Busy Mee's Last Leg

Busy_Mee · 13 December 2020 at 9:47AM

Thanks all. I am hoping that the new boiler will be more efficient.

Suffolklass. £7k would make me want to weep, ours was bad enough. Our house is always more expensive than the norm because of it's size, yours is always more expensive because of it's age and build type. The price you pay I guess.

Cornishmum - eek to the mice. I can cope with most things, spiders, snake etc, but rats and mice make me shudder.

The spending continued yesterday with a rather large home delivery from a Sainsbreeze to take advantage of the 25% off wine and other Christmas goodies, and the last couple of Christmas presents.

I did some wrapping yesterday because we have presents to deliver today. We are making the long gutty trip to see one of the elderly parents. Not sure it is within the the rules, but tbh we are low risk and he already has a trail of carers in everyday. He is very down, so weighing everything up I think it is the right thing to do. We will also do a couple of jobs for him while we are there, so it would probably count as caring.

Suffolk_lass · 13 December 2020 at 10:17AM

If you register as his carers after you retire you will be able to claim NI credits for the years between finishing work and taking your state pension - being opted out of serps as part of your occupational scheme means that up until 2015 those contribution years count towards the basic state pension, whereas since then they count towards the New State pension - you need every year after 2015 to be maximised as each one is worth an additional £4.65 (original figure, probably more now) per week. And a credit is a lot cheaper than £780 per year in voluntary contributions (Mr Mee in particular as already retired)

savingholmes · 15 December 2020 at 9:01PM

Hope the trip goes well.

Suffolk_lass · 27 December 2020 at 10:50AM

Happy Holidays to you and your family @Busy_Mee! I hope all is well with all of you

Busy_Mee · 31 December 2020 at 10:17AM

Good morning and a belated Happy Christmas to everyone.

We have been incredibly lucky this Christmas and ended up with the Christmas we would have chosen. At home with our kids, with the addition of DD's boyfriend who is living with us. It has been lovely.

Under normal circumstances they would have been out and about with their friends, in fact DD would have been in Asia with her friends and we would have spent time travelling to see the elderly parents. Instead we have all been home together and I have loved it . An unexpected silver lining this year.

I will be honest I haven't felt very engaged with MSE. This is probably because we continue to haemorrhage money out of this house, however I do need to get a grip of this soon. I am going to start with the December update and annual round up. So get yourself a coffee and pull up a chair......

December Update
Repayment Mortgage. £38,701.92
IO Mortgage. £155,000.00
Total mortgage £193,701.92

Monthly Mortgage reduction. £2,453.77

Ring fenced savings. £215,000.00

Savings offset Mortgage to. £22,298.08 (Forever fund)

Odds and Sods totals

O&S account. £15.48
Principality. £1523.19
Mortgage. £2500.00
Total. £4,038.67 (

)

Crikey. Really pleased with the O&S totals. I honestly wouldn't have believed you could save £4 k just Tilly Tidying and saving all the rewards, switches and TCB etc. It just shows it is worth sweating all the small stuff.

Annual Roundup 2020

Savings increase £5000
Repaid Repayment Mortgage £11,371.41
Repaid Interest Only mortgage. £13,500.00

Total. £29,871.41

So in 2020, we improved our finances by over £29k. (I could be slightly miffed that this missed a nice round £30k but that would be a bit churlish

)

I am obvious very pleased with this. This was the first year of Mr Mee's retirement, but also a global pandemic, which actually helped us financially and I am counting myself very fortunate, because I know that is not the case for many others.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. DD and BF are cooking for us tonight and making cocktails, so I am looking forward to seeing the back of this year and hoping for a really positive 2021.

I am currently sitting here listening to the silence of an empty house, which is quite unusual at the moment ( bliss) and I am going to take the pup out for a decent walk in a while. We have a beautiful winter wonderland at the moment, with snow lying crisply round about ( there is a song in there somewhere ). The sun is shining and everything has that pink frosty hue.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and everything you wish for in 2021 x