Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

I’ve been thinking about goals, and I’d like to get the mortgage paid off by the time Bambi is finishing school (assuming a deferred school start and that she stays til sixth year) when she’ll be 18.5. 

That’s 15 years from now and would knock 12 years off our mortgage. I’ll be 48 or just turning 49 and Red will be 53.

We want to move somewhere more rural when the kids finish school and move out so we may incur more mortgage debt at that point, but if we have our current mortgage paid off it’ll give us the best chance of making that happen as we’ll have that big amount of equity. So we’d hopefully only need a small mortgage.

If that’s our goal, it’s important we restart mortgage overpayments soon. I need to get my emergency fund back up to £2k first (and will continue working on that as I want it up to £5k) but at that point I’d like to, at the very least, round up our mortgage DD. We pay £520 a month so if I rounded up to £600 that would be a start.

Need to phone up and check my balance too for accuracy. Think it’s about £139k inc the conservatory borrowing. 

joedenise

@Bluegreen143 - if you think you may need a mortgage when you move to a more rural area it is best not to have completely finished paying off the mortgage.  Daft as that sounds it's easier to get another mortgage if you still have a bit of a mortgage to pay rather than starting again.

I know you want to start rounding up your payments but you might find it a good idea to start now with small OPs, perhaps Tilly tidies from your bank account, ie rounding down to nearest £, £5, £10.  That's how I started with my mortgage OPs and it's amazing how much difference it makes over the period of the mortgage.

Bluegreen143

@joedenise oooh, interesting. Perhaps I’ll aim
for mortgage neutral instead and have all the cash there but not completely pay off the mortgage.

savingholmes

At the moment you'd probably get better interest on regular savings than directly overpaying your mortgage. It would then also give you a ready made EF if the worst happened. Mortgage neutral is a great goal

QueenJess

If it’s happened before, it’s worth picking up some insect bite cream from the chemist to relieve the itching in case it happens again. I usually scratch around the bite and avoid the bite itself… tricks my brain into thinking I’ve scratched it! 😂

Haven’t seen any around here (down south), but I usually get attacked off I go away on holiday somewhere that has them.

Bluegreen143

Really nice day today. Did spend at Tesco:

- £8 on 4x kids’ water bottles as we were down to our last two and left one at SIL’s by mistake (I’d rather the kids had a spare as we use them so much which is why I bought four, it is MS as we don’t buy water out (or juice, they don’t really love juice though - they covet the fruit shoot bottles but then don’t actually drink it 🤦‍♀️ )

- £13.50 on a 10 pack of socks for Bambi and 3 pack of T-shirts for Monkey.

All necessary spends so I’m happy enough. The children are hard on their clothes and they are constantly staining them. I’m going to keep the stained t-shirts for garden clothes though I’m sure Monkey will forget and wear the new ones out there anyway 🙄 they are VERY into mud/sand/water play just now and seem to combine the three and get covered in the resulting mixture multiple times every day 🤣 I really don’t mind them getting messy (would much rather that than they are just sat on a screen), it’s just that they do go through clothes quickly. Horrifyingly I’ve realised I need to get on it pronto re school uniform - Monkey is back mid-August and I’ve done nothing yet 😨

After our quick Tesco visit we went to a new country park today which was a really lovely one, we’ll be back soon to explore more I think! No spends there except for £4 on ice creams for the children - I abstained 😇 as am being healthy again.

savingholmes

Sounds like good juggling of the school holiday spends and activities.

Bluegreen143

Little spending update as we near month-end. Definitely been a much spendier month than anticipated 😳 in Scotland, July is the month where the kids are off for the full month which is reflected in the figures for fun spending. Plus we had a date lunch out when SIL looked after the kids for us and a couple of drinks nights with friends. Figures below not inc bills.

FAMILY SPENDING
Food - £366.42
Non Food Groceries - £52.55
Diesel - £89.65
Other Transport - £20.42
Fun - £151.55
Home - £39.24
Kids Clothes - £13.50
Kids Education/Other - £51
Lazy/Convenience - £86.74
Misc - £78.74

POTS
Holiday - £166.27
Gifts & celebrations- £141.01
Car repairs - £871.31

ME
Fun/Socialising - £48.50
Stuff - £1.50
Clothes - £15
Lazy/Convenience - £4.50

Including bills that’s a total spend of £3,246.69 this month (we also separately spent £48.76 on the zoo, which came from the Kids saving pot where I save up money they are given by relatives). We do need a shop tomorrow but hoping to keep it under £40.

Will do some analysis on it once the month has finished, but actually Food is much less than previous months which is great, and that’s with the kids being off school (they normally get free school meals). Lazy/Convenience is obviously one to cut down next month and Fun would normally be way less than this. Non Food Groceries seems high. Red is a nightmare for using tons of spray and kitchen roll to clean and buying specialist cleaners 🙄 whereas I use washing up liquid and rags. 

Baileys_Babe

Would it be worth investigating making your own spray to feed Red's habit without spending excessively? My general cleaning spray bottle contains just water and washing up liquid.

savingholmes

At least if you're tracking your spends it shows you what to hone in on.