Baby steps towards mortgage freedom

Moominmamma89

I have been very lax about updating my diary but I honestly have an excuse. Be warned though this is going to be a long post!

Before I start thou I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas

So, just as we were making great progress on own MF journey Mr Moonin was told all about a potential reshuffle at work which meant a higher salary and a very generous bonus scheme over the next few years. This lead to conversations of moving and we subsequently put the house on the market in Nov - lots of interest (14 viewings :eek:) but no offers which I think is down to the work that needs doing. As it is a “first time buyers” house most of those interested would have used all the funds for the purchase with none left for renovations.

Anyway we have now been told the reshuffle is unlikely to happen. I know we shouldn’t have counted our chickens and waited until it was finalised but the company is partly owned by a family member so what we were told was 100% accurate and they themselves were more than confident it would have all gone as planned. What makes things worse is that it is likely the company may cease trading in it’s current format meaning in the worst case Mr Moonin, family member and myself could potentially end up unemployed: yup, all work at the same place so eggs all in one unstable basket atm.

Mr Moonin is very qualified in his field and has been headhunted before so I am confident he will find another job if he needed to but we will definitely not be moving. Family member also should be ok as well respected for their experience in the field.

The whole thing thou has showed me just how things can go from comfortable to seriously worrying in a matter of weeks. It also sort of throws my plans about returning to work or not into question. As cheesy as it sounds it has made me realise how fortunate we are and how I have took what I have (roof over my head, warm house for my kids, comfortable standard of living) for granted. Also made me more determined to try to clear our mortgage - luckily have savings that would tide us over for more than 6 months if needed.

So, going into 2017 with a fair bit of uncertainty but trying to remain optimistic. In more positive news we were aiming for overpayments of £1,500 in 2015 and ended up making £1,799.96 so very happy :j. So as we are aiming to be at 60% LTV in 2021 we need to make overpayments of £240 pcm this year so £2,880 in total. Pleased to say January’s overpayment is well over that so off to a fab start:

200.00 - agreed overpayment from joint funds
100.00 - some money received by me and Mr Moonin for Christmas
84.05 - money left over from my personal spending money in December
66.43 - left over money we had saved for this year’s Christmas
14.40 - from annual payments e-savings which had been over calculated
0.40 - interest from all e-savings accounts from Oct/Nov/Dec that I hoovered up
465.28

:T

Will call bank and make sure this comes out along with our regular mortgage payment in January. Have promised myself to keep updating my diary so will be back over the next few days to let everyone know what Resolutions I am planning on making (and subsequently breaking) :rotfl:

Also if you made it through that mammouth post thank you

Moominmamma89

Following on from yesterday I am now determined to get back into the swing of things and clear this mortgage now we know we will be staying. We have also gone through the work we would need to do on the house (is a very long list!) and will have to start saving for that once we know what will be happening with work.

Anyway here come the inevitable Resolutions for 2017:

1) Be healthier
2) Be more organised
3) Use my sewing machine more often

Number one of course is a bit predicable but I have really pigged out for the last 10 days and I am not looking forward to weighing myself on Sunday. The main thing I want to stop is my weekend binging though, I can eat and drink perfectly healthy during the week but come Friday night go completely overboard and end up feeling a bit crappy.

Number two is more from necessity than anything. I have found that when it was just us and Munchkin it didn’t matter if I was a bit disorganised but now we have Button as well if I am not organised things are chaos!

Last one is because it is still in its box from my birthday 2 year ago :rotfl:. I quilt but tend to do so by hand and have never got round to trying dressmaking, which was the reason I wanted it in the first place. So have found a local weekend course that I am hoping Mr Moonin will pay for me to go on for this year’s birthday in February.

On the financial front my resolutions are:

1) Overpay at least £2,880 on the mortgage by the end of 2017
2) Have saved £5,000 towards house renovations

The second one may be a bit of a challenge but may as well aim high.

Hope you are all having a good day

selloptape

Sounds like the last couple if months have been a bit of a whirlwind! Hope it all works out in 2017.

Moominmamma89

Happy New Year everyone :j me and Mr Moomin just stayed in and munched our way through the remaining Xmas junk. This obviously contributed to the half stone weight gain I managed to achieve since 23rd December - have been back at the gym today though so hoping it will be gone by mid January.

Thanks selloptape: it has been a bit of a whirlwind but I am trying to think positive and stop dwelling on the scary "what if" situations. Mr Moomin would say I panic and worry about things too much. He definitely has a more laid back "what will be will be" approach, so i am trying to adopt this way of thinking.

No overpayment news today - waiting for the bank to update our online account so I can update my signature but that will take about another week I would think. Ended up exchanging some clothes that Button had been given over Xmas today as they were the wrong size, she is 6 months now and I can't believe where the time has gone. She is trying to crawl which will be when the fun really starts but for now she can just rock forward and back a few times on all fours before collapsing :rotfl: - tis very cute to watch.

Hope everyone has a lovely week.

Moominmamma89

Good evening all.

Today was Munchkin's last day off before heading back to school tomorrow. So I treated him to some chocolate on our walk today and we spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa watching Frozen (as Olaf would say "all good things, all good things"). Also picked up some yogurt pots (for me) and a brush (for Button) in Boots but got them with points I had on my advantage card so very low spend day. Annoyingly Boots is the only place that do the yogurt pots - have looked in all supermarkets by us but no luck.

Tomorrow the plan is to spend the day sorting through Button's clothes and getting all the 6-9 month stuff in the top drawer and all the 3-6 month stuff washed and packed away (hopefully for the next one although Mr Moomin seems to think I should try and sell it. I live in hope though!)

Moominmamma89

Didn't manage to sort through Button's clothes until this morning but have now got all the 3-6 months stuff packed away apart from a few things that need to be washed before packing away.

We had £1,500 in an e-savings account which was to go towards the house move but as we are staying we have split it out evenly to immediate house renovations (need a new front & back door), long term DIY and an OP for the mortgage :j

I have got the details of how to transfer the payment rather then having to ring the bank to set it up so will try that tomorrow as I have to let today's normal payment and initial OP go out first.

Had to pop up to Mr T today to get some supplies - Munchkin wants to make a chocolate cake tomorrow (I thought this may be a way to sneekily start to teach him some cooking skills!) and we are going to make pizza instead of the usual takeaway so picked up what I needed for that too. I was good and kept to my list. I managed to only spend £15, will need to top up bread and milk at the weekend but hoping not to spend more that £10 to see us through to next weekend as I am trying to use up what we have in the house. Would like to get the shopping budget down from £300 a month to £250 but trying to cut it gradually so it seems more doable.

Moominmamma89

Made second (and last) OP of January online. First time I have done it this way and think I must have triple triple checked the payee details and reference number - didn't want the money going to the wrong place or applied against a mortgage that doesn't belong to me!

If it all goes smoothly I will definitely be doing it this way from now on. Save the embarrassment of when the person at the bank tells me I can overpay £14k for me to go "errr . . . £500.06 only please, and yup I always have the odd few pence to OP :rotfl:.

Hope everyone has a fab Friday night - we are having family movie night minus Button who will hopefully be in bed. Munchkin is helping me make pizza and chocolate cake when he gets in from school (read stir ingredients around the bowl a few times and then lick it while I finish up). Going to watch The Lion King which I discovered the other day was made in 1994 so 23 years old :eek:

Moominmamma89

Not much to report today - the OP I made online yesterday has been received but I am guessing won't be applied until early next week. Glad it got there and will be doing my OPs this way from now on.

Just waiting for letter from the bank to give me the updated mortgage end date and then I will update my signature.

Moominmamma89

Happy Monday everyone!

Well I ended up spending about £40 between butcher and Mr T at the weekend :mad: really need to get food spending down. Aim of this week is not to end up buying any food/snacks until the weekend with the exception of the mozzarella and any baking bits needed for Friday's pizza and treat as Munchkin really enjoyed making these last week - I have enough stuff in to do until then so no more than £5.

Talking of £5 I have roped Mr Moomin into doing the £5 challenge. Saw it on Pinterest (where I waste too many hours ) so was originally the $5 challenge. Basically everytime you get a £5 note you stick it in a tin and count it all up at the end of the year - not sure what we will use it for, or if we will make it to the end of the year, but sure we will have no trouble spending it.

I do have a pig piggy bank that stores the £1 & £2 coins but it tend to get raided for parking change so that has been going for a few years. Hoping to have it full by July this year though as want to cash it in to use for our anniversary.

My job this week is to have a look at switching energy supplier to see if we can get it a bit cheaper - currently £72 per month but having been off on maternity means the heat has been on a bit more than last year.

Hope everyone has a good week :j

Moominmamma89

Went for a walk today as it was no longer raining here and I like to try and get out with Button for at least half hour to let her have some fresh air. Didn't take my purse and avoided the shops all together so two NSD's this week :j

Second OP has still not been applied against the mortgage and is sitting in an "extra payments" section on my online account so will call the bank tomorrow if it has still not been done.

Munchkin had homework from school yesterday for the first time this year and although it got done in the end it was a bit of a gunk for us both to have to get back into the swing of fitting it in. Not sure a 5 year old should have homework other than a reading book but don't want him getting told off for it not getting done so we battle through.

Off to Mum's now to borrow her car as Mr Moomin has ours, at least my step count for today should be impressive