Lolu's Mortgage Free odyssey

Jessy103

Congratulations 🎉

skint_spice

Congratulations, lovely news

misslolu

Thank you all for the well wishes! It's been an exciting time, even though it's been pricier than I thought. Now everyone has left & OH is back to work; things are more normal so I've been taking stock of our bills and seeing what's changed. Electricity has gone up due to boiling way more kettles a day than I thought possible for Little Madam's bottles; water has also gone up since we use a cold water steriliser that needs changing every day.

Groceries have gone up ever so slightly for baby stuff. We got a lot from friends & family, but they're all in random sizes and we've only just been able to start using things like nappies now she's not in the first size anymore. Also other baby needs like formula and toiletries like body cream, shampoo & some cute clothes I've not been able to resist. I'm quite lucky in that I got A LOT of clothes donated, but again, very few newborn and only slightly more 0-3 clothes, so i've had to buy & supplement those. But from 3 months her clothes are pretty much sorted except for any occasion type outfits, which i'm fine to purchase. Also more food purchased because i'm HUNGRY these days. I think partly because I could barely eat during pregnancy, I actually ended up weighing the same or even slightly less than I did before pregnancy just before she was born and i'm definitely slimmer now. Also partly because i'm breastfeeding in addition to formula, my supply has increased markedly now though thanks to a gruelling pumping schedule so we're having less formula bottles which is great for my pocket (not so much for my hunger haha).

A look at finances just before payday:

CC1 (Mine) -  5899 5699

CC2 (Ours) -  7644 7709

CC3 (His) -   781 624

Mortgage - 182,314

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 14,324 14,032

S&S LISA -  14,468 15,226

Premium Bonds -   9,100 9,300

Personal Savings - 5,000 6,500

Joint Savings - 1,700 1,600

Total Savings - 30,268 32,626

Savings are really increasing, which leads me to think about what more I could be doing with the money. I think I may need to open a cash ISA to get the best bang for my buck, so i'll be checking that out this week ( this is my personal savings which is why it isn't going towards debt). Debt hasn't really decreased much because of some Amazon purchases where we were taking advantage of some Prime Day sales for the baby, but that's fine since it's not interest bearing & i'd rather clear OH's CC which is. Ideally that will be cleared this month, and from next month we can focus on our CC which will start attracting interest from about this month next year. 

It's a bit frustrating that debt payoff has slowed down now i've paid off my own debt. OH is very content to pay it off slowly and enjoy his life, whereas I'd definitely like to take the pain and be done with it. Though now with extra costs on the horizon maybe this is the best way to approach it until we have a more solid idea of what's going to happen.