FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

financialbliss

More bike woes. Was going great guns on the way home last night until disaster struck.

Another puncture. :eek:Was one of those staples that hold a cardboard box together.

I take a pretty direct route to / from home and part of the route is via cycle paths, a lay by, a shortcut via a footpath and some road sections and you would expect some of that is poorer quality with the likelihood of going over glass and other sharp objects.

Unfortunately I picked the puncture up on the cycle path.:mad:

Managed to get wheel and tube off, replaced and put back on and inflated pretty quickly. Three cyclists passed me, two of which stopped to offer help.

Had a terrible commute in this morning. Was raining so hard that it was hurting. We've also had hailstones and sunny spells today, so pretty much all seasons in the one day.

FB.

financialbliss

Ok. Let’s see if I can remember how to post here… as it seems an age since I’ve put anything down “on paper”.

First, lets get the cycling out of the way. Still commuting daily and the fine weather is helping enormously. I originally envisaged the cycling to be:

• Save money
• Get fitter
• Enjoyment

But having cycled regularly for a few months now, I’d say that I now perceive cycle commuting as:

• Enjoyment
• Get fitter
• Save money

No major incidents to speak of. Nearly got caught out by a RLJ driver (red light jumper), but I've become more wary of road users now!

Can’t say I’ve done that much in the way of money saving. Recently bought a rack, some seriously waterproof panniers and after a spell of very wet weather, I can say they are certainly waterproof. I’ve also just had an email saying a batch of cycling goodies has just been dispatched – tops, shorts, longs, waterproof trousers etc.

Just broke through the 600 commuting miles today. I set an objective of 1,200 commuting miles, so I’m 50% there already. On the ‘in’ commute, I’m now very close to the magical 30 minutes mark, with my best yet at 30m and 19s.

On to other things…

Decorating. Recently bought a king sized bed and have redecorated the master bedroom prior to its arrival, so that kept me a bit busy. Now have the urge to move on to other rooms!

Car insurance. Our car insurance is due this Wednesday with a renewal price of £243.68 (2.2 ltr diesel). Every single insurance quote and believe me, I’ve tried all the usual MSE site recommendations for comparison sites, other insurers that don’t use comparison sites (eg Aviva and Direct line) - every single quote has been north of that amount. Even the nearest quote with cash back is about £28 more than the renewal, plus the 2011 renewal was £274.08, so I gave in and renewed with our current provider, as it seems very good value. NCD protected, legal cover, courtesy car, myself and Mrs Bliss fully comprehensive.

Mobile phones. I’ve got a newer style brick of a phone. Does calls and texts and pretty much that. I have been considering a replacement and have been looking at a few budget smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy Y and the Huawei Ascend G300. I don’t need anything too flash, but thought I’d may as well drag myself into the 21st century.

Mobile providers. Alongside that, I’ve also been reviewing our mobile provider. Both myself and Mrs Bliss are on PAYG with Asda mobile. They were as cheap at chips with calls at 8p per minute and texts at 4 per minute until they put their prices up last year. Had seen a few references / recommendations to giffgaff and on an earlier quick look I discounted them as they appeared to have the same pricing structure as Asda mobile.

However, after a more thorough look, we would get free calls to each other providing myself and Mrs Bliss both swap over to giffgaff. She doesn’t think it’s worth the effort, but I think we would save a little money – we’re pretty low on mobile usage.

And that’s about it. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but factor in cycling to and from work which takes a little extra time, keeping the home in check, kids etc etc, quickly eats into your time.

Hopefully I can get back into a regular routine of posting here, but I’ll leave it there for this evening.

FB.

linz

Hi FB,

Just been having a nose through your posts for a bit of motivation

I would thoroughly recommend switching to Giffgaff. I switched over 12 months ago and only top up £10 every 3 months as the people I call are also on GG. If you do switch make sure you order a SIM through someone already on GG as that way your SIM is loaded with £5 credit. The referrer also gets £5 credit so you could then activate yours and order one for Mrs FB. You can port your existing number over really easily too, all instructions are on their website. And if you get any questions there are no call centres, you just post away on the forum on the website and get call credit for being part of the community too

I also got an Orange San Francisco (branded ZTE Blade basically) and unlocked it and had someone remove all the Orange apps etc and it's a great little phone, at the basic end of smartphones but does the job. Depends what you want really. It cost about £90 I think, but you may be able to get one cheaper if you know someone on Orange who can order one for you. I'm not sure how much ZTE Blades are on their own.

All the best..

financialbliss

linz wrote: »

Hi FB,

Just been having a nose through your posts for a bit of motivation

I would thoroughly recommend switching to Giffgaff. I switched over 12 months ago and only top up £10 every 3 months as the people I call are also on GG. If you do switch make sure you order a SIM through someone already on GG as that way your SIM is loaded with £5 credit. The referrer also gets £5 credit so you could then activate yours and order one for Mrs FB. You can port your existing number over really easily too, all instructions are on their website. And if you get any questions there are no call centres, you just post away on the forum on the website and get call credit for being part of the community too

Hi linz,

Thanks for the heads up. I was looking on QuidCo and there's a referral link there too:

http://www.quidco.com/giffgaff/?ac

So I guess I could use either. There's also a mobile phone comparison site which I recently discovered (http://geekaphone.com) and I compared the phone you mentioned - Orange San Francisco (branded ZTE Blade basically) against a Huawei Ascend G300 and the result was a tie.

I think it may be worth looking at the ZTE blade too, but the Ascend G300 has just come out in April - Vodafone have an exclusive market for it for the first three months, so I'm going to see where prices go after that - it's currently £100 from them.

Thanks again,
FB.

unhappy_shopper

I have ordered Ovivo mobile for £5 and no more monthly top-up. You need to have an unlocked smartphone though. Have a look and decide whether it is worth it, after all it is only £5 outlay
http://ovivomobile.com/ This piggybacks on Vodafone.

financialbliss

Last day of May, which for regulars will expect some mortgage stats. Here we go:

Opening Balance: 23,172.41

Overpayments in Blue.
Interest in Red.
Balance in Green.

Month: Payment (Std / OP) / Interest (day) / Net reduction / Balance

January: 900.00 (887.41 / 12.59) / 47.36 (1.53) / 852.64 / 22,319.77
February: 900.00 (887.41 / 12.59) / 41.14 (1.47) / 858.86 / 21,460.91
March: 900.00 (887.41 / 12.59) / 43.71 (1.41) / 856.29 / 20,604.62
April: 900.00 (887.41 / 12.59) / 40.56 (1.35) / 859.44 / 19,745.18
May: 900.00 (887.41 / 12.59) / 40.07 (1.29) / 859.93 / 18,885.25

Totals: Payment / Interest / Net reduction.

Minimum: 900.00 / 40.07 / 852.64
Maximum: 900.00 / 47.36 / 859.93
Average: 900.00 / 42.57 / 857.43
Grand Total: 4,500.00 / 172.77 / 4,287.16

Balance outstanding: 18,885.25

Ring-fenced mortgage savings: 7,800.00

Net mortgage: £11,085.25

Tesco CC @ 0% : 5,100,00
Nationwide CC @ 0% : 2,603.90

Total CC debt: 7,703.90

Net mortgage after savings deducted is just £11,085 although I've now got a similar level of credit card debt! Isn't quite as bad as on paper, as I'm topping up the savings by £1,100 tomorrow, but the numbers are starting to become scary! :eek:

FB.

financialbliss

Oops. I just had to do it.:rotfl:

Spent a few moments this afternoon working out what the mortgage would have been today if the payments taken today (1st June) had also cleared today.

18,886.54 – 900.00 = 17,986.54

Also take off 8,900.00 ring fenced mortgage savings = 9,086.54

Now factor in that I would have received our child benefit payment on Tuesday 5th June and because it’s a bank holiday they paid it early (very nice of them) and was received today – £134.80

Decided to throw an extra £100 of that £134.80 into the mortgage savings pot, to bring the effective balance down to £8,986.54. Kind of expecting the mortgage payment not to clear until Sunday, so that’s about £1.25 a day in interest, so effective balance should be £8,989.04 give or take a penny or three on Sunday.

Once the mortgage payments clear, I’ll be using the effective balance as my June MFiT-T2 balance.

So, not only sub-£10k, but into the 8’s already too!

Financial Bliss.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi FB, there will come a day when that will be me and I CAN'T WAIT:j:j:j

Your approach and discipline is admirable and I will follow in your shoes in a small way.

Best wishes Tilly x

financialbliss

financialbliss wrote: »

Decided to throw an extra £100 of that £134.80 into the mortgage savings pot, to bring the effective balance down to £8,986.54. Kind of expecting the mortgage payment not to clear until Sunday, so that’s about £1.25 a day in interest, so effective balance should be £8,989.04 give or take a penny or three on Sunday.

Good stuff. As expected, I've checked this morning and the mortgage is £17,989.01, so with £9k of ring fenced mortgage savings, that's an effective balance of £8,989.01

Will be using that as my MFiT-T2 June chart balance! :j

@Tilly - thanks for the kind words!

FB.

financialbliss

Quick post while I'm updating the MFiT-T2 thread. One for the number crunchers...

Mortgage daily interest being applied has pushed the mortgage just through the £18k barrier, at £18,000.09

Taking £9k of ring fence mortgage savings into account, that's £9,000.09 as of today.

FB.