Two years and then downsize... DONE!

Sapindus

Oh yes, and holidays...

You can't get a sleeps three by the coast for much less than £500 a week these days (and really we need a sleeps four as we all need our own bed).  So it is camping this year!  £320 for eight nights in north Norfolk.  Could have done it cheaper but we are taking two tents so I don't have to listen to conversations about Minecraft all night. And then I've splashed out £50 on a day's canoe hire at the first campsite.  The teenager will have finished his GCSE's so we can go before the end of term, which doesn't make a lot of difference to the price like it might have done with a cottage, but at least the campsites might be a bit quieter.  Once again we will take the bikes as I can see some good bike rides which will leave the petrol in the car for a couple of days.  Need to get eldest son some cycle shorts though.  Once I have convinced him that wearing two pairs of pants will not have the same benefit.

South_coast

If "How will I move all my stuff?" is his biggest concern, then I'd definitely keep nudging - much easier to deal with than "How will I look after myself?" 🤣🤣🤣!

Sapindus

Mortgage stands at £33,575.96 this month.  According to the overpayment calculator, my monthly payment should be £262.  Because it is fixed at £436, I am automatically overpaying £174 every month on top of the 10% lump sum "maximum" they let me at the beginning of each year.  Which could mean paying it off in less than half the actual remaining term.  

Money saving continues...

Spotted another robo-investing deal on MSE, only £30 bonus for £100 invested this time but have done it anyway.

Having switched from Halifax to Nationwide earlier this year for £125, am now switching back to Halifax for £150!  I liked their online banking better anyway, I keep getting my PIN wrong in the little card reader that NW send you.  I still have my online banking with H because of the mortgage, so should be fairly plain sailing.  

The thrifty camping trip to Norfolk went very well and we cycled three days out of the eight, so worth taking the bikes.  Also made sure of the cheapest petrol via PetrolPrices.com, plus a bit of eavesdropping on the last night in the fish and chip shop where I learnt that a station down the road had just dropped their prices by a few pennies so filled up for the trip home and didn't see it cheaper anywhere for about the next week!  The cycle trips also meant we weren't going in as many places where you get tempted to spend money, which was good.

I have got used to Aldi and actually found some things I wasn't expecting like flax seeds and wholefood peanut butter.  Plenty of other things are a bit rubbish though, so I do end up back in Tesco from time to time, at which point my son observes that we seem to spend more across the two stores than if I'd just gone to Tesco.  Hmm.

Prolific surveys are paying better, if further apart.  At this rate I might even have to be careful not to earn more than the taxman's limit of £1000.

Thanks to MSE alerts on what a "good" fixed deal on energy actually looked like, I am fixed on 27% above the current cap with British Gas, which is a HUGE relief now I see what is coming.  Eldest son is doing well at work and was even talking more positively about moving out, but I'm not sure how much of a good idea that would be now... 

Finally, I have embarked on a mission to get bonus Yeokens by buying all the different products in the Yeo Valley range.  Of course this has had to be as MSE as possible so has involved keeping very sharp eye on the yellow-label shelves and complaining about an underfilled yoghurt pot which got me £5 in apology vouchers.  All I still need to get is ice cream and dessert and I will get 50 bonus yeokens for each and then 500 bonus at the end!  And then I will wait until the monthly raffle prize is something really mouthwatering like the armchair I didn't win last time, and throw the yeokens in the ring again.  Dreams are free... 

 

Sapindus

Note to self - do not switch two current accounts at the same time.  In all the confusion, I forgot the PIN number on my new Halifax account, and my Barclaycard chose that moment to stop working.  We don't know why (multiple attempts to unlock the PIN and calls to helpline) and I have had to order a new one.  No working payment card!  Until I got home and dug out the switching Virgin cash card which I never used.  I'm switching that one to Santander for the switch bonus.  The service I have just had from Virgin's helpline in sorting out the pending interest from the linked saver was so good I think I will reopen a Virgin account - when the two switches are done and dusted!

In other news I finally reported an empty looking property to youspotproperty.  It's in the middle of the village and I kept thinking maybe I should report it but surely someone else will have already.  Amazingly, it seems no-one has and I am getting a £20 voucher for doing so!  i am not seriously expecting the cash bonus if they end up buying it, but you never know.  I just feel a bit guilty as it has a huge garden which will probably get split off to build another house.

We are going to the cinema tonight as it is £3 a ticket for National Cinema Day, not much worth watching so it's an old Star Trek movie.  We don't get out much and the teenager is turning into a recluse.

And today I am planning a bike ride to a Waitrose an hour away to try and fill out my Yeo Valley multi-product mission!

Sapindus

Interesting times we are living in.  I suddenly realised yesterday that the golden rule of overpaying the mortgage is about to come into play. Overpaying is only worth it IF your money would earn less in a savings account.  And it looks like next spring interest rates may well be above the 3.04% I'm paying on the mortgage.  So what do I do with the £3200 I've got stashed ready for my next OP on 1st Jan?  If rates are still below 3.04% on Jan 1st but look to climb higher within - what timescale before I should hold on to it?  Well I have a couple of months to decide that one.

The Yeo Valley multi-product mission is complete.  30 mile round trip on the bike for a tub of ice cream (yes I took the cool bag) and then a plaintive email to Yeo to ask why I couldn't find desserts anywhere.  They replied they'd had to pull the product because it wasn't selling, and gave me the remaining code.  So I now have 1500 Yeokens waiting for a really yummy raffle prize to waste them all on!

The emergency cap on energy bills appears to work out almost exactly at what I fixed at with British Gas.  Funny that...

I grew an actual cabbage from the stem of some spring greens that sprouted in the compost bucket.  May repeat that experiment, it's free food after all.

Money saving was suspended temporarily when I went to a little food festival at a community woodland. Spent about £60 on workshops, food and camping, largely for the purpose of meeting people and recharging my "this is the good life" batteries.  In the same spirit spent £23 on online dating which is not proving quite so enjoyable. But at least I've tried. 

SuzeQStan

Hi Sapindus - enjoyed reading this - especially about the cabbage from your compost pile!  Tried to have compost here at ours but there is a rat problem in the village so had to leave it off.  When cabbages harvested this year left plenty of lower leaves and had a HUGE secondary crop of mini cabbages - about 6 or so per plant which are now about ready for secondary harvest. I was looking at the Yeokens yesterday but have never thought seriously about them - your post has made me reconsider! Thank you

savingholmes

I'd be keeping my money where it would earn the most interest.  This could include some in pensions.

Sapindus

I'm trying to remember just where in the craziness we had got to at the end of September... but anyway money-saving has continued through October.

Item 1 - a 3L pump-action vacuum flask.  DS1 and I both work from home and our coffee breaks don't coincide, so one of us would boil the kettle with just enough water, and then the other would come down and have to boil it all over again.  Now I boil two kettlefuls first thing in the morning and fill the flask, and that lasts us most of the day. The flask itself was cheap from ebay because it was broken (we mended it).  It's very very satisfying!

Item 2 - conker laundry detergent.  Can't remember where I read this.  I picked up a shopping bag full of conkers which was rather nice in itself having a proper reason to be doing so.  I skin and chop about seven at a time, tie in a small nylon mesh bag and soak in half a jug of boiling water until the water goes thick and soapy.  Then pour into the detergent drawer on top of a few drops of essential oil blend that's been sculling around in the bathroom cupboard for about 20 years.  No-one has yet complained that their clothes aren't clean.

Item 3 - switching my emergency fund into a new savings account which was MSE top pick but has since disappeared from the market.  Not sure why, but it's easy access so if rates go even higher I can switch it again. 

Item 4 - made the decision to put my mortgage OP fund into a one year fixed rate account.  Felt a bit scary but I have got used to watching the money disappear into the mortgage every Jan 1st, never to be seen again, so at least I'll get my hands back on this stash after a year.  The mortgage interest is 3.04% and I qualify for a credit union that's offering 4.61%.  Or at least, it WAS offering it when MSE pointed it out yesterday and I opened the account, but today their rate has gone down too - what is going on?  Maybe it's the Bank of England saying interest rates won't go quite a high as they thought next year.

Item 5 - lots of huge wild mushrooms.  Horse and parasols, the biggest was ten inches across. Even the boys have had to concede that I don't seem to be suffering any ill effects and start eating them themselves.

Sometimes I feel like I'm overdoing it and all the fun stuff has been sucked out of life and it's not even like I really NEED to do this. Am I just being selfish and greedy.  Not being able to do things with my teenager due to the pandemic has sort of merged sluggishly into not doing things with him because he just doesn't want to do things, even when I say we can do more than just going for walk if he'll just come out of his room, and ask him for suggestions what he'd like to do.  He's gone to his dad's this weekend which I'm glad of as it gets him out and does seem to perk him up a bit.  And I can't think what to get them for Christmas.  Last  year it was weights and new duvets.  My best idea so far for this year is an axe-throwing session!  I think it might be time to pause money-saving temporarily again.

savingholmes

Axe throwing sounds exciting 

Sapindus

Gosh has it really been a year?  

Recent highlights on this campaign have included getting the money back out of the fixed-rate account and paying off the rest of this year's overpayment allowance.  My mortgage is now under £25k.  The closer you get, the faster it disappears.

And I bought a new car.  I had £7k or so in the "new car fund" but couldn't find anything I liked as much as my 17 year old Peugeot.  Still, no rush as it only had 137k on the clock and I'd got rid of the previous one (yes, the same model) at 149k.  Then I spotted another one (yes, it's even the same colour) by chance on Autotrader, six months older but with only 15k on the clock. For £3500.  So I bought it.  This still seems like a good idea, please don't spoil it for me. 

Prolific Academic studies for the year ending 1st April earned me nearly £1000.  This year won't be as much, probably more like £600, but I take it all as a bonus.

I'd forgotten the axe-throwing was their Christmas present last year.  That's inspired me to think about a virtual reality gaming experience this time round.  There's one in Birmingham we could get to on the train.  For the rest of the family, I am going all simple and virtuous and getting LendWithCare vouchers.  The boys got me some last year and I genuinely enjoyed spending them and choosing someone's slightly grumpy-looking Thai granny to invest in.

DS2 has a shortlist of universities to apply to but seems unable to summon the motivation to finish his personal statement and was talking this morning about a gap year.  His mental health has to take priority over my house moving plans - plus he'd have a better chance of finding a job where we are now than where I want to move to.  Plus DS1 has been job-hunting all year so is really demoralised.  Paying off the mortgage is still a thing, even if I don't move, but the fixed rate comes to an end on Jan 31st. I've overpaid so much that even at the variable rate my monthly payments will go down, but if I'm thinking of staying here another year I probably ought to think about another fixed rate.  And then supposing DS2 changes his mind and goes to uni after all?

Things shift.  Still have a trajectory and a destination, but the route might be slightly different.