Lolu's Mortgage Free odyssey

powerspowers

Sorry you are struggling Lolu. I agree with speaking to your doctor. One thing I do when I’m struggling is list 3 good things that happened each day, even tiny things. So today, I’m glad that I have a warm house, I managed to do some maths and I sold something on Vinted. Can you find 3 good things today? 

Keep talking xxx

misslolu

Thank you @Jessy103 & @powerspowers I think I was having a particularly bad day that day which i'm thankfully out of. I can see in general though that i'm not quite as happy and settled as I was a month or so ago. I'm feeling an annoying amount of anxiety at the moment which is stopping me from doing somethings I need to do. I've been putting off calling various agencies on the phone for instance which I know is not good as it's really delaying me making some plans.

I think i'll be okay though, I went for a lovely weekend away and felt really refreshed and calm, hopefully it carries over into the rest of the week. 

Money wise, i'm not doing so well. I'm not sure if i'm overly optimistic or just not good at identifying non-standard expenses because at the moment i'm flat broke with more than 2 weeks until payday. I'm actually in minus but I owe a parent money so that's currently buffering my account so back to my CC again. I know for sure i'm unnecessarily pressuring myself because I don't want to pay any interest but I feel really annoyed that i'm paying money for essentially nothing. The money i've been paying down my CC is finally going down though, from about October to now i've paid at least £1k a month with February being the highest at £2k. Next month will only be £500 and the month after even less.

I can't wait to start actually saving money!!!! I have such huge plans for next year, I really want to be able to fund them with cash and not credit from both me & OH which should set us up well as we start our life together.

powerspowers

Glad you are feeling a bit better. It’s easy to feel in a bit of a spiral if you’ve been feeling out of sorts and have a bad day. Keep an eye on how you feel though. Hopefully things will pick up but it’s easier to stop yourself from feeling worse than to pull back out of the mire when it gets bad. Xx

misslolu

Thanks @powerspowers I definitely feel I was just going through a low period as i've perked right back up now. It's something i'll keep an eye on in future and i'll let my SO know to look out for it and let me know so I can manage it better. Life feels doable at the moment, i'm not overly optimistic but i'm hopeful that all goes well and according to plan over the next few months. OH had a bereavement a while back and is away for a few days to attend the activities, I miss him lots but between that and work I know I may not see him for a while, which is sad.

Financially, I read the plans I had a few months ago for this current period and wish I could have nudged myself in the back and told myself to get a bit more serious. I'm still spending on my CC due to more "unexpected" expenses popping up here and there but the issue is, these expenses are genuinely unexpected but I do think I have more control over them than I like to admit. The good thing is I have a bonus coming through in this pay which I will use to pay the full balance of my card which is c.£600 and use the rest to start/bulk up some funds. The bonus isn't huge but i'll definitely not need to use my CC after, i'll stick to using my main account for that.

Apart from my CC, I have my dental loan which is actually just ticking over nicely, since it's 0% I don't really think i'll bother with it and will focus on OP'ing my mortgage and student loans. Numbers look like this:

CC - £632
Loan - £2458
Student Loan - £10,296
Mortgage - £184,994

Total Non - Mortgage Debt -  £13,386

Total Debt - £198,380

It'll be interesting to see if I can get the NMD under £10k with just normal and survey overpayments, that would do me quite well.

Savings wise it's only just starting to pick up, I've started saving into PBs again and have about £6,500 in there, I also have about £5,500 in my S&S ISA which takes me very close to be NMD neutral. I expect in 3 months, I actually will be, which will be a nice but inisignifance milestone to hit. 

Nothing else to report!

savingholmes

Hope you are feeling better. Another one to say no shame in taking anti-depressants if you need to and/or getting counselling. Doing more exercise and getting out in nature can also help.

powerspowers

Glad to hear your feeling better and good job in being almost debt neutral! Agree it makes sense to keep that as savings if the debt is 0% or student loan. 

I do OP my student loan but not by masses, I just like to see it go down 

misslolu

savingholmes said:

Hope you are feeling better. Another one to say no shame in taking anti-depressants if you need to and/or getting counselling. Doing more exercise and getting out in nature can also help.

Thanks @savingholmes I will definitely consider that if need be, I still feel pretty good at the moment, long may it continue.

powerspowers said:

Glad to hear your feeling better and good job in being almost debt neutral! Agree it makes sense to keep that as savings if the debt is 0% or student loan. 

I do OP my student loan but not by masses, I just like to see it go down 

thanks @powerspowers yeah i'm trying to get my savings to 6 months of expenses + 1 month of incidentals in premium bonds (about £10k), then i'll be happy to focus all extra cash on paying down debt. Right now i'm still doing a mix.

Payday has come and gone including the bonus so currently figures look like this:
CC - £0
Loan - £2,372
Student Loan - £9,918
Mortgage - £184,655

Total Non - Mortgage Debt -  £12,290

Total Debt - £196,945 (down by £1400)

PB - £6800
S&S ISA - £6320

Total Assets - £13,120

My assets are more than my non-mortgage debt which is pretty nice to see. It's also interesting to see that I feel a bit different about my student loan now that it's gone under £10k. I've calculated that i'll definitely pay it off over the next 4 years assuming I stay on this salary or earn more and now the interest rate has gone up to 5% i'm a lot more interested in paying it off. It's a much quicker win than mortgage payoff and the interest rate is very similar to mortgage rates at the moment. People talk about not paying it off because of the protection when you're not earning but honestly there's no way I don't pay this off unless I never work again, so may as well pay it off and avoid the interest right? I'm considering putting survey payments towards this at the moment as well as an extra £100 or so a month, but it will depend on how high the mortgage goes and how much I have spare from that.

Also OH may be moving in in the next few months, I calculated that he would only need to contribute £400 for me to break even so any additional money he brings will be muchly appreciated. Lots of plans before the end of the year so I have a feeling my lofty savings plans will not be met. The CC being gone really helps financially though, all money is now mine to spend and not spent on a CC cycle, i'm kind of sad that all the bonus went to debt and I couldn't even treat myself. Ah well, plenty of time in the future.

savingholmes

Lovely to see your CC debt gone. You sound like you have a good plan of action. 

Have a lovely weekend too.

misslolu

Remortgage day is here, I've gotten correspondence from my new mortgage provider that my mortgage has completed and my old mortgage provider has said that my mortgage has been paid in full, the end of an era. Unhappily I've seen that my payments will now go up two hundred pounds a month which is not the best, but actually a lot better than I was expecting looking at the current interest rates. Annoyingly though my mortgage payment was still taken out by my old provider, so will have to wait to get a refund on that, at first I was thinking of using it to overpay the mortgage when my next payment is due, but now I'm thinking of putting it towards my student loan since that seems to be the debt I'm focusing on the most. That would probably reduce my payoff date by at least 4 months, so looking at mid instead of late 2028 based on current payments only. I'm hoping that with survey & cashback money I can get that gone by the end of next year.

Also, i'm trying to help OH form a plan of attack with some of his debt but I have a niggling feeling i'm getting it wrong and will cost him money. So he has CC debt of about £2k (23%)and an educational loan of about £5k(15%), his CC provider has sent him an offer of a balance or money transfer up to his current limit of £10k. So i'm thinking that if he gets a £7k money transfer (5.9% for 2 years) pays off the loan and CC he'll be able to pay everything off at once, and only have a flat 5.9% interest rate on his card. He's planning to put at least £500 a month towards it, so should be gone in a year without too much effort. It also frees up some immediate cash flow since he doesn't have to focus too hard on paying down the extortionate interest rates.

Update: talked to him and he's not seen anything wrong with the plans so we're going ahead.

misslolu

We went ahead with the plans, first interest has come through as £29 which i'm assuming is still a hangover from the lower balance/higher interest. It'll be interesting to see what the next lot of interest is now that the balance is higher but the interest is much lower. Also I must have misheard when bf spoke, he's actually trying to put £1000+ a month into the card, so it will be paid off much faster than I first thought. The tradeoff is he's not able to pay as much towards expenses which I totally understand, especially since it's a short-term thing. At this point, he's all but moved in, he only goes back home at the weekend where he has a job that's much closer to his own house than mine. It's been nice having him, but my bills have definitely gone up.

It's getting quite exciting at the moment though, we're having many serious conversations about our future and the plans we need to put in place to reach certain goals. One of my major goals is to be pregnant before the end of next year, but i'd never dream of having kids with someone i'm not married to. He knows this and has said he's getting himself together to do the needful in future, so I'm just here anticipating & waiting.

In financial news, I got the mortgage payment back and like I planned, paid most of it straight off towards my student loan payment. The rest i've used as the beginnings of a wedding fund. I have it in the back of my mind that if we're thinking to marry sometimes next year, we really only have a year or so to save so may as well get ahead.

Figures look like this now:
Mortgage: ? (will know when i've made my first payment)
Loan - £2,287
Student Loan - £9,245

Total Non - Mortgage Debt -  £11,532 (down £758)

Total Debt - TBC

PB - £7150
S&S ISA - £6774

Total Assets - £13,924 (up 800ish)

I've made some decent progress, though not knowing my mortgage figure yet is annoying. I've decided to split survey money between wedding savings & over payments then once we get closer i'll divert my longer term savings into this.