FinancialBliss: My mortgage free journey…

gallygirl

Good to see you back on here FB, well done on all progress (especially cycling )

financialbliss

Just a quick heads up if you have an interest in ski-ing.

Aldi have a ski special buy event running today, where there's a number of items for sale, ski suits, thermals etc.

There's some compression snowboard underwear:
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_28015.htm

which I can't see why they won't double up as cycling thermals. I picked up two pairs of tops and two pairs of bottoms this morning, plus two pairs of sports glasses:
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_28022.htm

Worth a look perhaps? Was queuing waiting for my local Aldi to open this morning. Dry but cold!

FB.

gallygirl

financialbliss wrote: »

Just a quick heads up if you have an interest in ski-ing.

Aldi have a ski special buy event running today, where there's a number of items for sale, ski suits, thermals etc.

There's some compression snowboard underwear:
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_28015.htm

which I can't see why they won't double up as cycling thermals. I picked up two pairs of tops and two pairs of bottoms this morning, plus two pairs of sports glasses:
http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_28022.htm

Worth a look perhaps? Was queuing waiting for my local Aldi to open this morning. Dry but cold!

FB.

Oh, I thought you meant skiing as in Spending the Kids Inheritance, got all excited for a minute there :rotfl:.

financialbliss

@Gally - Ski compression suit / cycle compression suit - pretty much the same. The cycle thermals may have a slightly different form, ie longer at the back, but for two £10 notes, I've gone for it.

Annoyingly, it's forecast heavy snow for me tomorrow. Temperature varies between a maximum of just +1c down to -3c and shows either snow or heavy snow between 0700 and 1700, ie times when I'm likely to want to be cycling.

I've already been told by 'er indoors that I'm getting the bus tomorrow - no cycling allowed. I'm just 39.96 miles short of my 2,012 commuting target. Three more commutes will do it :j

Did manage to cycle last Friday when it was minus three! Full thermals and a wooly hat worked a treat. Felt almost tropical on the way home and having later checked, the temperature was a dizzy +2 then!


To start off the MFiT-T3 challenge, I'm considering opening two cash ISAs again - me and Mrs Bliss. Had these open earlier this year, but dumped the cash into the mortgage and closed them.

As far as I understand, the maximum funding over the course of the current tax year is £5,640 and as I've already put in (but also closed) £4,865.75, I believe I can only re-deposit £774.25 each before the end of the tax year.

Haven't 100% decided on what / who do go for, ie fixed, variable etc.

Work has started another round of redundancies. I managed to keep out of the firing line last time and to date, it appears that we will be exempt this time around. We front loaded our cuts.

Holding my breath for the autumn statement tomorrow. Can't imagine this is going to detail anything but bad news and further reductions and pain. Unlike popular comments in the press regarding the public sector doing quite well, I've personally not had a pay increase since 2009 and there is none in sight for the foreseeable future.

Ever so glad I cleared the mortgage - one less thing to worry about. Just the debt to chip away at now....

FB.

financialbliss

Just a quick post to keep the diary ticking over...

Weather. And the BBC got their weather right. We got snow on Wednesday. Pretty pleased I didn't go in by bike as it took me two hours to get home on Wednesday evening - simply no buses running. In the end Mrs Bliss kindly braved the weather to come and rescue me.

Wasn't allowed to "bike-it" today and although it's forecast rain on Friday, Mrs Bliss is threatening to lock my bike up. Frustratingly, less than 40 miles left for my commuting target to be met.

QuidCo. Got an email this morning advising that a £55.00 payment would be finding its way to me in the next few days. This is the payment for switching phone/broadband provider to Plusnet.

Very tempted to split this into two pots of £25 and open two ISAs with it. Emptied the ISAs to pay off the mortgage, so some new tax free savings would be nice.

FB.

financialbliss

Well, it’s been an interesting day. Had just 12.24 commuting miles remaining to get my target of 2,012 (2012) miles and that day could have been today...

Cycle. So, set off about 07.30 and from the get go pulling away from our drive, the back end slid out and I nearly lost it. It was just at that point I realised how icy it was. No frosty grass, no icy cars to speak of, not really even feeling too cold (perhaps I’m getting used to the cold), ie it didn’t look bad.

I normally cycle on the path for a bit before crossing over a main road and joining a cycle path. Today I joined the road immediately, cycled to the roundabout and crossed to the central island at the junction so I could cross over to the cycle path. Except I could not get up the ramp and onto the cycle path. Put feet down and I just slid backwards. Got off bike, got back onto road and cycled home. Total distance traveled – 0.78 of a mile. Masses of black ice – never seen it quite as bad as that.

I pointed out to Mrs Bliss that I had the sense to call it a day, but she pointed out I didn’t have the sense not to set off in the first place! :rotfl:

Got showered / changed and headed for the bus. Managed to slip on the pavement and land flat on the base of my back. Pride dented – don’t think anyone saw me, but have had a niggling pain in my back all day.

Bus. On the subject of buses, we had a flurry of snow last week and I waited over an hour for one on my journey home last week. Eventually gave up, but enquired to the bus company if they were running (I had a return ticket) and to my delight, they are refunding the costs for that day for me as a goodwill gesture.

Credit cards. These have been praying on my mind recently. Currently managing to build up savings, but at the same time, the credit cards are also mounting up quickly. A stoozing pro would probably suggest take out further debt and build up the savings until the point the debt can be repaid, but as I’m doing the normal food shopping, fuel, other household spend etc on the cards but just paying off the minimum-ish balance, the credit card debt is still growing rapidly.

So, a change of tack is needed. I’ve yesterday paid off £150 from the Tesco CC (minimum was £49) and today paid off £100 from the NatWest card (minimum was £25.09). I’m going to review our post-mortgage income / expenditure and make sure I’m paying off more than the monthly spend, so that the balance does drop, even it it does so relatively slowly. Got two regular savings accounts and the balance from those will eventually pay off a chunk of the cards.

12/12/12. That’s tomorrow. Maybe just another day to everyone else, but I’ll be smiling in that I set a target to be mortgage free by 12/12/12 and exceeded it. I think as late as March 2012, ie just before I managed to secure the 18 months 0% Nationwide credit card, I had doubts as to if I could attain this goal.

Challenges. Got quite a bit to do in both the second and third mortgage challenges, PMs to work through etc. Bear with me – I’ll get through it.

FB.

setmefree2

Hi Financial Bliss,

I noticed the date was 12/12/12/ and I thought of your guys (I don't come on MSE much these days) and just wanted to offer my



for your MFness.

It's great isn't it! Well Done!

elantan

Hope the back isn't too sore

financialbliss

elantan wrote: »

Hope the back isn't too sore

Hi elantan,
Actually, my neck is sore. Think I've managed to sustain some whiplash/damage due to the speed at which it happened.

One second looking ahead and the next, looking at the sky. :eek:

Keeping off the bike for the remainder of the week. In for four days next week, so surely should be able to get at least one or two cycles in to hit my commuting target. Apparently it's warming up over the weekend and into the early part of next week. At least that's the forecast so far...:D

FB.

financialbliss

OMG. It's New Year's Eve tomorrow. This year has totally flown.

I'll be continuing with this diary for one more year, but probably posting lots less (concentrating on the MFiT challenge), the final year mainly concentrating on my credit card debt.

It's now tipped past £17,000 and I really need to make massive inroads into this in 2013. The NatWest card doesn't need to be cleared until 2014, but the plan is to clear everything in 2013.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. I'm still working on my 2012 objectives...

Newest objective to complete is a MSE avatar. I've just took a photo on my phone, uploaded it to my computer, cropped it to 80 by 80 pixels in Paint and then set to my avatar. Took all of about two minutes. If I knew it was going to be that simple, I'd done it much sooner. Always the same with me - always last minute.

Cycling - been out every day for the last 5 days. Did a 39 mile ride on Saturday and done a few other bits and bobs of rides here and there. Was out today, but managed to reset the bike computer, so have no stats for it. I need a further 15.17 miles to complete my final cycling objective, which I will have to fit into a busy day tomorrow :eek:

I've also transferred my front two lights, cycle computer, bottle cage and two rear lights to my new(er) bike, so I'm now ready to start 2013 on the hybrid.

About to edit my 2012 objectives and cross off a few I've completed.

FB.