julicorn's journey

julicorn

South_coast said:

Excellent work! Well done Mr & Mrs julicorn 😀

Thank you!

beanielou

Fantastic 

julicorn

It's been a while since my last update! We have now been paying down the mortgage pretty aggressively for 2 years, and are now into the 130-thousands, down over £65k from where we started. I checked our mortgage online account this weekend, and apparently our LTV is now 50%, meaning we own half of our flat now!
If all goes according to plan, we will hit our overpayment limit this summer, so will only be allowed to overpay until July or so. After that, it'll be a little more tricky to keep saving the money but not dipping into the money, but YNAB will be helpful I am sure.
As for Covid-19: Mr julicorn and I are both working from home now, and he is honestly the easiest person in the world to do that with. I feel really lucky to have him. Work presents its own challenges, and is quite stressful atm, but I've taken a few days off next week. We're planning on 'camping' in our living room, I am quite looking forward to that. Later this month, we were meant to go to the Lake District with my parents, and that plan is obviously out of the window now. Another thing that's gone out of the window is our grocery budget, we're spending almost twice as much as normal. We're also getting Gousto boxes quite regularly at the moment, which is definitely contributing to that, but the meals are amazing and so easy to make, I'm cutting myself a little slack here. 
Either way, how are you all holding up? Hope everyone is having a nice Sunday

South_coast

Fantastic reduction julicorn! You've paid off my entire opening mortgage balance in 2 years - now I feel like I'm slacking 😂! Sorry work is stressful, I can relate - the honeymoon period of "Well this is nice, my time/money wasted to commuting is no longer" is well and truly over! An extra few days off sounds like a great plan though x

julicorn

Haha, thank you South_coast! And I know we are definitely lucky to be able to pay off that much. 
And absolutely, the first week or two working at home were lovely, but then it definitely got a lot harder. We have replaced our morning commute with an hour walking round the park, which is still super lovely to be honest, and one of the things I will miss when we go back to the office. But I've definitely hit a few challenges in communicating with coworkers and employees (all got ironed out quickly, but Slack + email + video calls doesn't quite replace face to face communication, does it?), and I've been working a silly amount of overtime for some reason, while drinking a fair amount of wine at the same time, which can't be a good habit. I'm trying to look after myself a little more this month, because this isn't sustainable. 

beanielou

Good news on the mortgage reduction. 

Glad that all seems to be going well for you. Take care😊🌈

julicorn

Thank you beanie, you take care too!   

Thick_n_Thin

Hey, just read your entire diary and I’m in awe of what you have achieved. You have inspired me to finally start my own MFW journey so thank you! 

julicorn

Thick_n_Thin said:

Hey, just read your entire diary and I’m in awe of what you have achieved. You have inspired me to finally start my own MFW journey so thank you! 

Thank you so much, that is so nice of you to say It can feel like such a mammoth task sometimes that getting support here makes such a difference. I'm looking forward to seeing your diary if you decide to set one up, and also feel free to join us over in the MFW 2020 challenge  

julicorn

Just a little end of the month update to say we're not 7 years ahead (compared to if we hadn't overpaid at all), with a balance of just under £135k remaining.

It's becoming less likely that we'll be mortgage free any time soon though. At the current rate, we would be looking at paying off the mortgage some time on 2024, which would be amazing of course. However - lots of 'being trapped at home and having time to talk' conversations have pushed Mr julicorn and me from 'sitting on the fence when it comes to children' to wanting a child at some point, so it makes sense to move into a house (or at least a bigger flat) when we can, so probably in 2-3 years time, rather than waiting too long. That also means taking on a big mortgage again, but overpaying the mortgage so aggressively has put us in a really good position, having a good amount of equity. House prices are still ridiculous down here, but I'm excited nonetheless. 

Have a lovely Sunday everyone!