Quest for (mortgage) freedom

Squirrelz92

Woooo £5k is a huge amount to kick start 2025 with!

Mrs_Money_Penny

Well done £5k is massive x

eat_that_frog

Thanks everyone! It felt like a really positive January. The day after I made the final January overpayment, we got a takeaway as a 'well done' to ourselves. It was really nice to have a small treat. I think that's a big thing I've learned on my MSE journey over the last 4.5 - nearly 5 years, it's so important to reward goals met with small treats along the way, to keep the faith.

We've having a week of 2 halves this week. In good news it's a milestone week this week, we are celebrating 6 years in our wonderful house! We absolutely love our home, it is a safe, warm, cosy family home, and it's served us well these last 6 years. 

In not so good news...we found out Monday that my OH's job is at risk of redundancy AGAIN. It's the 2nd time in under 18 months that he's been told he's at risk of redundancy. I think we're both shell shocked that this has happened again. And, unlike last time, he had absolutely no inkling that this was going to happen, which has really added to the shock factor. He has given himself until Friday to take a few days to absorb and process the news, and will start planning next steps on Friday morning. I think this is a wise approach. I've been cooking his favourite simple, comfort food suppers this week just to try and keep morale high in camp. We're just over £50k away from the safety of being mortgage free; it's never felt more important to us, having the safety of a permanent roof over our heads.

Frugal wins this week:
1. I went into town today to run errands, I did not buy a takeaway coffee. Go me!
2. Still working our way through the meats/poultry in the freezer and cooking frugal meals. Frugal suppers this week so far included cottage pie, cheese and vegetable pasta, and tonight was baked potatoes with beans and cheese.


329 days to go!!!

KajiKita

Ugh …. 😣 Such tough news. I hope Mr ETF has regained his balance and got a job search strategy in mind now. Do you have some sense of the timescale in which the redundancy will happen?

KK

eat_that_frog

Thanks yeah it was a massive shock.

I think he's feeling a bit more positive now, he'll know in the next few months what's going on.

Meanwhile he's brushing up his CV etc. Fortunately he's in a common type of job, it's not niche, so there seem to be vacancies out there. It's the uncertainty (again) I think. Plus he really likes where he works, he gets on really well with his boss, he enjoys the work he does and who he works with - basically he's comfortable.

In the meantime we'll be stopping making mortgage OPs and instead putting that money into a savings pot separately, just in case we need to access the money. And if we don't that's fine, we can then make a lump sum OP on the mortgage once the redundancy process is over/he has a new job, whichever ends up happening.

eat_that_frog

Can't believe we're halfway through February. I don't know where the time is going.

Until my OH's job situation is confirmed as secure, I'm keeping mortgage OPs in a separate savings account, and then we'll use it to make a big OP once we know we're safe to do so. We should have an indication in the next few weeks of what's going to happen. All this uncertainty just makes us even more determined to get this mortgage gone for good now.

This week's frugal wins:
1. Moved £2.5k into our mortgage OP savings pot.
2. My frugal suppers over the last week: sausages with homemade chips and baked beans, sweet and sour chicken with rice, meatball pasta, chicken pesto traybake with potatoes and vegetables, chicken pasta bake, and spaghetti bolognaise. Today's supper will be roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables, and homemade gravy.
3. My OH found an old book voucher gift card in the back of his wallet; when we were in town yesterday we went into Waterstones and found out there was £10 on there! So we bought our eldest a new book, which he was thrilled with!

318 days to go!!

LadyWithAPlan

Sorry about all the uncertainty of this potential redundancy- at least you both on the path of being £50k away from it not being an issue next time .. 
fingers crossed it all works out well and the frugal food sounds tasty ! 

caeler

Sorry to hear about the uncertainty. Good idea storing the mortgage OPs just in case you need them. Redundancy is so pants but great to hear he’s polishing the CV.  I hope he can find something suitable and quickly. 

kaycastle

I've just stumbled across your diary. Sorry to hear about the redundancy news - I hope all works out and really happy for you being so close to no mortgage. I'm so impressed with your progress!! I've been looking out for really high mortgages to get inspired about my own and I think it's amazing what you've achieved! Going back and reading your whole diary!!

kaycastle

I read your whole diary during the last few hours in between everything. Very inspired and have a few takeaways I'll be applying. 
- No spend day goals seem to work really well for maintaining frugality, I'm going to try doing streaks
- Read @caeler diary too
- You have a lot of focus - I've been a bit all over the place and overwhelmed by my large mortgage in comparison
- Going to start getting my OH more focused on things too - have done so already and he was so shocked by interest

I was so impressed by your decluttering!! Especially with young kids - we don't have tons of clutter but finally got round to a tidying session earlier this week and managed to do a whole car load to charity.