The second hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

Nichelette

I'm still alive! 

Needless to say I don't have much time anymore with the two littles. It has been a busy time, so I suppose I should summarise again (probably be a year before I write in here again. I might try a bit harder as it;s good for accountability .

• Second turned 1 a few weeks ago. He's now walking, climbing and generally being a bit mental. He's a good eater, is finally sleeping pretty well and starts nursery in September. He's also 99th centile and in 2-3 clothes because he's so incredibly long. I have no idea where he gets it from.. I'm currently trying to flog anything that isn't stuck down on vinted. It has actually been pretty good for getting rid, though not huge amounts of money because of their fees and postage bumping everything up. 
• We ended up fixing the mortgage at 4.9% which is just under 1.2k a month. At old rates it would have gone down to around £500 so obviously a big hit to my projections, and worse only about £350 comes off the capital. 
• I'd concentrated on saving cash so we still have just over 12k in PB's I'd saved for maternity leave so I'm looking at what is best to do with it soon as I think now it may be safe to OP mortgage with a bit of it
• I've done some new projections which DH is onboard with (he fritters), so I'm trying hard to stick to it
• We got new nursery fees yesterday. They've actually reduced slightly and I did absolute worst case in my projections so I'd over estimated by about £300/month which sort of feels like we've clawed back some money. We only need to put 5.5k more in DS1 account then his fees are covered to the start of school 
• DH finally bit the bullet and got away from his old toxic manager. He's so much happier in his new job and got a bit of a pay rise too. We're on about 95k combined now. Seems like a huge amount, but I don't feel like our lifestyle reflects it. 
• I finally get back to work at the end of August. My maternity leave technically ended in mid May, but I had so much holiday saved I'm using that (so getting paid, yay) plus 4 weeks unpaid leave as it wasn't worth going back because nursery is so much before September (when DS1 will get 30 hours and DS2 15). They aren't spreading the hours across the year anymore either which made August fees would have been more than I was earning hence unpaid leave. We've also agreed to use 15 days of our leave each to cover 30 weeks of nursery so we only need to pay 4 days (the funded hours mean day 4 & 5 are proportionally a lot more expensive). That means they go up to 5 days in April. They boys are absolutely lovely but hard work. I think like everyone I feel a lot of guilt in leaving them in nursery so much, though I know they get a lot from it too. It wasn't the plan, but it's what we have to do now. I know I'm still very lucky to have them 

savingholmes

Cuties

Good news on the pay rise and the nursery fees not being quite as horrific as expected. Glad you get some free hours for them. Well done on maintaining savings despite nursery fees too.

I was part time for DS's first year and a lot of DD's. Back then a whole year off either wasn't an option for DS - or the cost was too high for DD. Glad it worked out for you though. I don't regret sending them to nursery as it gave them social skills and friends that I lacked the ability to provide.

South_coast

Lovely to see you back. I was only thinking about you the other day, and now here you are! So pleased everything is going well for you all

Nichelette

savingholmes said:

Cuties

Good news on the pay rise and the nursery fees not being quite as horrific as expected. Glad you get some free hours for them. Well done on maintaining savings despite nursery fees too.

I was part time for DS's first year and a lot of DD's. Back then a whole year off either wasn't an option for DS - or the cost was too high for DD. Glad it worked out for you though. I don't regret sending them to nursery as it gave them social skills and friends that I lacked the ability to provide.

I do definitely think there is a huge benefit to both me and the kids from nursery, but equally I'd love it to be balanced so we could get more time with them too. I do appreciate that I am very lucky to have the amount of time I've had with them, and that even now, especially with the cost of everything it's still not an option for a lot of people. That said, I literally used about 2 days holiday both times I was pregnant and only went on mat leave when they actually arrived which was't easy either lol. DS1 was well away but DS2 is a bit more clingy and sensitive. He does seem to enjoy the company of his brother and own age group so I hope this will make him enjoy nursery as I'm a bit anxious he'll be upset when I leave him. Time will tell I suppose!

Nichelette

South_coast said:

Lovely to see you back. I was only thinking about you the other day, and now here you are! So pleased everything is going well for you all

Thank you! I will try to post more often! Like I said earlier, it's good for accountability  . My aim is now to focus on finally getting to move so going to try and plough everything into that. It might be an option in September when first finishes nursery so will see what is happening with house prices and interest rates as may port it. 

Nichelette

So we had a look at figures and have OP'd the mortgage by 5k to take us under 200k. It's nice seeing a 1 but still a lot of money. We've paid off about 90k in 5 years which is about a third of the original amount (was a 30 year mortgage). Obviously that has slowed recently because of nursery and maternity leave, but it has really helped with rates being higher now so I'm really glad we did it whilst we could. I'm hoping that when nursery fees are lower we can go at it more aggressively again. It's likely that in the next couple of years DH will get a good pay rise, and come May once the maternity leave has been 'repaid' I'd like to look for something new. Though I have absolutely no idea what. Suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, though may need to postpone depending on mortgage and moving. 

I don't think I ever mentioned it, but a very long time ago (about 2012) my mum borrowed about 10k from me. I say borrowed. It's a long story, but my little sister who was off the rails got her into debt. It was on 0% cards, then she didn't qualify for more, so I stupidly put it in my name to help her, then she quit her job for health reasons and I had to pay it off whilst she was giving me small token payments. Anyway, her uncle passed away last year and she inherited some money so I got 9k back. I don't think I mentioned but the car I bought DH last year was partly on a 0% card and I took a loan for the remainder so that paid off the loan with a little bit left over which went towards the mortgage. The other bit came from PB's as I wanted to be below 200k. We may be able to do more but am being cautious at the moment. 

Space is still an issue but my sister has kindly offered to board our loft to help us, so we can put things up there to work through them so I've spent £200 on board today. In an ideal world I wouldn't need the money and could just give it all away, but I'm doing quite well on vinted and it is helping with nursery fees. As they fluctuate some months my projections show we'd be in deficit, but I'm trying to average it out to avoid this. Any vinted money currently goes into their taxfree accounts as we need to put £1333 into them each month (and sometimes add more) to get the maximum benefit from the accounts. 

savingholmes

Glad you got the money back from you mum or most anyway. 

Good luck with the sales and loft boarding.

Aimingforthegoodlife

Loving all the plans, great you are able to make the childcare work more for you as a family! £5k overpayment is great, and hitting the 1's must feel so good. Great work!

Nichelette

Boarding is all complete now. We had 5 packs left over so am getting £75 back which is good!

My first day back is 28th August. I really need to get back to work now. I love the kids and wish I didn't have to work FT, but I think SAHM is one of the hardest jobs going. Anyone who can do it is far better than me! Like I've always said, ideally I think 3 days working would be my ideal balance. Anyway, I think younger really needs the stimulation of nursery now. We've managed to squirrel away about 8k in their nursery accounts between them. It's good to have a buffer. I'm going to try work out roughly what we have left to pay for elder as I think we might possibly not need to keep maxing out his account now. 

I needed to buy younger another two 36kg car seats as he's currently in 18kg ones that he'll outgrow around 2. I was keeping an eye out for a good offer on another axkid one, but I bought one of these https://www.boots.com/britax-romer-max-safe-pro-car-seat-jade-green-10338528 to try as was worried it would be too big for our cars, but there was plenty of room and the seats are so lovely. They're a bargain as currently half price (usually £400), boots has a code for £20 off making them £180, I got £20 in boots points and £6 cashback, so I've effectively paid £156. Well worth it if anyone needs one! The jade colour is out of stock but it's so lovely! I've bought the second one in the darker green as I think that will be nice too. 

savingholmes

Good luck with your return to work when it comes. I certainly couldn't have been a full time SAHM. Part time would have been easier if I had been able to have a decent paying job at the same time. I did part time for a while. 

Well done on the £8K towards nursery fees. That's a lovely buffer and a huge achievement given the high mortgage costs too.