Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Baileys_Babe

How is everything going @Bluegreen143 I hope you and your family have had a lovely weekend.

Bluegreen143

Sorry for my absence, diary friends and @Baileys_Babe!

No particular reason - it’s the end of the month so everything is very boring financially. Very tight and I have done a small amount of budget fiddling, but nothing too bad (£10 for an unanticipated petrol top, £6 on a bottle of wine etc).

Thought I’d do a quick budget audit since nothing else is happening 🙂

INCOME
Me - £1,320
Red - £2,000
Child benefit - £140 (4 weekly)

- We are both going to put 85% of our income into the joint budget, leaving 15% for personal spends and saving/wish list items 
- The child benefit is going straight into the Kids pot for clothes, pocket money, saving for activities etc 

MAIN BUDGET CATEGORIES
Mortgage - £421
Childcare - £500
Council tax - £153
Other bills - £250
Housekeeping - £500
Short term savings pots - £500
Long term savings - £498
- anything left for wish list 

DEBTS
Mortgage - £112.5k, 28.5 years left, 1.89% fixed for another 3.5 years
Student loan - £10kish, not currently repaying due to low income 

ASSETS
House - roughly £165-170k value
Car - lucky if it’s with £1.5k!
My pension - £16.5k and £200 LISA
Red’s pension - £5k 
Cash savings - £600 emergency fund, £400 help to save, £700 split between short term pots (holiday, gifts, car and home)

POSITIVES
- no consumer or car debt
- a decent surplus after expenses each month allows us to save 
- starting to build up cash savings
- decent amount of equity in house
- have quite frugal habits which will hopefully combat the temptation of lifestyle inflation!

PRIORITY AREAS TO WORK ON
- Red’s pension isn’t good (he’s 36) so we will work on boosting this either by extra payments to his workplace pension or opening a LISA
- Obviously want to OP the mortgage so we can cut a good chunk off the term in 3.5 years when we remortgage (would love to cut it to a 15 year term but we’ll see!)
- Need to build up our cash savings, initially to a £2k emergency fund and filling pots but I’d like to continue to build these further over time to 3 months expenses

Baileys_Babe

Pleased nothing untoward had happened.

Bluegreen143

I forgot that I’d agreed with Red we would keep 20% of our salaries, not 15%, but also that we will pay our extra pension/LISA contributions from our own accounts so tbh the amount of savings isn’t much less than I’d noted above.

Re the pension, Red is going to pay an extra £50 a month into his pension, he already pays in enough through his salary to get the employer match so I was going to set up a standing order, but I wonder if to get the tax relief this needs to be through his pay? Will investigate.

Revised quick budget:

INCOME
Me - £1,320
Red - £2,000
Child benefit - £140 (4 weekly)

- We are both going to put 80% of our income into the joint budget (roughly £2,656+), leaving 20% for personal spends, pension/LISA and saving/wish list items 
- The child benefit is going straight into the Kids pot for clothes, pocket money, saving for activities etc 

MAIN BUDGET CATEGORIES
Mortgage - £421
Childcare - £500
Council tax - £153
Other bills - £250
Housekeeping - £500
Short term savings pots - £500
- home, car, gifts & celebrations, holiday 
Long term savings - £332
- emergency fund, mortgage overpayments
Wish list - anything left or leftover in categories or money from our personal budget 

Bluegreen143

Red just texted to say not only has he been paid (£2,036) but also the £2.2k has arrived from Prudential! Major excitement chez Bluegreen today and much smiles over how high his bank balance is for the first time in his life, we are calling him Mr Moneybags, but not for long 😂 He can only transfer £1k per day so will feed it into the joint account over the next few days.

Getting a takeaway tonight with the extra money which is a happy outcome. It’s actually quite a busy day - Red is working til at least 6pm, I’m working but only 1/2 day so Monkey gets a bit of attention from me in between work today, his isolation ends today so then dropping him at MIL’s after we’ve picked up Bambi from nursery - by the time we get home it will be nearly dinner time anyway. Only thing is we can’t let Monkey know he is missing a takeaway - we will likely get a KFC which he loves 😂

Had a parent meeting zoom with Monkey’s nursery last night and the headteacher has said they will be split into 3 rather than 2 units/bubbles on return within the nursery. This reduces the number of children and staff they will have to send home if they have another outbreak in one unit (currently his bubble is 32 kids but it’s going down to 16). 

This seems very sensible. I think he will stay in the same group with the same keyworker and they still have access to all the facilities (as the likes of the soft play room get a thorough cleaning between each bubble using it) so that’s good. 

Bluegreen143

Emergency fund now at £1,640.24 due to that old savings account of Red’s 🍾🎉 feels good! When I get paid in two weeks I will try to add to it a bit too. Getting close to that initial £2k goal!

Porridgecat

Doesn't it feel just the best when you get a lump sum to really boost your savings.

Bluegreen143

Hello all.

Got my shopping in from Lidl yesterday.

£55 - food
£6.85 - household supplies

Also spent £3.99 on a wooden clock puzzle for learning to tell the time at Lidl.

And a few bits from Tesco:

Food - £10.90
Household - £3.10

Had a lovely picky tea tonight - got some nice hams, olives & cheeses, made hummus and sourdough and salad - delicious! 

Bluegreen143

Agreed to work today to run a meeting - I didn’t have to, but I wanted to take some time off last week due to childcare needs so it’s worked well as a swap given DH is off today to look after Bambi (Monkey went over to MIL’s last night), except that now I am regretting having to work on my usual day off as the weather looks lovely for the first time this week!

Work is going well enough, and the money is making a huge difference to our budget, but I must admit that now the novelty has worn off I do miss the SAHM life 🙈... feel like I’ve been neglecting all the cooking/baking I used to do and also not had as much time for gardening or crafting. Not to mention it’s putting a cramp on my social life which revolved a lot around meeting my friends for walks while our children played together 😅 never mind though, the money IS good and I can’t complain about the overall hours/work life balance. 

Did make a nice card for BIL turning 50 (Red is much younger than all his siblings as he was the product of a second marriage for both his parents), a bit early but we saw him for a garden visit so thought we’d better hand it over then. Need to make the matching one to post to eldest SIL, who is BIL’s twin sister, as she lives in the south of England. 

Both of Red’s sisters live down south, so we are really missing them, as we obviously haven’t seen them since well before the pandemic hit. Normally they always visit here as are also visiting their other brother, aunts & uncles, friends etc but I think this year we also need to make the effort to go down to visit them when allowed. Unfortunately they used to live close together but have since moved in opposite directions so are several hours’ driving apart.

Bluegreen143

Got paid today so my emergency fund is now at £1,855.85 😁🎉

Total pay = £1,385.77

Budgeted as follows: 

£277.77 (20%) into my account
- £50 LISA
- £25 savings
- £60 phone & an online subscription 
- £100 fun/personal spends/clothes
- £42.77 then sent to emergency fund

£1,180 (80%) into the joint account 
- £475 childcare 
- £200 holiday
- £100 car pot
- £50 home pot
- £40 divided up between a few categories that needed a bit more eg petrol, kids etc 
- £79.50 mortgage OP
- £163.50 emergency fund 

It’s so lovely seeing the accounts and YNAB categories so healthy and hard to get over the novelty of feeling like there’s plenty to go round when I do the budget!

Next month I should get the emergency fund over £2k which is brilliant. I will then keep building it up (eventually aiming for a 3 month emergency fund I think) but may reduce the monthly amount a bit so I can OP the mortgage a bit more.