Bricks Not Books

LadyWithAPlan

Sounds like a great plan for your family! 

How wonderful your frugal focus allows you both to have this quality time and also space  to dream big for your life. 

hopefully the mortgage rise won’t be so bad if rates tip down a little - I am sure you calculated current worse case scenario if they haven’t moved down by your re mortgage date 

Can I add to some comping to your list if it isn’t there already - it can really help with adding extra treats into your life especially if you focus on local events so free tix to things or local restaurants vouchers or specific hobbies etc. 

It does take time but can be done around babies etc 
mse has a competitions list … 

Cornish_mum

Hello VH, wonderful to hear your update, it sounds like a brilliant plan and it’s very impressive you are making savings, at all whilst on matleave. I hope you all have a very happy Christmas CM

VintageHistorian

Happy New Year everyone! 2023 has been a very big year for obvious reasons and 2022 was a stressful year due to being pregnant and worried about losing baby, so I'm aiming for 2024 to be less big and more just pottering along.

Mr VH got the official confirmation of his career break just before he finished for Christmas! He's keeping it quiet from colleagues over the break but he's back to work tomorrow and then he'll be on the countdown to finishing. I on the other hand am now in the unpaid phase of my maternity leave so I'm on the countdown to returning to work. But when I go back I'll have 32 days of leave that I need to use (you accrue annual leave and bank holidays while on any family leave) so I don't actually need to go back to the office right away.

My main task for this week is to email my manager with all the details HR sent me and what I want to do about it all. He's very reasonable about it all with other colleagues so I'm sure he won't have any issues with my plan, but I just need to actually write it all down.

And money may not be as tight as expected because Mr VH has said he'll use his savings to cover his share of the bills. I spent ages working out a budget that would be covered by just my wages, told him several times that I would cover everything, and then showed him the budget, which he agreed to! And then a few weeks ago he went "And of course I'll be using my savings to cover my share". He thought the budget was just for my 50%, although why he thought that our mortgage would be going up to £1480 is anyone's guess (it won't, it's £740 assuming I sort out the new deal this week). I suspect he just wasn't listening properly. MEN!

Total OP for December was £162.69, which included a delay repay claim from Mr VH for a train strike day. So total overpayments this year were £1811.64! Obviously that's a smidge under the £2000 target I set a few months ago but sod it.

Mortgage is indeed going up quite sharply and will be above the regular payment and the standard overpayment we make, and then some. But we're in a much better position than many others thanks to earlier overpayments. If we'd spoken to Halifax and reduced the term of the mortgage then we'd be paying far more in a few months, this is giving us a little wiggle room. And it's not like I won't be doing any overpayments, that's what side hustles are for! I think a target of £1000 is a little unsustainable this year just because of everything else going on. So I might aim for £50 a month for the first six months of the year and then if I'm going over that consistently I can adjust my expectations over the summer.

I have 6 talks booked for 2024 but a new Speakers Book comes out this year so we'll see if that shakes a few extra bookings out of the tree. The money will be going in my S&S ISA again this year as I didn't get a full year of them last year, as will any eBook money. Prolific money will go towards the mortgage, as will any small payouts from print on demand sources and cashback from apps or TCB, anything from eBay will probably go towards replenishing my maternity leave fund (just in case we choose to have a second, if we don't it can be moved into my S&S ISA in a few years), and child benefit will go to DS's junior ISA.

That's the plan, and all intention of sticking to it will last however long it lasts.

Dinner tonight, to welcome in the new year, is pan-fried duck breasts with homemade potato wedges, and some fancy dessert that's in the fridge but I can't remember what it is.

Hope everyone has a healthy, wealthy and happy 2024! Or at least a calmer, slightly nicer one for those that had a really awful 2023.

VintageHistorian

I would call this my quarterly update but it's even a bit late for that   Once again the year has gotten away from me and I'm suddenly writing down things that happened months ago!

Important bit first, the overpayments:
January - £153.79
February - £180.84
March - £143.58

April is the last month where we'll have big overpayments as our mortgage deal changes over on 1st May. Currently we pay £576.84 a month, from May it'll be £733.05  So a jump of £156.21

Except actually it's not quite that large a jump. Because we've been paying £124 a month as a standard overpayment, our monthly mortgage payment has been £700 for the past 2 years. So actually we're only going up by £33. The big shock comes from our ability to overpay at all being wiped out. When we first got the mortgage we were paying something like £670 a month with a standard £30 to hit the £700 mark. We've leapt over that entirely now!

(As a side note: Our daily interest is currently £5.70, in May it will be £15.19!)

But at least our regular overpayments do mean that we're not scrabbling around trying to find £150 extra from a budget that couldn't manage it in the first place. And after playing around with my new spread sheet, set up for the next 5 years, I noticed that a mere £10 a month overpayment would mean that our mortgage would drop under £100k in December 2029. And Mr VH likes nice round numbers so we'll be overpaying at least £11.95 to make our mortgage payment a full £745.

I can easily side hustle my share of £5.98 from Prolific alone, and we'll see what else the Side Hustle Gods throw my way over the next 5 years. My Speakers money always goes to my savings but there's other places (eBay, Redbubble, Zazzle) that money drips in from throughout the year. And we don't need to touch any of the child benefit money we're saving for DS.

And speaking of DS, he's now very happy that Daddy is around every day. Mr VH's career break started just before Easter. I had a lot of annual leave to use up so I'm back at work at the end of April and we're using this as a handover period. So most mornings I lurk upstairs (hence me starting this at 8.45 this morning) while Mr VH handles the morning routine, several times a week I go out for a few hours in the morning so DS gets used to me going away and coming back, and then I have playtime in the afternoon. Hopefully Mr VH is feeling a little more confident, but I'm only a 30 minute walk away and I can skip lunch breaks to come home early if he's struggling so it'll all work out okay. Personally I think he's been brilliant so far but he worries he's not doing "enough".

This month has been a very spendy month as I've bought things ready for my return to work. But I don't normally splurge like this so a one-off will be fine. It includes two new pairs of boots, which should last me 2 years if not more, and the first new glasses in 10 years. So not things I'll worry about buying again in 6 months time.

And now time for breakfast! Friday night is lazy dinner/pick your own night, so I'm having a bolognese from the freezer and Mr VH is having a curry ready meal. Have a good weekend everyone!