Mortgage freedom/FIRE diary

Poppycat1

@Porridgecat - I'm quite new to doing my main shop at Lidl.  I didn't know about the weekend specials, I will keep an eye out for them now, thank you.  I drink about five cups of tea a day.

Thanks for stopping by @L9XSS, I do feel lucky to be in this position to overpay.  

There was a link on FB last night to see the MSE email a bit early so I took a look. I saw the there was a bank offering £100 cashback for opening an account.  I have been unhappy with one of my bank's app for a long time and was waiting for one of these deals where you didn't need to have DD's going out.  So 10 minutes online last night and I'm waiting to hear if I have been accepted.  It shouldn't be a problem.  It's the account I use for my son's maintenance money to go in and I pay the groceries, cat food and diesel from.  The account also has a regular saver that pays 1% which will be good for the EF.

I have around £150 worth of shares left and sold £50 today.  I think the money is best going towards the mortgage at the moment. So £50 paid to the mortgage and one square coloured in, I asked DS2 to do it.  I will wait to sell the other £100 until the price is good enough.

I put the meter readings in today for water, gas and electric.  The water has rocketed again so I rang the water company, waiting for a call back from the leaks department.  I also contact the company that 'fixed' the leak a few weeks ago and they are coming back next Wednesday.  It put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.  It has taken me over a year to get this sorted.  

Food was very basic, toast, bagel and vegi burger, two biscuits and curry, rice and lots of tea.  DS finished off the stew.  Vegan meatballs and pasta tomorrow.  Washing all dried on radiators as it was raining on and off.  Only 13p earned on PA today.

South_coast

Have you downloaded the Lidl Plus app? That gives you access to extra discounts on 4 different categories each week, plus you get a scratchcard after each shop and you can win money off coupons (although it's "spin to win" instead at the moment, not so fun!) It also has links to the leaflets with the weekly offers so you can see the deals - although I must admit I do prefer picking up a paper copy and then browsing at my leisure. Always feels very odd starting my shopping list for next week once I've seen the offers when I've literally just unpacked this week's shopping!

Porridgecat

Lidl also do 6 fruit / veg offers a week which are always worth a look. 

Poppycat1

@South_coast, @Porridgecat - I started shopping at Lidl when the MSE newsletter mentioned the £5 off when you started to use it and more so when lockdown started because it's my nearest supermarket.  I do swipe my app, activate the coupons and have won £1 on the scratch card  but I haven't really looked any further.  I will look at the app before I go shopping from now.  I will also pick up the leaflet on the way out and use it to plan my shopping.

I haven't done much today.  I put on a short lights wash, washed up and prepared meals. I did walk down to the post box whilst the sun was out and felt better for it.  I'm off work because of depression and anxiety and have good and bad days.  I'm learning to look after myself more and not expect too much of myself.  

We both had crumpets for breakfast, DS2 beans on toast and me crackers and mushroom pate for lunch.  I made some meatballs out of sosmix and added some sage and onion stuffing mix.  We had it with spaghetti and half a jar of tomato sauce that my parents gave me.  One portion left over which my son has requested so I have taken some pizza dough out of the freezer to make myself a pizza tomorrow.  Bonus - I found about 500g of sosmix I thought we had already used.  I small amount goes along way.  I think I only used about 100g dried mix today.

Received a text to say I have been accepted for the new bank account and should get the details very soon.  Happened to log in Nectar today and there was something on there that if you swiped you received some extra points.  I got 250 which is worth £1.25 and I completed PA surveys and earned £1.54 and Talkinsights and earned 40p.  New broadband gets turned on tomorrow, need to read the leaflet to find out what I need to do.  Received an email from sofa company to say they have passed my complaint to the Upholstery department and I should hear from them soon.

Poppycat1

Not much done today.  No surveys.  Food was eaten that was planned.  Not planned tomorrow's yet.  Spent nearly two hours chatting to a friend from work and an hour with DS1.

BB switchover today, no hassle at all, just around four hours with no internet which wasn't a problem.  Looking forward to the lower bills and the £75 Amazon voucher.  Received an email from the Upholstery department and they have asked for my address so they can send someone to look at the sofa.

Don't think I have spent anything since Sunday, not even DD's.

Poppycat1

It's been a lovely slow weekend.  I walked to the post box in the sunshine yesterday,  DS walked to the C00P to get some treats for himself using his pocket money he receives from his father.  Otherwise we  have stayed at home, DS attended his drama group via Zoom which I think he prefers than actually going to class.

The sunshine has had an almost immediate effect on my low mood, it always does.  I had the windows open today and walked down to the bottom of the garden with Herbert the cat.  Herbert thinks the garden is his so it's like he is showing me around.  I have done a little tidying, not too much, don't want to wear myself out, lol.

So far food has been crumpets but I have a pan of Quorn and veg cooking to go with a jar of sweet and sour sauce and rice for dinner.  I did see a very simple sweet and sour recipe on FB a couple of days ago.  It used very simple ingredients like ketchup, corn flour, vinegar etc.  Must see if I can find it.

I haven't spent any money this weekend although I was tempted by a candle subscription for £60 but was good and didn't order it.  I changed my gas/electric supplier using the MSE tool, so easy to do.  It says I could save £3.44 a month, not much but it also says that fuel prices are due to go up so I will save some for fixing for around 14 months.  Oh and £25 cashback.

83p worth of prolific surveys done.  I use Microsoft money for my money management and yesterday I set it all up until August 2025, which is when I stop receiving money for DS2.   I have been fairly generous with the categories and haven't included any bank work that I do, enhanced pay for certain shifts, or pay rises and I'm around £8,000 (as of August 2025) short of paying the mortgage off.  I need to save from the budget about £150 or earn an extra £150 per month.  I think is doable.  I do have an emergency fund and I have allowed myself £100 a month for things I may of forgotten.  I feel better it is now all planned out and all I need to do is keep within budget.  Wish me luck.  4 and a half years will fly by.  Then it will be then time to plan going part-time again and eventually retirement and maybe a little camper.

£8,103.74 to earn or save from budget

Poppycat1

It's been a busy week this week.  Wednesday I received a £90 refund cheque from the gas/electric company.

They came and mended the outside water leak again.  At the same time water company came to take a look.  They said they will monitor how much water I use over the next 14 days and issue a refund for the difference.  Not sure how far they will go back though.  Plumber came a couple of hours later to look at the shower and some leaking pipes.  Since the leak outside had been fixed the shower started to work and the pipes stopped leaking.  He look a look at the toilet whilst he was here and fixed that which cost £65 so slightly up that day.

PA paid out around £8 and I now have £4.99 pending.  Big initial month (March) shopping was done with my nectar points (£25 worth) so shopping only cost £17.  Mainly bought Sainsbury products (Hubbard's) that they have priced matched with Aldi.  It will be delivered tomorrow.

£50 paid off the mortgage on Monday (money left from different pots).  One square coloured in.
£450 paid off yesterday (pay day). Nine squares coloured in.
13 years and 5 months left until paid off. 
£88,359.23 left to pay off.
£4,700 of overpayment allowance left this year.  (Exactly half way.)

I have been playing around with Microsoft Money and have got to save/earn an extra £7,573.70 by August 2025.

***TARGETS***
July 2021 - To have paid the rest of this year overpayment allowance of £4,700
Dec 2021 - To have saved enough to pay next years overpayment allowance off on 1st January 2022, approx. £7,877.  I'm predicting to be approx. £3,000 short of that amount.
Dec 2022 - End of fix.  To have saved approx. £15,000 to pay off the mortgage to get it down to £50,000 before re-mortgaging.  Predicted to be approx. £5,365 short of that amount.
August 2025 - To have paid off the mortgage.  Predicted to be £7,573 short of that amount.

Lots more earning and money saving to do then.

Poppycat1

Sainsbugs order arrived short of a couple of items that weren't available.   So I had enough to make it up £50 and made another overpayment and coloured a square in.  Ordered included lots of cupboard staples, beans, tomatoes etc so I have emptied and wiped the cupboards out and put it back again.  Pure vegan margarine was on offer so order 7 tubs/packets in different varieties to do some baking later in the month,  DS2 back at school soon so will need to have something for his lunches.  I will still need to do a small Liddddl shop in a week or so for soya milk, frozen fruit etc.   Still lots of food left over from last month.  I have been off my food so it's been fairly simple food for me.  I'm also hoping that LIddddl's seeds will be available.

Porridgecat

I got some seeds from Lidl yesterday, but I think they had less of a selection than in previous years, I just wanted their yellow dwarf French beans but I got some mini cucumbers and radishes as well.  I also got a beautiful big oregano plant for £4.99, much less than the garden centres. 
I love that you have a cat named Herbert.  We had a beautiful ginger long haired stray around at one time which the neighbours were trying to adopt and I called it Nigel as it definitely looked like  Nigel, poor thing ended up further around the corner being called Billy. Still as cats do, he chose his home so he must be okay with it.

Poppycat1

Thanks @Porridgecat, 30 minutes after reading your message I was on my way to Lidddl to stock up on the seeds I needed.  I got tomato, cucumber, french beans, marigold, sweetpeas and sunflowers all for £2.14.  I friend is going to give me some runner bean seeds.  I was good though @South_coast and looked at the deals before I left so I'm going to wait until next week to buy their crisps.  But I did buy some Walkers which were on my Sainsbugs order and was out of stock.

I have a Herbert, Peggotty, Bob, Tim and Orlick.  I should imagine Peggotty would give away the theme.  She has a tendency to go away for a few days at a time.  She left home for over a year when I got Herbert as a kitten.  I moved house and the buyers contacted me about 4 months after I had left to say she was there.  Luckily the most she goes away for now is a week or so.  She is always hungry and skinny so don't think she goes to someone's else's home.  Nigel is a good name for a cat.