Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

nastyphoenix

Bluegreen143 said:

Hi everyone! 

So... 2049... yes, that’s the current end date for our mortgage and at that point I’ll be (gulp) 61 and my husband Red will be 64! I DO NOT want us still to be paying a mortgage in our 60s and so I’m starting this diary.

I’ve had a diary over on debt free wannabe for the last 8-9 months and it’s been so much fun writing it, but we are debt free now (mortgage and student loan aside) so now it’s time to focus on saving, investing and mortgage overpayments.

It’s a good time for a fresh start as our circumstances have changed quite a bit already in 2021. 

On New Year’s Day I was a SAHM with zero intention of working for another 2-3 years - I was loving being at home with my two kids (DS5 and DD2), cooking & baking from scratch, trying with limited success to grow veg, learning skills like sewing and knitting etc. 

About ten days later my old manager from my last job, three years ago, called me up totally out of the blue to ask me to apply for a job in her team. After much emotional turmoil I realised this opportunity was too good to pass up - it came with a promotion and the pay is good, I like the work and team, and I’m able to work from home and part time hours (finish at 3 and a Friday off). 

I’m really enjoying being back and of course, even with childcare to pay, it’s still resulted in much more free cash for our family each month - we were only getting by before through very careful budgeting and strict frugality. We do hope to keep this up while using most of the increase in income to save and get ahead with our mortgage.

So a few facts about us, if you haven’t been on my old diary:

• we have two kids, Monkey who’s 5 and Bambi who’s 2
• we have three lovely chickens who help keep our egg bill down (though our chicken feed bill cancels that out!)
• we live in Glasgow
• my husband Red fixes and makes things as a hobby, mainly out of wood but he’s partial to using copper too, and he’s trained in gas & electric too through his work - so we are always doing random projects at home 
• I LOVE to make endless lists and budgets so if you hang around here you will be subjected to a few!

And about our mortgage:

• as of today we owe £112,843.07
• interest rate 1.89% fixed til Feb 2025
• monthly repayment £421
• we bought the house 6 years ago for £155k (yes, we remortgaged the term up to 30 years again in 2019 which doesn’t sound sensible but we were struggling with the payments on one salary) and I think it’s worth roughly £170-175k now.

I’ll do a rough budget below though I use YNAB, which encourages flexible budgets, so it does vary each month as we move money between categories. This two income budget is new to us too so there will no doubt be some changes!

Wow, you are lucky having that interest rate fixed into 2025...I wish I was in that boat

the_cross_rabbit

Hi we had a daughter that constantly lost or forgot stuff, until we started to charge her petrol money to retrieve stuff or buy a new jumper to replace the one she lost. She learnt very quickly not to do it as it would cost her money. Felt mean doing it but it worked.
CRx

Bluegreen143

@nastyphoenix I’m SO glad we fixed for five years!! Though our previous five year fix was a total rip off and we wasted a lot of money - so I suppose it’s a risk either way as to whether or not to fix.

@the_cross_rabbit I’m not in principle against this but as he’s only 6 he doesn’t get enough pocket money to actually replace a £30 jumper 🤣 but maybe I could fine him a week or two’s pocket money towards the cost? 

Bluegreen143

So this evening we jumped in the car to go to Monkey’s school ceilidh and our tyre was flat 🤦‍♀️ I bumped a kerb when parking yesterday and thought it was fine but clearly not. 

Managed to get a taxi within literally 3 minutes (the school is not walking distance, he gets the school bus there, and there are no quick/easy public transport options for that time of night with two small kids in the rain, even though we live in the middle of the city - too much walking on both end of the bus!) so we still made it to the school dance but it was £15 for a taxi there and back, plus I’ll have to get a new tyre tomorrow 🤦‍♀️ 

Still, the ceilidh was fun. The school haven’t done this yet since Monkey started cos of covid, so felt very lovely to be there! 

savingholmes

Ceilidh sounds awesome 

Bluegreen143

Have had a nice, fairly chilled weekend 🙂 yesterday after Monkey’s football I entertained the kids with a picnic at a park we’ve not been to in ages, then they were super helpful giving me a hand while I was making dinner - Bambi helped me roll up all the meatballs, Monkey chopped a pepper & opened the tins of tomatoes, and he also completely set the table for me AND put a washing in the tumble dryer. He’s a good boy ❤️

Today I went over to my friend’s to help her clean and pack for a bit (she’s moving house early next week) then we took the kids swimming. Very lazy afternoon following that, but I did the online shopping and got YNAB up to date while watching Peter Pan with the kids 😆 and ordered paint because I want to paint both bathrooms to freshen them up (neither have been done since we moved in seven ago; I also want to do the hallway soon for the same reason). 

Frugal wins
1. Number 1 frugal win must be that the man in the tyre shop recognised Red and repaired our tyre for free instance of selling us a new one ❤️ Soooooo happy, as I was really annoyed with myself for bumping it.

2. The heating is still off 😆

Realistically, I don’t feel the last week has been frugal AT ALL. Just lots of little expenses eg I wasn’t organised with a picnic on Sat so went to an expensive small Co-op en route to but overpriced snacky food (hummus, oatcakes, fruit, chocolate etc - £12 spent on not much!!). Need to reign it in a bit!! Will try to post my spends every day for the next couple of weeks to be more accountable. 

Food/groceries continues to be a black hole 🙄 Red is back to adding loads each time so I’ve had a word with him. I’m trying really hard not to be controlling/nagging - I’m not saying he can’t buy extras - but I’ve suggested that if he wants to buy £20 of extras a week he could supplement the groceries budget from his personal pot. 

Meal plan for the next few days:

Breakfasts - cereal, toast with peanut butter, milkshakes or porridge 

Lunches - leftovers or tuna sandwiches or cheese toasties for me; tuna/ham sandwiches for Red to take to work 

Snacks - there are HM muffins in the freezer still, yoghurts, oatcakes, cheese, lots of fruit and raw veg, own brand crisps, plus plenty of makings of cereal and toast, so no need for any extra treats on top (you’d think 🙄)

Dinners
M - lentil & veg soup; apple crumble for pudding 

T - sweet & sour chicken & rice 

W - chicken pasta 

Th - pork & black bean burritos 

savingholmes

Great result on the tyre

Bluegreen143

Chilled out day today - work, then it rained when I picked up the kids so we came straight home for once. Lentil soup and HM bread for dinner but I’d somehow underbaked the bread so it wasn’t great, oops 😂 however I did make a delicious chocolate traybake for pudding to make up for it!

Monkey had Beavers after dinner so I took Bambi out with me at the same time, all clad in her waterproofs and wellies and we went to the park with her little friend (whose older sister also does Beavers) and her mum. It was lovely to get a bonus hour out in the fresh air in the dusk! And had a good chat with the other mum, who is a good friend of mine.

Spending

£49.34 spent today on our Tesco delivery. Mainly food with kids toothbrushes and disposable razors thrown into the mix (I use a safety razor you just change the blade in, but Red doesn’t get on with it sadly - mine used to be his 😂).

£2.99 came out of the bank for our printer ink subscription. I *think* it works out cheaper than just buying cartridges, I did look it all up when I signed up. We get 50 sheets a month included in the subscription and they send you ink in the post like magic before you run out 😅

Today’s wins

1. Not really a frugal win as such, but I sorted out my pantry shelves (much needed) and cleaned out a disgusting tub where baking supplies had spilled (including sticky ice cream sauce 🙄) 

2. Can you guess, no heating yet 😂

3. Walked the morning school run, saving on petrol (I did drive the afternoon, and then the same route again and back to Beavers later as it’s across the road 😂 but we will focus on the wins here!!)

4. Baked a delicious chocolate cake as mentioned! And slightly less delicious doughy bread 😂 baking always makes me feel very happy and old style frugal though. 

Bluegreen143

Just got my payslip as I get paid on Thursday. 

£1,556 net + £240 into my pension = £1,796

Budgeted as follows:

NEEDS
Car bills pot - £80
Groceries - £500*
Petrol & parking - £150*
Misc - £50*

Obviously I budget for the mortgage, energy bills etc from Red’s salary!!

* aiming to come under in these categories so I can move excess to savings - I managed this this month.

WANTS
TV/music subs - £37
Gifts & celebrations pot - £155
Holiday pot - £46
Me - £300
…… Bills £125
…… Savings £25
…… Clothes £50
…… Fun/hobbies £100
(I moved £14 left in the Fun pot from last month to my own savings pot too) 

SAVINGS
Pension - £240
Help to save - £100
Emergency fund - £137

Emergency fund is now at £1,678.79.

I think our Help to Save pots now have £2,300 between them which is great, and in November we get £600 each as bonus, which we are putting towards our eventual log burner (did I tell you all that the start date for the conservatory got moved back two weeks 😡 can’t wait for it to be done!!).

Bluegreen143

Very busy day at work, though it was mainly meetings so got little actual work done 🙄😂

Once I picked up the kids we did a brief playpark visit then I did an hour’s work from 4-5pm (the kids were playing nicely though also Red came home in that window and took over when he did). 

I always have a couple of hours extra to work each week that I can’t squeeze into my normal working time I have between school runs, but I’ve done all my extra time this week now so don’t need to worry about it tomorrow or Thursday.

Made sweet & sour chicken (not the deep fried kind in batter, just normal chicken) with a choice of egg fried rice or plain boiled rice and broccoli on the side for dinner. AND IT WAS A SUCCESS WITH THE KIDS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!! Bambi ate her chicken (in sauce), plain rice and broccoli but the real success was Monkey, who chose egg fried rice and had two helpings of everything, even eating the onions and peppers in the sauce 🙌🏼 It’s making me sooooooo happy how much better their eating is getting! Monkey did help cook tonight but previously that’s never been enough to persuade him to eat it - I think as he’s getting older though he is taking pride in helping to cook. Plus he saw how large an amount of sugar goes into the sauce which no doubt helped persuade him 😂😆

Haven’t been to the gym yet this week as tbh feel like I have a bit of a cold and need extra sleep. Will skip again tomorrow and will aim to go on Thursday, but in the evening rather than getting up so early in the morning. Next week
I’m off work for the October break anyway so will go back to early starts after that!

My bathroom paint and gloss has arrived! Waiting on all the extras like brushes/rollers and tape. Usually Red takes the lead on all DIY so it’s quite exciting having a little project of my own! And we have never painted the bathrooms since moving in so I’m looking forward to a change.

Frugal wins

1. There was just enough leftover soup from
last night for my lunch with a toastie (and plenty leftover chocolate cake for snacks, ahem)

2. No heating on yet, and when I checked my bill from Shell our usage was less than I’d feared

3. I’ve been very good at composting food waste for the last couple of weeks, as we can be a bit intermittent with it (we don’t have a little food waste caddy as I NEVER remember to empty it before it goes gross! So composting relies on me using a bowl each time I cook to collect scraps, and sometimes I get out of the habit). 

4. Red noticed that Echo speakers are on a mega cheap sale so picked one up for the conservatory in advance of it being built, for only £20. Which was free for my budget as he paid with his money 😆 we have our little Alexa speakers everywhere in the house and it’s inevitable we’d get one for the conservatory so might as well buy when there’s a sale.