Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

Tropically

Thank you blocpartyfan, I think my only talent is a drive to side hustle. None of them really require talent but just require a good worker. For example, I inspect luxury villas (lush!!) by arriving on time and following instructions. It doesn't take any real skill, but just motivation to do it. One of my other side hustles is talking to Chinese children online so they can practice their English. For native speakers, the only real talent is showing up on time and following instructions again! 

Today is a BIG day, we just made a £12,000 OP! Our mortgage balance was £271,944 and is now £259,944. That was the limit we could do in one transaction and we still need to get it down to £255,000 so we will have to make another OP soon. Once that one clears. 

Tropically

I am desperately waiting for the OP to hit the mortgage account, it's shown up as left my account but not applied to the mortgage yet. It is floating through the airwaves.  But my English tutoring side hustle has paid out £379, woo!  Can't wait to remortgage for 5 years and not have to stress. I definitely intend to make some more OPs because my total debt is £530,000. A huge amount! It would be great to get that under half a million, eep!! 

mark55man

Hello - (very) late to the party and haven't read every page yet, but just wanted to say hello and join in 

LeighofMar

Wow! That is an amazing OP. Good going Tropically. That must be such a great feeling.

julicorn

Congratulations on your overpayment, Tropically! Great to see how you are getting on  

Tropically

Hi everyone! Thank you for all your kind comments. We made another £4,000 OP today! That brings us down to the £255,944. Hopefully that makes the remortgaging go more smoothly. It has been rocky so far, but hopefully works out. The restrictions with coronavirus makes everything more difficult. Even simple things, like I would normally use the scanner in my workplace but I can't go there and don't have another scanner. A photo on my phone isn't acceptable apparently! The OPs have brought down our house emergency fund to less than £5,000 but it will bounce back! I had another £800 from a side hustle clear so that's great. 

What I really really want is for my £3,000 flights refund from the Cayman Islands to Greece to be processed and for me to get the money back. I really stressed about spending that much on a trip but we are down to seeing our friends one or twice a year and it sounded like such a good fun. The flights were cancelled and I am still awaiting a refund.

LeighofMar

Terrific OP, Tropically. I hope you can get your flights refunded too. I know even though some companies have been slow to do so, most do appear to be refunding customers as they know it's because of COVID and not the fault of the customer. 

Tropically

I got refunded!!! I got refunded nearly 4,000 euros. Thank you Bravofly! My flight wouldn't have even left yet. It's on the credit card which isn't good because it means I have to make consumer purchases for it to go away. But still! So pleased!

I also made a $3,644 overpayment to the mortgage here. I skimmed off our emergency fund so we had 6 months of emergency fund and then that amount left over. Our total mortgages are now £513,000. It's so tempting to scrimp to get to an even number, but £13k is a big Tilly tidy! 

I am reminded today of why I need to save and pay down my mortgages and to reach Financial Independence. I am often frustrated with my boss. She likes to micromanage and today she is upset with me because I emailed a coworker asking them to do something that's part of their role, but didn't copy her in. I had only been sent the task by mistake, so I forwarded it to the right person. But when she gets upset that I didn't copy her in, it tells me that she either things I don't conduct myself in a professional manner, or that I haven't been trained to do my job property. It's been nearly two years. It was just an email to a coworker. She says that 'she doesn't need to be involved in every project but she needs to know what her team is doing'. With both of us, it's our core responsibilities and she's never had a reason to not trust me. Anyway, I would love the freedom to one day say 'don't care' and leave. Whenever she has a micromanaging fit, I try and be a model employee and always defer to her in the way that she wants. I try to 'manage my manager', but the changes don't stick. But eventually, she should trust me. When does the micromanaging go away? I had this before in a different job where I also had a young inexperienced female manager. I think sometimes their insecurities can manifest themselves in unusual ways. Is it their impostor syndrome that makes them feel insecure so they have to feel in control of everything? Or is it that they believe I should also have impostor syndrome because I am also a young female professional? I know when to ask for help and I am a 'manly' woman and so don't have some of the same hang-ups that other women too. 

I consider myself lucky to have a job that has experienced no breaks. I am very lucky. I know that, but it doesn't help with the emotions I feel when someone says they don't trust me. 

Anyway, total side track, wasn't it! I was thinking about side hustling less. It is really quite draining, but then I want to pay down those debts more. I want to find a hobby which isn't saving money and budgeting. But I don't want a hobby that costs money either!

South_coast

I don't think the micro-managing ever goes away - if it's part of someone's psyche, that's it....

Great work on the mortgages though! Couldn't you call your credit card provider and ask them to refund the credit balance? I've done that a couple of times in the last few months and they've been fine with it - it's my money, after all! A big amount like that is much better in your hands where you can put it to work increasing wealth than in theirs earning you nothing 😀

Tropically

South_coast, you are totally right. I will try that. Before I realised it would be on my credit card, I was going to apply it to the mortgage.