Taking it slowly, but doing it well.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Ooh, must have added an op yesterday too as YNAB says there is £89.38 in the mortgage op pot.
That £90 target is definitely doable.

Mummy_bear

Morning, just popping over to say I've subscribed as you've been great following my journey. I think you're doing very well. Glad I've at the beginning of this diary so I can see how far you go in real time

wishingthemortgaheaway

Thanks Mummy_bear, I'm determined to keep up my diary this time.
We'd really like to start thinking about moving to a bigger house with a garden and storage space for hubby's kit, so the more equity we have in the house at the time the better.

wishingthemortgaheaway

I decided to do a soa to see if anyone can help 'trim the fat'
It's not entirely accurate in outgoings, I've no idea how much I spend on clothes and birthday presents as it just gets lumped under 'spending money' in my ynab.

We've also always worked our finances whereby I pay the bills, he buys the fun. I know the grocery shop is one I can tackle, but can anyone see anything else?


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2000
Partners monthly income after tax.......
Benefits................................ 82
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2082

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 297.8
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 92.61 I pay this annually this is 1/12 of this year's bill
Electricity............................. 44.5 dual fuel so just split the single payment down the middle
Gas..................................... 44.5
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 21.8 paid annually, this is 1/12
Telephone (land line)................... 17.09 paid annually this is 1/12
Mobile phone............................ 31
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 5.99 Netflix
Internet Services....................... 27.14 this includes our fibre, bt tv, and any call charges, can't be bothered separating it sorry!
Groceries etc. ......................... 321.21 this is the big one to cut!
Clothing................................ 20 guessed!
Petrol/diesel........................... 60 for 1 car averaged over 3 months
Road tax................................ 2.5 for my car 1/12 of annual payment
Car Insurance........................... 83.04 for both cars, we live in a 'bad' postcode
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 17 pure guess based on the fact it's just had mot & service for £200
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0 if I go on the bus, the payment gets taken from the fuel fund
Childcare/nursery....................... 0. Going to be about £120 a week if/when I go back to work
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 9 buildings & contents paid annually as 1 bill so £18 is 1/12 of annual bill
Contents insurance...................... 9
Life assurance ......................... 20.76
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50 this is the money I save each moth for Christmas.
Haircuts................................ 0 mum pays for my annual trim when I visit them asa little treat.
Entertainment........................... 164.16 average from the last 3 months of my 'spending money category on ynab
Holiday................................. 50 money I put aside for the three weeks we are in now hubby pays for proper holidays
Emergency fund.......................... 0 £1000.00 sat in the bank
Total monthly expenses.................. 1401.22
Assets
Cash.................................... 6706.43
House value (Gross)..................... 110000
Shares and bonds........................ 10000
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 128706.43


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 36800....(297.8)....2.44
Total secured & HP debts...... 36800.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]
Total monthly income.................... 2,082
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,401.22
Available for debt repayments........... 680.78
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 0
Amount left after debt repayments....... 680.78

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 128,706.43
Total HP & Secured debt................. -36,800
Total Unsecured debt.................... -0
Net Assets.............................. 91,906.43

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Do I really have £680.00 left each month? Do I heck! Because I msave for most bills annually, I overpay into each ynab 'pot' this means, when I've paid the annual bill, there is money left over that goes on the mortgage overlay, it also protects me if prices rise Froment one year to the next.
But, as someone said to me years ago, you are a mfw not a dfw so the soa is really for a different purpose - help me save more for my mortgage.


Thank you

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Today I spent money to improve my mental health.
I got up this morning and looked out of the window at the pouring rain and considered the fact I'm in a holiday cottage with no airer and a rubbish washer/drier. I looked at the ikea big blue bag of washing and concluded that I could not do the washing myself get it dry and still be a good mum.
So, I took it to the laundrette for a service wash £17,50 well spent
Later a friend sent me an article from the BBC about how spending money to give you time makes you happier than buying stuff. I agree.

So a £17.50 spend day, budgets will need a bit of sorting tomorrow. But, I've managed to meal plan up go and including Tuesday night using things in the house rather than going shopping today or tomorrow. This means I've saved money I was intending to spend.

Pickle and I are probably heading home Friday with hubby following on Sunday so only 2 more evening meals to plan, shop and prep for.
I think that's good work.

That's all to report from boring Wish's money saving madness.

Good night all, sleep well.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Today was nearly a nsd, but we went out for family coffee & cake in the 40minute gap hubby had today so it was worth it.

I blitzed some surveys today and I've only got 50p to go before I can cash out an Amazon voucher on vo. Wonder how long it will take me!

Pa has slowed down a bit, as I suspected it would but over £12 in 2 weeks is pretty good I think.
Don't think I'll get to my £20 cash out target for July, but I've just about made it to £20 in the accounts. Hopefully August will be lucrative.

Tonight I need to finish and send off the job application I've been working on for a week now. Then check survey sites again and then it's knitting.

I'm going to Tilly tidy my mortgage op up to £90 and then tomorrow I'm going to see if it's possibly to op the last £10 to make a nice round £100 overpay, then I'll op tomorrow night before August begins.
We're on £36,800 at the moment, with this month's op and the next two months standard and ops, I'm thinking a target of £36000 by 1st October is doable then £35,000 by the end of the year .

I hope everyone has a lovely evening. Keep saving

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Job application done and sent.....

wishingthemortgaheaway

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's July updates today, I'm sure there will be more this evening so I'll log back in later to read them.

Here's my update;

Mortgage
At the start of this diary (halfway through July) we owed £36849 and a few pence. With some money I found in my accounts due to ynabbing some transactions twice I made the £49. Something payment to get us down to a nice round number. Further Tilly tidies and underspends bought the total to £92 something so I've rounded that payment to £100 and made an 'end of the month op'

Temperature blanket is still very much behind and will be a slow project to catch up on I haven't met the target I set myself, but I'm not going to change August's targets, I'll just need to find the time to do it.

Spending diary. I've been a bit rubbish at keeping this, but it's all quite artificial while I'm here with hubby, I'm just practicing for when I get home.

£20 on surveys. I haven't cashed anything out this month, which makes this target not met, but I'm close to a payout on a couple of sites:

50p to go to get a £15 Amazon voucher on valued opinions
Prolific Academic has about £12 in the pot, will cash it out at £20
I also did a Roamler job that should payout £10 today. I just hope I took the photos properly, we'll see, it's not like it cost me anything.
This all looks good for August though providing surveys don't dry up.


So: August's goals

1) reduce Mortgage capital by £340 (this means an op of about £115

2) keep an accurate cash spending diary

3) cash out £30 of survey site rewards

4) reach the middle of July on the temperature blanket.

5) get a job or sign up to 1 agency.


They all seem reasonable I think.

Have a good August one and all.

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Here I am, back again being boring. Sorry, but it's just the way I am.

Today was a low spend day £3.75 on some handmade fragrance free chemical free soap for Pickle as we've run out of his bubble bath and I'm not buying a big bottle for a few days. This way I'm supporting a local social enterprise and he's staying clean.

I've actually spent very little on Pickle since we've been here. He's had 1 cd from one of the bands here, but when I went to pay for it the band told us to take it as hubby was working the gig. I fell awful getting freebies at things like this, hubby is paid to be here, some of the bands are barely scraping by. It's a lovely gesture but unnecessary.
I think I might take him to the independent book shop on Thursday afternoon and choose a new book - the ones we've bought with us from home are being hidden on a high shelf for a few weeks as we've read most of them about 10 times a day.
There's also a lovely independent toy shop here so I might treat him there too. My £15.00 a day budgets have been going really well, when I meal planned on Saturday I got all the way through until tonight without having to buy anything, ive only got two more night's of meals to sort and 1 of those is going to be last night's left overs AND when I did my £15 a day calculation I miscalculated days so had 2days worth of £15 extra. Go me!

So

August's goals

1) reduce Mortgage capital by £340 (this means an op of about £115)
Actually calculated that the op needs to be £128 to hit the £340 figure, not sure why my estimates are out but:
Currently £19/£128
Tidied up the YNAB bill pots so where the money has gone out the pots have been zeroed
£15.00 I haven't spent from today's budget
£1.00 from yesterday's budget and a 1p TT to get a nice round figure (debating doing the mother £1 to round to £20 we'll see)

2) keep an accurate cash spending diary
Not done today oops - must get into the habit for returning home.

3) cash out £30 of survey site rewards
The roamler job I did yesterday paid to my account. I wasn't sure if the process, so cashed it out to check it would all work. As it was £10, I incurred a PayPal charge but £9.80 of free money, I can't complain so that's
£9.80/£30 for this month
I've done another PA survey today for 90p but screened out of a VO one
This means my new 'wool pot' has £9.80 in it. I will be buying some of the lovely wool from one of the shops here before I leave (£7.99 a ball!!)) but it's 100% wool, supports a local business is amazing to work with and can come from the Christmas pressie pot as I'll be using the wool to make Christmas presents. Eventually I'd like to find all my wool buying from my wool pot, but it's early days yet.

4) reach the middle of July on the temperature blanket.
No progress

5) get a job or sign up to 1 agency.
The job I applied for a couple of days ago closed at 9am this morning, so if I've been shortlisted I will probably hear by the end of the week.

Tomorrow
Hubby has the day off tomorrow (until 6:30pm I think)
So it's swimming with Pickle first thing then probably brunch out
Then in the afternoon I'm going to see a play that's being put on here and I'm going on my own! I cannot wait.
I've also left hubby in charge of tea as I won't get back to the house until 4:30 and pickle has his tea at 5 and hubby will need to eat before the evening session, especially as he's got a meeting afterwards about the you tube streaming that they are doing.

Finally a little bonus
When we went out for family cake the other afternoon I tapped my card to pay. I didn't check the amount, just tapped my card - lesson learned!
The amount was for £8.something, however it's appeared on my internet banking as 80p I'm assuming they didn't type the amount into the card machine properly (which is why I will always check from now on in case I get overcharged)
I know when you do online grocery shopping they will do a £1 nominal charge to check the card details you've entered are correct and then cancel it, replacing with the full amount, but I've never heard it happening for contactless.

I'm going to leave things as they are for now, in case the full amount is still pending. But, in a couple of weeks, if it's still the same I'll add the £8.20 difference to the mortgage.

I'm very tired now, hubby at the pub with the rest of his team and I'm going to sleep.

Night all

Wish.

wishingthemortgaheaway

So today:
This morning we both took Pickle swimming, he loves it and spent most of the time just 'hanging out' in his new arm bands, he seems unable (or more likely too lazy and unwilling) to kick his legs to actually swim.

Then we went for brunch - I paid & blew the daily budget £26.80 for brunch for the pair of us and pickle. Money well spent though we had a lovely family day. We had brunch in the cafe that undercharged my card a few days ago. When I checked my online banking this afternoon the full charge for brunch was in the pending transactions section, so I really do think I've been charged 80p for last week's cake trip. I adjusted the YNAB entry, used some of the refund to balance out today'S spends and put the rest in the mop (mortgage over pay) pot.

This afternoon I went to see a performance on my own!!! It was amazing, the play and going on my own. I paid for the ticket, in cash a few days ago.

While waiting in the queue to get in VO had lots of surveys for me, so I did a couple of quick ones, and got screened out of a couple. Having a child really seems to help be accepted it seems. As a result of my 'queue surveys' I earn £2.75 so was able to cash out a £15 Amazon voucher and have 2.25 towards my next one.

Tomorrow, I've got nothing planned for tomorrow but will need to sort something for tea, not sure what, so will have a think and see what we've still got left to use up.

Next: update on goals

August's goals

1) reduce Mortgage capital by £340 (this means an op of about £115
£25.11/£128
2) keep an accurate cash spending diary
No cash spent today
3) cash out £30 of survey site rewards
£24.80/£30 (£15 voucher & £9.80 cash)
4) reach the middle of July on the temperature blanket.
No progress last night
5) get a job or sign up to 1 agency.
No response from application so assume I've not been shortlisted.

Have a good evening

Wish.