Thirty something dreaming of not paying mortgage

savingholmes

Congratulations. Good luck with it all. I agree life is very unpredictable

powerspowers

Congratulations on baby! 🥳 glad you are enjoying motherhood so far ☺️ 

Shame about the storm damage but sounds like you are getting sorted. Take care xx

debtfreeoneday

Congratulations. Babies really do put life into perspective!!

Baileys_Babe

Congratulations welcome to the world Baby Kaycastle.

Sorry to hear that the storm caused damage hopefully it will be resolved quickly and smoothly.

South_coast

Yay so lovely to hear from you! Congratulations on becoming parents 👶!

kaycastle

So lovely to hear from you all and catch up on diaries. Thank you everyone.

Absolutely shattered today, sometimes it just hits me. 

Insurance are giving just over £2k for repairs. We are going to try to do as much as we can ourselves so hoping can put some of that towards emergency fund.

Savings account matured and I got just over  £5 for £29k for the year. It's so bad that, if I didn't need to raise capital for the loft I'd use it all on mortgage!! 

Aimingforthegoodlife

Hi KC, massive congratulations on the baby! You have done amazingly with the OP and savings etc, I think the need to be flexible is a massive part of this journey, life is chageable so we must be too! Hope you manage to get the work done quickly and enjoy baba

kaycastle

Thank you all, I will be a bit more active on here going forward as just had a serious wake up call this morning.

We were luckily fixed on an energy deal before all the prices started to increase so we've been immune to the energy crisis. I knew it would be finishing in October and just got the email for renewal and I'm absolutely horrified. 

I'm so relieved I decided to go back to work in September now because the increase in costs is out of control. Our bill will essentially be ~400% higher a month.

Obviously I heard about the energy crisis but I've only been keeping a vague eye on it because I've been a bit distracted by baby and we weren't affected by it yet but its worse than I even imagined.

I don't understand why people aren't rioting and protesting in the streets. All those people that turned up to protest about covid rules - where are they? haha....I've just started reading Martin Lewis' information on it but will have to dedicate some real time to researching how to reduce electricity and gas usage.

I'm in shock and hope everyone who has been impacted by this already is okay. Sorry to be late to the party - So relieved we did have a bit of a delay.

kaycastle

Hiya All,

Time for a bit of a financial and to-do list review.

- I've applied for the 1.45% Tesco bank ISA. Just need to receive paperwork to transfer existing ISA. Should get me at least £500 interest this year on my big savings pot. 
- Once ISA is all sorted I'm going to change my current bank account - there are so many better deals out there, I've stayed with same provider all my life but I'm sick of them not doing anything decent for years now and money is too tight not to go for one of those switching deals
- I've finished set up of tax free childcare account
- SMP salary this month so ~£700 only. Yikes!! Get my KIT days paid in September when I'll also start work again so that will be a bumper month compared to this one
- So relieved I've gone back to work early
- Had to move my £2000 emergency fund into current account to cover this month, especially as childcare is paid in advance so will get that invoice soon. 
- My OH starts new job in a couple of weeks so we will have 2 salaries for first time in a year. Such a relief!!
- My OH has made £100+ selling items on ebay recently which will be a useful fun and groceries fund for our final few weeks before work

This will need to be a Part 1 as baby is now awake... 

kaycastle

Part 2

Left my OH and baby asleep together. My back is very sore - carried my 16 pound+ baby over 6 miles through the countryside yesterday....so sore but so much fun and I am trying to get fitter so I guess that will work!

So nice to have a cuppa in peace. 

We were a bit disorganised yesterday, so we landed up eating out at a pub while walking - picked cheapest things on the menu. We usually make pack lunch or return home but we didn't realise how long we'd be walking. Cost £17 for starters but gave us enough energy for the walk home Lesson learned - we will always always pack lunch. We really enjoyed a walk in the countryside.

Finance and ramblings:

- Must cancel National trust membership in Feb: We've done all the nearby places so many times and we really just like to walk outside somewhere different which we realised yesterday we can do very cheaply elsewhere as long as we bring pack lunch! :P 
- Paid £600 into tax free childcare account
- Saving £17 per month on mobile. I let my contract end and just stayed on it many months ago, it was £27 a month and I found a sim only £10 a month contract with more data. I don't use lots of data but felt pleased with that saving but also daft for not moving sooner.
- I sorted out pet insurance for our cat at £5 a month, covers illnesses she might develop too. I haven't usually bothered but actually it makes a lot of financial sense and I don't want any surprise hefty vet bills for the next few years now we have baby.
- Home insurance renewed this month - found cheapest option on compare the market as you get so many deals with them. £116 a year. Not bad considering we had a claim this year
- I'm £190 in credit to energy supplier so that's a bit of a buffer already, will increase my direct debit at end of september ready for the mahoosive ridiculous increase in October


Savings and mortgage:
- I have £32k in savings which are intended for a loft conversion at some point - it sounds like the cost of everything like that has increased at the moment but luckily our timeframe has relaxed a bit. I'm not in so much of a rush to do it before a second child, especially as our baby seems to only like sleeping with us
- I'm moving this £32k into new ISA 
- September is going to be a bit difficult as we will just be waiting to get paid, then can use pay to hopefully recreate emergency fund
- Then I can decide how much I'm going to add to savings and how much I will overpay on mortgage
- Need to sit down with OH and do his savings plans 


And that's it for now. Hopefully going to find some time today to catch up on other diaries