Lolu's Mortgage Free odyssey

misslolu

savingholmes said:

Glad you got your GP appointment and are on the mend.

I think ERCs and upfront charges are the main thing to watch out for on the mortgage - and the cost of redemption at the end.

I'm feeling much much better now, which is great. I did manage to fall down the stairs sometime last week but it looks like my knees are healing nicely, gosh I wish I wasn't so clumsy. The annoying part is that I was getting a good rhythm of going to the gym, but with those two issues I've not been able to go for awhile. This week I have some outings but I might just be able to go, I just need to force myself. I've also been wanting to start some early morning walks, but it's so cold I can barely muster the energy to go and make myself food left alone gallivant around outside in the proper cold, maybe when it gets a bit warmer.

Debt wise it's looking good-ish, I called my credit card provider about my interest-free deal ending and to ask how much I have to pay to not have to pay interest. I was given two figures, one an interest-free balance and the other my normal monthly balance that I have to pay off to avoid any interest. The issue is I have to pay off the monthly balance first because it's interest-bearing before the 0% balance, luckily I only need to pay just over £1000 for each but I'll get a more accurate figure closer to my deadline day because I've been paying off little bits with survey money. Part of the money was paid towards my service charge and I already have the money for that saved, so now I just need about £1000 to pay off my interest-bearing the month and I should be debt free. From now on I'll be able to pay off my credit card in full via DD since its just under £1k. 

It's interesting because I can definitely see how people get into a cycle of paying everything on the credit card and then paying it off as soon as they get paid, but then still needing to use the credit cards as they have no cash in their account. I only started using my credit card so much because of a cashback promo, before then I would only put unexpected large purchases on to give me enough time to re-budget the next month and put money towards it. Usually in the realm of £200-400. Now I am regularly spending £1000 plus because I have very little money in my main account, and unfortunately the end of the year is when the biggest purchases are made due to birthday Christmas and annual payments coming out. I'm not worried though, if I can get myself to have a quiet March I'll be back to normal and will only spend my credit card on big things again.

misslolu

Just a quick update on the debt, I called again to get my figures and was told my interest free balance was £1022, I knew from the last call my interest balance was £1k as well so as soon as I got paid I paid off £2k which should have killed any interest bearing amounts. Unfortunately, I seem to have confused myself as I forgot I paid something for a family member and they gave me the money to pay off my CC right away. That means that i've paid c.£3k instead of the £2k I thought and i'm not sure how much i'll need to pay next month to avoid paying interest so i'll have to call again.

OH's birthday came as well and I bought him something he's mentioned he's wanted for a long time. In truth, I probably couldn't afford it based on my current situation, but I saw it at such a good price, I decided i'd buy it anyways as a joint valentines/birthday present and stick it on the CC. That plus the existing CC means I have to pay just under £1k to my CC to clear the balance. I'm really trying not to spend on my CC's anymore now I don't need to and will only move CC spending once i've gone low in my current account. I'm thinking by the time I get March pay, i'll be completely out of debt and will be able to start saving/overpaying again.

On another note, does anyone have any good survey sites? I used to make good money with some but now i've noticed a lot of the payouts are getting harder and harder to achieve, and the surveys are very long for very little reward.

savingholmes

Best of luck with getting out of and staying out of CC debt. I find sometimes the only way is to stop using them altogether or literal immediate payoff if for points - but I found even that would drift. Trying to pay with debit card only as much as possible now.

misslolu

savingholmes said:

Best of luck with getting out of and staying out of CC debt. I find sometimes the only way is to stop using them altogether or literal immediate payoff if for points - but I found even that would drift. Trying to pay with debit card only as much as possible now.

Thanks! Yeah that’s what I’m trying to do now, unfortunately with paying off such a huge amount at once it means I’m already close to needing to spend on the CC after just under a week spending on my debit card. I’ve Totally cleared my easy access savings, so if I did have an emergency that needed cash I would need to wait for my premium bonds to be cashed in which might be too late. I’m going to allow myself £150 buffer in my account in case of an expected expenses but once I get there, I’ll have to start spending on my CC to avoid overdraft charges. If I can keep spends this month to under £700 (still have some major expenses to go) I’ll definitely be back to more reasonable CC spends by march’s pay.

savingholmes

Best of luck.

misslolu

Today is my statement day for my Second CC, £591 of charges on that plus £700ish on my main. I have £300 from my service charge savings and a bit more from it being a no council tax month which means I should only (only!) need to pay £850 towards the CCs to completely clear the balance this month. I'll still have to put things on the CC until I get paid, but if I can keep my spends down to £500 which is what I was doing before, I should be able to completely clear it, and not have to use it again by April 1st. We'll see about that though because I do have some holidays planned. I just need to be more diligent about paying off the CC every month and not relying on it for big purchases without having the funds to back it.

Finances aside i've been super busy these last few weeks. I'm the admin for a big group of people with a shared interest which is breaking into some smaller focused groups that i've also been called to be the admin of. Somehow that's morphed into me being the project manager for all the projects that are in flight so a lot to do. On top of that, i've finally gotten a big, slow & painful project out of the door at work after a false start early on in the week. Logged on this morning to see that i'd received an award from my department head for a successful release which was so surprising. My boss has been hard on me because of this project, but I have a sneaky feeling he nominated my team for the award which was nice.

I also have to maintain my professional certifications which is a lot of time, effort, and money that I just can't be bothered with every year, i'm thinking of letting that lapse because other people in my department don't seem to maintaining them. It's quite prices at £600+ a year now for all 3.

Mortgage OPs are not looking likely any time soon which is a shame, all survey and extra money is going towards my CC then my loan because I need to have them both paid off before the new tracker begins. I've really dragged on remortgaging and sending documents back because i've been so busy. Hopefully they can start working on them next week & we can make a move. Its looking like fixed rates are getting a lot lower though,so the case may be that I fix in May instead of continuing with this tracker, we'll see.

misslolu

Just finishing off what was a lovely joint valentines get together with some good friends of ours. We had a lot of bumps along the way but eventually everything came together and we had lots of fun. OH and I had some arguments which, though painful, were quite necessary to have. I've had a think about what he said and have realised my own fault in the issue, i'd like to have another chat about it in the coming days when we're both in a calmer frame of mind. I definitely have some control issues and need to let loose a bit more. On the other hand, I feel he is a bit too slack about certain things and is a bit too happy to let me make certain decisions. It's not in dealbreaker territory but it's not exactly the image I had of our relationship.

I've made some small credit overpayments to my CC as an attempt to get my credit down, i'll be paying it off in full this month with a view to stop using it fully after March's payment. Hopefully that means I can start saving money, I haven't saved anything (except for service charge) since August which is quite appalling, i've managed to continue investing within that time so not all doom & gloom.

Mortgage wise, apparently people are seeing fixed rates drop to below 4% while my tracker currently has me at 4.99% ☠️. Luckily my fix doesn't end yet, but i'm seriously considering if I want to continue when the rates are so high. It's thought that next month they'll vote the base rate to go up by an additional .5% before starting to drop it later on in the year, that's almost as high as the SVR with my current lender. I so wish i'd just gone for another year on my initial fix, would have saved me a lot of heartache.

misslolu

Payday was a few days ago so had a proper look at money for the first time in a long time. I was able to pay off my CC in full next month and, with careful planning, should only need to use it for 1 more large purchase this cycle. If I can stick to that, my last monthly payment will be April 1st and i'll go back to only using it for larger/unbudgeted expenses and will stick to using cash from now on. I was able to save £50 this month (not including my £300 monthly investment) and next month i'm hoping to start saving an extra £500 a month towards all my big plans for this but mostly next year. If all goes to plan by the end of 2024 I should be married with my first kid, which is kind of scary to say out loud. But weddings and children need money so definitely need to save for that, the bonus is that for once, it's not just me saving and i'll be seeing the numbers go up much quicker.

Now i'm at a bit of a crossroads about my money plans for the future, I have:

Savings
- Premium bonds which are my 3 months emergency savings.
- S&S ISA which are my retirement bridging funds.
- Sinking funds for my annual/less regular bills like insurance & service charge
- General savings for holidays etc

Debts
- Mortgage
- 0% loan for dental work
- Student loan (4.5%!!)

Future Plans
- Wedding 
- Honeymoon
- Nursery/childcare
- New House

How do people decide what to focus on? Should I do the student loan since the interest is now so high? Do I do the mortgage instead even though my rate may drop? Should I completely ignore the future plans until my non-mortgage debts are paid off? Confused.com!

misslolu

*next post may be a bit triggering for mental health*

I started a new contraceptive pill last year after the one I was previously on doubled my cramps & gave me terrible mood swings. I've always had spotty mental health but realised I felt much more balanced and normal everyday rather than the random mood swings I used to after I started. I've been on it almost a year now and i'm reluctantly starting to see that it no longer has the effect it used to have on my mental health. 

I'm struggling with motivation, only getting out of bed when i absolutely have to, doing the minimum at work and just now OH said something fairly innocuous on the phone that meant I had to bite myself to stop bursting into tears. He couldn't deal with my change of mood so pretended to go to bed. I just seem to be really struggling with living and participating in life at the moment and every negative thing that happens around me pulls me even further inside. I think i'll just stop there to prevent this from getting too depressing. Hopefully, I feel better in the morning.

Jessy103

I hope you feel better misslolu. Please do speak to your doctor though. I recently stopped taking antidepressants after about a year after having a bad time and they really did help. Look after yourself ❤