Mortgage Free by 55

VDOT47

Decorator's quote has come in - including materials he is quoting £675 for a week's work, which we think is pretty reasonable. Going to try and get him booked in for October/November so that it is all nicely freshened up before Christmas!


Might mean delaying any work on the garden until the spring, rather than having to fork out for both at once.


Impatiently awaiting payday on Friday, so that I can make the monthly overpayment. I think current balance after this month's DD is c.£241,455, so if I can possibly find a way to get the overpayment up to £456 then I will do!!

VDOT47

Done it (just)! Overpayment of £462.71 made today. Should hopefully see our balance dip just below £241k.


Next month will be tougher with some one-off expenses, so my aim is just to try and overpay by £240 so that the total capital reduction next month is £1000, so as to get us into the £230ks by this time next month. Anything more than £240 will be a bonus!

VDOT47

Had a pretty good weekend spending wise. Used up a fair bit of petrol, but hardly spent any cash. Also did a top-up shop on Saturday which brought us more or less up to the week's shopping budget, but did include some things that will last a couple of weeks.


Here's hoping for another good week of no spending.


Given the statement in the last paragraph of my last post, I need to really work hard to keep us within budget on spending if we are likely to be able to overpay very much at the end of this month.

jodles16

Hi VDOT47,


Sounds like you have some really good ideas, things do change often so its good to see that you have flexibility. We lived on a street with lots of noise, and two out of three horrible neighbours (first neighbour was bad, then his dad moved in, he was great then finally a massive family with two tiny dogs moved in, the tiny dogs would bark whenever I took my two into the garden and ruined it completely for us), so horrid. I liked that children still played outdoors but they were noisy and would stay out til it was dark and I did a lot of nights back then, urgh!


Keep up the good work!


Jodles

VDOT47

Hi Jodles, thanks for reading. Yes, unfortunately some people don't take their neighbours' peace and enjoyment of their property into account. At least it is the winter now so the problem is reduced!


Plodding through a relatively good week so far moneywise - no cash NSDs but not much spent so far (maybe £4.50 in 3 days, including £2.65 on some cough syrup from the chemist to try and shift a cough I've had for 2 weeks and cannot get rid of). Shopping budget is £100 per week (still too much really for a family of 3) and we do seem to be able to come in under than that most weeks when we set our minds to it.

VDOT47

Nothing further spent last night and I even managed to get the lawn mown before it got dark. All the work I have done on it over the last 18 months has really helped as it now looks almost like a proper lawn (barring a couple of patches where there have been more weeds than grass - these will get addressed by way of some serious reseeding in the spring) rather than the goalmouth of a football pitch, which is how it looked when we bought! It may need one more trim at the end of October before the winter.


Signature updated after receipt of monthly letter from lender confirming balance and term remaining. End date has been brought forward another month to May 2040 - getting there slowly!

VDOT47

Had to spend some money today on a haircut, but it was only £15 and will last me a couple of months until the next one.


Otherwise, the budget is still looking good for this month (which for us runs from 27th-26th) so far.


Really pleased that we still haven't had to put the heating on this autumn. Hoping to get as far into October as possible before we do. Looking at the forecast for the next 2 weeks this looks doable, as the temperature isn't supposed to be any colder than it has been the past 2 weeks. Electricity and gas app on my phone tells me we are £106 in credit, but I haven't submitted a meter reading for almost a month, so once this is done early next week it will eat into that credit. Hopefully we'll build up a bit of a surplus before the winter.

VDOT47

Morning - it's been a while since my last update.


We have been managing to keep things within budget (mostly) which should hopefully allow for an overpayment around the £300 mark this month.


Did some meter readings last night (fun, fun, fun) and pleased to see that after 3 months with new supplier we are approx. £50 in credit - it will be good to have built up this buffer once the colder weather arrives, as we haven't needed to use the heating at all yet but I'm sure we will soon (last night OH wanted to put it on, but we resisted!).


We have plenty of financial changes coming up over the next 6 months (theoretical reduction in monthly nursery costs from January as the 30 hours 'free' childcare kicks in, the obligatory increase to auto-enrolment pension contributions in April, small changes to personal allowance in April and also council tax starting again in April (last year's was paid up front on a 0% CC, so we haven't had monthly council tax payments to contend with for this year, but there is no more credit on that card to do the same in 2019/20)), so budgeting is very difficult as I don't know our exact income and fixed expenditure each month but the overall aim is to see the mortgage balance come down by £1000 pcm. Seeing as the usual monthly DD reduces the capital by £760 pcm that means trying to find at least a further £240 each month to overpay. Anything above that is a real bonus.

VDOT47

Have been narrowing down the budget (as we are now into the last week of our financial month) and it seems that the overpayment on Friday will be around £300 (maybe slightly higher) which I am happy with.


Need to do a couple of financial jiggles over the next couple of months as regular savers mature and savings accounts reach the end of their promotional rate. My aim with each of these things is to transfer the capital sum into our savings account (earning 1.34%) which we are building up in order to pay off credit card balances (as necessary) before applying for a mortgage to move house in the next 18-24 months, and to use the interest earned as a small additional overpayment.


Will also have a current account switch fee of £150 coming through in the next few weeks too, so that can go in the overpayment pot.


Balance should be below £240k by the end of this month - it is always nice to break through each such psychological boundary like that.


PS - still no heating needed (although this resolve might be tested from the end of this week when temperatures look set to drop quite significantly!).

VDOT47

NSD yesterday and should be the same today (and today I will also be able to claim about £12 in petrol money for going to a work meeting out of the office).


Recently discovered that you can get phone apps for Music Magpie and Ziffit - it won't amount to much, but we have a lot of old DVDs, CDs and books which can be scanned and sold to the company that offer the best price. Something for us to work through over the next couple of weeks. Every little helps.