Prosperous soul embraces creativity & mortgage neutrality

boxofpaws

Another vote for independent specialists. I really trust mine. The job recently that was £1200 would have easily been double at the Merc dealer. Plus I mentioned my annoying twisted seatbelt (refittted incorrectly, needed a runner to be dismantled with a special tool, impossible to do myself), he did it in 10 minutes and refused to charge me. He told me it was all part of the service to loyal customers.

savingholmes

Thanks MF, Jwil, Sandy and boxofpaws - will try a local garage that was recommended. They quoted me £610 for the cam belt and water pump before xmas. The fuel to get to the other garage is pretty much the difference in cost - and it's walkable from my house - and doesn't have tempting shops near by. 

I will see if the second film is free on pr1me. The film added to the bells ringing in my head - asking if I'm making the most of my life... Very tempted to book a week away somewhere in a cottage - but it would add loads of pressure to the budget (and delay debt freedom) so trying to make myself wait until I get my backpay... If the wifi is good - I could just work from somewhere else and wouldn't necessarily need to use much if any leave. That's part of what is tempting me and freedom from certain demands on my time and fuel bills. Sticking plaster though... 

I will start my online art course today. Looking forward to it. Trying to add more 'joy' to my days rather than being constantly future focused. DS has requested another one of my paintings for his house share. He believes in me as an artist which is encouraging. He has one of my paintings behind him on his FB picture and people often ask him about it. He also has one in his bedroom. The one he chose is one I considered 'unfinished' so my perfectionism is still alive and well.

1 week of my 2 week target has gone and I haven't even attempted to sell my curtains on FB... Will try and do today. 

DD wants me to take her food shopping later. She will pay for hers. I need to add loo rolls and some chicken to the list - but otherwise am pretty much set. Have enough soup to sink a battleship. Anyone else get brought up with that expression? 

I'd lost some weight today - so my body appreciated the extra steps despite the banana loaf. 

Baileys_Babe

savingholmes said:

 to sink a battleship. Anyone else get brought up with that expression? 

Yep and many more

Humdinger1

savingholmes said:

Thanks MF, Jwil, Sandy and boxofpaws - will try a local garage that was recommended. They quoted me £610 for the cam belt and water pump before xmas. The fuel to get to the other garage is pretty much the difference in cost - and it's walkable from my house - and doesn't have tempting shops near by. 

I will see if the second film is free on pr1me. The film added to the bells ringing in my head - asking if I'm making the most of my life... Very tempted to book a week away somewhere in a cottage - but it would add loads of pressure to the budget (and delay debt freedom) so trying to make myself wait until I get my backpay... If the wifi is good - I could just work from somewhere else and wouldn't necessarily need to use much if any leave. That's part of what is tempting me and freedom from certain demands on my time and fuel bills. Sticking plaster though... 

I will start my online art course today. Looking forward to it. Trying to add more 'joy' to my days rather than being constantly future focused. DS has requested another one of my paintings for his house share. He believes in me as an artist which is encouraging. He has one of my paintings behind him on his FB picture and people often ask him about it. He also has one in his bedroom. The one he chose is one I considered 'unfinished' so my perfectionism is still alive and well.

1 week of my 2 week target has gone and I haven't even attempted to sell my curtains on FB... Will try and do today. 

DD wants me to take her food shopping later. She will pay for hers. I need to add loo rolls and some chicken to the list - but otherwise am pretty much set. Have enough soup to sink a battleship. Anyone else get brought up with that expression? 

I'd lost some weight today - so my body appreciated the extra steps despite the banana loaf. 

Yes to sink a battleship.  Also, enough tea to float The Great Harry.  There was also a story about my mother knitting a jumper for my dad when they were engaged.  It came out so big that my dad sent it to the Navy, to keep The Ark Royal warm....

savingholmes

Thanks @Baileys_Babe and @Humdinger1

I still haven't started my art. I've put painting clothes on - but not yet started playing. I have sealed up a parcel to take to a H3rm3s collect point where they will print the label for you. It's a start. I may even make myself actually leave the house at some point. DD has delayed her shop to another day - suits me. 

The book on integrity encourages you to confront your fears 'hell gates' and ask a series of questions along the lines of 'is that really true'. So I spent ages writing a few pages of fears and then the words cancel over the top of them and picked one to focus on. My biggest fear is if I lost my job and therefore my home... Asking 'is that really true' - results in these answers:

• Redundancy - even on the statutory minimum I'd get £9.2K - so could survive 4+ months.
• If I got the current VR rate - I would get more like £27K so could survive over a year and would be fine. It might even help me financially - although it wouldn't be great long term for my pension - unless I got a job with a similar employer with a good pension scheme or on higher pay so I could make up the difference. 
• I have an EF which would allow me to survive over 1 month...
• I would also qualify for JSA - so that would potentially give me £2K over the 6 months period - and if I'd had to use my redundancy £ to live - by the end of that 6 months I might be under the savings limit and might then qualify for further benefits. I could also try and claim PIP for ASD and MH.
• If I got made redundant in 40 months time I'd be laughing as I'd be able to get my pension unreduced and VR £.
• Ill health - I'd get 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay - which should be long enough to put some longer term solutions in place. I could apply for PIP as above.
• I could sell my car and get £7-9K.
• I could take in lodgers.
• Sacking - Unlikely to happen as have good relationships and obviously do my best to work hard and succeed in the workplace. But worst case PIP, selling my car and getting lodgers would be options or Air thing.
• I could potentially access CC debt.
• Last resort sell house or rent it out (with mortgage co permission).

I've done this exercise before but I seem to need to do it more often currently - as I'm not used to being solely responsible for my income. I think what is playing on my mind is the hefty ERCs - 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 - 2% over the 5 year period. If I was remortgaging again - I'd ask questions about those up front as they are really hefty. I've worked out over the period of my fix I'm due to pay £55.8K - of which c£39K would be equity. That means they'd earn more from the ERCs than they would by me paying over the period.

If that's my top fear - I would be more sensible building my EF - and yet instead I feel driven to clear my 0% CC debt and make a small OP to the mortgage and a small payment to the pension. It was nice working out today though that in a worst case scenario I am about 40 months from being able to access a pension. Therefore the closer I get to the age of 55 the smaller my theoretical risk of destitution actually becomes. That brought a smile to my face... but I'd be 55!! When I get to 55 - I want to be a size 12/14 instead of a 22! That will take a lot of work. (Tied into other health related fears too if I don't take action... ) I'm currently on a 5 year plan that takes me to age 56.5. I want to maximise my pension and my equity during that period and hopefully build up alternative income streams so I have choices.

I think at 40 months until the earliest date I could access any kind of pension - my focus on it does make sense. I want to maximise the tax free lump sum it could generate and hope it would give me choices. Yet at the same time I am conscious I have lots of time for art and writing now and am still not actually spending as much time on either as I could. I plan to make art today and have invited a friend over to make art on Tuesday. That should also hopefully help me with tidying the lounge a bit more too.

What so called passion projects / hearts desires are you needlessly delaying? What are your top fears and what strategies do you use to overcome them?  

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's an interesting exercise 😊 Sounds like it can be quite reassuring too

Chiglepig

Those calculations are comforting, SH - we did something similar this week - our current OP reserve with the mortgage company means if things went catastrophically wrong for some reason, we have four years worth of NOT paying, banked.

On the DD front - so many things I don't have an answer for, but what is your hourly rate at work and how many hours do you spend driving for her? Perhaps she needs to know. The problem with treating it as a time limited issue, is, her time limit is clearly not the same as yours -  no, I still haven't had the talk with my DD either .

And your last list was lovely

MovingForwards

Day trips / weekends away, holidays abroad, decorating a room, moving furniture around, taking photos, art painting, ice cream and other treats. They're all sticky plasters and keep us together as we take another step closer to releasing dreams.

The Christmas holiday money calculations I do see me working out plans for the forthcoming year and seeing how far my savings would go if I'm unable to work, which is why I have different accounts to cover the mortgage and bills. It's easier for me to hop into another job as I don't earn loads and keep my outgoings down, but knowing the mortgage is covered for a while takes the pressure off.

I fully understand why you want to clear the CC, it's one less bill to cover each month. Overpaying the mortgage provides more equity should you have to move. Not many people complain they have too much money, therefore paying extra into the pension makes sense.

It's still very early days and your financial experiences, until recently, are still raw. Things will settle in a few years.

jwil

What a brilliant exercise to do.

My biggest fear is not having the security of owning my own house.  That's why I'm focussing on the mortgage above anything else at the moment.  I'm comfortable with my pension level that i would get at pension age if I was to leave work today, so treat anything else as a bonus.

I haven't considered not being able to work, that's one to think about.  I would like a decent EF though, and to have 3-6 months expenses to take away the urgency.

Honeysucklelou2

Interesting questions SH! I think, like you, a fear of losing my job and knock on effect of losing my home is probably the biggest. Focusing on continuing  to strive to be debt free and build up an EF are the strategies at the moment alongside prayer. I wouldn’t like to build in more fun things such as walking in other parts of the UK and maximising my time with the DCs that are still at home.