First OP made. We're on our way!

Ellie78

Thanks Frayed Knot! Gotta keep chipping away at it!!

Ellie78

Two little overpayments so far this month totalling £105.77, from an item refund and some bank account interest.

I also finally heard back about the 2nd of my old dormant bank accounts, which was on £3.35 in 2004 and is now a huge £3.45! :rotfl: I probably spent that 10p making the call to the bank to chase it but never mind!

killerpeaty

Cheating on us with investments?!

:rotfl:

How are they going? I'm similar, I spilt between mortgage and investments.

How does an account only increase by 10p in alllllll that time??

Ellie78

Almost 6 months since I last updated.... wow, that's flown by.   I hope everyone is staying safe and sane in these weird times.  

I haven't made a huge amount of progress in terms of the mortgage but am off to a good start with my pension savings (SIPP and ISA).  OPs since January have been around £760, mostly from bank account interest, TTs, money I'm not spending on petrol at the moment etc. (I haven't used my car since lockdown started and it now has a flat battery - learn from my mistake and run your engine a bit each week!)  
I've also moved some money around to make the most of the current interest rates, setting up separate savings accounts for my self assessment tax bill and an emergency fund which now has over 6 months expenses in it.  

In April H*lifax sent us our annual statement and they'd recalculated our balance over the original remaining term, so our monthly DD has been reduced but we've regained the years we'd knocked off.  Slightly annoying but with both of us being self employed we decided to leave it alone for the time being.  We can keep making as many OPs as we want as we're on the SVR (with two rate drops in the last few months).   The plan is still to staircase to 100% in the future so when things are a little more settled we'll get that ball rolling.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with how things are looking.  Mortgage is currently at £31,300.   I'd love to get it into the 20s by the end of the year!


@killerpeaty I think it earnt 1p interest a year for a while and then they made the account dormant when it hadn't been used for a while!

Ellie78

Threw another £100 OP at the mortgage today.  I was feeling a bit fed up and this felt more proactive than internet shopping for something I don't need.
Oh and a mini victory that I'd forgotten about - my student loan is gone!   I've been paying it off within my yearly tax return but I had no idea how much was left to go.   I finally found some old paperwork last week, got in touch with them and to my surprise there was only £20 left to pay.   I paid it off over the phone so it wouldn't sit there building interest until January.   

My goal this month is to bring our monthly food shop bills down.  Planning out weekly meals and getting just those ingredients rather than just picking up whatever I fancy as I wander the aisles will hopefully reduce food waste.    This week I've done a couple of batch cooks: sweet potato and parsnip soup (with some parsnips that were on the turn and would otherwise have been binned) and bolognaise sauce that I made individual lasagnes with last night (vegan cheese for me, normal cheese for OH).   The extra portions were divided up and put in the freezer. 

I also built the little raised planter I found in the clearance section of B&Q and planted some salad bits and veggies.  Our little south facing garden is a perfect sun trap and if I can keep the slugs away hopefully we can get some good crops.  Less plastic waste from the supermarket and definitely fresher! 

killerpeaty

Congrats on getting rid of the student loan, I imagine mine will hang around until it expires (around 17-18 years time).

How are your investments coming? I hope you get to the 20s soon!

LeighofMar

Congrats on paying the student loan. That's such a great feeling. And you will be in the 20s bracket with your mortgage any day now. Keep it up. 

Ellie78

Hi KP, good to hear from you.   It was a nice surprise to be able to get rid of the student loan that's for sure.  I thought there might still be a way to go on it.
Investments are building nicely.  I started them off with £6,000 from savings split between them and now have monthly DDs set up for £250 into the SIPP and £100 into the ISA.   A regular saver that's maturing soon will also go into the SIPP and two accounts with 5% interest rate ending in Oct will be split between the SIPP, ISA and mortgage. 
I know I'm quite behind where I should be for retirement saving but I'm happy to keep throwing what I can into them and leave them alone.
How've you been coping in lockdown?

Ellie78

LeighofMar said:

Congrats on paying the student loan. That's such a great feeling. And you will be in the 20s bracket with your mortgage any day now. Keep it up. 

Thanks LoM!   I keep playing around with the numbers on my spreadsheet to see how quickly I can get there  

killerpeaty

That's a lot to put into investments each month! Have you looked into FIRE and can I ask what your target is?

Lockdown hasn't been the most fun time ever. I think everyone has their up and their down days. How are you getting on with it?