Cheery's country living adventure

themadvix

Oh Cheery, I hope Bonnie brightens up.

 Such a pity about the walk 😔 Welcome to Tier 4! 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Vix

I was SO pleased with myself for checking the festive bin collections and getting our recycling out last night. It's not been collected, so I checked the website to see if things had been disrupted by the snow. Darn it - I'd looked at the graphic, but when you scroll down it has a separate list for the rural round The recycling, which I thought was today, was actually collected 2 days before Christmas (or not, in our case ) And the bins, which I thought were due on 4th, are actually being collected tomorrow (or not, although they may well chuck the bloody recycling into the bin wagon since that's sat at the top of the drive).

Flippin heck, I was so pleased with myself as well! I suppose there's a chance I might get up early enough to swap them... But it's quite a hike to the top of the drive in my dressing gown, so it'll involve getting dressed before it gets light, so...

Been looking at the mortgage spreadsheet - seems we've now paid off roughly 11% of the mortgage, which seems like barely anything! If I do the planned over payments in 2021 we'll have paid off 17% ish - and I'm wondering if I could perhaps aim to have 20% paid off by the end of the year?? Might be a tad ambitious, it'd be roughly another £6500... and we'll already be overpaying almost £600 a month anyway

Will do some proper sums tomorrow, these are all rounder to the nearest thousand so it might look better with exact numbers!

Cheery_Daff

Oops, entirely forgot about the bins, and (a) if they're coming they'll probably have been by now anyway, and (b) I'm too tired and too cold to get all the way up there I'm sure they must curse us - so many wasted trips down our little lane when I've forgotten to put the bins out!

Anyway, there's a lovely sunrise, and while I could get dressed and go for a walk... I'm actually sat in my dressing gown watching it out of the window... 

Most mysterious this morning - I turned the heating off before I went to bed, but the radiators are hot this morning... There's a bit of a communication problem between boiler and thermostat, so you have to turn the thermostat right down to 10, then turn the radiators off at the boiler, then turn the boiler off and back on again - I did all that! The thermostat still says 10 degrees, the boiler has no heating symbol and isn't making a noise... but the radiators are all still warm  

I'm not complaining, it was VERY nice to come down to a warm living room, but it's a bit odd! 

themadvix

Has the boiler got a frost protection setting? If it’s that cold with you, it may well have triggered it.

Re the bins, we’re just as bad as putting them out here and we don’t have the excuse of a long driveway! We mainly don’t bother because they’re rarely full but forgot pre-Christmas recycling collection (which was early) and now our paper bin is piled high!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, yes that's a possibility I suppose! I'd at least expect the boiler to be making a vague noise though, or have some kind of indication on the screen. And it's never kicked in before, not even during the Beast from the East. Most odd! 

I'm not that bothered about the bins - we do at least have plenty of room to store it all til next time! I just always think of the bin collectors driving all the way down here (we're the only house down our lane) and being disappointed  

themadvix

That is strange then - our boiler definitely kicked in during the Beast from the East.

I think disappointed may be a very polite way of putting it! 😂

Cheery_Daff

Well, maybe they'll just appreciate the scenery

Heating mystery partially solved - Mr Cheery got up to go to the loo not long before I got up, and the heating was apparently on then, so he turned it off - hence the still warm radiators... Still not sure why it was on, but it's very likely that I just didn't go through the ridiculous turning-off-cycle properly last night... 

Might have to put it back on again in a minute, it's blithering freezing!

Cheery_Daff

Ok, finally managed to log into the mortgage account. Balance as of today 

£190,118.27

We started at £215,000 so we've reduced by £24,881.73 (since Feb 2018), which means we've paid off 11.57% in total. 

So what should we aim for this year? 

• Just paying contractual payments (£930) will see us at £183,767 by the end of the year
• Paying our monthly amount (£1300) will see us at £179,658
• Paying my planned monthly amount (£1500) will see us at £177,437, which will mean 17.5% paid off in total, with an estimated finish date of Feb 2033 - 10 years early

What would it take to get 20% paid off?? We'd need to get down to £172,000. I'm not sure that's feasible, given that we'd already be overpaying almost £600 a month - adding another £5.5k over the year seems unrealistic... But maybe if I took up MB properly again?! Not sure...  

I don't know. I think planning to stick with the planned £1500 amount each month (which is an overpayment of £570) seems reasonable. 

I feel like I'd like to add a little extra goal though, something to work towards with the occasional survey or something. Maybe I could try to add an extra £30 a month in extra income to add up to a £600 overpayment? Doesn't make that much difference to the overall total... but something to aim for? 

South_coast

Cheery, it ALL makes a difference to the overall total - think of the interest it will save you! Maybe you could go for an LTV goal rather than a paid-off one? With the work you have done, I'm sure you've increased the value so you'd be improving the LTV from both directions? 

By the way, not having to think about bins is one of the joys of living in a flat. I put my refuse and recycling in the communal bins when my own are full, and at some mysterious unknown time they are collected! No thought required!

Karmacat

Cheery, the amount you've repaid in less than 3 years is fantastic!  Though I can always understand wanting more  Do you have the time to do MBing?  We all need time off, especially after the year we've gone through.