My long slow journey to mortgage freedom

muppets

I have finally decided to move over to the mortgage free part of the forum. :beer:
I became debt free in January of this year. :T:T We (DH and I) have been making small over payments to the mortgage for the last 2 years or so, while I was getting out of debt.

We also have been paying ourselves back for a car we bought with cash last year. The car was needed, but we didn't have enough in the new car fund to cover it. So will continue to pay ourselves back for this.

At the start of the year our mortgage inc interest was
Mortgage - €194,886.00 and as of today it is - €188,822.88
Car Fund Was - €5231.33 and today it is - €4448.55

While we have been making over payments to the mortgage, they are not classed as over payments as such. Over here they do not allow you to over pay different amounts each month. They O/P we knew we could cover each month has been included in our monthly payment to the bank.

For the last few months, I have been putting some money by in the mortgage pot on YNAB. Once we have a good amount in the pot, I hope to be able to contact the bank and ask them to pay this off the mortgage. The amount does need to be quite big though, so that will take some time.

Westminster

Well done - so far so good!

Miss_D_Meanour

Good luck with your mortgage 'potting'!

muppets

Thank you Westminster and Miss D Meanour

muppets

Payday for Co #1 and 2 has been and gone. Received payslip from Co#2 last Thursday and it took until yesterday to receive payslip from Co#1. Not happy it took that long.
While my budget is generally the same each month, I always put some money by for taxes. The last 2 years hubby and I owed money for taxes. While work does take some money out I have been told they don't have tables to work to (like in the UK) so they can't always take the correct amount out.

Taxes done online for 2016 for both OH and I, this year is the 1st year we are filing jointly due to getting married last year. This year it estimates we are due some money back :j:jwill see if that is the case when we get the confirmed bill in the post.

muppets

YNAB updated with money put by for next years taxes, had some spare money to put by into savings as well.

Water bill came today, so will pay that online and also building and contents insurance came today. Will pay both these bills online in a bit.

Also has some good news today. Our boiler needed a part that would have be replaced under warranty back in 2015 - 2016. We had expected a call from the boiler manufactures back in Oct 2015 and never received it. It had slipped our minds TBH as OH's dad was very ill and passed away in Jan 2016. Fast forward to Feb this year, we called the repair man back and they sent our a man to clean the boiler, who again said the part needed to be changed and they couldn't clean it. So they were going to go back to the manufactures and find out why they didn't call. Heard nothing, so this week OH called again about it, they finally called the manufactures and asked why we hadn't received a call, they claimed they did call, left a message on mobile and as we never called them closed the file. Upshot was the new part would cost €1200 and the repair people could get the part for 1/2 price. OK I was annoyed as I was sure they never called us back in 2015 ad told the repair man so yesterday. So no choice but to suck it up and have to pay for this dam part.
So finally the GOOD NEWS. We got a call today from the repairs people, the manufactures have agreed we can have the part for FREE, all it will now cost is the fittings which is €170 a lot better.
So happy with that price. :o

jules81

Good luck with becoming MF Hunny, sounds like you are doing great, and well done on clearing debt.

Look forward to following your journey xxx

muppets

Thank you jules81

muppets

Since I was last here

DH had a birthday, which was a bit spendy, but not too bad.
We went to his cousins wedding and stayed overnight in a hotel, it was budgeted for, a bit spendy though.

We have been working less hours, the money had been saved through out the 1st part of the year to cover this.

Over here we don't pay council tax, we pay owners tax, so the bill for that has come in and been paid €315. We also pay city tax, which was also due and has also been paid €39. Both of these could have been paid at the end of the month or even next month, but I wanted them paid so I can forget about them for another year.
The money is saved over the 12 months to cover these.

We thought we were due to start back our afternoon work location next week, but it turns out that we don't need to start until the 16th of this month. Meaning that we have 14 hours less pay each then we though we ere getting this month. This was not accounted for and would not have been told yet unless we had asked. Work a useless at giving us info in advance, always leave it until the last min.

Still waiting for our confirmed tax bill. They take so long with the bills, but expect the payment straight away if you owe them. Typical though lol.

That's all for now.

muppets

Oooops 3 months since I last posted.

Whats been happening since :think:

I've had a big birthday. I got myself a new tattoo, a present to me from me.
We are back to our full time hours again, saving what spare money we can.

Work has given us notice, as they may lose the contract for the place we work in. If they win the new contract, nothing changes. If they lose the contract, we get 2 weeks trail work with the company who won the contract.

Had to take the car into the garage, someone bumped into us while we was parked up. Insurance have paid out some money for the repair and we have to pay €200 excess. The insurance company need to pay us the vat now for the bill.

Still waiting on the tax bill, I think they owe us some money back this year.

Hubby needs a new iPod to listen to music in work, I wanted an iPad, we were going to wait until we got our bonus at the end of the year. There was a deal on in the shop, that any apple products bought that week only, you would get a gift voucher. So we used savings to buy them, hubby got a €20 voucher and I got a €40 voucher. When we get our bonus we will be paying savings back for them. We had agreed that we wouldn't use them until we had our bonus, but hubby suggested we wrapped them in the store and save them for christmas. :xmastree:

muppets

OOOPS 4 months since last update.

Whats been happening since :think:

Work has given us new official notice that we will be losing our contract for the place we work in. The city extended the contracts until the end of July, which is when one of the places I work at will be closing.

Changed gas and electric in Dec, we were offered a deal with a new supplier, which gave us cheaper tariff and a discount for changing.

Received the tax bill, they confirmed in Dec the amount they owed us back and also advised it would take until the end of Feb for the refund. Had the money and used it to top us car repairs pot and house repairs pot.

Our end of year bonus, we agreed to only use a set amount of it each month, making sure that it lasted the whole year. Glad we agreed that now as not sure what's happening with work at the end of July.