Mortgage free & able to live the dream!

SWSEGirl

Well it's early(ish) on a Saturday morning & I'm on a bus destined for Aldi! :T

I've got a relatively quiet weekend, so want to ensure I've cooked ALL lunches for the coming week & possibly next. Because work is set to become so busy, I really want to use my downtime to make the busier times easier...and less spendy!

I'm going to do big batches of meatballs & veggie chilli for starters.

I'm hoping to get some time to make banana bread this morning - my friend has recently had a baby, I'm seeing her today & don't like to go empty handed. It's also DH's favourite, so will be a nice surprise when he (finally!) wakes up.

SWSEGirl

So I'm sitting in front of Netflix chopping veg for my batch cooking....I'm setting myself a challenge, I'm going to try to have a No Spend Week! I don't think I'm quite dedicated to doing an entire 7 days, but I'm going to try to not spend anything between Monday - Friday - aside from my travel to work, but that's sadly unavoidable.

Hopefully it'll encourage me that being organised is the key to success!

SWSEGirl

I managed to prep 8 lunches yesterday evening- half chicken stew & dumplings & half veggie chilli :j

I'm almost set for 2 working weeks of not buying lunches & have the ingredients in to add more to my stock. I might do jerk chicken with an almond crust & salsa this evening & add in extra for lunch portions. It helps me avoid waste too.

I need a frugal week as my bank balance is severely dwindling post Christmas. Happily I have £250 interest free overdraft, but I hate using it - when my pay comes in it feels like another deduction!

Not sure of our Sunday plans...possibly the cinema, although I like to go earlier in the day, so I can have a chilled Sunday evening...it depends when DH will wake up

SWSEGirl

Fighting the Sunday night blues by posting. Had a lovely day with DH, lunch at local market, then cinema - lots of time to talk in between, it was perfect really.

Got home to the chaos of our untidy flat & I managed to motivate myself to clean the kitchen & organise our bathroom cabinet. Small steps, but I'm determined to do one thing each night this week - we'll see how that goes!

One thing DH & I can't agree on is whether to get a cleaner. I would love to & feel we could mitigate the cost by tweaking a few other areas. DH isnt keen - he works from home a lot & doesn't want someone cleaning around him, which I understand - but think he could arrange one day a week in the office to allow for it.

Ah well I'm not sure it's something we'll ever agree on!:o

Kittenkirst

SWSEGirl wrote: »

The student loan issue is really annoying - so many people must be caught out & pay over the odds. My advice is switch to a direct debit the final year of repayments & carefully work out what you owe. I did do this, however, none of the figures from HMRC, SLC or my own workings match!! :mad: It has driven me to insanity. I'm just grateful to know it will all be done soon.

How frustrating!! I switched to direct debit when I knew I was within distance of clearing my student loan, however called them this week and they’ve told me I’ve overpaid by £126- I’m cautious of this as thought I owed £13 still. Wishingthemortgageaway has had similar issues too

SWSEGirl

Thanks Kittenkirst - I just can't wait to be done with the SLC - I can't understand how they have such a archaic, clunky system - ah well!

It's a cold, dark commute this morning - but I've brought my lunch in & so today should be an NSD to kick off my NS week, fingers crossed!

If I manage it, I'll prove to myself that an hour or 2 dedicated to getting organised & batch cooking can seriously help our savings goal.

juniordoc

Following your diary SWSEgirl, my partner and I have just bought our first property (a very humble 2 bed flat) in the south-west and have £234K outstanding on a 22 year term. It is very much not our forever home, we will outgrow it as soon as a baby comes along so feeling like we need to start overpaying pretty soon to have a hope of owning a family home one day.

SWSEGirl

Hey Juniordoc!

Sounds as though we are in similar situations, although your mortgage term is so much better than ours currently....it's really difficult to envisage being able to afford buying a family home, I'm trying not to get too disheartened by how long term that dream will be, as who knows what can happen? It's difficult though, as it's making me question if we should be starting a family now, but also - we can't wait forever!

Our dilemma is that we could afford to buy somewhere close to where we grew up in the not-too-distant-future, but once we move, there are very few job opportunities and I would definitely have to give up my career, which is quite a difficult pill to swallow.

All I can do in the meantime is try and maximise savings and work towards our end goal.

Good luck with your overpayments - it really will be worth it!

SWSEGirl

First NSD of the week done & 2 lunches from tonight's leftovers :money:

I wasnt feeling particularly well this afternoon, but even managed to forego popping out to buy painkillers, an early night should sort me out.

Onwards & upwards x

Socajam

Michelle Singletary form the Washington Post writes a good article about money management. I have copied some tips from her article, hope it helps. She writes her columns on Thursdays:

You got to have a safe pot of money that isn’t subject to the ups and downs of investing. I have two types of rainy-day funds. The first is my emergency fund. That’s money set aside for drastic financial situations such as a job loss. This pot of money could sustain my household for about a year without any income, meaning my husband and I could pay all our bills — mortgage, utilities, cable, food, school fees, transportation, vet visits for the dog, etc.
It’s important that you don’t just focus on saving for the major household expense categories. In my experience, it takes people a few months before they reduce their expenses after they lose income.
To arrive at what should be in your emergency fund, pull your bank statements and add up everything it takes to run your household for a month and multiply that figure by the number of months you want to have saved.
I know that a year’s worth of living expenses is aggressive if you’re new at saving. So, starting out, aim for just one month. Make the figure too high and it’ll be so daunting that you’ll give up. Then go for three months. You’ll be in good shape when you get to six months.
Money in your emergency fund is left untouched in a deposit account. And yes, it’s not going to earn much interest. But that’s okay because, remember, you’re not trying to grow this money.


The second savings account is a “life happens” fund. I created this pot so that I wouldn’t have to tap the emergency money. You’ll withdraw money from this fund to pay for unexpected or major expenses that don’t quite fit the dire straits definition. Car repairs would come out of this account. Start with trying to save $500, ideally increasing to a few thousand.
Money will be going in and out of this account. You save. An expense comes up and you’ll pull some money out. As soon as you can, replace the funds.
I like to view saving and investing as two actions, although both are intended to provide safety. You save for emergencies, unexpected expenses, or your wants and needs. You invest for the future to stay ahead of inflation or to send your children to college and, we hope, retire comfortably.
Michele Singletary - Washington Post

Remember this is written from an American perspective, but the same can apply here as well. I have used this method, now I that I am have to renovate my flat, I have the money available and I do not have to obtain a loan from the bank.
Also make sure that the Building Society/bank is aware that you want the over payment to apply to the principal. I started doing this and was able to pay off my mortgage a lot earlier. I am now 3 years mortgage free and it feels wonderful.