Life After Lockdown

V8D

Definitely want to have a balance of life alongside OPs / clearing the credit cards (which need to come first before the interest free runs out!). 

I have played with the OP calculator before. It's always been the case that I 'should' have £x left and I've had the intention to save / make OPs before but something always seems to come up during the month so I never do. That's why I like Grogged's idea of transferring the surplus to savings on payday. Will probably make me a bit less likely to spend without thinking about it. 🙂

longway2go

One thing that helps me is anytime we find ourselves with money we won't miss (pay rise/reduced DD), I increased my standard DD by that amount so a good way to OP without thinking about it 2 much. 

Bargainhunter30

I use the m*neydashboard app to help budget. Its linked to your bank account so you set a budget for whatever areas you want and it recognises all spends from your account. Lots of people use YNAB, this is the free version and I love it. Also have a spreadsheet that I add monthly totals to for quick comparison.

V8D

Thank you, Bargainhunter. 🙂 I have managed to set up the spending part of the Natwest app and set budgets for groceries, shopping etc. Will see how that goes for the time being. 

Transferred my income from my business account to my personal account yesterday, so April is go! 😀 

Going to look at my balances and see where we are. 

V8D

April starting balances: 
Mortgage: £113,278.90
Credit Card 1: £6,283.02
Credit Card 2: £1704.45
Credit Card 3: £3250. (will have to update this one when the statement comes through as I can't remember the log in details (it's my husband's card)) Fairly sure it's actually just under £3250, though.

I was going to TT each of the accounts as I thought it would be a nice start but the mortgage account won't let me make a single overpayment. Can I just transfer money from my current account to the sort code and account number of the mortgage account?

Grogged

V8D said:

Can I just transfer money from my current account to the sort code and account number of the mortgage account?

You should be able to, use your mortgage account number as the reference (same as if you transfer to a credit card).
Send them £1 just to make sure! 😉

South_coast

Is the mortgage with NatWest as well? I can let you know the details I send payments to if that helps? Obvs if I tell you my mortgage account number is the reference, that would be completely by accident....😅

South_coast

This is what I use:

V8D

Thanks both. 🙂

South Coast: it's not with NatWest, it's with Barclays. Natwest do keep trying to get me to deal up on a mortgage though. 😂😂😂

Grogged: will have a go with £1 and see what happens. 🙂

Apart from checking my accounts and ANOTHER no spend day (big novelty for me as it's not like this normally and won't be once lockdown is over as we like to get our food fresh everyday) 😀, I've been working on a plan with Nike Training Club - free Apple app and I'd highly recommend it but not if you don't want to feel like your muscles have been pummelled. Honestly, not sure I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow. 😂😂 Foolishly, my thighs were recovering from yesterdays workout and I still did todays as planned, now can hardly walk up the stairs. 🤪

V8D

Mortgage payment has been taken today and a couple of other bills.

Another no spend day too. 🙂

I'm just finishing up on the work I'd completed before lockdown. We thought it was coming so got as much down as we could before the lockdown happened, this meant we were catching up on reports over the past week or two. I've just about got through all the reports now so will be onto business admin soon. Plenty to catch up on or get ahead with but a really strange position to be in. 

I think there are a lot of people trying to save at the moment, have been reading a few journals on here and also a few of the debt free ones. Some seem quite worrying on there - a reminder things aren't too bad fortunately. 

No training club today - it's my rest day and I need it, so settling down with a glass of red.