julicorn's journey

julicorn

The overpayment has gone through, and our LTV on the mortgage account is now showing as 66%! :eek: When we bought the flat a year ago, we had a 25% deposit, and now we seem to be owning a third of our flat already. Some of this is due to increase in value, but I'll take it anyway.

Perhaps inspired by the progress cross stitch (and the fact that I'm off ill at home at the moment ) I've decided to sell some cross stitch patterns on etsy in the new year. I uploaded one years ago and it ended up earning me a bit of money. It's quite nice passive income actually! This time, I want to do it properly though. Simple designs, uploading one a week or so, and hopefully I'll find the time to do a test stitch as well so I can take some proper pictures. I'll wait until I've made 10 or so though before opening an etsy shop again. Just made 2 patterns this afternoon, one X-Files based ("I want to believe") and one a RuPaul's Drag Race quote ("No T(ea), no shade") - I can see a theme already :rotfl:

Anyway, hope you're all doing well. :heart2:

A_Frayed_Knot

If the other 2/3rds went as quick you would be laughing :rotfl: however bubble burst (er) as I am :eek:not likely to happen, Challenge No. 1 coming up . . . but would like to be proved wrong

Unless your clever idea works :T which we all hope - it does

Hope you are feeling better soon.

A_Frayed_Knot

Just saw your cross stitch - how lovely :T

julicorn

Thank you AFK! And yes, as much as I hope to get a few extra £s from that etsy idea, I doubt it's going to pay off the mortgage quite that quickly. :rotfl: We shall wait and see!

Poppycat1

Julicorn, I love your cross stich idea. I think I'm going to use it too. Maybe a simple house design, (ie child drawn house) that I could frame and hang up when the mortgage is paid off or I'm mortgage neutral. If only I could quilt and do the same and then I would have a lovely bed quilt afterwards. Thank you.

julicorn

Thank you Poppycat! I love the idea of a quilt as well, that would be fantastic. You could always use it as an opportunity to learn a new skill

julicorn

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hope you're all having a great time. My husband caught the flu unfortunately (booo!), so we're somewhat stuck in Germany with my family. The plan was to leave on Thursday, and head to Wales on Friday, but it doesn't look like he'll be fit to travel by then.

As for all those MSE plans: We managed to overpay the full £5k we were hoping for this month (yay!), but won't be able to make any overpayments next month, because I did a rather naughty thing and stole a bit of money from our emergency fund (I know, I know!) to book flights in the BA sale to go to JAPAN next year! :j I'm so excited. That also means that our first financial goal for 2019 is to finally get the emergency fund up to £11k. We should be able to achieve that by early February.

2019 goals, and where we're at atm:
Emergency fund (by February): £8,798.22/£10,000
Japan holiday (by October): £1,296.84/£4,800
Start saving for New England holiday (by end of year): £0/£1,100
Mortgage overpayments: £0/£15,600


Either way, I hope you're all enjoying the holidays and getting some well-deserved rest!

Hazelnutty

Ooh I'd love to go to Japan! DD is learning a little Japanese at school and also does judo so it'd be an amazing thing to do. Have you been before?

julicorn

Hazelnutty wrote: »

Ooh I'd love to go to Japan! DD is learning a little Japanese at school and also does judo so it'd be an amazing thing to do. Have you been before?

No, I've never been! Trying to learn a few phrases on duolingo at the moment. We've been wanting to go for years, but didn't really have the money while saving for a flat and all that. Mr julicorn has been to Japan before, but that was when he was in primary school (it was some sort of Welsh-Japanese cultural exchange programme - I know, pretty odd!), so he has only a few memories because he was 10 at the time. That's great that your DD is able to learn Japanese at school!

Nichelette

I've just finished reading your diary as we will also have a fairly large mortgage (also SE) and I'd like to see how people in a similar situation are dealing with it all. We're actually not that far away from Brighton. I went to Sussex uni many years ago and very much miss Brighton. I would love to move back but our jobs are in Surrey so it's a bit far too travel! Anyway, good luck getting the mortgage down. I'll try and pop in now and again .