The Case of the Overwhelming Mortgage

powerspowers

Well done on the house improvements, OPs and uni funds, you are doing really well at balancing your different goals.  How much do you talk to your kids about money, will preteen “get” that you have a budget for Xmas and why? We try to talk to ours about spending choices and how we’d rather be secure than in debt. Not sure it sinks in though! 

AgathaSquirrel

powerspowers said:

Well done on the house improvements, OPs and uni funds, you are doing really well at balancing your different goals.  How much do you talk to your kids about money, will preteen “get” that you have a budget for Xmas and why? We try to talk to ours about spending choices and how we’d rather be secure than in debt. Not sure it sinks in though! 

We had a discussion with her about people having different budgets for Christmas and although her friends have this item it doesn’t mean it was bought for them personally (family item/2nd hand). She did accept this and I do think it was a useful discussion to have. We ended up having a family conversation and agreed we would buy this as a family Christmas present and all have a small individual présent. I’m happy with this compromise... now just have to hope we’ve ordered it in time for Christmas!

savingholmes

Just caught up on your diary. Well done on your progress. Will be watching with interest. 

Great to have discussions like that with the kids. It reduces the pressure.

Orangetoes

Well done! You are making great progress. Love seeing that interest going down! 

AgathaSquirrel

Christmas Day is over. Boxing Day is my day for doing nothing. Am not yet dressed and have been binge watching a TV show I want to see.

Christmas was good. A bit of an eye opener when I saw photos of myself from the past year and a present bought in a bigger size. I’m not one for dieting but my snacking has increased. Thinking about sticking to 3 meals a day. My exercise routine is OK but the eating has gone out of control. I’m going to look into one of the companies that delivers ingredients as well. We did the one with the spices last year. It was good but we got bored.

Finances wise, we are a couple of months away from the sub 90000 mortgage. Unfortunately we have probably missed the cheapest mortgage rates when we can remortgage in the summer but will still be cheaper than now.

savingholmes

We all need downtime just to be able to take stock of our lives and come up with plans that will serve us better moving forward. Good luck with yours. I'm developing mine too.

AgathaSquirrel

A quick look at the mortgage over the last year tells me we paid off in the region of £13000 which is mind blowing. Imagine not having a mortgage and being able to save. I’m always in awe of those who manage to have tens of thousands in savings. It’s always hard to work out what we have as I keep it all in separate pots and some of it is not for touching (DD’s uni saving funds) but our general savings (annual insurance, car, general house pot) never gets beyond £5000 before it needs to be spent on something. We’re trying to get to £3500 minimum at the moment so we can decorate our bedroom. If it’s like the rest of the house we will likely need to fully re-plaster and we will probably get the company to repaint at the same time, based on previous jobs we are probably looking at around £2500 including new carpet and curtains, which will leave us a £1000 in the general savings fund which will need to be built upon. Paying off the car loan is the other big hitter for next year. We’re overpaying by about £100 a month so should be gone towards the end of next year. We’ve got some money saved for a UK holiday, we just need to decide where and I need to start saving into the Birthday/Christmas pot again.

bellevie

Seeing how fast your interest has gone down gives me some hope!! We pay a shocking amount, I have seen it drop a few pence though which has still excited me 😁

You've made such good progress, well done 👏 

AgathaSquirrel

I’ve just started plotting it again today. Interested to see what it is tomorrow.

killerpeaty

You've done so well this year, can't believe how much you have paid off this year!