Getting rid of a London-sized Mortgage

mfmaybe

Haha yes Cayman salaries are something else. That said, living expenses are through the roof, my sister spent £1k/month on electricity alone and their food bill was eye watering! But their disposable income was really quite impressive. The no tax helps

I'm glad the mortgage overpayment blurb helped as it was quite long, sorry about that

That's annoying about the cashflow, hope it gets sorted soon. And wowee to people buying used make up. I have to say it's not something I would consider, but there you go. I once stumbled upon a market on fleabay for used tights. At an insane price, so let's just say I don't think it was for professional women looking for a bargain on their Wolfords :eek: Bleurghhhh...

Runders

Hey Tropically,

I've just caught up on your diary after I've been AWOL for a bit. It seems like you are doing really well on the over payment front!

Thank for the comment you made about the Fourex machines. I was in London a few weeks ago and I got over £40 for all my random foreign coins.

I've been awful on my entertainment budget recently, I have bought a few theatre tickets for this month, all are in London so I will need train fairs too. I will endeavour to not eat out to make up for this.....I may be kidding myself!

Tropically

Hello again, mid-month update.

My boyfriend has finally been paid! He had to take money out of the joint account for the cash flow. It has hopefully shown him the value of having an emergency fund. I hope that it results in lasting change. I know that partner support is a running theme in many people's diaries. I have one who wants to save money, but can't seem to. It realllllly makes sense for people in debt to have an emergency fund. I have one, but it's not that big. We will have to do some analysis later. We've been overpaying all of the extras in our savings account, but maybe we need to re-examine our approach.

I've been selling quite a bit on ebay. It is so hard to get the postage thing right! I have put almost everything at 'Buy It Now' as it will mean less stress for me, and I'm more likely to get the price I want. If after 30 days of Buy It Now, it doesn't sell then I will donate it. I'm curious to

I've been diligently recording my garden harvest. I have saved £4.50 so far this year... Really not a lot but it's only April. I'm have measured and then compared to the cheapest organic price to get my values. Most of it has come from purple sprouting broccoli and mitsuna.

I shall return with graphs on Sunday perhaps, when I get a moment to relax.

FacelessNumber

Hi!


I've had a read through your diary today, definitely sounds like you've got the right attitude! I'm going to subscribe to see how you get on!


Well done to your OH for the payrise, I guess the trick is to save the difference and spend the same as before?

CouponClipper

Read your thread over the weekend Tropically. I also have a London sized mortgage of just over £211,000 - so smaller than yours at the moment.

Currently not overpaying as me and my partner are trying to save £10,000 each first but hopefully next year with a payrise and some emergency funds we'll be able to start chipping away at it like you are.

Good luck - I am subscribed on your journey!

CC

Tropically

So, I thought I would try to get a part time job. I do various gig things like mystery dining, surveys, market research, and random-tasks, ebay etc. I thought that Deliver-eee would be a good place to sign up. I like cycling and there aren't that many delivery people around here (as I have noticed from when I try to order).

So, I signed up. Then I received so. many. calls. I received one or two calls everyday plus follow-up emails. The emails would say, "book an appointment for training online." I thought that was great and was going to sign up online as soon as it was a little lighter in the evenings because I don't really like cycling at night. I wanted to test drive my bike around as well as I hadn't had it out over winter. Eventually I booked online and the calls stopped.

For some reason, they texted me and said that my appointment was cancelled and I needed to reschedule. The calling every day started again. They called at least twice every day until I finally told them I was not interested. If they are so desperate for drivers, they should pay more than a pittance. But if they were going to harass me all the time to sign up, what would they be like to work with? So that isn't going to happen. I wonder if uber eats is so annoying.

On the road this week I saw a Just Eat robot self-driving to deliver takeaway! I thought someone was playing a trick on me when I saw this robot cruising down the payment. It didn't look like anyone was driving it. I looked it up later and it was a genuine robot. So these delivery jobs might not last that long before robots take over!

I made those graphs that I mentioned before and it is pretty sad. In the epitome of 'first world problems' we are still spending too much on entertainment. My boyfriend isn't too worried. We spent £776.72 on entertainment in January, £652.96 on entertainment in February, £574.29 on entertainment in March. That is just insaneeeeeeee. I don't feel like we are out too much. I spent £672 of that, and he spent £1,333 of that. So we're not uneven - we are both guilty.

So let's see. What was sooo good that it was worth £2k??

Cash - £32.50
Cash - £50
Cash - £30
Pub - £12.60
Cash - £30
Nandos - £29.9 (and I don't even like Nandos, we were just too lazy to cook at home on a Saturday afternoon...)
Cinema - £13.65
Restaurant soft launch so 50% off food - £63.19
Pub - £17.68
Same pub - £4.99
Same pub - £14.67
Same pub - £9.67
different pub - £9.60
Cash - £30
Pub - £11.20
Same pub - £19.80
Cash - £20
Work team night out - £30.75
Tickets to Hamilton bought on the day they were released on presale - £199.10
Lottery - £10 (why???)
Mystery package game - £100
Pub - £15.10
Meeting old friends for din - £16
Pub - £7.50
Fancy meal out - £64.60
Pub - £20
Pub - £9.3
Cash - £30
Pub - £7
Meal out for lads night - £36.02
Cash - £30
Pub - £7.85
Pre-play drinks - £8.60
Pub - £8.40
Pub - £12.40
Cash - £20
British Museum Exhibit - £26
Meal out with friends - £50
Chocolate pre-cinema - £3.85
Pub - £9.3
Cash - £30
Drinks - £11.49
Cash - £30
Pub - £12.15
Cash - £30
Work drinks - £5
Cash for the month of March to cover all entertainment (supposedly) - £100
Meal out because of laziness - £36.50
Learning to climb - £20
Going climbing - £13
Leaving drinks for boyf - £23
Not really sure... - £200
Cash - £30
Cash - £30
Pub - £14.40
Cash - £30
Meal out - £54
Drinks - £10
Cash - £30
Meal out - £4
Not even sure... £56.33
Meal out - £9.56


Cash... Cash... Pub... Pub... Cash... Cash...

What do other people do for fun that doesn't cost so much?? I would love some ideas. There are so many fun things to do in London for free but then we tend to go to the pub or buy food out once we are out.

I think I've done a good job but sometimes I have externalised the cost to my boyfriend as he paid for two of the fancy meals out. I can see there were a lot of times that I wasted money because I was too lazy to cook.

We also spend an average of £100/month on naughty food - i.e. bad planning meant we had fast food/grab and go food.

I hope summer will mean we do more BBQs and parks rather than pubs.

mfmaybe

Well we don't live in London, we're likely much older than you, and we have a small child! But long before we had him, we'd moved on to meals being at people's houses not in restaurants. And just drinking at home, lol. The museums here are free so that's often a wet weather activity. Dry weather will usually just be anything outside. A walk. A park. A cycle.

I think you don't have debt outwith your mortgage, and you are living within your means so it is hard to find the impetus to cut back.

Could you work out something like - every £20 you spend in a pub could save you £30 (or whatever) if you paid it off the mortgage now? Set yourself rules about how often you eat out, or how many hours you spend in a pub during a month.

Yaz_2016

Its crazy how much you can spend isnt it? I had unexpected costs arise this month! My cat need dental treatment £400, my plasma tv had screen burn which my insurance does not cover for so £700 for a new 55" samsung, hubby wanted re-map to our X5 £350, random shopping perfume etc £300, private reg for a birthday present £300. So thats over £2000 spending. That is not even including the 3 takeaways we ordered this week! Its CRAZY

michelle09

Hmm... what is it about the pub that appeals to you? The atmosphere or the drinking? Can you replicate it anywhere else?

We started making our own cider at home (obviously it requires planning in advance) but we can produce 40 pints for about £30 ingredients. Then we invite friends over where we provide the cider and games, and everyone brings a pot of food.

Jessy103

Hi tropically! I might sound a bit of a bore (I'm 30) but I love reading so to save money I swap a lot of books with friends, my MIL likes doing jigsaws so I borrow them when she's completed them, I also like to do a bit of crosstitch and I grow some vegetable in pots on the windowsills and in my little garden. It would be good if you could find a hobby that doesn't cost much that would keep you entertained at home instead of going to the pub. x