Mortgage free ASAP

bubblycrazy

Posted the 3rd ebay item and a 4th one that sold since.
Took the car to the garage Friday and they couldn't get it done in the 2.5 hours available, said it would take him that long to order and receive the part.
So much for Tuesday when I was last there he said drop it in any time, no need to make an appointment and he'd order the part ready 🙄 

All this car palaver is made worse due to OH car being off the road too. He hasn't used his car in weeks with working from home and the bad weather so the battery is flat. Hoping to borrow a set of jump leads tomorrow 🙄 

About to do the online food shop, I find it such a tedious job, but better than having to go the actual shop I suppose!

bubblycrazy

Borrowed jump leads from my uncle. Stood at the door with him and my aunt for a half hour chat which was nice. I hadn't seen them since Dec 19 and they hadn't seen DS for even longer.

OH car is now up and running and my car is back at the garage, hopefully ready to pick up tomorrow.
I'm going to take OH car to work once a week to give it a run and hopefully keep the battery charged up.

Used my credit card for petrol and ebay postage so that shouldn't get cancelled anymore. 
Not a lot else happening here! 

bubblycrazy

Guys! I should be doing an end of month round up of goals etc but I'm far too tired and excited! Last night, well, early hours of this morning, my OH proposed!!!! 
We ended up staying awake until about 5am talking about all the wedding ideas we'd both been having separately  
It wasn't a planned proposal (although he said he'd been thinking about doing it for 18 months!), so we looked online this morning for a ring and picked it up this afternoon!
Eek I'm so excited! Can't wait to see how many bargains I can find and how much under budget (whatever that will be) I can get! The ring was in the sale for less than half price for starters  

South_coast

Wow, congratulations 😀!

Hope you get an early night tonight though!

bubblycrazy

Thanks SC, haha I'm taking the laptop upstairs as I type  
I've just said goodnight to the cats and they looked at me as if to say what time do you call this! We're usually up until about midnight. 
I'll probably still lie awake with a million thoughts whizzing round!

bubblycrazy

Well, after spending almost 3 weeks reading every post on the wedding forum, I'm back  
I was beginning to think my goal of adding extra OP's was going to have to be put on hold, however, my dad and OH parents want to contribute to the cost of the wedding, so things are back on track.

Just before I got sidetracked by all things wedding, I had looked at my finances and created a new spreadsheet which allocates all of my savings, which are spread out in different places, into pots. I now have all my money accounted for and savings pots for:
Presents, holidays, car stuff, pet insurance, home insurance, clothes, EF, land purchase, and I've had to add an extra one for the wedding!
I feel much better having done this, as I had money in all sorts of accounts with no idea what any of it was for! Plus, with it being split into separate accounts I didn't realise I had as much as I did, so I was panicking about not having enough saved for EF and land purchase. Anyway, it turns out I'm richer than I thought and can stop stressing  

Spoke to OH and we are going to increase our mortgage OP by £240 per month (picture the jump up and down emoji!)
I'm going to wait until April, as we need to recalculate our budget anyway due to the council tax increasing, but this should knock 3-4 years off the mortgage!

Oh, at work last week there was a letter on the noticeboard, and it looks as though our pensions are going from a DB to a DC I haven't had an official letter about it yet so I'll have to wait and see.

bubblycrazy

So my work pension is staying DB but will be worked out over career average instead of final salary. I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing for me, as I don't want to feel forced to stay working my full hours up to retirement. This way means I can throw in a few years of full time earlier on and still have it count towards my pension, before reducing to part time. It's just at the consultation stage at the moment so may or may not happen, but I bet it happens at some point in the future, and I bet the pension has moved to a DC by the time I retire!

In a moment of madness I've applied for a part time role to work alongside my current job. The closing date is today so I'll hopefully find out in the next few weeks. If I'm successful I hope it doesn't end up being too much, but it will double my wage due to my annoying annualised pay. I'll get the same wage doing 14 hours as I currently get for doing 30 🙄

My new spreadsheet is going well, I had £67.73 left over at the end of March which has went to the wedding fund. This months petrol spend is low due to no school runs so far and less hours at work due to the Easter rota, so will hopefully have a surplus there. At the end of this month I should get the Easter overtime on my monthly pay.

Oh and I've managed to convince OH to increase his work pension contributions by an extra 7%

In wedding news, I have an appointment tomorrow to shop for a wedding dress and we have a meeting on Sunday to look at a venue 😊 
My aunt has given me all of her wedding decorations from when she got married a couple of years ago I now have a spare room full of wedding paraphernalia  

I can't wait until DS goes back to school next week, I always feel like I'm chasing my tail trying to keep up with housework and life admin whilst trying to keep him fed and entertained! I don't think it helps that he'd only been back for about 3 weeks before being off again.

bubblycrazy

Well since my last update I've purchased my wedding dress and we've paid the deposit on our venue 

Still no word about the job. I'm undecided whether I should even take on a second job, I really like my work/life balance as it is, even though the extra cash would be very useful. People keep asking me if I'm job hunting now that I've completed my masters. I feel like I keep having to justify why I'm still working in the bottom rung mundane job, when really it fits perfectly around my life and is stress free, I'd be mad to leave! I'm soo not career motivated at all.

Saved £88.94 to the pots in April. I didn't receive my overtime pay last month it will be at the end of this month instead.
Finally feel like I'm getting on top of life admin, which is why I can take the time to update this diary! I'm never going to be a daily poster, but I would like to update it more than once a month  

It feels as though we've gone back in time 6 months with the weather we've been having, roll on 17th May when we can have a meal outside of our home actually surrounded by 4 walls and a roof for some warmth   
Should hear soon how much it's going to cost to purchase the land outside our house, I think I'm going to be in for a shock! Still haven't increased our mortgage OP until we know how much the land is going to be. 

bubblycrazy

Just received the £600 bonus from my help to save account, so £100 has gone to the OP pot and the other £500 to the land purchase pot. I wish they would hurry up and tell me how much it's going to cost! Can't wait until we can put up a fence and call it our own. I have plans for a patio area and lots of wild flowers  
My dad is in the process of buying and selling his home, he doesn't have the internet so I'm first point of contact for the solicitors and have been helping him fill in all of the requested forms, it's made me more certain that we're never moving house again - can't be bothered with the hassle, and the cost!

bubblycrazy

Still waiting to hear from the valuer! Emailed him again last week and no reply. zzzzzzz

Pots at the end of May:
Presents - 180
Holidays - 1000
Car stuff - 410
Pet Ins - 120
Home Ins - 140
Clothes - 50
EF - 3000
Land Purchase - 2761.88
Wedding - 124.95 (Bits and pieces, parents are paying for the big stuff)
Mortgage OP's - 188.94 (no OP's until we find out the land purchase cost)

I was underpaid by 8 hours so that will be paid at the end of this month.
Mortgage at the end of May - 35208.07
S&S ISA - 2352.83
It's coming up to the summer hols at work so I'll be doing a lot of overtime to increase these pots.