£207,470.42 to go...! (now £395,000 to go!)

TheOpportunist

Hi Jeep, I've had a quick search and will give her videos a watch once I'm home

TheOpportunist

Popped to my new and old bank to find out when the mortgage will show one one bank and not on the other. On the way back to the office I registered my online banking for the new provider and can see it sitting there at £202,500.

The goal is to retire/ be FI at 55 and this mortgage is on track to be paid off by the time I am 56 so we are making progress on that front.

I cannot remember if I told you all that I was planning on decking the back garden, but I made a good job of it and finished it last month:j

The past two weeks I have been fixing 'problems' around the house, or in other words - spending money. Too much time on HotUKDeals :rotfl:

New CPU fan and hard drive for the PC, a pair of motion activated night lights - I'm thinking they will be good for going to the loo and perhaps with the baby. There was a sale on Benefit products so the Mrs has had her supplies topped up whilst they are cheap. I'm also replacing my keyboard of 4 years (broken support/hinge) with one I've found for £5 delivered.

Now that the remortgage has happened we can put £600 away in savings between our e-fund and ISAs :beer: In 7 months time there will be another £350 available as our credit card for honeymoon and more recently bathroom, will be paid off - just in time for the Mrs' maternity pay to take a hit. So nothing gained and nothing lost.

Have a great day!

MandM90

We started out with £220kish in 2015 on our first property, bought for £274k. I'm almost the same age as you. We now owe £170,000 and are debt free everywhere else :beer: but the house is now worth circa £320k.

Will be following your journal with interest. We overpay the mortgage by £250 a month but focus much more on pensions and investments, putting in £1.3k a month into SIPPs and ISAs on top of our employee match. We also save £200 for the kids' education/future fund. Would love to increase these figures but we're currently saving £800/month to enable me to extend my mat leave and after that we'll be spending similar on nursery, even after grandparents do 2 days a week free care :eek:

My reason for this is that our mortgage rate is only 1.8% (fixed for 2 more years still) so far outweighed by even very conservative estimates of our fund growth projections. Maybe food for thought.

TheOpportunist

Thanks for stopping by MandM!

Its great to see others doing so well from similar positions

Now that our mortgage interest rate is much more reasonable I think the plan will be to move that saving firstly into an eFund in case the worst happens (even though we both have decent sick pay we may lose our jobs), and then look to become mortgage neutral with savings until such a time that the interest rates rise on mortgages.

My inlaws are newly retired and are very much looking forward to us having their first granchild, hopefully they will be kind enough to take care of kiddo for a day or two a week :A

TheOpportunist

Happy wet Saturday everyone!

We mainly shop at the german shop begining with L at roughly £40 a time, however we visited the supermarket where every little helps armed with a £7 off a £50 spend, and ended up spending £108:eek: down to £101 after the voucher was applied. On the bright side, a big chunk of the shop was from baby clothes, cat food that was on offer and loo roll that was on offer - neither of which are needed until the future.

The spend also netted us one of the 10p off per litre of fuel which we will be using to buy a full tank for the car as we travel up to Manchester for a funeral next week.

On a brighter note, my spreadsheet is complete for the year and we will shortly be using an upgraded one for next year. This year has given me totals and monthly averages for Income, Mortgage, Bills, ISAs, Adult pocket money, Credit card repayment (all 0%), work train fare, car loan repayment (3.1%), food spend and also fuel spend.

The next spreadsheet breaks income down into mine, the Mrs', interest, cashback and anything else, which will help us plan for the year ahead as the Mrs will be on maternity leave from late Jan / early Feb.

I'm also going to track the amount of dry and wet food the cat consumes in a year, plus how many loo rolls we get through, deodorants I use, toothpastes we get through, litres of fabric softenter, plus washing tablets. This will allow me to bulk buy say 75% of it whenever I see a good deal later in the year / begining of next year.

I have felt :money::money::money: with the money we will be saving from the remortgage, as well as from getting the Mrs on board with being more MSE, as well as earning a few pennies here and there. That being said, the Mrs just blows it all out of the water! Not from overspending, but from her earning.

She has been given a well deserved £5k retention bonus, lasting a year, plus she makes £50 p/h with any private work she does on the weekends. :T:T I must say that it can leave me deflated at times, but I need to see it for the positive it is.

Moving away from money, the baby has been kicking a lot more, especially when it can hear my voice. Supposedly it was going nuts when I was being vocal during this mornings rugby :rotfl:

I put my back out screwing together the base of the moses basket last night and have been on light duties today as I have golf in the morning and really want to play. I have been at 31HCP since June/July and have shot well outside of competitions, I just need to get it done in one!

lexington013

Welcome and good luck with your diary and your quest. I too have a mortgage of £931pm but thankfully only 5 years left to pay. I'm 53 and would like to retire at 55. Realistically I think it will be 58.
Anyway I managed to knock off 8 years of a 25 year term by upping my payments and reducing the Term as my career progressed. As you will see from the diaries on here, commitment focus and support will get you there!

TheOpportunist

Good morning everyone, I think it is about time I came back for a long-overdue update. First and foremost I hope everyone is doing well in such trying times.

Emotionally it has been a very trying time , financially we are still doing fine 
To get the rubbish bits out the way, our cat was run over before Christmas. This being my first pet that has died (others were rehomed when I was a child) it was extremely upsetting, especially as we had built up narratives in our minds as to the relationship the cat and baby would interact with one-and-other. My wife had two relatives pass away, as have I, including my mother. Then Covid 19 hit, which has been difficult being isolated with a baby as he is missing out on swimming classes and socialising, whilst my Mrs misses out on helping hands.
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The positive news is, way-hey we have a healthy baby boy! We went into hospital where my wife was asked to lay down which felt awkward and the baby's heart rate rose and she was whisked off for an emergency c-section. It stabilised so I could get scrubbed up and go in, and then it dropped back to normal and we were taking to our room and ended up giving birth naturally. The Mrs did really well with her pushing and breathing, and when she felt it was time to have an epidural I (in all my wisdom) told her to give it another 30 minutes as she was progressing really well. I probably don't need to tell you that was a bad choice  30 minutes came and she REALLY wanted the pain relief! The midwife said they would have to find the lady that administers it, she would then have to set up, and then administer it, and then we'd have to wait for it to kick in  Big oops on my part!

As a side note, I was praised for bringing some of my gym thoughts into the labour room. I can't stand a set of 10 reps in an exercise, let alone when people count upwards: 1, 2, 3 ... 9, 10. The number getting bigger makes the weight feel heavier. So I counted the average number of contractions and counted down with Mrs O which supposedly helped.

The epidural went fine, everything slowed down and relaxed, managed to get a small bit of sleep in before baby came. It was so relaxed that I watched him come out and cut the cord all without myself or the Mrs being too traumatised. He turns 17 weeks tomorrow.
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Back to what we all come here for - the FINANCES   
Pre Covid 19 my manager left and under my new manager I can work from home one day a week. Post Covid 19 I now work from home full time. The Mrs is still on maternity which has been quite generous being NHS, however next month we drop to SMP for maybe 2 or 3 months and then its gone, but she intends to stay off until Jan. The retention pay has helped to top up the SMP and we believe she may get another lot of retention pay as there are whispers the scheme will be carrying on. The lucrative private work is looking for people to return to work, but the people that perform the actual work are all contractors and not employees, and aren't interested in returning yet - my Mrs included. Whilst DS (?) is exclusively breast feeding, she will be staying off. Plus she wants to see her parents who live close to this second place of work, and working would expose her parents to risk.

Having the car loan over 7 years in case the worst happens was a good move as it was £252 a month, and my monthly train ticket was £180 (which I'm not paying a present), which leaves us with a manageable shortfall of £70 per month. Eating out, coffees, beers, birthdays, etc have taken a knock on the head which has helped finances.

Remortgaging mid term and paying the early redemption fee whilst the market was still up was another fortunate move, even if we could now get a lower rate, I doubt we would have had the capital to pay any ERC. Also, remortgaging brought about the Mrs saying that she felt the ISA money was our emergency fund, which it wasn't in my eyes. Firstly because of its volatility, secondly because I had it earmarked as money to bridge the gap between early retirement and retirement.
Thanks to that conversation we have a £2k e-fund, which helps us to feel secure. The new spreadsheet is great, and even includes a float, which currently is heavy with £1.3k in it. The little man has a JISA, and when we open our SIPPs I'd like to get him a JSIPP too.

The mortgage currently sits at £198,609.23 - very nice to have it sub £200k  

I hope that was insightful, and questions do ask away!

TheOpportunist

Morning all, I hope we are all well.
Big news ahead, but before I get to that a quick rundown of the finances.
The Mrs is on maternity for almost two more months, she has receieved a suprise retention and recruitment bonus last year and this year which has been really helpful.
A quick overview of our finances:
Mortgage: £196,000 (down £2,600 since May)
Emergency fund: £3,600
Holiday fund: £865
Christmas fund: £500
Float: £1200
ISAs circa 4k combines, 5k with the JISA
The Mrs has been back at her private work which has helped keep the float in a positive balance and allowed us to put money into savings too.

The big news.... we are MOVING HOUSE!!! 

We have been toying with the idea of turning the conservatory into an extension and opening up the downstairs of our house so that our son can crawl and run around, however the cost was going to be in excess of £55k. With the announcement of the stamp duty relief, we have decided to see if we can take advantage and have managed to accept an offer on our 3 bed mid terrace, and have an offer accepted on a large 4 bed detatched
Our outstanding mortgage will go from £196k to £395k and our term will be extended from 26 years to 37.
We are very excited, and believe we can afford to live there - we just need to see if we can do it whilst saving as much as we currently do.

This should be our forever home, and has plenty of space for us to raise our family.
Solicitors have been instructed, mortgage approved, searches underway, and we have had the surveyor from our buyers visit this week too.
Fingers crossed for a move in date before Christmas.

Tartan_Mum

The new home sounds great! Hope it all goes smoothly 🤞🏻

Congratulations on your DS! I hope your DW is enjoying her mat leave as much as she can in these difficult times. I feel for her, and all other new mothers, it’s a strange enough time finding your groove without COVID. 

You’re doing great, wish I’d been as organised and focused at your age.

twinklie

Congratulations on baby and house. WOW! Exciting times for you.