Fuzzipeg's flight to financial freedom

fuzzipeg

Hello :wave:

I stumbled across this board a few weeks ago, and after vaguely thinking about hammering down the mortgage for years now, the board has inspired me to actually make a start.

DH and I are in our mid 30s, with one DS and another DC on the way in the summer. Our mortgage term is a frankly scary 28 years 9 months, but having played with the numbers spreadsheet I think we can easily get that down to 15 years, but I'd like to aim for 10.

I am the main wage earner at the moment, having a full-time job and running my own IT business on the side. I am very fortunate that I essentially work flexible hours from home, but even so, there will be a gap in my earning later in the year for a period of maternity leave.

So - we started the year owing over £123k. Since then, I have adulted well and arranged a new mortgage with our existing provider (dropping the rate from the SVR of 3.74% to 1.99% for next two years), and setting up a regular monthly repayment of £200 to make a start on OP'ing. I was kicking myself for not making the switch earlier, but it turns out that we actually only came off our last fix in December, which shows just how much attention I had been paying to our financial affairs in recent months (I blame an extended period of baby brain since DS turned up!).

I've also got life insurance sorted out (should have done that much earlier, but better late than never!). I think we are eligible for some tax credits, so have ordered the form for that, and have sent off a DLA application for DS - any help towards the ludicrous cost of the extras we need for him would be much appreciated.

Hoping that by keeping a semi-regular diary on here will keep me motivated and on track.

Thanks for reading

lincoln-potter

Welcome aboard fuzzi!

First thing we often suggest to to post or at least do your own SoA (Statement of account) in order to see where exactly you can trim some savings off your current spends.

All the best on your adventure!

fuzzipeg

Thank you - it sounds pathetic but I don't think I'm in a position right now to do an SOA - all my payments are in a bit of flux with the mortgage change, review of utilities etc. and generally shuffling stuff about. Once everything settles down in March and we revert to the new "normal" payments for everything I'll definitely get an SOA done to focus the mind.

Situation is also slightly complicated at the moment by the fact we have a second property we're trying to sell at the moment which has just become un-tenanted and put on the market, so we have a second set of bills right now. We're obviously keen to get that shifted asap (we never meant to hang on to it so long after we moved into this place - the overlap was because we bought the "forever" home at auction and it needed a *lot* of work before we could move, I was 8+ months pregnant and wimped out of moving into a building site!).

TwentySomethingGirl

Hi :wave:

I don't blame you for not wanting to live in a building site, that just makes me think of Grand Designs when there's a pregnancy and they're living in a caravan on the site...is the house all sorted now?

TSG

fuzzipeg

TwentySomethingGirl wrote: »

Hi :wave:

I don't blame you for not wanting to live in a building site, that just makes me think of Grand Designs when there's a pregnancy and they're living in a caravan on the site...is the house all sorted now?

TSG

Hey

I love that programme! Yes, we're all sorted for now thanks - we do have a couple of fairly major pieces of work planned (woodworm riddled main staircase anyone!? ), but that's a more long-term goal, rather than it has to be done now.

I cracked in the end and moved into the semi-shell of this house just before the baby turned up - the builders moved out on the Friday, and I came home from hospital on the Saturday, so we cut it fine! We then had another couple of large jobs done over the last 18 months, but now can finally kick back and enjoy the place.

With a newborn and ongoing work here it just seemed easier at the time to allow tenants in the old house once we'd finally finished moving out but now it's time to get rid and throw the equity from that house at this one! (Not to mention get rid of the second set of bills!)

fuzzipeg

It's been a good week on the OP'ing front - have dug up and consolidated a bunch of old savings accounts and thrown about £2500 at the mortgage, in addition to the regular £200 overpayment. We've also freed up another £8000 to go in this week before the deal switches over and we're limited to 10% overpayments. We've kept six months' money in cash savings, which we may need to dip into later in the year (we reckon by a couple of hundred pounds a month) while I'm on maternity leave.

While conducting this "drains up" exercise on our family finances I've found three old pensions we used to have at previous jobs. Task this week is to investigate moving those over into SIPPS as my gut feeling is that they should be doing much better than they are. Better late than never to get a grip on these things! It's part of a wider plan to FIRE as soon as practical...

The next task will then be to pull on my big-girl panties and tackle the utility companies and shop for a better deal. I hate them with a passion, and we have a ludicrously large cold stone building which eats gas so tend to need to spend more than the average in order to be vaguely warm. Will be interesting to see what I can do there, but that'll be a (fascinating! ) story for another week...

fuzzipeg

Had a bit of a worry when the new paperwork came through (we had agreed it all online) as it wasn't clear on the precise date the deal changed, just when the new interest payment would be charged. Given we'd practically OP'ed 10% this month, had a sudden panic we'd blown all our overpayments for the year. Turns out my original understanding was correct, so have upped the monthly overpayment to £300 to keep the payment similar now the rate has dropped.

Only partial success on the pension front though - 2 were no problem, but the third denied the address on file matched any of the five addresses I gave her, so have had to write to update my details before getting the transfer paperwork. A pain, but will be worth it in the end I guess.

Have a good weekend all

fuzzipeg

Had a tough month with a bereavement but starting to get myself organised again after time spent funeraling, clearing and sorting down south.

SIPP transfers are in progress, end of tax year payments made to same, and have realised that we're not using nearly so much gas as we did last year (turned out we were constantly heating a huge tank of water in the attic which was a nasty shock!) so have dropped the payments for gas to £50 a month. Fibre broadband is coming in the summer, so have held off switching providers on that one until we can make the jump to fibre, which should make a huge difference to my work - being out in the middle of nowhere does have some pitfalls... Electric provider is next up on the hitlist.

The madness of nesting in pregnancy has reared it's ugly head again - the woodworm-riddled stairs are coming out in May to be replaced with something more beautiful. The staircase is listed, so it's slightly more pricey than the average, but dearest aged relative dying has meant we can consider it this side of baby's arrival which I think he'd appreciate. We have to be out of the house for the week while it's fitted so lovely builder is coming in the week we are on holiday - very relieved we've found a way to do it before baby arrives though as had visions of going straight through the stairs while carrying said child...

We were also able to replace the car last month for something more suitable for multiple children from savings. By trading in the last one, and haggling madly, we managed to get away with a £2k difference for a car that should do us until the sprogs are teens (I hope!). Very pleased - it's a proper "grown up" car.

Only downer is that there has been no interest in the old house - and the property market is flat here. Estate agents don't think it's worth dropping the price, as it's still priced competitively for here - just nothing is shifting. It's not costing a vast amount per month to hold it, but I'd rather get shot!

fuzzipeg

Despite my lack of posting I have followed many diaries on my 'phone while feeding the new sprog.

Since the last installment, we managed to sell the second property (yay!) the day after DD was born which was a handy boost to the family coffers, and cleared the bill for the staircase (which is beautiful but was pricey as expected!).

Maternity leave ended today, but we've continued to drive hard at both the mortgage and both pensions over the past few months. I need to get an SOA done soon to focus the mind now as I think I've made all the easy gains now. Have dropped the monthly regular OP down to £0 for a while as it makes more sense for me at the moment tax-wise to pile into the pension instead.

I need to get the emergency stash tucked away into somewhere sensible where it earns a little interest. Am thinking of the First Direct accounts which offer money for switching - we've been with the Co-Op for years, but their customer service isn't what it used to be. Is the hassle of switching banks worthwhile? How much does it trash your credit rating (not that I think we need it to be stellar for a while now....)?

00kitkat00

Just read through your thread as also trying to sort out bad a/c savings, utility switches and generally keeping a closer eye on spending as I'm sure could be saving more - Spotted your mortgage total in bottom of your post my gosh you are doing fabulously, that is serious money saving - Well done and thanks for inspiration to get motivated

fuzzipeg

Thanks Obviously we've been helped this year with a small inheritance and selling another property, but been careful not to pile everything into the mortgage, however tempting, at the expense of pensions, savings and house-works.

We've paused on the regular over-payments for a while as getting it down to five figures was a big psychological barrier for us (and we're nearly at the 10% for this year so can't pay much more before April anyway!). Although we are not (even close!) to higher rate tax payers, it seems to make sense to direct our "extra" cash to pensions for a while as they've been sorely neglected.