The second hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

savingholmes

Hi 
Looks good. 
Car pot and clothes look light.
Do you have an EF? I found even at £1k it brought so much peace of mind. It may help with your fear of poverty. I am slowly raising mine.

Nichelette

Car is actually pretty true to cost, though I have forgotten service cost for mine now I think about it. Should probably have added tyres too.. Maybe not that accurate 😅. DH tax is only £30 and mine is £165. We're not really looking after DH car as it's 15 so we're just keeping it til it dies and brother is changing filters etc for us as he's pretty good with cars.

DH has enough clothes to last forever and I tend to wear the same old stuff about the house as only in office 2 days now. Chunky clothes are under other child costs, but I'm getting most of his stuff cheap from vinted now.

We have a little (£1050 in premium bonds and the vanguard money if really desperate). I'm switching to building it up now because before nursery we had far more 'spare' cash so a little belt tightening would cover most eventualities as I have a silly amount available on CC's if I needed it. Was concentrating on overpaying mortgage to get into better LTV bracket. 2k CC bill will go if ombudsman side with me which would be helpful as I'm doing min payment now but will need to do more if they don't. Honestly I think I'll only feel better once mortgage is gone, but obviously the closer we get the better. 

Student loan has 1300 left. Nearly there.. 

savingholmes

Sounds like you are doing well overall. Perhaps a hangover from childhood as you say that you are so worried about £. You have good incomes. You are making good progress. You've done really well on MB in the past and presumably could again. Your progress on you mortgage has been phenomenal in the time.

Nichelette

Definitely think it is a hangover. If it really came to it we could also sell the car as there is a good chunk of money in that. In my heart I know we should be fine, but my irrational brain will always panic I think!

Speaking of the car... submitted my ombudsman case and got told the garage (VW main dealer) has been kicked off the scheme for failing to comply with their terms of service which I think says it all. Long and short is ombudsman can't help me which is pretty gutting tbh. Have called VW main customer service and followed up with an email and a second 9 days later asking what escalation route is now. They haven't replied to to be honest don't seem to give a monkeys. Feel like I'm dealing with a dodgy backstreet second hand car salesman, not a VW main dealer... If they don't reply (which I don't think they will) it looks like my only option is small claims court which is a bit rubbish as I've already spent so much time dealing with this. I'm time poor as it is and can't honestly believe that they'd rather me take them to court than actually talk to me. A gearbox definitely isn't 'sufficient quality' as the legal term is if it needs a £2500 replacement part after 15k miles. About my luck... Moral of the story, don't buy a VW.

Bought the boy some more cheap nursery bits in 2-3 from vinted as he's still growing like a weed. He was 15 months a few days ago . 

We're getting paid on Friday. Should hopefully have almost £500 left which I'll stick in premium bonds in case we need cash. Should get payslips with new pay amount very soon. It's backdated to 1st April so we'll get a little bit extra too. Have treated myself to a cheap chromebook as mine is (literally) falling apart and I use it to do the prolific surveys. Was originally £299, reduced to £199 then £75 cashback (code) plus £13 through topcashback so not a bad deal as just over £100 in total. 

Petition now at 1027 signatures so gaining momentum slowly! Need to find where the other parents who are getting rinsed by nursery fees are  .

savingholmes

You are still making good progress. Lovely that your son is now 15 months. Roll on 3 and he'll get some free nursery sessions. The time will pass quickly. My one regret is not putting £ aside for uni in advance. Do that if you can when the nursery fees / after school club / breakfast club fees stop - while you are still used to not having the £. If they don't end up going you will still be glad you saved. 

How annoying re VW. So annoying you can't go via ombudsman. Can you write to one of those money advisers in the paper? That might give it a high enough profile to get traction...

Nichelette

I'm sticking away £100 a month at the moment. Plan is to give him it only when I think he is sensible enough to spend it wisely (be that on education/car/housing etc). It's in our names so I will be staying silent about it! When he is older, assuming we can afford to which we should, I plan to charge him rent (nothing crazy) and save it so that he can have it back when he does eventually move out. Again though, going to keep quiet about it. 

VW have also ignored my follow up email! It's absolutely shocking to be honest. At worst they should reply to say we're at deadlock and they won't reply to me further, but instead they're just ignoring me. It's completely unprofessional. I wouldn't mind, but I haven't been rude or spammed them with contact! They're not getting a penny of my money ever again. 

Better news on the car front. When I was researching small claims I remembered I paid part of the deposit on my CC. Long story short, they're allowing me to raise a section 75 claim. Would be much easier for me if I can get the money back that way. 

We were paid on Friday. I've bought £1475 in premium bonds taking us to £2500 in total. That was mostly a result of getting a bit of backpay, and £425 'spare' at the end of the month. Currently have about £1500 in current accounts as we're already at the tax free childcare account cap so I only topped that up with £800. 

Am currently raking it in with prolific surveys! Had £100 left at 0% on CC from DH vaping mess up but I'm sure I'll be able to clear that this month with the prolific money (may even get a bit extra). I am desperate to OP the mortgage again but I know it's safer to have cash kept back instead. If we can get to 10k in PB I might reconsider, though that will take some time as we can't save anywhere near as much now because of nursery fees. 

savingholmes

Sounds like you are doing all the right things. Well done on the progress on CC clearance and on the surveys. Fantastic job on the savings. Good luck with the reclaim. It is a shocking state of affairs.

Nichelette

Haven't been here in forever... Going to bullet point or I'll ramble for ages! 

• Big one - found out last week I'm pregnant (intended, would have preferred a bigger gap but I'm already 36). Obviously early days so keeping quiet in the outside world in case, but this will actually help us a bit in the short term as chunky will be with me 3/5 days and I get 6 months full pay so we'll actually save a bit on nursery whilst it's at it's most expensive. Plan on him still going 2 days a week as I think it's good for him. He'll be nearly 3.5 by the time I'm back at work so he'll nearly be getting the 30 'free' hours
• Am overjoyed at the prospect of starting to clear the house of baby stuff once it's no longer needed (plus can hopefully make a few £ doing so 
• Still waiting on Section 75 outcome
• Got paid yesterday, swept 1k into PB's and paid the remaining £111 off the mortgage (have halted OP's for now in case we need the cash, but did the odd bit to make myself feel better about the stagnating mortgage)
• My student loan interest rate increased recently. I've been paying by DD instead of from salary as it was down to around 1k, but I have focused on it recently (as I have to pay it off at about £100 a month regardless) and it's now down to £124. I'll either pay it down this month using prolific money or it will be gone next payday = £100 pay rise for me...
• We're getting a pay rise in October. Think they said another 2.9%? 

I'll keep it to that for now. Hope everyone is doing well. Everything going on it the world and the economy at the moment is rubbish! 

LadyWithAPlan

Congrats on your news, how exciting and your brilliant if accidental MFW timing on DS1 nursery
Great you nearly at the end of your student loan!

Hope you get your S75 sorted - a warning not to buy VW

South_coast

Congratulations on your news 😍! Hope it all goes smoothly for you. 

Excellent work on the student loan, that's like getting a £2k-ish pay increase if you're a 20% tax payer!