Spend less now, work less later...

EscapingTheAlarm

Hello, thanks for checking in! I hope you are enjoying your early retirement!
Well since January, on top of our minimum payments, we have saved up £6000 which will pay off my car once we have enough money not to panic that we would not have it to fall back on if needed (we have got just over £2000 of extra savings so we will hopefully get that to around £5000 before we pay off the £6000) and we have paid off this £1000 from our loan so I think that including our minimum payments we have made around an £8000 dent in the debt which I am really happy with!
I am starting to feel a bit more anxious about how much we owe on our mortgage too so it will be good if we can keep the momentum going and start to make overpayments once we have got rid of the unsecured debt. We are going to keep DHs car finance and tackle the mortgage before that as I think him and cars will be a never ending battle whereas the mortgage is something that I can make a real dent in... you win some, you lose some!

I think we are at a funny age when it comes to money- some of us feel a bit old before our time whereas other are still clinging onto the memories of uni! I hope that the friends who are still pretty carefree have a better plan than they are letting on because I want them all to do well. One of my friends recently had a second gap year and is now really regretting it because she!!!8217;s struggling to get back into the well paid job she left... I feel really bad for her actually. She!!!8217;s so good at what she does but has lost a lot of confidence and it is taking its toll. Hopefully this time next year she will be in a completely different situation!

enthusiasticsaver

£8000 reduction is great so you should feel proud of yourselves and yes hopefully it will motivate you to carry on over paying the mortgage once the loans are gone.

I find it interesting the different attitudes to finance and know many people myself who like to live for today and don't envisage what will happen in the future. Others who save every penny and are almost frightened to spend. Neither of those options appealed to us. Now people who were spending and probably in debt are still working probably for another 10 years before they can retire and tell us we are lucky to have retired at 58. I do count ourselves lucky we never had to cope with long term illness or redundancy as that can seriously impact long term finances but we did budget for holidays, new cars, home improvements and weddings/university/house deposits for our daughters so I would like to think financial discipline played its part in that.

I am enjoying my early retirement thanks. We have been blessed with a new baby granddaughter 6 weeks ago so have been able to help out one of my daughters a bit with her 2 DDs. We are now just starting to think about holidays to do in the next few years so very exciting.

Keep up the good work and one day you will be able to "escape the alarm too!". My feeble attempts at a joke:rotfl::rotfl:

EscapingTheAlarm

Congratulations on your new granddaughter enthusiasticsaver- that!!!8217;s lovely news!

I!!!8217;ve had a pretty stressful day at work today and it!!!8217;s left me feeling a bit deflated... usually I!!!8217;m pretty good at keeping upbeat but I!!!8217;m worrying today whether or not I!!!8217;m cut out to take on the extra responsibility I!!!8217;ve been given recently... it has really surprised me how resistant to giving new ideas a go people can be!
I need to keep going with it so that can keep bringing in the extra money but I!!!8217;m really really hoping that tomorrow is a better day!
In money news, the £1000 overpayment to our loan paid off exactly £1000 from our settlement figure so we!!!8217;re feeling really good and motivated to keep going! It!!!8217;s certainly a reason to suck up the bad days at work and get on with them!

I hope I!!!8217;m not the only one who has days like this...

enthusiasticsaver

I am sure you are not the only one who has days like that. I certainly remember them. Hope it gets better. Well done on loan overpayment.

I hope you don't mind me mentioning it but are you using an apple device to post? The numbers instead of apostrophes can be stopped by going to settings, general, keyboards and turning off smart punctuation. Something went awry on the MSE forum a few months back and that seems to be the only way to get rid of the numbers.

EscapingTheAlarm

Ooh thank you! I've turned it off so I'm using this post as a test to see if it's worked... I wondered why that kept happening!

EscapingTheAlarm

Hooray, it's worked! Thank you!

EscapingTheAlarm

I'm feeling much better today! I went into work yesterday feeling a bit down in the dumps but after a pep talk from my work 'Mum' and another from my boss who cared a lot more than I thought she would, I ended up being able to have a laugh about how much thicker my skin needs to get if I'm going to survive in a world where not everyone wants to try their hardest... So onwards and upwards!
We've managed to stay on budget so far this month which is good news and means that we're on track to be able to pay another £350 off the loan come pay day! I can't wait to get rid of it!
DH and I are now really keen to start a family and so cutting our outgoings will be really helpful for when (fingers crossed) I go on maternity leave. I've just got to keep our spending in check as much as possible!

enthusiasticsaver

Glad you have had a better day at work today. Good news on extra loan payment. Yes clearing your debts before maternity leave is a good idea. There are a lot of financial pressures from reduced pay when on maternity leave to the cost of kitting out a nursery and childcare costs on returning to work.

EscapingTheAlarm

We've paid another extra 350 pounds off of the loan which is good news. The interest has also been updated from last month and it turns out that paying off the 1000 pounds did in fact save us extra in adjusted interest! Hooray!

My phone contract is finishing soon so I'm starting to look into SIM only deals which I can use until the battery on my current phone dies - I thought they'd be cheaper then they are but at least it will make a small difference and hopefully we can up the over payments to the loan slightly.

I had a near slip up this weekend when DH wanted me to look at new cars to trade mine in for instead of paying mine off and keeping it for a few more years. Fortunately it got DH and me to have a real conversation about the pros and cons of keeping my car or getting a new one and were both firmly agreed now that keeping mine for a while is the best way forward. I just can't wait to get it paid off now and free up some extra money each month. I get so impatient sometimes!

EscapingTheAlarm

We've been plodding along for the last few months, overpaying one loan by £350 a month and saving £1000 towards the final payment for the other. If all goes to plan then we will be able to pay them both off by the end of the year! I've got everything crossed!! Then it will be on to the credit card which is at 0% for the next couple of years fortunately but has a fairly hefty balance so definitely needs some attention! I do feel like we've got a good system going at the moment and although DH still struggles with not being able to spend whatever he wants whenever he wants, he's doing really well! We have a very busy few months ahead of us with weddings, stag dos, hen dos etc but we enjoy these things so as long as we don't overspend then we shouldn't have to turn anything down. I'm not drinking at the moment so that saves loaaads of money and means I've never got a bad head the next morning- perfect!
Work is fine for both of us at the moment and the run up to Christmas is my favourite part of the year so I'm optimistic for a good few months ahead! Let's see how it goes!