Debt free by 40

jokono

I just finished the 30 day yoga challenge!
I feel my body has changed, I'm stronger, more flexible and more ware of my posture and correcting it while walking or sitting - head over heart, heart over pelvis. I want to keep doing it, the Feb calendar is called 'Align' and seems to be focusing on posture so I plan to wake up at 6am most mornings and do it before anything else. This way I can run some days as well after dropping of Child2 at school. I also seem to have no more vertigo which is great, I didn't get to do the special exercises but maybe the regular yoga helped?

Yesterday I entered 23 postal competitions with free stamps. Fingers crossed I win the £120k 🤞

jokono

New month! I managed to wake up at 6 this morning and do a short yoga session before everyone else got up. Also went for a quick run before work. It makes such a difference to my day when I do this for me.

Start of the moth update:

Feb 1st
CC: £10,963
Savings: £2,539.50 (23% of the CC balance)

Jan 1st
CC: £11,108
Savings: £1,536.19 (14% of the CC balance)

jokono

Annoyed that I rushed into opening a new TSB account to get the £125 reward but forget to check the cash back websites first 

I was going to switch out my recent co op account but I see they have the referral bonus back on so I'm switching another one, I might find a friend to refer to co-op. 🤞

Child1 needs new glasses. Not completely unexpected, but they are 'special' glasses and cost more than I have on the kids pot... Good incentive to list all those bags of clothes on vinted!

Sarahwithlove

What yoga challenge are you doing? 

jokono

Sarahwithlove said:

What yoga challenge are you doing? 

I did 'Center' in January and started 'Align' now but haven't been as consistent this month.

Yoga With Adriene

jokono

Our mortgage fix expires end of April so we switched to a 2 year 0.14% tracker. It had a £999 fee but no ERC, while the similar no fee product had a 2-3% ERC, so we decided we would take this one just in case the BEBR starts going wild(er) and we need to fix. I was surprised to see we were offered products for 60% LVT, I thought they would use the original house price for product switches but we wouldn't be at 60% if they did.

Got the dog insurance renewal this morning, only £10 more than last year but I managed to find the exact same policy on the cashback compare for less than half, and when adding the cashback it actually costs a third of the renewal quote!!! 🤯

£25 came into my account a couple of days ago with a string of letters and numbers as reference, no idea where from and what for. I suspect it has to do with my first mortgage overpayment via Sprive. It's an app where you can connect to your mortgage and set up regular overpayments, there's a £16 reward still on TCB. My first £25 went out the other day and the app says that if I keep it to £25pm I will save £2.4k in interest and pay it off 6 months early. I will eventually start overpaying more, not sure when yet. Going to £50pm is very tempting as that will take a year off and almost £5k in interest. The payment still shows as pending in the app, so I thought maybe the extra £25 is showing as coming in until the money go out? No idea, I'll leave them in there for now, the reference might change to something more specific, I think I had transactions like that before.

WinterWarrior

That’s such a great saving with the overpayments. I’m hoping to knock 6 months off ours, but I was late to the party and have only been overpaying for just over a year. 

jokono

I feel late as well, we've had the mortgage for almost 7 years and this was the first overpayment.

I remembered what that £25 was - a lonely premium bond I decided to cash out. I still have a £1k batch in there, I'm still debating whether to leave it in or cash it out and keep it in savings. I'm expecting a bonus next month as well and the initial plan was to buy more PB but now I'm not so sure.

jokono

I had a rolling mobile contract with v!rgin for almost £12 with a huge amount of data. They texted to say it's going up by almost 20% so I've ordered a 15GB Lebara sim from the deals listed here on MSE. I work from home most times so 15gb should be enough when I'm out and about, I'd probably be ok with less but I can't tell yet as I've rarely used the wifi since having over 100gb per month with v!rgin. I'll keep an eye on my usage over the next few months and see if I can go even lower. 

I'm being paid tomorrow and everything is on track. I have set up my savings target a bit high for next month, I need to find an extra £100 to be able to reach them but I have two banks switches in progress so should be ok. One of them is a bit risky, it might not work, should find out in about a week or so.

jokono

Did the payday shuffle this morning, I hope I didn't forget anything! I switched a couple of accounts this month and almost forgot to move the tv licence money into one of the new ones where the DD will come out of.

My new lebara sim card arrived today already, should be porting tomorrow. The virgin mobile bill runs until the 4th or 5th, so good timing not to get into the next month.

Speaking of virgin, they sent an email last night, they want to increase the monthly payment by £15!!! I haven't called them yet but I will try and haggle before looking into other providers.

This morning I put out Child2's old clothes for charity. They've been gathering dust for months in my bedroom, waiting to be listed on vinted. I decided I did not want the hassle and a decluttered bedroom was more important now.

I managed to make an extra £191.99 in February (£397.22 2023 total) from surveys, cashback, selling, mystery shopping and a bit of interest. I have two switching fees to come in, one might not as I am not sure I qualify and the other might not pay until April. I will keep up with surveys and mystery shops, I also have a few more things to list on vinted once I get the motivation. 

I'll be back tomorrow with the current CC vs Savings totals