Discount Duck’s Quest For Mortgage Freedom

DiscountDuck

By way of an update:

I am very lucky in that I’ve been able to work from home during coronavirus, so although I’ve had moments of jealousy wishing that I could be furloughed and not spend 16 hours a week trying to make my children be quiet so I can do my job, my income thankfully hasn’t been affected. We are enjoying the extra time together and I love playing in the garden and teaching them how to grow fruit and veg in raised beds and borders. I hope they’ll carry this love of gardening into their adult lives as it’s such great, cheap, exercise and so good for the soul. They’ve loved growing so much from seed this year. 

I’ve overpaid a lump off the outstanding mortgage balance today. Despite this meaning that I had to incur an early repayment charge, it was more sensible for me to pay it off than not, as if your savings get to above a certain (fairly low) amount it affects whether you’re entitled to working families tax credit or not. I didn’t know this until recently, not that it would have affected me until now anyway. It would cost me much more to lose the working families tax credit if I hit the savings limit than I had to pay in the charge, which was 4% of the overpaid sum. I’ve now resolved that each time I get to a certain amount of savings I’m going to pay it off the mortgage even if it does take me over my 10% yearly allowance. I’m not sure how likely I am to surpass this next year, not very I don’t think - but you never know when your ship will come in. 

The hens have started laying. My daughter is considering renaming Mavis to Boudicca, after one of her heroines. I think that might be a bit grand for a hybrid chicken! Home laid eggs really are delicious in comparison to shop bought and chickens are such economical pets. We love the difference in taste making our own quiches and baking with the fresh eggs.

We have only been managing to get a supermarket delivery slot every few weeks, despite being medically vulnerable. We are really fortunate in that one of the traders from Leicester market is doing non contact deliveries In our area. It’s a bit of a lucky dip what’s in the box but it’s great quality and value at £20 for a huge box of fruit, veg, and salad. All that time I spent watching Ready, Steady, Cook when I was younger is really paying off now 😂 Plus it’s making us eat things I wouldn’t usually buy, but do like now we’ve found good recipes for it - like cauliflower and swede. We made The swede macaroni cheese from Jack Monroe’s ‘tin can cook’ blog and it was delicious. She’s an amazing chef, her recipes are so economical but always squeeze in some of your five a day - check her out if you’ve not already. 

On bargain coronavirus entertainment for the kids, we’ve loved the videos and activities on the BBC Bitesize website, Twinkl are doing free access for all their worksheets and powerpoints, and we’ve been playing lots of board games. I’ve also made aromatherapy play dough which was a big hit, and taught them to sew buttons so they can help make ear savers for our nurse family members. Each night we all snuggle up in my bed and watch the Home Safari Live from Cincinnati Zoo on facebook (they also put them on YouTube) and it’s a super way to end each day. 

Stay safe and well, everybody. 

DiscountDuck

Today I found out about the Government’s help to save scheme. It’s specifically for people with a low income but covers those who work and are eligible for working tax credit and child tax credit like I am, as well as people on universal credit. What an awesome scheme. The government reward regular saving with a massive 50p per pound bonus after two years up to savings of £1200, then again at the end of year four. You’ll never get that good interest on the high street. And what a great way to hopefully pay off what, if I keep squirrelling away and living frugally, just might be the end of my mortgage. Those of us on low incomes CAN get mortgage free if we work hard enough and live carefully. I’m so happy to have found this wonderful and unexpected financial bonus to look forward to. 

Regarding our coronavirus frugal living, while we are on week 9 shielding - a local camping store does pre-loved board games in the winter and spring and delivered a whole sack full of 12 educational games and craft activity sets for fifteen pounds, contact free.  After leaving it for three days in the hall, we spent a happy afternoon today in the caravan playing one where we match the capital cities to the countries, and another one where you match the sum to the number on the spell ingredient for your cauldron. It was super. With some Asda smart price orange juice in cups with ice cubes, and a little picnic, it felt a real treat of an afternoon out. It’s all about finding joy in little things. 

DiscountDuck

Well today was a bit down heartening. Barclays wrote to say they can’t find any PPI on my record, despite having told Gladstone Brooks that I’d had it on an old mortgage. Sent GB the letter and just leaving it to them to sort out. Although I should be delighted at my progress towards mortgage freedom, it feels like a long slog today and that I’ve only made so much progress because of the lump sum recently left to me by an aunt who wants to send family their inheritance before she passes away so she knows what we’ve spent it on! She just laughed at my mortgage reduction plans but was delighted that I treated myself to an icecream maker! 

I know that I’ve made progress by saving and overpaying whenever I can, living frugally and prioritising getting it paid off - but it feels impossible today for some reason. I think I’m a bit depressed because the other kids in the street can go out and socially distance but play but my two can’t. 

Working from home is really hard with two primary aged children, as a single parent, medically shielding. My 7yo son has more energy than my heart condition can keep up with and he’s getting a bit stir crazy. My poor 9yo daughter is exhausted and so am I, and that’s without trying to do a decent job at my work. Hopefully things will feel better soon, just a bit of an Eeyore day. 

trix-a-belle

Hi DD, would a trampoline wear him out enough? you might get luck and find someone getting rid of one locally
Fingers crossed on the PPI being 'found'

DiscountDuck

Hi trix-a-belle, 
We have one, and a basketball hoop, swing and slide. ADHD runs strongly on my ex husband’s side of the family, but school won’t test him because he’s over his age expected targets for everything. He just doesn’t seem to need any rest. 🤦‍♀️😴 

I’m not holding out much hope on the PPI, given that they’re saying I didn’t have any rather arguing over it having been mis sold, but you never know. 

DiscountDuck

Gladstone Brooks messaged to say they’ve closed my case, as the old mortgage provider couldn’t find me having had PPI despite having previously confirmed to them that I did. Just human error somewhere along the line I assume. It’s a bit disappointing but it’s not like I’ve really lost anything. 

Caravan school is going well. There’s an American website which is like Twinkl but for older children called Kids Discover, who are doing a 30 day free trial (of all resources then it drops to only some for free, like Twinkl). They have fantastic stuff and some of the infographic posters simplify concepts down so well that things I struggled to explain now seem easy. The £12.99 laminator I bought from Aldi a couple of years ago is coming into its own at the moment! Also, the Eden Project has some lovely printables and good stuff on the website, which we are happily using to decorate our little caravan classroom. The neighbours probably think we are nuts, sat out on the drive in it each morning! 

We’ve been very successful with our fruit and veg gardening and had home grown lettuce with our dinner last night, which was lovely. The seeds were from a free little M&S giveaway packet sent down by my ex mother in law and they were really good. 

I’m still waiting for the letter with my new balance after having paid the lump off my mortgage.  They couldn’t tell me over the phone my exact new balance so it’s frustrating. I think I know from my spreadsheet but until they confirm then it feels uncertain. Fingers crossed it will come in the post soon. 

DiscountDuck

It’s been tough going lately. I’m lucky to be able to work from home, but trying to pandemic educate two key stages at once with the materials sent by our rather pushy school whilst also trying to do my real job plus all the gardening, cooking, housework etc is a bit much. My part time masters degree has gone by the wayside and I don’t know if I’ll catch up. It feels like I’m drowning in too much physical stuff to keep up with at the moment and my heart issues and ptsd make this exhausting. 

The silver linings are the garden, from which we are getting 3 or 4 of our 5 a day at the moment. That makes me feel a good mum - feeding them lovely, organically grown, food from our own garden. It relieves the environmental guilt on air miles from much of our favourite fruit and veg too. I’m making and freezing rhubarb crumbles for the winter and have plans to also bulk freeze spinach. I’ve joined a prepping for Brexit thread as I’m worried about food shortages and price hikes when we come out with no deal in the winter. As paranoid as it seems, having been left struggling to get food delivered when the coronavirus pandemic first hit has made me want to ensure we are not left short again. 

I’ve updated my mortgage spreadsheet on my phone. Seeing exactly what it’s at gives me some degree of motivation and makes me feel proud of how well I’ve done so far to get it down when many other people on my budget wouldn’t do so. I’ve been buying the kids some summer clothes from ebay as they’d outgrown last year’s stuff and I couldn’t shop to buy them any more. I don’t think they’re much cheaper than brand new stuff from the supermarket but they are good quality, hard wearing, designer brands like Joules and Ted Baker at the same price as I’d pay for new Asda stuff. And because they’ve been pre owned and laundered, they never run in the wash.

Right, best get moving and see if our lazy freeloader chickens have been in the mood to lay any eggs today. Even the hens are on depressed strike at the moment it seems. 

Suffolk_lass

That all sounds very positive. From one own-grower to another, I now freeze the fruit and ready mixed crumble in separate bags so I can rustle up a crumble in about a minute - sometimes with a tin of fruit mixed in (peach and rhubarb - yum) and sometimes with my home-grown (gooseberries and raspberries are the biggest crops here) fruit. 

marthaneilson

Put the mixed fruits and bags now in a separate bag and freeze, you can grind in a grinder for about a minute, maybe a box of mixed fruits (peaches and rhubarb - delicious) and sometimes vegetables. Their own biggest catch raisins, raspberries. Fruit plate.

DiscountDuck

Ooh these are great ideas I’ll do the fruit separately from now on. We love a nice fruit plate!

I’ve been making our own homegrown Ribena this week, which the kids adore. I’ve also been making home made cold and cough syrup (elderberry juice, black currant juice, ginger purée and some honey all cooked up together and then frozen in ice cube bags) so we are ready to ward off any nasties this winter! 

Any good ideas about rhubarb would be much appreciated as there are surely only so many crumbles a family will eat 😂