Taking it slowly, but doing it well. 13 July 2017 at 7:39PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 1.1K replies 105.3K views

wishingthemortgaheaway

A no spend day today - first one in August. (We've been packing the house up this afternoon and the boys were happy watching CBeebies, so I didn't have to buy a film, which I was prepared to do. Most stuff now packed. 1 small bag of dirties (with today's clothes to be added.)
1 (hopefully) bag of last minute stuff tomorrow. Coats & the cool bag should be it. (My work stuff also needs to go in, but that's already packed, just not in the car for security purposes. )

So, money for tomorrow:

Cash in purse: £22 (plus the shrapnel emptied from the change cup to be put in the change pot at home)
Unused allowance in the bank: £102
Tomorrow's allowance: £25

Total: £149. That should make the last day go well, let's see how much I actually spend tomorrow.

Wish.

wishingthemortgaheaway

We are home! I am relieved, pleased, happy, tired, sad and overwhelmed. The thought of unpacking everything is terrifying, I've only got the essentials out of the car so far, the rest will have to wait until it cools down and Pickle
Is in bed. Hubby isn't home until tomorrow.

Spends today: breakfast in a well known pub chain - not that great, but filled the hole it needed to and was super cheap.

Market spends on marmalade £10 for 3 jars is extravagant (especially when it won't last long) but it's the last 'holiday' treat.
Then this afternoon I've taken Pickle to our local park's fund day - spends on hot dog each, ice cream each (that was 'lunch') and a go on the bouncy castle -£7.50 total for a lovely afternoon. Final spends of the day - bread and milk. Ald! Have a fridge fault so I ended up at the off licence - never mind, bread and milk is sufficient for our needs.

Summer trip spends round up - £700 saved for three weeks away. By the time I'd ordered the first online shop I was left with £25 a day for spends, top up shops etc. I have come home with:
£6 in £2coins
Shrapnel for the change pot
£3.50 in 'useable' cash
£108 of issues allowance in the bank.

Not bad indeed.
This year I did up my saving from £50 a month (£600 total) to £60 a month (£700ish) total. Spends, excluding Tilly tidies, £2 & shrapnel comes to £589.50 (I think). I think I would have felt under pressure without that extra £100 buffer - so I'm going to keep the £60 a month contribution.

Now I'm back I'm going to redistribute the left overs:
£8 to the mop pot
£100 to a fund for a night
In a hotel for a wedding in a few weeks (booked but not paid for) I was dying to make the £100 mop pot contribution I was 'short' last month - but this is so much more sensible and means I'm not raiding savings funds at a later date.
I will also transfer £5.00 from the grocery spends to the mop pot to account for the £3.50 I have in my purse.
It's quite nice that the 'proper' August budget hasn't been touched yet (apart from bills, but that's automatics - I mean, groceries, restaurants, spending money etc categories) maybe August will feel like a short month!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Right - so back to normal today & I needed to get on with August's targets need some accountability

Mse August Goals

1) mop pot - £381.42
Interest: £52.16/52.16 :j
Nice round number: £29.26/29.26 :j
£400 capital reduction: £68.64/£100
£500 capital reduction 0/£100
£600 capital reduction 0/£100 (to make up for 'falling short' last month.


2) NSDs
1/16 (yesterday)

3) work on the house (in priority order)
Shower to be fixed
Living room woodwork stripped
Living room painted
Dining room painted
Woodwork stained
Dining room floor sanded and waxed/stained/varnished/Finished.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Last Post from me for today:

Nearly 18 months ago I set a 29 month challenge to myself to be mortgage neutral by the end of July 2020 with the cash portion of the neutrality equaling £10k to cover house moving costs without touching the equity in the house.
With 12 months to go - it's highly unlikely that I will make that target due to the huge amounts of work we've had to have done on the house (thank you woodworm!) it was always an ambitious target, but with 12 months to go, how am I doing?

Mortgage Balance
The outstanding valance as of today (after August payment and small op made) stands at £25,300 it was £34,000 when I started the challenge an average monthly reduction of £500ish in the last 17 months. If I continue this average rate (£400 a month capital reduction is manageable, £500 relies on overtime & expenses etc) we will be mortgage free in 50months - just over 4 years. There are 10years and 2 months of the term remaining.

Cash offsetting mortgage balance (figures as of today)
Emergency fund: £2000/£2000
White goods repair & replace: £1000/£1000
Professional clean of old & new house: £375/1000
Boiler replacement: £200/£2000
Ns&i super emergency fund, not to be touched without a VERY good reason: £6500.

Total: £10,07

This technically means we have the £10k of moving costs, but it would wipe us out (hubby has savings, but they aren't included in this)

The net result of mortgage owing vs offset cash = £15,255.

If I pay £500 a month off the capital for the next 11
Months, plus another £300 this month (£5800) this means I need to save a further £9455 (just under £800 a month) to be mortgage neutral. I can't see that happening.

However - there is good news!
I've always based our house purchasing calculations based on selling our hoe for £100k. Recently though a neighbouring house has sold for £140k. If we could sell for £130k (or even £125k) - new kitchen needed we would have £100k to put towards our next home - that's not a bad deposit!

I'm sure anyone reading this has lost the will to live, but it's been a useful exercise for me.

Have a good Saturday night everyone.

Wish.

Karmacat

We all need to rummage through the potential avenues of our finances - you're doing so well with the holiday expenses, *and* the longer term mortgage realities enjoy your evening!

wishingthemortgaheaway

low spend day today, a couple of bits from Aldi, their fridges are broken, so I'll need to go to the other one tomorrow for my 'big shop'
I've meal planned and written a shopping list. Struggling with the pollen at the moment , so am taking it easy.

Mse August Goals

1) mop pot - £381.42
Interest: £52.16/52.16 :j
Nice round number: £29.26/29.26 :j
£400 capital reduction: £93.46/£100
£500 capital reduction 0/£100
£600 capital reduction 0/£100 (to make up for 'falling short' last month.


2) NSDs
1/16

3) work on the house (in priority order)
Shower to be fixed hubby has started taking it apart this evening...
Living room woodwork stripped
Living room painted
Dining room painted
Woodwork stained
Dining room floor sanded and waxed/stained/varnished/Finished.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Quite an exciting day money wise already today:
Hubby has fixed the shower - which was actually an issue with the kitchen mixer tap - so he is somewhat of a hero of mine for the next 5 minutes. (And I haven't had to fork out anymore money on plumbers who couldn't fix the issue. )
I've been food shopping - lots of bits needed so, slightly over my £50 a week budget (which I'm beginning the think is not sufficient on an ongoing basis- especially with the rising of prices of things)
Tilly tidied the pots quite severely to bring my mop pot up to the next £100 mini target (woohoo) so that's been transferred and results in another 'brick' being coloured in and an outstanding balance of £25,200 - hopefully a nice round £25k by the end of the month.
To help with this, I was delighted to receive a text from the bank of my most recently switched account confirming my switching bonus (£125) will be in my account by Friday. This will be split £25 to the mop pot and £100 into savings. If I follow the 'rules' I will get another £50 around June next year - then I'll be looking for a new switch.
Pickle has his first swimming lesson this evening, so I bought a pair of flip flops for 'pool side' as recommended by my friend. I got them half price (£2.50) from mr T's this morning - bargain.
About the prod the decorator (bye bye £100 switching reward - and more besides, but hello sanctuary of a home and not a stressful hovel)
I might be back later.

Wish

Mse August Goals

1) mop pot - £381.42
Interest: £52.16/52.16 :j
Nice round number: £29.26/29.26 :j
£400 capital reduction: £100/£100 :j
£500 capital reduction 0/£100
£600 capital reduction 0/£100 (to make up for 'falling short' last month.


2) NSDs
1/16

3) work on the house (in priority order)
[STRIKE]Shower to be fixed[/STRIKE]
Living room woodwork stripped
Living room painted
Dining room painted
Woodwork stained
Dining room floor sanded and waxed/stained/varnished/Finished.

wishingthemortgaheaway

A NSD and a WFH day so not much of anything achieved. Lovely roast dinner with a lovely piece of belly pork stuffed with Cumberland sausage and wrapped in bacon (from the nice northern services) shared with friends this evening. Need to find my house tomorrow (from under the clutter, but I also have a shorthand taster session in the city. So not a NSD tomorrow. My target for this month already feels unreachable.
Oh well, we'll see how we go.
Tilly tidies from direct debits & bank interest etc made.

Wish

Mse August Goals

1) mop pot - £381.42
Interest: £52.16/52.16 :j
Nice round number: £29.26/29.26 :j
£400 capital reduction: £100/£100 :j
£500 capital reduction £12.07/100
£600 capital reduction 0/£100 (to make up for 'falling short' last month.


2) NSDs
2/16

3) work on the house (in priority order)
[STRIKE]Shower to be fixed[/STRIKE]
Living room woodwork stripped
Living room painted
Dining room painted
Woodwork stained
Dining room floor sanded and waxed/stained/varnished/Finished.[/QUOTE]

Karmacat

I don't know what a WFH day is


Good luck on the taster session today: are you actually meaning shorthand? As per journalists and secretaries? Coo

wishingthemortgaheaway

Karmacat wrote: »

I don't know what a WFH day is


Good luck on the taster session today: are you actually meaning shorthand? As per journalists and secretaries? Coo

WFH is work from home - which is technically all of my work days apart from visits and quarterly trips to the office.

I am going to be shown 'proper' pitman shorthand, but I'm really interested in something called 'speed writing' which is apparently quicker to learn (1 day plus practise to master rather than up to 2 years for the proper stuff)
I just need to be able to write better notes for work. Sometimes my notes just don't make any sense and that's rubbish. I need to be much better as poor note taking can cause lots of issues.

Just waiting to go in now.