10 years to go .... maybe, with a fair wind

savingholmes

Great news on the switch. 

Sounds like you are a good cook too.

Lauraebrad

Thanks @savingholmes - not a bad cook although don't get a lot of opportunity to do anything very adventurous! 
Had an unexpected (forgotten) payout from Qu1dc0 today as well as another £10 on Sh0ppix which means I've managed to finish my £1,200 bits and bobs overpayment for the year! Really pleased to have done it so early in November.

Hoping for my backpay payrise at the end of this month which should give next year's over payments a flying start ... 

savingholmes

Great news on the final OP and the back pay due.

Lauraebrad

So I've just logged into our online HR system to look at my payslip and it seems that the pay rise back pay is on there for the first 8 months of the year - around £500.  Actually, it doesn't add up to quite what I'd expect but I'm sure there'll be some logical reason for that.  It's not landed in my bank yet, but I've already mentally split it between starting next year's OPs and some extra to this Christmas to cushion the blow a little.  

I've been asked to do some extra hours at work over the next few weeks.  It's very rare in our place to do that sort of thing, but given the opportunity I've decided to take it.  It'll mean working 4 days a week rather than 3 which is going to require a lot more organisation on my part than usual as I'm so used to getting 2 days off during the week to get a million tasks done.  However, I realise most / many people don't work part time and I'm pretty lucky to be able to do so - so on that basis I'm not complaining!

My S&S ISA which I'm investing half my overpayments into isn't performing particularly well.  I guess that's always the risk with investments, especially at the moment.  However, I know that over time it'll bounce back so I'm not planning to alter my system for next year.  Basically it only has to out perform my mortgage rate of 1.88% to be beneficial, and I plan on holding it for up to 10 years depending on how it's getting on towards the end of my mortgage.

In non-moneysaving news, whilst I've been trying to drive less to save fuel and the environment, I was forced into no driving last week as the battery died on my car.  Unfortunately even the breakdown people couldn't jump start it, and most annoyingly it's a special sort of battery as I have stop-start technology on the car.  So wallet now £288 lighter.  Reminds me that I probably need to make more effort to set up some decent car-based savings as it's 10 years old now and other than saving for MOT and servicing I don't currently put anything aside to repair or replace it.  

savingholmes

Ouch to the car bill. 

Great news on the back pay and extra hours. Things sound like they are heading in the right direction over all.

Lauraebrad

Not quite time to round up for the year as I'll not note down my final balance till 31st December.  However, really happy that I've now completed my overpayment house for the year..... When my bank account switch happened for some reason my investment payment hadn't transferred so I had to set that up manually so the last £100 has only just gone out to make £1,200 invested for the year.  
Should be pay day on Wednesday I think as we always get paid early for Christmas so hopefully I'll get some of my extra days pay within that.  At the rate we're going though it'll be spent on gas and de-icer!  I love the snow and ice when it's fresh but getting pretty fed up of it now!  Although also feeling really lucky as 1000+ homes near me just went for over a week with no gas when a burst water main got into their gas pipes.  It was bitter cold so really hard for some people without heat at this time of year. 
My mind's turning to think about what my goals should be for 2023.  Not decided yet how much to switch it up, given the cost of daily life is increasing but still feel the time is ticking to get rid of this mortgage.  Interesting (slightly drunk) conversation with a friend of a friend last night who works in university finance - I'd not realised that the living loans for students were means tested with the expectation that parents make up the difference.  I'd always had in mind that I'll need to support the small (big?) if / when he gets to uni, but seems like I'll be in a much better position to do that if I'm not still paying the mortgage every month. He's only in Y6 so by no means urgent and who knows what the future holds - but does put it into perspective .... 

Lauraebrad

Coloured in house progress tracker 

savingholmes

Love the charts - very pretty.

Lauraebrad

So a final round up from 2022 and a fresh start in 2023.

In 2022 I paid off (net) £4,688.60 from the mortgage including my normal payment and OP's, in addition to investing £1,200 for future OP's.  Balance at the end of the year was a smidge over £53k (although YBS helpfully showed it as £0 yesterday which was exciting even though I know it was a glitch!).

This year's got off to a good start - I've just transferred over £440 OP which was made up of mostly last year's backdated payrise. Now to try and not obsess over the numbers too much, but just remember to keep making small decisions that save money every day.

Happy New Year all ...

savingholmes

Lauraebrad said:

Now to try and not obsess over the numbers too much, but just remember to keep making small decisions that save money every day.

Happy New Year all ...

Love this. Happy New Year.