Prosperous soul embraces creativity & mortgage neutrality

powerspowers

Congrats on the mortgage Holmes and all the best on your journey to financial freedom. I don’t know much about SIPPs but it sounds like you’ve got a good understanding of your different options 🙂

MovingForwards

Happy new diary.
Plans are great and I'm confident in a few years you'll be settled into a routine and work out the best way of clearing your mortgage.

Sistergold

Happy new diary @savingholmes! 🥳

savingholmes

Thanks @powerspowers, Tahlullah @L9XSS MF and Dancing

Really looking forward to making a dent in the mortgage. Most of my previous married life we were on interest only mortgages - and still ran up huge debts. Now that's behind me and I can focus on paying off the mortgage, investing in my pension and growing my wealth. So I plan to track progress made each month through the normal mortgage payment - and not just OPs.

My cleaner has been today and has made the house look more respectable again. I did work out that what I paid her could knock 3 years off my mortgage term but keeping her is a priority for me. It did consolidate the importance of small wins though - so will definitely keep looking for opportunities to up my income or balance my budget other ways. I'd rather keep my cleaner than have an expensive holiday etc. I am currently paying for counselling too - but at some point that will stop and free up more £ in my budget.

Tomorrow I plan to start photographing things I hope to sell on FB, list them and hopefully start bringing a trickle of money in. I am hoping it will get addictive once I start - and that I may then even buy some stuff to sell on a profit. My Ex recently moved out - so I am left with the job of sorting through 30 years of stuff to see what I want to keep, sell, donate or bin.

I found a small tin of old coins in the shed so am currently going through them trying to split them by country and age etc to see whether any of them are worth anything. I also have some stamps - which if I grouped could be of interest on £t$y even if they wouldn't fetch much individually. I have lots of paintings and painted glass bottles that I should list on £t$y but that's been an area of procrastination for a while. 

I do use cashback sites - and am planning to do a bank switch now my mortgage has gone through in the hope of getting a bonus. Any other ideas welcome. I'd consider receipt scanning but don't plan to do surveys as I didn't have much luck with them last time I tried - and I'd rather spend my time clearing my house of clutter and then making more time and space to create (and sell art).

Hope you are all having a good day. Thanks to all those who have read - and especially those who post it does help.

BellaLasagna2018

Great plans @savingholmes! it is amazing how much difference even small overpayments make to the size of a mortgage! 

happymum37

Fabulous diary Ms Holmes! 

Best of luck.  You will get this down in no time....I would always pay into a pension if you can.... like you said the uplifting makes it worth while.  You can rejig if the interest rates change. 

Xx

savingholmes

Waves @Sistergold, @BellaLasagna2018 and @happymum37

DS is coming home for one night this weekend - so I'm going to make myself clear some of the stuff that got dumped in his room and make his bed!! I forgot last time he popped home and he made do with a weighted blanket and didn't say anything. I found a quilt from the loft and am now washing a cover for him so it smells fresh. I found a brand new sheet so put that on his bed. 

I have been sent a wishes form for my third pension so I can change the beneficiaries to just my kids. Will sort that asap. I have a call about sorting my will tonight - will have to handover £99. I emailed my life insurance company Tuesday - need to chase - to get the policy assigned just to me and get the beneficiaries changed for that too. Lots of life admin.

I have what I hope is the final bill for the divorce - but I have a question about the pension sharing bit so that could cost me more... It's bigger than I'd hoped. It came in at £738 - and I was hoping for closer to £500 but I asked some property questions that bumped it up... I am going to pay it on CC2 - which is giving me 0% on spends over £150 until at least April - and pay the £500 I'd budgeted for it off CC1 which has an end of March 0% expiry date. I'm going to try and sell stuff to make up the shortfall so I don't erode my EF / increase my overall debt.

I need to look into bank account switching too and see how quickly I can get that £ into my account.

EssexHebridean

Using the sale of stuff to make the bill cash-neutral is a really good plan - and such an incentive to actually get things listed too. You said that the paintings and bottles need listing on £t$y too - have you identified what is causing the procrastination on that? I'd say that using your creativity to pay for some of the divorce costs could really be quite symbolic! 

savingholmes

EssexHebridean said:

Using the sale of stuff to make the bill cash-neutral is a really good plan - and such an incentive to actually get things listed too. 

I agree. Trying to force myself to do it. Just been looking up potential list prices so can do a bit this lunchtime.

EssexHebridean said:

You said that the paintings and bottles need listing on £t$y too - have you identified what is causing the procrastination on that? I'd say that using your creativity to pay for some of the divorce costs could really be quite symbolic! 

You are a good motivator / coach EH! I like the symbolism. I think I have fear of rejection (i.e. pieces not being sold). I also have fear of under-pricing and then having regret later. Biggest of all - is I am unclear how to safely package and send stuff and what to charge for that element - and worry things could arrive broken. I am also someone who struggles to return things... However I'm sure 'an' actual sale would motivate me to sort it out and find a solution relatively quickly. We get so many deliveries here due to DD etc that we have plenty of packaging options for smaller pieces...

I've just had my final bill from green. It shows our elec usage dropped significantly when DD went to stay mostly in a hotel. I think that's because she liked to use a fan all day and all night!!! She's mostly home for about 3 weeks in December so my bill will go right back up - she's bought a replacement fan (blue hair eek emoji). It should however be offset by the fact DS moved out early October and Ex moved out mid November and is no longer leaving 4 screens and multiple computers on all day and night. I am £219 in credit - so hopefully that will cover most of Oct and Nov usage.

badmemory

Don't look at it as underselling, look at it as generating sales which will generate interest which will generate sales at a higher price.  getting the market interested is an important feature.