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.

misslolu

I thought I posted this a few weeks ago, ironic as i'm about to do my current update and just saw it hadn't been posted. Ah well, will do my update tomorrow instead.

Payday has been & gone and all bills have come out, it's nice to see the needle move a bit more on the debt. We've actually managed to pay the first CC off which is great logistically, as it leaves us with less cards to manage. Unfortunately these debts are much larger so will take a lot longer to pay off. I'll be putting any survey money I earn towards this & might play with roundups or tilly tidies just to add a bit of unpredictability or I might get super bored.

Some bits also need doing around the house which may have some negative impact on the debt or our savings; we need to replace a knackered tap, a leaky tap & 2 faulty switches, so we need a plumber & electrician. I've also noticed some seals going on some appliances so need to do some old fashioned DIY to set them straight. HMRC are yet to complete our child benefit application, the money would come in handy to offset some of the baby costs though i do also feel a bit guilty about spending it all so will likely try to put some away too.

A look at finances:

CC1 (Mine) -  5699 5499

CC2 (Ours) -  7709 7634

CC3 (His) -   624 0

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 14,032 13,400

S&S LISA -  15,226

Premium Bonds -   9,300 9,400

Personal Savings - 6,500 8,000

Joint Savings - 1,600

Total Savings - 33,626

beanielou

Good to pay off one CC.

misslolu

We've had the light switches done but the tap was faulty so i've been battling with customer services trying to get it replaced. I'm hoping to get that sorted ths week so we can get the tap done and dusted; it's been leaking for a while, so it's annoying that i've done all the bits, but it's not done yet. Child benefit also has a huge backlog; we applied in September and were told it should be done in 4 weeks but could be up to 12. Well, I called in at the beginning of this month, and they said I'm not likely to hear back until January next year!! Meanwhile i've just gotten my last full maternity pay which is sad, mostly because it means i'm already a quarter of the way through my maternity leave. It also means OH and I need to discuss how we do our finances from next month when I drop down to half pay, fun! Aside from that finances are looking healthy enough, but i'm aware that to make sure we stay in the black over the next few months we are likely to need to hold back on debt payments until my salary comes back again. Bills come out on the first so this is a snapshot of finances before then:

CC1 (Mine) -  5499

CC2 (Ours) -  7634 7692

CC3 (His) -   0 10

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 13,143 13,201

S&S LISA -  15,226 15,377

Premium Bonds -   9,400 9,500

Personal Savings - 8,000 

Joint Savings - 1,600

Total Savings - 33,626

Joint debt has gone up again because it's the card linked to our online accounts. Depending on how much we have in the current account I may pay extra just to stop it from going up too much. This will be the next card we focus on since it has the earliest 0% interest expiry date so it will be get paid down regardless, I just hope we don't sabotage ourselves by buying too much for the baby. The 0% will also almost definitely expire before we can pay it off fully so i'll need to find another 0% deal, ideally with 0% fee as ive already paid 3% for this. It won't be very savv if i need to pay it again so i'll need to take advantage of some offers i've seen.

In non-financial news its going to be DDs first Christmas! She'll be way too young to understand anything but its another milestone to hit & ccasion to celebrate. We'll be with some friends so need to start prepping for that, figuring out what to buy & the like. It's super exciting!!

misslolu

All bills have now come out of the accounts so I have a much better picture of the finances at the moment. We've been making a lot of steady progress on the debt, but because of the drop in my income, we've been considering almost halving the money sent to debt so we don't overextend and cause ourselves stress. This month isn't quite half pay so i can still contribute a decent amount, it's from next month things get a bit dicey. Luckily, i've had a look at my tax and i've paid way too much so I should get a decent refund right when we need it which is great! Current finances:

CC1 (Mine) -  5,499 5,299

CC2 (Ours) -  7,692 7,193

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 13,201 12,492

S&S LISA -  15,377 15,348

Premium Bonds -   9,500 9700

Personal Savings - 8,000 9,000

Joint Savings - 1,600

Total Savings - 33,626 35,650

Savings are looking great, though i'm expecting them to slow down as I drop from full to half pay. Debt payoff is feeling very slow and we have some long term expenses that are about to be renewed that will likely increase it by aabout £1k which is more than a month's debt payment. It's slightly frustrating but I guess this is what happens when you start a family. I'm still hoping for this debt to be gone and to either start or be on our way to saving for a deposit by the end of the year next year, but i'll do a post detailing all of that.

Obviously Christmas is coming up which also means some spending is also going to happen. We're keeping it small and cosy and are just going to chill with some good friends over the Christmas period. Hopefully this means we'll spend less on groceries overall but we're still going to be contributing to food so it won't be 0. I've got presents for my husband but not for my or their kid so need to do some shopping tomorrow when OH won't be working. Maybe because i've been stuck in the house (and we're not decorating this year since we're away), i've not been feeling so Christmassy so I'm super excited to finally do some shopping and get into the Chrismas cheer.

misslolu

Merry Christmas everyone! Hopefully you're in a food coma from tucking into a delicious Christmas lunch/dinner and surrounded by friends and family. Payday was early for Christmas so i'm just allocating the spending for the month and trying to make sure we're not wasting anything. Unfortunately as expected, the debt has gone back up due to annual expenses kicking in ( it's cheaper to pay yearly and pay the teensy amount of interest). I'm resolved to pay this new debt before it becomes interest bearing which may or may not be possible depending on other expenses, but we'll see.

CC1 (Mine) -  5,499 5,299

CC2 (Ours) -  7,193 7,126

CC3 (His) -   0 753

Total Non - Mortgage Debt - 13,201 12,492

S&S LISA -  15,377 15,348

Premium Bonds -   9,700 10,000

Personal Savings - 9,000 10,000

Joint Savings - 1,600

Christmas was lovely, I was the main cook, but let me tell you, cooking is way easier when you have minions *ahem* non-cooking people to help with the not so fun tasks like peeling potatoes & washing up haha. The kiddies are way too young to understand, but they had lots of fun playing with wrapping paper, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the festivities. We're still with our friends for a few more days but will be visiting other family soon, so looking forward to that too.

This is the last post of the year so it's only fitting that I end it witha review of the goals I set for the year and how well we performed.

Debt
The first goal was to pay off ALL outstanding debt, which stood at £14k. Seeing as we're in £13k of debt and bought a £10k car, we actually ended up paying around that amount off which I didn't think we would do. This proves it can be done, so for this year my plan is the same, pay of ALL oustanding debt. It will be much tricker now we have an extra family member and we'll need to consider costs for childcare but OH is getting a raise (and hopefully i'm getting a payrise) so that should help.

Savings
We ended up focussing a lot on debt rather than savings, so didn't end up saving so much as a family. Personally though, since I paid off my student loan & CC i've had a lot more cash to save for myself, allowing me to get to £10k in just.a few months. I'm planning to use some of that to help out family finances when I drop to SMP, that alongside the tax refund i'm getting, should mean OH doesn't need to fork out all his salary to keep the lights on.

Find a house
We remortgaged in May so we're coovered for the next 5 years, we chose a portable mortgage so we should be able to move it to any house we decide to move to. Obviously circumstances have meant we've had to push back on this for now, I don't think it would be fun or prudent to move while finances are still the way they are and with such a young child so we're likely delaying this for at least a year.

Baby
This is the one goal we smashed! Baby Lolu is now 4 months old and is such a lovely happy baby. Initially we had planned to give her a sibling ASAP but honestly I feel like we should space them out a bit (so there's at least 2 years between them). This means we won't start trying until this time next year so there will be no baby plans for 2026.

misslolu

We're into a new year and its so crazy just how different it is from the year before. OH & I have had our yearly talk about the plans we have for our family in 2026. Some things are loosely planned due to circumstances eg childcare, while some are a bit more fleshed out, eg housebuying plans. We're keeping it simple with just 5 main goals for the year.

Debt
As I said in my review post, the plan is to pay off as much debt as possible this year, so we have a good foundation for 2027. This will be helped by some payrises but also hindered by additional costs. We're aiming to pay off all debt so we're in a good position to fund other goals.

Savings/Deposit
Though we're delaying moving plans to 2027, that doesnt mean there's no prep work to be done beforehand. We'll likely be looking in the £300-400k range so that's a £40ishk deposit, £10k stamp duty & £10k fees. If we assume £30k equity, we're looking at an extra £30k to save in the meantime. We both have personal svings we're planing to put towards this, so maybe we're looking at 7-8k each from personal funds, leaving 14k for joint funds. We'll see how this goes.

Find a house
Since this has been delayed, we don't need to do much except look for 2026, this will help understanding finances a bit more. 

Do up current house
The house is definitely looking a bit worse for wear so i'd like to get it back to its best. I'll be doing this over the year to help with finances starting with a HUGE declutter. I've already started with clothes as we donated 5 bags to charity with more to come once my weight has stabilised. Some family members have also stored some items in my house which should be gone in december.The declutter should help bring out other issues with the house as well.

Enjoy new family!
It's going to be a totally new way of life, especially having a baby who will most likely be a toddler by the end if the year. I've already experienced just how fast time can go and i'm guilty of wishing the days away to help pay off debt. Now I have to be concious of enjoying the days even when they're long and neverending. I have plans to go out for more walks, baby groups & mummy meet ups. Even just reconnecting with family and seeing them more often would be a great start. There are a lot of heavy expenses we're expecting this year and with me not earning for about half of it, we're going to need to be savvy to be sure we remain on track with our goals.

powerspowers

Good luck with your goals in 2026 Lolu family!