Chapter 3: the large London mortgage

lessavyfav

A mixed week this week..I spent a bit more on lunch this week than intended due to coming back too late home on Tuesday night to prepare for lunch (wanted to roast a big tray of veg), but provided I don't spend anything from my personal account this weekend, and prepare for lunches next week, I'll catch up.

Annoyingly, consolidating my pension is proving a painful experience. Because I've set up the new pension in my married name, although they have my old name on file as well, all of the old pension providers now want to see proof of name change first, which means sending the marriage certificate by registered post (as well of the return postal) to each of the providers. Both a pain with time, effort and money, it's going to cost me about £50 for the privilege and I assume take a few weeks. Oh well, such is life.

I've been very good with groceries at least, and I think this week will be a better month for our joint finances, just really need to claw back on personal spends where I can. I'm determined to keep my savings pots for health, gifts, clothes and EF in tact!!

Just 23 days till payday though, woohoo!

lessavyfav

Ahh what a weekend, they fly by! I had a lovely relaxing one that was fairly MSE. A quiet dinner Friday, run on Saturday and just caught a film on Amazon Prime Saturday night. We had friends come round yesterday so a small spend to top up what we needed, but relatively cheap. And today was an NSD -
woop woop!

Other money things:
- Cancelled our home insurance renewal coming up as I could see much better deals to swap and plan to pay an annual amount to save even more. Need to do that this week. My god, how I've changed!
- Mortgage came out today and I am going to make an overpayment too, so I'll check and update the balance in my signature in the coming days.
- We're running low on food, so I will no doubt need to top up but going to try to make it everything last while I can. OH has been drinking less as have I so that's already helping our grocery budget.
- Want to get a little token V day gift for the OH but I can't think of what! We're staying in, I'll make something nice for dinner (not really one for Valentine's but it actually falls on the same day I arrived to this country so always an excuse to celebrate).

Getting there..slowly!

lessavyfav

Another week that's flown by!

Great weekend, productive and pretty cheap. Treated ourselves to takeaway Indian (rare) and had enough leftovers for lunch. Other than that, no spends at the weekend, OH and I even went for a run!

I've been tracking every penny from my personal spends on a daily basis. Tedious, but helps. I'm just over halfway through the month till my next payday and I'm tracking under even though I had a pretty tight budget, thanks to bringing my lunch in to work most days and not having much social stuff on. I do have a busy couple of weeks ahead with quite a few people to meet up with but going to set myself a budget to stick to. If I end up having any spare money I'll divide it into a mortgage overpayment, and putting a bit more money into my bills account as my phone bill was much higher than usual (went over data).

I've been meal planning, so most dinners and lunches are thought of this week, but we'll be out this Thursday for some networking drinks things. Hopefully will just grab something cheap on the way home!

Next month will be tight moneywise since we're going away for almost a month and therefore won't be earning any money !!!8212; the highs and lows of being a contractor! I've told work I am happy to do a day or two a week when I'm away (as realistically there will be days I am just lounging around at my parent's house acting like a lazy teenager - may as well do something). They may not agree to it but we'll see! It definitely would help.

Finally, we're also getting some work done on the house! We're not getting as much done as we initially hoped for, but I'm happy because it means we'll finally have a place to put up our art and bookshelves! I have my eye on some gorgeous handmade French wall lamps but not sure whether that will happen as the cost of them is eye-watering. But really, they're dreamy and unique so maybe worth saving up for.

That's it from me. Lots of exciting things in the pipeline for OH and I. Scary, but exciting things! Hope everyone has a lovely week

lessavyfav

Another Monday update to report on the last week. Did pretty good throughout most of the week but things went a bit AWOL on Thursday when I had a few too many drinks! Spent £15 on a round, £2.35 on some fries on the way home and £4.60 on a coffee and croissant the next day to get me out of the hangover state. Never mind though, I am still ahead and have had two dinner cancellations this week so that helps! It's terrible that I am actually pleased about the cancellations, but I find going out more than two nights in a row exhausts me. I should have a leftover £50ish in my personal account which is some kind of miracle.

Weekend dinner was a little more pricey than we anticipated (with a trip to the pub after!), but we still have money in the bank account to last till payday...JUST!

Payday for me is this weekend and it's a nice plump figure but considering we'll be away for a while next month and don't get holiday pay, I've got to remember to be cautious.

Money things to get on with this week:
- Send off marriage certificate to one of my pension providers - got it ready to go, just need to go to the post office.
- Meal plan now that we're not out. So very tired right now but am currently making Ottolenghi's sweet potato cakes and salad for lunches tomorrow. They smell fab at least.
- Endeavour to not spend the personal bank balance.
- Ditto with the joint account - this is where I'm realising we're a little more out of control with random spends like home expenses, fixing car bits, etc.
- Once payday arrives, must ring-fence the personal funds again into gifts, holiday, clothes, beauty and emergency fund. This'll take amounts up to: £103, £100, £180, £125 and £255 respectively. Gift fund will go down before heading overseas as I have presents to buy for relatives and new baby members though.
- Pay my final balance transfer card payment. I'm proud that I've managed to do this two months early and will now have £130 that doesn't go towards useless debt!! Unfortunately have a few business and home related spends that may have to be sorted by credit card, but will try to minimise this and at least it's for something more sensible!

Tropically

That pension thing sounds so painful. I have a pension I should do something with, but my current company pension isn't very good.

lessavyfav

Tell me about it! It's like they don't want me to take my money out or something :rotfl:

On track with my money...spent under £20 for dinner last night with friends - was great to catch up with them. And today I bought lunch but spent under a fiver, so I can live with that! I will most likely be lazy on Friday and eat lunch out too (as I have hardly any fresh food in the fridge) but I will have around £55 leftover in personal spending on payday !!!8212; woop woop! Already sorted lunch for tomorrow..

I am going for an eye test tomorrow though, will be getting new glasses sorted too as it's been 8 years since my last pair. My eyesight has deteriorated too, I'm getting on a bit!

I think there's something wrong with the pipes in our bathroom, it's starting to smell a bit weird at times. How boring to be spending money on plumbing, it was only just last month we were spending money on the roof. YAWN. I want to be spending it on records, cushions and plants

lessavyfav

Another Monday, another update. Feeling shattered after this freezing cold weather but it's lovely and toasty in the house and I have about 2x the amount of layers that I usually do.

Very happy to say that my balance transfer credit card is paid off in full as of today, a couple of months early too. I was paying around £130 per month so that's £130 I can put towards something else (hopefully overpayments or more towards the savings fund)!

I bought lunch today but only spent £1.87 so I count that as a win, and have a lovely looking lunch ready for tomorrow..Wednesday is sorted from the freezer, not sure what to do on Thursday yet, Friday = lunch bought for us at work (a very lucky perk to have every couple of weeks!!)

I found tracking my spending most days last month was very helpful so I'm going to continue to do so again..this time round though part of the month I'll be overseas so that may screw a little. I'll allocate £35 to bought lunches/snacks for work and £90 for going out/misc while I'm in London but still need to work out how much spending money to allow for while I'm away. Obviously I won't need to pay a full monthly Oyster or groceries, plus have a little bit aside for holiday spend anyway so this helps! Very happy the pound is strong right now too.

Okay, well I best be off !!!8211; dinner is finally ready to be served. Will update my signature pronto.

lessavyfav

Updated signature, no more credit card debt now - woohoo! I was also meant to go out tonight but that's been postponed till next week, which is quite a relief as I just want to be home when the weather is this bitterly cold.

Was a bit naughty by spending £53 on cosmetics today, but I am running low on both my foundation and my usual handcream, and this came out of the beauty budget which has been set aside. I did it through the TopCashback site so I'll get almost £3 back, better than nothing. I think I'll need some mascara soon but happy to go an el-cheapo brand for that sort of thing.

No one's coming back to us about our house renovation timeline so I think that might end up being on hold till we get back in April, but hopefully we can kick things off right after that. I love our little house but it's going to look so much better once walls are done and we can begin to put up our bookshelves, artwork and new lighting. And once we reinstate the wood stove too !!!8211; could really do with that tonight.

lessavyfav

A work from home day, and got to enjoy some of that lovely snow !!!8211; always a novelty for a foreigner like me

A few life admin bits sorted at lunch today: food shop (small one but we have a friend coming round for dinner Friday), sorted business bank account (NatWest just...forgot about it it seems. good start there) and sent off the marriage certificate to the final pension provider. Oh the joy when I see all of it together in my PensionBee account! Now I need to actually contribute!

I was trying to think of ways to force myself to overpay a bit more to the mortgage and have decided to set up a pot in my banking app where I'll sweep over money each day. Then at the end of the week I'll transfer to the mortgage so the money's gone, no looking back. Next mortgage payment comes out on Monday I think, it should be under £490,000!

Such a long way to go.

lessavyfav

Oh dear, it really has been a while !!!8211; I have been checking in on other people's diaries but have lacked the motivation to update my own as things are going very slowly in terms of mortgage OP. A lot has happened since the last update though, so just to recap:

- OH and I have a joint business now and he's left his old business !!!8211; this means income is about £3500 less per month than we were earning before while we set things up. He still gets a small amount from the old job as he is owed money, so that helps.
- Because of this, I am now the breadwinner and working 4 days per week at a contract job, 1 day to focus on growing the business. Contract is till December (and likely to roll on), and although I am hoping by then that business will have increased, I don't expect we'll make as much as my day rate. We'll see how we go when the time comes.
- Paid of very small token amounts to OP mortgage. We're talking like £15 a month haha. Better than nothing, I suppose.
- OH and I are on a financial overhaul which is really awesome. We're not restricting ourselves but making sure we pay ourselves £200 pension a month with a view to increase this till at least double soon once we open our LISAs, we're also putting aside 20% of our income towards saving and debts (we took on a loan for house improvements), then only spending 5% of income on whatever splurge we like. Everything else goes to daily expenses and shorter term savings (for holidays and saving for new bikes). This dividing up (without being totally strict) is a really manageable way to form good habits.
- I now have over £2000 in my S&S ISA, the plan is to keep adding around £100-125 a month, and keep this for at least 5 years, hopefully 10.
- We have £1285/£1500 in our emergency fund, will probably take another 2 months to get to the target amount.
- I closed my Barclaycard today !!!8211; i haven't used it since I paid it off months ago but kept it as "security". However, my aim is to have enough money saved for emergencies to never need a credit card again.
- Will close my M&S card soon too, but I am due a refund in the next few days, so waiting for this to settle. YAY! OH has also closed his CCs too!
- Regular saver matures next month, this is money I owe to my parents with no due date. Currently stands at £4800 (plus interest), just over a third of the way there (less than two years to pay them if I continue paying £400 a month).
- Home improvement loan is around £290 per month. Hopefully as of next month we'll try to overpay to get rid of it sooner than the 3 years.
- Upcoming big expenses: getting a wood stove put in (an eye-watering £2000 quote) and blinds for all bedrooms and downstairs is coming to £2100 installed. HOW IS IT SO INSANELY EXPENSIVE? Can definitely negotiate the blinds down a bit, and might end up just doing bedrooms for the moment.
- Family is staying with us in August for a week, which will no doubt mean an expensive month as we'll be showing them round London, increasing the food budget and I'll be taking days off work. Sucks to spend money but hey, I am very happy I get to see them.

I think that's all I can remember for the moment, the good news is debts are going down and savings are going up...the right way! A lot more things to consider in the mid term such as kids (no mat pay for me), but that's for another post