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!!