Plan B to being mortgage free

BravingSaving

We're not at the vets till tomorrow - she had an abyss last year and her face swelled up and it looks like its the same again this time. Fingers crossed it just the consultation and meds like last time 

BravingSaving

Last week was so exhausting - who knew getting up at a set time was so hard! 

All went well at the vets the total bill was just under £100 and everything seems to be on the mend so we're happy enough and for a vets bill that seems like a bargain. 

The shopping budget has got a little out of control so far this month so we're making a real effort to stay under budget for the rest of the month if we break even on it I'll be happy. 

I've arranged stocks and shares ISAs for me and hubby as well as LISAs so I'm looking forward to seeing the regular payments go into them. The S&S ISA is up 40p today which on £25 is pretty fantastic at the moment the EF we have is significantly higher than that and hasn't made anywhere near as much! 

Work has been a little quiet recently so we're making our mortgage payments and pension funds  our main focus, and just hoping things pick up soon. 

I've reworked all my sinking funds and opened as many savings accounts as the bank would allow - I've found having it broken down rather than one lump sum is really satisfying and I feel like I know what we're saving towards and this can swap and change monthly until targets have been reached. 

DH and I decided last month we'd have £100 spending money each to buy ourselves treats that we've gone without for the past few years (or save up for those expensive things that we want - DH is into cycling and jerseys and helmets can cost an absolute fortune!), as it stands neither of us have bought anything - breaking the frugal habit is hard! But I'm sure we'll get there eventually. 

LeighofMar

BravingSaving said "I really need to stop all these extra supermarket visits - its getting back to being most days again" 

I can sympathise. It seems like I get everything on my list, and then DH runs to the store for fruit. Not a big deal, a few dollars here and there. Then he's out of his protein powder or they didn't have the juice he wanted, so he goes to another store to find it. This weekend he was in the mood for ice cream. It just seems like I've done my grocery haul, stayed in budget, but all the little trips end up costing so much more! 

Congrats on Tilly Tidying the money to your mortgage to get to round numbers. It is addictive, isn't it? I love that. You're doing great!

South_coast

BravingSaving said:

I've reworked all my sinking funds and opened as many savings accounts as the bank would allow - I've found having it broken down rather than one lump sum is really satisfying and I feel like I know what we're saving towards 

Ooh, this is exactly what I do - I think I have about 11 savings accounts in addition to my current account 🤣! It's so nice to see it all broken down and named though - knowledge is power!

BravingSaving

Thank you for letting me know its not just us @LeighofMar we seem to be doing better this week - I think its because there is more incentive as we know the budget is getting close to being maxed out. I can't wait to round the mortgage down next month although I don't think it will be quite so satisfying a number ha ha.

@South_coast absolutely I feel like I know what's happening now - I've got a file now and a tab for each month I feel very organised. Print outs for all the sinking funds and different trackers I do love anything stationery related. I'm following various budgeters on insta and following which bits I feel will work for us.

BravingSaving

I had to share - my phone has always frustrated me as there is so little memory on it and I like to have various apps - social media, banking, games etc as well as ones for my children's schools. Anyway, my husband said just get a new one so I started researching and thought they all seemed quite expensive with poor reviews just for the sake of some extra memory. So I looked at how to increase storage - turns out I can save quite a few apps to the SD card that I already had in. (Not all apps can be saved to it but lots of the ones I wanted can be) So now I have all the apps I want more space on my memory and I've saved at least £100 just by reading an article! I'm so happy! I love it when this kind of thing happens  

ruby_eskimo

I love when you can save money just like that.  Hope the phone lasts a while longer for you now.  And I'm another one with a million savings accounts and a spreadsheet to track them all - it's just so much easier.

BravingSaving

Happy Sunday everyone! I'm finding it so to make updates now I'm back at work - if anyone knows how to get more hours in a day please let me know!   

Done all the money moving for the month now - out into savings accounts and back to pay of the CC for Christmas and all our birthdays. I'm loving having all the separate accounts it feel so much easier to track what's happening.

The mortgage went down to £93,595.22 after this months payment and OP so I made the decision to take £95.22 from the car maintenance fund to round it down to a lovely £95,500.00 my husband was laughing at me wondering how long it will take me to find the other £500 (if I thought we had it to spare I would!) 

Shopping budget was awful last month went over by nearly an extra weeks worth! So really on it this month - we've changed to home delivery (our local area is in lockdown). So feeling the need to be more organised with what we get, not just what we need now but what we will need when its delivered. We've bought an annual delivery pass for £30 which I've paid for out of this months budget - not doing too bad so far. We used a local butchers to get all the meat for the month (£74) so hopefully we should do quite a bit better. We've got £70ish a week to spend - next weeks shop is currently at £55ish so I'm really pleased.

I'm pretty sure I've only one present left to buy for Christmas - we got a free Prim3 trial so I've made extremely good use of it! (Must remember to cancel it in a couple of weeks) and we're under budget!! We've agreed with all the family that we're just buying for children all the adults can treat themselves to something instead so its very stress free. 

jenni_fer

Rounding down the mortgage is really quite addictive, it works well though!
Impressive Christmas organisation too...we're at the 'wait for Santa's letter' stage which slows me down a little!

BravingSaving

we're at the 'wait for Santa's letter' which slows me down a little!

We're at the hope they don't change their mind stage!    I've found having the money to one side has helped so much this year though.