Powers’s mortgage free thread

powerspowers

OP £60 😁😁😁 

savingholmes

Great round up. Enjoy your bike packing! Sounds cool. 

powerspowers

 

😍 happy camping 

edinburgher

That looks fun 👍

savingholmes

You have the weather for it! Have fun!

powerspowers

Camping and cycling was brilliant fun, im still buzzing from it! I think my immune system took a knock though as I’ve now got covid after resistance for so long 🤧 

it was also a spendy weekend as we mainly ate out and really treated ourselves to tea rather than frugaleering. Total spends £15 on campsite and £80 on food, more food and booze, that’s more than a weeks budget in 24 hours 😅  Well earned cycling 60 miles though!

other spends - £42 on subscription for Microsoft services. I got 30% discount from work and the laptop was free so counting as a win. 

Did an ONS survey today for £10 voucher. T had never heard of survey sites and is committed to doing loads now when he can’t sleep. I think it’ll be a long time before he can buy a new bike though 😂 

Mortgage news is we can reserve a new fix in a few days which I’ll get on with, ours has 120 days left to run but who knows what’ll happen in that time. Is it sad to be excited? 

savingholmes

Sorry you have covid. Hope you recover quickly. Great survey payout and MS discount. Good luck with the mortgage rate.

powerspowers

 Happy April! I’m off today so starting the day sat in the sunny window doing the money shuffle. I’ve overpaid regular £250 + £350 + £30 as the mortgage payment went down due to last years OPs and I didn’t get round to phoning them to change it! 

OPs averaging £550pm in order to meet 1&3 yr targets (sub £100k and sub £75k)
January £625 🍏
feb £300🍋
march £660🍏

April £630🍏
I’ve just checked the average and it’s £553 across the four months 😀 

I’ve found march really easy money wise as lots of direct debits had stopped. So have been trying to make hay really! OH filled up the car yesterday and it cut off at the £99 max charge rate just before the tank was full 😬  April is tighter and then next month our energy bill goes up £60 so tighter still. We’ve got a lot of wiggle room though so I count us as lucky. 

Savings are looking healthy, got some tucked away for holiday and still got my random £200 pot in case of urgent I-want-this. 

House projects- the veg patch has had topsoil for a week and now needs weeding! I’ve got veg ready to go in and all my scavenged pieces for the greenhouse. Hoping that T will help today if the weather stays nice after he finishes work. No further on en suite. Had a plumbing emergency in the bathroom other day but sorted it, I think we will do both bathrooms if we can this year. Doing the family bath will at least be easier if the en suite is in! 

Eco swaps- cycle first is going really well, the boys have been cycling to school and to clubs and we’re all more mindful of not doing short journeys in the car. I made it to the plastic free bus last week to stock up and we’re baking rather than buying pre wrapped snacks. Palm oil is on my hit list next, difficult as we have some dairy substitutes that use it instead. I’m going to do an audit and see what easy swaps we can make. 

Work wise I’ve had an easier week this week which was most needed! I got my funding application in, really proud of this as the process was rather long winded and it had to be approved by 8 different people 😳. Wait and see now. I think I’m starting to settle in my new role and have felt less anxious recently. I haven’t actually left the house or exercised since Sunday so need to get back on it next week, even if it’s only gentle walks. 

That’s it for this morning’s ramblings, have a good weekend wannabees 🐝 

savingholmes

Sounds like you are doing really well and have a decent cushion in your budget to absorb any shocks.

powerspowers

Thanks SH! Yes we are lucky but it was also a decision that we wanted to be able to live off one wage. I’m very glad we didn’t stretch to the max (although accept that we’re lucky to not have to stretch that far)