Mortgage free & able to live the dream!

SWSEGirl

Wow - it has been a really long time!

A lot has changed in the space of a year - I have a one year old (he's lovely!), a redundancy behind me and now a shiny new job! Not to mention a horribly cluttered flat.

In short - I took voluntary redundancy from my last job at the end of my maternity leave- which gave me a decent payout and am now on a 6 month freelance contract - the good news is that my new role pays the same for 4 days as I was doing for 5 at my last place, and also given me a career boost. I have paid a chunk of my redundancy payment into savings, so financially things are looking good. We remortgaged in October - so our repayments have been reduced by £170 a month, but we now have the dreaded childcare bill to contend with. My husband got a promotion and pay increase, so all in all, I think we are balancing things well! The sleep deprivation and commute are difficult to contend with - but my new employer are pretty flexible - meaning I get to work from home a decent amount, I can't really complain.

Savings: £36,700 I would be higher, but we lent my Mum £4,000)
Mortgage OP: £19000
Moneybox Account £1264
Bank Balance: £1,775
Mortgage Balance £285,000

I will also post an SOA when I get a moment - as our outgoings have changed significantly and I really need to get my hear around them!

SWSEGirl

Another lapse in posting, and what strange times we are living through. I am clinging on to my freelance job for the moment, and I really hope I don't lose my job, as I won't be entitled to any support as I only became self employed last year. However, we should be able to survive on DH's salary - so I feel especially lucky. I am using this time to try and build up our savings, having seen just how difficult times can become. If I am making any purchases I am trying to shop local and support small businesses.
DH and I are talking about our options and at what point we will upsize, our 2 bed, gardenless flat is feeling very small. At the same time I suspect the property market will be shaken, and it may be wise to stay where we are until things stabilise. 
I have been doing my sums and have worked out that we could be mortgage neutral by April 2025 if we really push ourselves over the next 5 years. That feels so close. I don't want to upsize and move somewhere with less earning potential, if just 5 short years could see us set up for life. At the same time, I want our little boy to grow up with a garden, and not for us to spend so much time at work we miss these precious early years. 
I have managed to OP the mortgage by £2k the past 2 months - and I would love to continue to do this for as long as I possibly can. I will try and post an updated SOA as soon as I get a chance.

SWSEGirl

I've completed a new SOA - which has given me some interesting clarity. It is a bit misleading, as we are currently only paying 50% of our childcare, but I am currently putting this towards the mortgage. Also - our entertainment budget is greatly reduced at the moment, so I feel we have more to throw at savings & mortgage OP's!

Household Information[/b]

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 1

Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax................ 3003

Partners monthly income after tax....... 4242

Benefits................................ 0

Other income............................ 0

Total monthly income.................... 7245

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage................................ 936

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0

Rent.................................... 0

Management charge (leasehold property).. 160

Council tax............................. 141

Electricity............................. 100

Gas..................................... 0

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 60

Telephone (land line)................... 30

Mobile phone............................ 40

TV Licence.............................. 12.5

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 10

Internet Services....................... 20

Groceries etc. ......................... 600

Clothing................................ 100

Petrol/diesel........................... 100

Road tax................................ 17

Car Insurance........................... 50

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 350

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 140

Childcare/nursery....................... 996

Other child related expenses............ 50

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0

Buildings insurance..................... 0

Contents insurance...................... 15

Life assurance ......................... 25

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50

Haircuts................................ 50

Entertainment........................... 200

Holiday................................. 100

Emergency fund.......................... 0

Total monthly expenses.................. 4352.5

Assets

Cash.................................... 42000

House value (Gross)..................... 400000

Shares and bonds........................ 4000

Car(s).................................. 1000

Other assets............................ 0

Total Assets............................ 447000

Secured & HP Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 276674...(936)......1.6

Total secured & HP debts...... 276674....-.........-   [
Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Total unsecured debts..........0.........0.........-  

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income.................... 7,245

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 4,352.5

Available for debt repayments........... 2,892.5

Monthly Unsecured debt repayments....... 0

Amount left after debt repayments....... 2,892.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own)........... 447,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -276,674

Total Unsecured debt.................... -0

Net Assets.............................. 170,326

SWSEGirl

My pay has finally hit my account this morning, and I have transferred another £2,000 to the mortgage. My husband also received his bonus this month, so that has gone into our savings. We're making great inroads, but this still feels like such a mountain to climb & I'm feeling a bit dispirited for some reason. Even if we were able to overpay by this amount every month, there are still a number of years left - although I know we'll thank ourselves later.
We are at something of  crossroads at the moment - my husband is miserable in his job, and we would like to move out of London, but my job prospects if we move back to where we grew up are not great. If I had my way, I would stay in London as long as possible and build up as much equity and savings as possible, but life is for living at the end of the day. 
Savings: £46,000
Mortgage OP: £28,000
Bank Balance: £1,684
Mortgage Balance: £273,481

kaycastle

You're doing really well. I like reading diaries of large mortgages, it's really motivating.
Feels crazy to give advice to someone doing so well but is there anything you're thinking of changing after writing the SOA? The "groceries etc." Bit stood out to me. Our groceries bill in south east is usually around 200, sometimes a bit higher. We eat mostly all fresh food. But we are quite foodies so always fall prey to fancy things in jar and exotic things.

SWSEGirl

Thanks for checking in Kaycastle! You're absolutely right - our grocery bill is enormous - that is slightly symptomatic of where we are at the moment (staying near my Mum since pre lockdown) - there is only one shop & it is horribly expensive, when we are back in London, I will get back to my Aldi-shopping, economising ways Thank you for your kind comments x

wh_em

Have just finished reading your diary, its been great to see your progress. Congratulations on the baby!

kaycastle

SWSEGirl said:

Thanks for checking in Kaycastle! You're absolutely right - our grocery bill is enormous - that is slightly symptomatic of where we are at the moment (staying near my Mum since pre lockdown) - there is only one shop & it is horribly expensive, when we are back in London, I will get back to my Aldi-shopping, economising ways Thank you for your kind comments x

I hear you - we did a few lockdown shops where we would never dream of going usually because the more expensive supermarkets were so much more pleasant - the usual supermarkets were really stressing out my OH so we opted for less stress We are slowly getting back to our normal ones but I so miss the fancy foods.

SWSEGirl

I've been doing a lot of number crunching during lockdown, and I think I need the focus of some tangible goals. At the moment I am managing to pay £2k off the mortgage a month (we are currently only paying 50% childcare costs), but I don't think this will be sustainable in the long term really - it could be, if we put less in savings, so perhaps we do that.
Our ultimate aim is to buy our forever home in Cornwall - my DH would like to do this sooner rather than later, but I am more of the mindset that I would like to save to buy the property of our dreams - or keep our London flat and buy a second property.
With our current savings rate we could be mortgage free on our flat in just under 10 years, which would be amazing! 
So with all of the above in mind I am breaking it down into more achievable goals:
Goal 1: Save £50,000 by November 2020 (£5k to go)
Goal 2: Hit 65% LTV by March 2021 (this is based on OP'ing by £2k per month, so it is ambitious)
Goal 3: Save additional £3k by December to get work done on flat

SWSEGirl

A lot has happened since my last post - my husband has quit his job, he's accepted another role, he has taken a £6k pay cut, but it will mean he is working entirely remotely, and so our son can go to a childminder instead of the expensive nursery he has been going to, which means the financial hit is only £105 a month after childcare savings. I also think my husband will be much, much happier, so that is what's important.
We managed to overpay the mortgage by another £2k this month and still put £2k in savings - I don't think there will be many months we'll be able to do this, so I'm taking a moment to feel proud of myself.
We are starting to look more seriously at buying a new property, although I think we may need t hold on to our flat for the foreseeable, as I don't think it will be very marketable post pandemic (no garden!)
Current numbers:
Mortgage Balance: £270,886
Mortgage OP: £2,000
Savings £48,000