Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

So far, touch wood, no further battery issues. 

I have been max in posting it seems! What have I been up to?!

Last weekend
- we took the children swimming and to the library on Saturday after Monkey’s football 
- on Sunday they had a birthday party in the morning (at an indoor inflatables place - I had to go on with Bambi - tiring!!), then Red took them to his mum’s. I had a lovely solo canal walk!
- Saturday evening we went to a lightshow we had tickets for. VERY expensive but we did all enjoy it. The children were super keen to go so we agreed that if we used money from the activities pot towards it, there’s less to do things like softplay etc. Think Monkey at least understood this concept! 

Monday 
- gym first thing ✔️ 
- took the day off work as had an appointment at Monkey’s school mid morning, an appointment at nursery early afternoon and I decided that rather than juggle them trying to work back the time, I would use a day’s leave and get some errands done and stuff done round the house in between. Lovely relaxing day! Followed by Beavers for Monkey but it’s close enough I can come home while he’s there. 

This week
- Tuesday was a normal working day + park after school + dinner/stories/homework
- Wednesday was quite fun, I had very interesting training all day. Had to arrange for Bambi to stay late at nursery and for a friend to pick up Monkey (her daughter goes to the same school) but it was really worth it, learned a lot. 

- today I went to the gym ✔️ and had a day in the office. Always feels a bit mental and rushed but equally I do get a lot out of seeing the team. 

Financial goals 

In my 121 today my manager said she’s recommending me to move up a pay grade, it’s not certain if there’s budget yet but fingers crossed. I think that would take me up to about £34,500 if I was full time, maybe slightly more, which is around £24k on my current part time hours. We are also definitely getting a decent cost of living rise again in April regardless of whether I get the performance based rise. 

A few weeks ago I posted some financial goals on here and one was to increase my income before we remortgage in 2.5 years so this is a great step in that direction. I also had a chat with Red who is going to keep his eye out for a good opportunity to jump ship. In his industry nobody seems to offer cost of living pay rises but instead they all move company a lot and get a rise when they move, he’s been where he is for a year now and got a big rise then - to his current £35k - but he thinks within the next two years it should be feasible to move on and earn at least £37k. 

He would be able to earn more by doing overtime or standby but it’s really important to us currently to maintain that work-life balance -it’s why I work part time, and we use some unpaid leave to take extra summer holiday. However, it’s reassuring to know we both have the option to increase our income, me by going full time and Red by working overtime. It’s good to know it’s there as a fallback if things get tough.

Savings
I got paid this week, and our Help to Save accounts are now at the full £2,400 for the first two years! Meaning we will get our £1,200 bonus mid-December. We will be leaving the invested money there and continuing to pay the £100 a month to build our second bonus in two years.

Our separate emergency savings are at £2,234.

Taken together, that’s £4,634 towards our £12,000 emergency fund goal. Not including our £1,200 bonus as we plan to a) buy a hoover and b) save the rest towards a wood burning stove. 

Conservatory
We are mid way through the conservatory build - the foundations and floor down, and brick half walls built - the guys are coming tomorrow to fit the windows/walls/doors/roof. They plan to be finished totally Sunday or Monday. Very exciting! Plan to visit a good furniture charity shop to look for some seating and a coffee table this weekend. Fingers crossed we find something suitable!

Baileys_Babe

Good to hear from you @Bluegreen143 it all sounds very positive.

That is great news that you are being put forward to move up a pay grade, my fingers are crossed they have money in their budget to upgrade you 🤞

Good luck finding suitable furniture for the conservatory.

Bluegreen143

Spent £330 in two charity shops this week on furniture for the conservatory - for that we got:

- two small two seater sofas (£120 for the set)
- a gorgeous solid hardwood coffee table (£80)
- a matching side table (£40)
- a beautiful and really unique looking curved wood shelving unit which Red thinks is hand made (£65)
- £45 in delivery fees between the two shops 

Red was also delighted as for another £17 (of his own money) he got a big desk to use as a workbench and a side table on casters for his man cave

We could have spent less on the furniture, especially the coffee table as they had some for £20-30 and I know you can get cheap ones new in ikea too. But honestly the coffee table and side table are just gorgeous and really sturdy construction, made of solid hardwood and will definitely last way longer than buying something cheap and flimsy from ikea. I do think we got a really great deal getting two sofas for £120 too as they looked in really decent condition and very comfy. So yes, we could have spent less but we could have also spent waaaaaay more if we’d bought all new furniture - and the stuff we’d have bought new would have been much poorer quality too. 

Annoyingly there is an issue with two of the pieces of the conservatory not being the right size 😡 so it’s half built and now will be at least a week, maybe two til it’s done. So annoying as the bit they’ve done looks amazing and we are desperate to get it done! Red got a roll of cheap linoleum offcut for the floor and we got some really gorgeous wallpaper for the one wall. Need to check how much he spent on these but neither were overly expensive.

In nice news, my dad came to visit and told us he’s treating us to a panto visit when he next comes down mid-Dec 🥳 so kind of him as the kids really wanted to go again and it’s not cheap. 

Last night I had a night out for a friend’s birthday. She had gotten lots of Prosecco and beer for the table which was so lovely of her, so I only ended up spending £12.50 on one round for me and two friends, plus £8 for the taxi home (the bar is walkable from my house so I walked there, but it’s not a safe route to walk back alone at 1am!).

Oooh in other news, I’ve now cut all the fabric out for the kids’ Christmas PJs 😁 so will start sewing them in the evenings during the week.

Bluegreen143

Forgot another spend. Went to the theatre to see the Book of Mormon on Friday and it was a matinee performance. The ticket was a gift (from the friend I went with) about two years ago 😅 (it’s been rescheduled twice) and I wasn’t drinking so had no expenses there. But it cost me £12(!!) to park in the multi-storey for less than three hours. I’ve only been to evening performances before and have never parked there in the day, at night it’s a set rate of about £4 to park there all evening. For £12 I could almost have gotten a taxi there and back but never mind 🙄 still a very cheap and fun afternoon! 

Baileys_Babe

Lucky you going to the theatre on Friday, I love live theatre.
We are treating ourselves and my parents to the pantomime as part of our Christmas celebrations. My parents were so excited at the thought of going to the pantomime ☺

That sounds like you have done well in sourcing furniture and decorations for the conservatory. 

joedenise

Agree the furniture was a good buy.  Much better to have solid wood than new flimsy stuff from somewhere like Ikea.  Hardwood will last a lifetime if looked after.

KajiKita

Yaay for the furniture and boo to the conservatory not matching! (Do you have a timescale for when it should be resolved?)

Love that your dad wants to do something that your children are so excited about - a win-win   

KK 

Bluegreen143

Amazingly the builders have been yesterday and today and made a lot of progress! They are able to buy the missing part easily and it turns out the other part wasn’t the wrong size, two windows were in the wrong place and needed swapped 😂 Red noticed and texted them and they came back to look at it. 

Really pleased progress is being made again as our living room is somewhat cramped with two extra sofas in it! It’s lucky that I’m fairly minimal with furniture normally so we have room for them but it’s not an ideal look. 

Hoping it will be all done within a week, including Red doing the flooring and wallpaper. 

I need to update YNAB but I know we’ve overspend a bit on home stuff. It’s fine but it now means we don’t have enough left to order the stones for the garden til Red gets paid. And we’ve raided the holiday pot which is now empty 😱 from Jan onwards we will be redirecting everything we’ve been putting aside for the house/garden into the holiday pot as I think we’ll need to save at least £250 a month - we have five days away in May (only £100 paid) and a week away in July (the whole accommodation cost is paid already). Only in Scotland, not abroad, but there will still be food and entertainment costs plus petrol needed, on top of finishing paying for the accommodation. 

I also think we’ve undersaved for Christmas! Will need to work it out. As usual we end up depleting the pit due to kids’ birthdays first. We have agreed to cut back a bit and only fund certain presents from our Christmas pot - ourselves, kids, parents. Presents for siblings, friends etc are to come from our own personal money. I think this will help concentrate the mind a little as to who to buy for 🙈 I already agreed with my sister to not buy for her husband and she won’t buy for Red, but we will get each other a wee gift box of nice things, I love buying for my sister! 

TallGirl

Fab news about conservatory will be so nice when it’s all done would love to see a picture of the furniture I love second hand stuff and stuff from the top shop 

Baileys_Babe

In addition to the changes you have made regarding who the present pot could it be worth in future years to have a separate pot for your children's birthdays?