Lolu's Mortgage Free odyssey

misslolu

OH has now gotten all of his pay for the month and was luckily still able to contribute to savings, that means that overall, our net worth and assets did go up for the month, but the debt may not be close enough to drop to the 22s next week which is something I was really hoping for. Ah well, there's always the next week.

A look at finances today:
(Mine) - 898 735
CC2 (Ours) -  4,601 4,902
CC3 (His) - 8,573
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,609
Student Loan - 7,539 7,293
Mortgage - 185,399 185,175

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 23,406 23,112
Total Debt - 208,805 208,287

S&S LISA - 8598
Premium Bonds - 7,775 7,825
Joint Savings - 4,903 5,302

Assets - 21,725

Things are getting better money-wise wise though, the payrise & NI cuts means I feel much more likely to not have to go into savings this month, even with some larger expenses coming my way. Also, it looks like we'll be non-mortgage debt neutral again in the next month or so which always makes me feel better about our finances and expenditure.

I've noticed that i'm still slacking a bit on the mortgage overpayments, but for good reason. The changes in OH's pay meant that we've been a bit low in the joint account and even had to borrow from savings a few times to cover some DD's. From Friday, that should no longer be a problem as his pay stabilises again, but it's been a dodgy few weeks.

I'm really looking forward ti paying off my first debt and snowballing that into the next one, I feel like that will be confirmation that all my budgeting is starting to pay off. My current trajectory is somewhere alone July 1st, but that means I'll be behind my plans for the year. We'll see how that goes.

misslolu

Oh no @killerpeaty so sorry, i missed your message. To be honest I think it's just me being a bit optimistic about how much I can save at the moment. OH moving in has helped with the cost of living but I do feel like I'm slightly worse off overall and I haven't been settled enough to let it sink in. I feel like I say this about the same time every month but finances are looking OK so far even with an unexpected payment coming through and OH's birthday coming up. I've decided to allow myself to take from savings where necessary and give myself some breathing space, especially since I do add more than I take out each month and I know I'm not a frivolous spender.

A look at the week's finances:

(Mine) - 735 727
CC2 (Ours) -  4,902
CC3 (His) - 8,573 8,320
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,609
Student Loan: - 7,293 
Mortgage - 185,175

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 22,704
Total Debt - 208,026

S&S LISA - 8,953
Premium Bonds - 7,825
Joint Savings - 5,300

Assets - 22,078

Looking at the figures we've dropped into the 22's Woo!! That's our first step in our bid to clear out £11k worth of debt this year. It also looks like we'll definitely hit debt-neutral again next month which is exciting but also feels a bit pointless since a lot of that will be going towards our wedding. I guess our main goal will be to see if we can get back to debt neutral by the end of the year which should be a nice challenge.

misslolu

Another week, another update. All the interest has now been added where necessary and thankfully it doesn't look like we'll be going over £23k again which is great news. It does mean that apart from a few survey payments, we won't haven't really reduced the debt which is a bit depressing to think about. I don't know about you guys but surveys payments have really dropped these days. I remember when I used to get £100 a month at least, that would really be helpful right now.

A look at the numbers: 
(Mine) - 727 700
CC2 (Ours) -  4,902
CC3 (His) - 8,320
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,609
Student Loan: - 7,332
Mortgage - 185,168

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 22,888
Total Debt - 208,049

S&S LISA - 9,125
Premium Bonds - 7,825
Joint Savings - 4,800

Assets - 21,750

Joint savings have gone down a bit as we've had to pay out some things for the wedding. No worries about that, since that's what they're there for. Part of what we paid for was an engagement photoshoot which came slightly out of the blue. I'd actually forgotten that i'd booked it and she reminded me a week in advance. OH and I had to scramble to find outfits to wear but I think we ended up looking pretty cute, apart from the fact that I forgot my fancy shoes and had to do some shoots in boots *sigh*. Also we ended up going to Costco for the first time as OH qualifies working for the Civil service. I had to bring him with me which meant going on Sunday when it was SUPER packed and busy which I'm never doing again. On one hand we got lots of the stuff i'd usually do a big quarterly shop for in bulk, which should take me to the end of the year. On the other hand we spent 5x what we usually would, I'm just hoping it shows as a reduction in costs for the rest of the year.

Apart from that, not a huge amount of movement in the past 2 weeks which is why i haven't really updated, it's payday and bill day though this week so we should see some nice movement. Roll on payday!

misslolu

It's payday & bill day this week and at this point I think I've moved all but two of my DDs to bill day. I usually only do them when I remember since there is a billing window where I can't change them, hopefully I'll read this next week after the billing window ends and change the last two. the best thing about all bills coming out early is I can more accurately see what we have for the rest of the month rather than forgetting £200+ of bills yet to come out which has definitely stung me before.

Finances for the week:
(Mine) - 700 525 
CC2 (Ours) -  4,902 4,657
CC3 (His) - 8,320
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,610 1,526
Student Loan - 7,331
Mortgage - 185,175 184,913

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 22,612
Total Debt - 207,525

S&S LISA - 8,598 9,364
Premium Bonds - 7,825 7,875
Joint Savings - 4,800 5,292

I should get a decent survey payment next week to get me into the £400s in my CC debt which I'm super excited about. It means I should definitely be on track to pay it off in this half of the year, so I can move to the next bit of debt and hopefully pay that off this year before moving to student debt. 

On another note, the savings will be going down again in a few weeks as we start paying some of the schedules for payment of wedding items. I have missed feelings about this as although I know the major aim of the fund is to save for the wedding, I've really gotten used to it growing every month. I'll have to get over that or I'll just annoy myself.

misslolu

In a slightly annoying turn of events, I've accidentally paid my CC bill twice. What happened was, the DD didn't come out on the first like it was supposed to so i quickly paid it to avoid late fees. Unfortunately, it came out on Monday, so I got billed twice. As much as I would like to keep it in there, I definitely don't have enough extra this month to absorb the costs. What I'll probably do is just use the card for some expenses, that'll also help offset some interest costs (probably less than £5 altogether tbh). In other news, I did get the survey payment which has decreased my outstanding balance by a decent amount. 

Finances for the week:
(Mine) - 525 332
CC2 (Ours) -  4,657
CC3 (His) - 8,320 8,062
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,526
Student Loan - 7,331 7,085
Mortgage - 184,913

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 22,612 21,662
Total Debt - 207,525 206,575

S&S LISA - 9,364
Premium Bonds - 7,875
Joint Savings - 5,292

Total Assets= 22,081

So it turns out that we're getting a bonus in the next payday but they can't tell us how much till the official documents come out to shareholders. I'm hoping it's c. £1k take home like it was last time as that would definitely do a bit of damage. Last time OH and I said we'd use our bonuses as the foundation of our wedding fund which was great as it definitely kickstarted it, but I felt a bit sad that I couldn't put anything towards debt. This time i'm thinking that I'll take 20% for my debt and general savings which should help. I also got a £100 win in PB's which is lovely, the £50 i put in monthly seems so small compared to the £150 I used to put in, so any win feels like I've put in more than I can usually afford. Oh yes, and savings are higher than debt again...for now lol.

misslolu

We've gotten word on our bonus amount and it looks like it's going to be better than I thought. Rather than £1k it's actually more likely to be around £2k once deductions are in play. I spoke to OH about the money and he was of a very different opinion of how we should spend the money. So instead of my initial plans I'm actually going to end up spending (kinda) most of it. The new plan is, I'm giving OH 25% (he only wanted 10% but I insisted) I'll put 10% in joint savings, pay whatever extra I need from my CC (likely £150ish). That means I should still have about 55% of the money left to put into my mini savings, and maybe spend a bit on myself for once. 

Mine - 332 322
CC2 (Ours) -  4,657 4,673
CC3 (His) - 8,062 
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,526
Student Loan - 7,080 7,121
Mortgage - 184,913

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 21,704
Total Debt - 206,617

S&S LISA - 9,364 
Premium Bonds - 7,875
Joint Savings - 5,292

Total - 22,531

Also instead of putting more expenses on the card, I've decided to take this weekend's bigger spend from my mini savings and only put my smaller weekly spends on my card. I don't want to pay any more interest than i absolutely have to, and the mini savings had enough in it to fund them. All in all it was a lovely weekend celebrating some of my closest friends birthdays, even though it was a bit pricey!

misslolu

Once again I'm flying low in my current account, but I'm aware that it's been caused by me wanting to absorb all costs into my monthly spend rather than going into my mini savings. I think it's a mental thing because I specifically save and don't report on these mini savings because they're for incidental costs that come up that I don't feel warrant sinking funds of their own. Things like training fees for my group sport or professional fees for my certification. They're usually less than £100 each, but if too many come up at once, or I have an unexpected expense, I can't absorb them into my normal spending like I think I can.

Mine) - 332 290
CC2 (Ours) -  4,673
CC3 (His) - 8,062
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,526
Student Loan - 7,121
Mortgage - 184,913

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 21,762
Total Debt - 206,675

S&S LISA - 9,364 
Premium Bonds - 7,875
Joint Savings - 5,292

Total = 22,531

What you'll notice is that instead of spending on my card, I've added no extra costs to any CC. This is because I totally forgot to use the other cards as I instinctively reach for apple pay on my phone which is connected to my debit card. This is great since we have no extra credit, but not so great for my mini savings. Luckily, apart from one more commute to work next week, I shouldn't need to spend anything else and both accounts should stay in the black until payday. I also randomly checked my TCB as I wanted to check the best cashback offers for something I wanted to purchase and found about £20 in there. That's swiftly been dispatched to my CC which I'm very excited about. The payoff date is coming soon!

misslolu

Yesterday was payday and the bonus has come through so I've started organising my finances to make sure I can pay my CC off next week! We're going on a road trip this easter and trying to be as MSE as possible. It's our first holiday since August, so it's definitely been a while and we really need the rest. 

Mine - 320 148
CC2 (Ours) -  4673 4,453
CC3 (His) - 8,062
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,526
Student Loan - 7,121
Mortgage - 184,913

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 21, 310
Total Debt - 208,805

S&S LISA - 9,364 9,596 
Premium Bonds - 7,975 8,125
Joint Savings - 5,292 5,000

Part of the bonus money will be going into the holiday, so there will be no extra debt added on through that. Next week is bill day so we can see where we're down to debt-wise. I'm really hoping we go down into the £20s, another big milestone! I've put some of the remaining money into my mini savings, added some to my Premium Bonds, put a small bit in our joint current account and have sent some to OH. I have a surplus of about £250 that i'll use to do some shopping this weekend and that should be it. I think i've managed a good balance between spending and saving.

misslolu

OMG I'm super excited because....I've just paid off my first debt!!!! 2 months early as well. It's been a long slog as I've not got a huge amount of disposable income but I'm just so happy that it's finally been paid. No time to rest on my laurels as I've still got a good amount of personal debt left to tackle before OH & I get on board for the joint debts.

Mine - 148 -2
CC2 (Ours) -  4,453 4,423
CC3 (His) - 8,062  8,054
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,526 1,458
Student Loan - 7,121 6,525
Mortgage - 184,913 184,661

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 20,460
Total Debt - 205,121

S&S LISA - 9,364 9,726 
Premium Bonds - 7,875 8,125
Joint Savings - 6, 292 4,500
 Total - 22,351

I'll be moving swiftly onto my portion of the debt on OH's CC which is about £1200 and should take less time to clear as interest is only 5.9% compared to 23% on my other CC (criminal, but the low amount means i didn't pay too much). I wasn't paying anything to this card so unfortunately, there's nothing to snowball onto this payment. All I'll have to supplement will be survey payments and bonuses, as usual. At my normal pace, this should take about 8 months to pay off, but I'm going to try and get it done by October 1st which is in 6 months time. 

Something else I usually forget is that a bonus also means a bit extra going to my student loan. It's only a little bit in the grand scheme of things but it's a little bit less to pay interest on, which is always welcome. That along with the other debt payments has meant that we've gone way down the 20s, so it's been a really good month for debt payments overall. I'm just hoping that in the coming months without many bonuses or expected extra income that we can keep up the momentum.

misslolu

Some deadlines for the wedding have come up in the past few weeks which is why the joint savings amount has been fluctuating as we put in and take money out. I can't wait for all of it to be over, both for money's sake and also my piece of mind!

CC2 (Ours) -  4,423 4,111
CC3 (His) - 8,054 7,501
Medical Loan (Mine) - 1,458
Student Loan - 6,525 6,561
Mortgage - 184,661

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 19,631
Total Debt - 204,292

S&S LISA - 9,726 
Premium Bonds - 8,125
Joint Savings - 4,500 4,600
Total - 22,051

The last of the major bill payments have now been made, so I don't exect to see any large movements until the next payday. It feel's like the 19s are agonisingly close but I feel that even with a bumper survey payout, it's a bit too much to ask for to get there this month. However, it does mean that next payday, it's very likely we go deep into the 19s and potentially the 18s, yay us!

Away from the financials, I fear i'm not in the best place mentally. I'm trying to reach out to friends more and get busier but it's not seeming to work as well as i'd hoped. The wedding is putting a lot of stress on both me and OH, there have been some fallings out and disputes between our families that have put us on edge.The worry is these issues seem to run deeper than just the wedding, so may continue until after. *sigh* feels like life was much simpler before all of this.