Halving our income and still aiming for mortgage free!

powerspowers

Congratulations on your Masters! That’s a huge achievement x

smetf

Thanks Powers! 
I had a couple of extensions whilst going through resigning from teaching and home educating the youngest so it feels like it's been hanging over me for a while. 

smetf

Positives this month:
Got a merit in my Masters - chuffed to bits with that.
Youngest has started college, it's not plain sailing and she hasn't made it in every day but flexibility of new job means I can support her as needed.
Paid 5k off mortgage this month. It has knocked the EF but on balance seemed the best option, we are still managing to save a minimum of 550 a month so have paid the max 10% off before it resets in mid October. We'll be remortgaging at end of 2023 so would like to pay off 10% again
Looking at increasing OP from Nov to 333.81 a month (nice round payment of 750).

smetf

Aims for this month are to get back in the survey habit and set up the new mortgage payment for November. 
I am hoping to build the EF back up by Feb, and then work on hitting the max 10% OP by next October.

Generally a fairly frugal start to the new academic year. 

smetf

In a flash of impulse I ended up setting the new mortgage payment as £800, a £383.81 OP, still means minimum savings of £500 a month so feels ok.

smetf

First new OP went out of 383.81. 
My signature playing up - first reset to before July and now can't get spaces in it. Very odd.

Anyway, working on building the savings back up for the next few months has got off to a good start as I had some unexpected holiday pay and a tax rebate for one of my previous roles. I am still owed holiday pay for another role but it's taking ages to sort - be good to have it before Christmas!

Got a really busy (although not particularly spendy) November ahead so will see if I manage to build up some surveys to make a little extra OP! 

smetf

Made a little OP of 8.96 to get to a nice round 80,500. So looking forward to the mortgage starting with a 7!

Had a lovely weekend away, paid for it ages (pre-Covid) ago and some very good organisation by my cousin meant no costs at all, everything was already paid for and there was enough in the kitty to reimburse us for travel too!

Next busy bit is a few back to back marathons, raising funds for a great cause and trying to ignore feeling really nervous about it!

smetf

Feels like we've got a reasonable handle on saving, EF back up to 10k.
Dec OP made of 383.31 and some money from surveys coming in. Reckon hitting 10k for OPs this year is within reach.

This month's payment means our mortgage has dipped under 80k and starts with a 7 which feels very positive.
Haven't done any Christmas shopping/ prep yet but family chats about charity donations all done so the present list is slightly reduced again. 

Aims for the rest of the month:
keeping going with surveys and making £15 of payments to take us up to 10k for 2022
Christmas food shopping - combo of Aldi and saved up m and s vouchers
Christmas present shopping - keep it local as much as possible and sensible!
Make charity donations - we're thinking of splitting between our local charity that supports the homeless and foodbanks

smetf

A small OP of £7.55 today - cashed in Prolific and Curious cat (that has been v slow getting to £1...). 
Should be able to hit the 10k mark soon and that'll do for this year!

Next steps to think about next year's target - I'd be very happy to get it down to starting with a 6 by the end of 2023 but that feels ambitious!

smetf

A small final OP of 7.11 - had a good blast of Prolific surveys. Brings us to a nice round OP in 2022 of 10k.
Extra paid work in 2022 has made a huge difference, most months I was earning around 60 % of my teacher salary so not the halving of joint income we were facing when I started the diary.
Our outgoings have stayed fairly constant, WFH, combined with less stress and less hours has meant far less impulse spending. My OH has also had quite a few shopping vouchers from work and we've used them for a mix of essentials/ food shopping and treats which has helped.