did have a brief thought come into my mind this morning.  I don't do anything I used to enjoy before because of the cost but for now I can afford to do them, I just put a lot of my money into savings.  Surely this is only worth doing if I am using them for enjoyment too?  This mortgage free journey is a marathon and I need to remember to enjoy myself along the way.  Food for thought but not something I am going to act on for now.

SuperSecretSquirrel

Hi AJM

I loved my spreadsheet house back when I had one. Made a house shape equal to the purchase price where each cell was worth 1k, all coloured in very light pastel colours. Then similar to your approach coloured the cells in bold colours bottom up as the mortgage balance reduced and top down as the offset savings grew. When the house was all coloured in bold colours we were mortgage neutral 😁 It really felt like a reward colouring in the blocks, and the gap between mortgage balance and savings always looked quite small in context, and it shrunk quite quickly. I'm sure having the visual and the colouring in reward helped push us forward a little quicker. It also helped us with our "sensible" decision aiming for mortgage neutral not focusing on mortgage balance alone. We had ERCs, we wanted to invest in the stock market, and it may well be possible to earn more interest on savings than from mortgage overpayments, etc. Doesn't matter, a coloured in block is a coloured in block, the offset savings ones at the top are worth exactly the same as the reduced mortgage balance ones at the bottom.

I do miss my little mortgage house activity, but not enough to want another mortgage so I can have another one 🤣

As for working away, did I understand right that you'll be away from home 5 days and home 2 days each week? You could absolutely build a shopping trip into the return journey and get whatever you fancy for the weekend fresh each week. For one person I'd probably buy loose veg and do a small two person roast every other Saturday and have the same again reheated on the Sunday. If shoppjng weekly would eat up too much time maybe shopping once a month, batch prepping or cooking, and packing the freezer could be the way to go. If you tend to like the same stuff over and over batch cooking has to be a winner, but if not you could just batch prep and then use your freezer stocks in various different meals over time. We recently discovered that sliced bell peppers and mushrooms freeze well, and fresh onions last ages, we had a good stock of them all recently and they've gone into enchiladas, tray bakes, kebab wraps, curries, etc, varied meals using common ingredients. Saved us time and food waste. You can sometimes go for an in-between prepping/cooking stage too, most obvious being a tomato base. Tomato, onion, garlic, seasoning, cook up a big pot of the stuff, portion it up and freeze. Then it's a case of defrosting a portion and adding what's needed to make pasta meals, chilli, curry, soup, etc, usually with some meat from the freezer and dried carbs, herbs, and spices from the cupboard.

Home made soups are a whole subject to themselves. I could happily live off roast dinners and soups alone throughout autumn and winter 😁 Unfortunately I get outvoted on the soups at home, so I don't have a dedicated soup freezer 🤣

Spring and summer would be a little trickier food waste wise. I love salads - big, varied, colourful monsters with a huge variety of ingredients. I'm pleased that it's such a mild Christmas break this year as I'm free to have a ridiculous salad for lunch each day using up nice bits of Christmas meats and cheeses as the protein. I think only being around two days a week would mean having to limit the variety a little, and either buy each week on the way home or start a little salad garden and pick just as much as needed each day. I've never met a pickled foodstuff I don't like, and they go great on salads and of course have a very long shelf/fridge life... Maybe a (boo! hiss!) ready prepared shop salad would help with variety and limiting waste.

ajmoney

Thanks SSS for your reply.  I had actually thought this morning that cooking a small roast and freezing any leftover meat in gravy could work.  It actually makes one of my meal plans a little easier as it means I can have a hot meal Sunday lunchtime when I am flying back on the Sunday evening and hopefully means I don't need to spend so much at the airport.  I might even be savvy and take some sandwiches, that way I can just buy a hot drink. I don't want to be tight with my money but it could easily run away with me if I keep buying food at the airport.

Hopefully after the first trip I will be at home for an extra night so shouldn't be as awkward.  My flights land quite late on a Friday (8.25) so I will see how I feel about shopping that late and adjust as the weeks go by.

ajmoney

I often have money saving targets for each year. For 2023 I am going to aim to get my mortgage under £65k, my cash savings at £10k and my overall savings to £40k or as close as possible. The savings targets should be fairly easy to hit as I am not too far off, the mortgage could be the tough one. 

Watty1

Yay. I always think a picture is great, even a simple graph and colouring in appeals to something in us  that really touches a cord. Nice work ajmoney

ajmoney

I had planned to take my tree and all the decorations down today as I have visitors arriving later and leaving Sunday and it will make my packing easier on Sunday evening but... I really like the cosy feeling the tree lights give such a dilemma! 

ajmoney

I am not doing new year's resolutions but I have made a promise to myself that I will not end 2023 the way I am ending 2022.  It does mean I need to be better at saying what I want and when things annoy me and I am learning that, if people are constantly annoying me they are probably not my people!!!!!

ajmoney

£25 premium bond win this month

edinburgher

Congrats on the PB win, I miss the wee endorphin rush from having wins during the few months where we had ££,£££ in PBs prior to getting the attic converted

Re. Freezing roasts, I'll often buy a giant roast when it's on offer from Morries (whichever the biggest one in the chiller is). We'll then have it for a couple of dinners, lunch sandwiches and then freeze 3-4 portions pre-sliced. Then it's just a case of simmering them for 10 mins in a little "gravy" that is a wee jam jar full of HM stock + a couple of spoons of gravy granules so it thickens. Gravy keeps it moist and it doesn't toughen up as I tend to roast on the still mooing side of things

ajmoney

I am currently sorting out the quotes for my home insurance and, as has been the case for a number of years, the renewal quote is the cheapest by far. What I have seen is that my engagement ring is still insured separately. I am now divorced, I don't wear it but it is still in the home and I would probably be gutted if it went missing/was stolen. Is it a sentimental thing or should I stop insuring it? Any thoughts?