Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Right. Just listened to Martin's podcast. At the minute, no point overpaying as our mortgage rate is so low, and also we've not got a big enough emergency fund. Better to stash into savings, then when we re-fix, see what savings are like and decide whether to pay a chunk off. 

In reality, we're already in the lowest LTV bracket so it wouldn't get us a better deal, and the amount we'd have wouldn't make much difference to the monthly payments, so we'd likely be better keeping hold of it as emergency fund, then chipping away each month once the emergency fund is properly full.

So. Just checked the banks, and it's a good job I did, as the AA have taken £227 for renewal 😱😱 I wrongly assumed I'd at least get a letter or email, but no, they've just taken the DD. Obviously I didn't pay that much last year - we had quite a heavy discount as we'd bought tyres or something through them, I think. I certainly would NOT have renewed breakdown cover at that cost! 😱😱

So I'm off to find something more reasonably priced - will likely just go back with Auto Aid I think. We were with them before - I do prefer that AA have their own fleet rather than sending someone from a local garage - but actually the only time I've called rhe AA this year (a couple of weeks ago 🙄) they sent someone from a local garage anyway! 

Yawn. 

Then going to go through the budget - food spending has got wildly out of hand this month and I have no idea why, very much needs pulling back in. And a more concerted effort on the Happy wheel - we're down about £20 this month, not very impressive at all!

starnac

This is really interesting Cheery. We've recently fixed our mortgage ready for September as we had a letter telling us what our new mortgage payments were going to be on a SVR and not only had they more than doubled but it was more than my actual wages! 

We had a bit of a panic then but luckily we sorted it and we are okay for another few years. 

I keep saying I want to make some overpayments but we could do with some more savings and I've been going back and forth about what's best. Your post is quite helpful. Thank you. 

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, AutoAid is now charging £25 per call out for cars over 10 years old 🙄 The other cheap one, Eversure, looks like it only takes cars up to 16 years old - one of ours will hit 16 during the policy time 🙄

Still cheapest with AutoAid I reckon - I don't think we've ever had more than 1 call out in a year, although with cars aged 14 & 15 it's always a distinct possibility 🙄😂

Cheery_Daff

Right. AutoAid charges an extra £14.90 per policy to cover older cars, plus £25 per call out 🙄 Still cheapest though, as it does at least cover home assistance and £250 towards car hire so you can keep going on holiday and collect the car from the garage on the way back should that be necessary. Total £78.54.

I've got another 13 days to cancel the AA so I'll do that Monday as this one doesn't kick in for 48 hours. 

Feeling very much like I can't be bothered this morning 🙄 But 10 minutes of messing about will save us £149 so... 🙄

rtandon27

Super interesting exercise Cheery - thank you for laying it out like that - I'll be borrowing your framework to check on mine, which is also a five year fix but not  due until August 2026!

Karmacat

I agree, that's an excellent framework for the mortgage repayments - and for the breakdown cover, if all goes according to *my* plan, I'll be needing to think that through for myself soon.  Your conclusions about getting more into savings sound a good idea: I'd have said "overpay", but on analysis, its not the best, is it - you have much more flexibility if you have that money available in savings.

themadvix

Useful info there about Autoaid Cheery and the extra cost for older cars. We have a Nationwide Flexplus account for our car cover (and mobile and travel) because they don't charge extra for taking 10+-year-old cars abroad, which is what we were looking for at the time, but will bear in mind Autoaid's extra cost for future reference (especially as we are currently running two 25+-year-old cars and nothing else 🙄)

Merlin's_Beard

My autoaid renewal came through this week and I noticed that too - was not on the policy last year, or at least if it was it was hidden away. Also couldn't find anything cheaper and to be fair, they were quite good the one time I've needed to use them (they use contractors but I got a follow up phonecall afterwards to check I was okay and all sorted, despite it being a home callout).

Re the mortgage - will you be at a point where you could potentially get the borrowing you need by on your income alone, as not having Mr Cheery on there might widen your options and get you a better deal?

Cheery_Daff

Merlin's Beard, you know, I was just pondering that yesterday. I suspect it would mean taking Mr Cheery off the house deeds, not sure about that. 

I suppose that would do two things - it would let us extend the term (to 25 years from 2024) which i don't think we'd want to do, and would, as you say, give a wider choice of lenders.

The other thing we're restricted by though is having 10 acres - we already had to split the deeds to buy one for cash when we bought it as current building society wouldn't go higher than 10 acres 🙄 I don't think I found another one that would even go this high, so that restricts us too (and I'm not splitting the title again). 

We'll see. I've dropped to 4 days a week since we took the mortgage out originally, and Mr Cheery has taken his work pension, which pretty much cancelled out what I lost going part time, so dropping him off, while it might increase our options in terms of age, would also lose us some affordability. If I was full time, that might be more of an option, but his income is now guaranteed, and will increase with the state pension. 

Anyway, we'll see...

Been to meet friend for lunch which was lovely. About 40 miles of diesel - she bought lunch and I paid for ice creams as we walked round the park 😊

Cheery_Daff

Couple of other things I've done today

* posted the fried router back - tried to ring to arrange a courier, but I was 12th in the queue, and the only day I could be here all day for the next fortnight is Monday, it was easier to take it to the post office (although it did cost me £5 postage)

* gave a meter reading

* emailed about a smart meter - previous supplier said we didn't have room (based on photos). This one gives no specific dimensions, and has no phone number, so I've sent them pictures - didn't want to just book an appointment and risk being charged if they found out someone else had already said no.

Had an email about prices going down. Checked the balance forecast they linked to, and it recommended we reduce our £84.06 DD to £73 ish. They're obviously using a different formula to their own main website, which recommends keeping it the same. Needless to say I'm going to drop it 😂

I thought we were £305 in credit but it's now saying £188 - i wonder if they've taken the next bill from credit and will put the DD back on credit? Who knows. I forgot the meter reading last time so they didn't issue a bill at all I don't think. Let's see what happens when we get the next one...

Right, Mr Cheery has gone shopping, friends will be here in a couple of hours. Emergency flute playing I think, then a run round with the hoover. Some evening sunshine would be nice but I suspect we'll get showers instead!