Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Morning All,

Catching up with myself after another hectic week!

Amongst many other layers of things happening, I lost my temper this week, but kept it absolutely professional, no raised voices, no visible anger etc, but it was *absolutely* clear to the team of men I was talking to, that the actions that should have been done months ago would now be done or there would be consequences .... You've never seen a room full of men duck behind their screens so fast. I was worried I had done the wrong thing / been too much, but my boss is backing me, and the Senior Planner and Ops Manager seem relieved that something is happening at last. Also, one of the team that I scared half to death, starting working with me on another project this week and has opened up to me about the challenges and what he is doing, so perhaps I have earned their respect? 

So, to my finances. Its been an expensive week as Hubby and I went out for dinner last night for his birthday, but the food was lovely (I actually had menu choices for once - so rare round here for plant based eating) and we all enjoyed the food. We went with the next door neighbours and we had a good laugh and a passionate discussion about the technical challenges of completely switching to renewables and the issues that might bring for the grid - the chap living next door is an electrical engineer so he knows about this kind of stuff. I found it fascinating. It was so good to laugh properly - feels like there has been so little of that lately ..... (I keep finding myself crying about what is happening in Ukraine - I have been to Kiev and know some people there - I have to stop thinking about it to some degree or it becomes overwhelming.) 

I have made my first over payment on our mortgage! So pleased to be able to write that! It took a fair bit of faffing about but I did a trial payment of £1 yesterday and then once I had confirmed it had worked this morning, sent on a further £55.43 just now. Whoop! It's tiny amount I know   but it feels good to have made a start and the details for the transfer are now saved in our joint account, my spreadsheet and my project book, so I can always do more of them whenever I want to now.  

Food wise there has been quite a bit of waste this week, mainly salad stuff, a box of several portions of home cooked giant cous-cous and a whole tub of hummus. This is largely down to two away days offsite at a hotel for work. That messed up my prepping lunches for two days and I was too exhausted (slept so badly whilst I was away) that I just couldn't face the 30 minute slog of prepping my lunch in the remaining evenings. It's not helping my weight loss though, so the target for this week is to get back to making my own lunches again and hopefully eating less junk in the evenings. The other lesson for me in this is just to accept that if this kind of 'offsite' happens again to not expect effective action from myself in the evenings for lunches etc and just not even bother buying salads etc for those weeks. The one thing I have managed to do though, is start off some mung bean sprouts on Thursday evening last week that will be ready for use in salads this week. Tried one just now and it has just a little bit of root and is sweet and crunchy. they work really well in both salads and soups. 

Decluttering? Zilch. Nada. Zero. Moving on .... 

Savings are currently £299.55 less than the balance on my Virgin credit card (looking at it like this reminds me that this isn't my money so I don't get complacent and start spending freely again). Tilly-tidied £2.09 yesterday as part of my weekly £cial review - there should be more by the end of the month.

Grocery shopping is currently at 34% of monthly budget which is quite a lot for this early in the pay-month, but we had a bit of a stock up of various items in the delivery yesterday, so I am hoping the rest of the month will be significantly less ....

I want to get wool for a new crafting project and cocoa shell mulch for the front garden beds but I am holding off until after next payday. I must make a start on seed sowing though, so I may have to get a bag or two of multipurpose compost before then. The shallots I started off in pots a couple of weeks ago are sprouting and rooting well - another week and they should be good to go out in the ground   

The one other thing I am becoming increasingly conscious of is the price of car fuel! I have changed my driving style which is helping to some degree, but I will start looking at how to plan my use of the car to reduce consumption too - e.g. going to a garden centre on my way home from work to get compost rather than a special, one off trip out today to get some. 

That was a rather longer post than I expected!  Hope all is well in here and happy to have comments or questions - I learn so much from you all. 

KK 

themadvix

Congrats on your first OP! £55 is not to be sniffed at! Have you worked out how much interest that will save you over the life of the mortgage? That’s always a huge motivator for me.

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, first OP to your mortgage. Awesome! If you like a nice spreadsheet you could take your mortgage interest rate and count the number of payment months you have left until your mortgage end date and then calculate the interest you will pay with and without that amount - you will be amazed at how much you will save even with small OP over the life of the mortgage. I never quite got to compound interest but if you can, you should. That will be the start of a magic snowball!

I notice from your signature that you say you are a member of Tilly Tidy Club since 2022. I've been Tilly Tidying for years and credit it with paying off our mortgage because it spurred me on and now it accounts for several thousand pounds of savings - sometimes I use them for big things, sometimes I don't and just let them accumulate. Well done!

I was amazed at the reduction in fuel consumption during a fuel shortage a couple of years ago - by driving at under 60 on the A road duel carriageway, my tank of fuel did another 50 miles. Everyone else was too though.

themadvix

I have to give credit to Santander here now, as after years of being useless at the overpayments side, they now have an excellent system that calculates the interest saved on each payment and gives the alternatives for shortening the term/reducing the monthly payment. We still have a spreadsheet too though!

 On fuel, I envisage our hybrid being used more than ever!

KajiKita

Morning All, - another crazy week here. Much Covid in work so we have been spread thin like margarine this week!  Pretty tired today - not doing any work-work today!

I have done my weekly £cial catch up and I can see we are going to have to be really disciplined between now and the end of the month to stay within budget. We had another meal out last week (unusual for us to do that 2 months on the trot - usually its about 6 months apart!). Not *as* pricey this time and the food was actually better than the pricier place, but along with a significant builders merchant bill for materials to make a new village noticeboard (this project started waaaaay before I started this new £cial discipline but the bill for these materials has only just landed now) and a large spend on compost for the veggie patch it has been a painful week!  

However, I am resolutely seeing the compost as an investment towards food costs reduction (slugs please share and only nibble on one leaf per plant!  ) and I don't think there are any other 'projects' lurking in the background that will cost me any more any time soon. 

Fuel is staying low / within budget as I am trying to use the car less and drive gently (the latter is so not me! so I am probably safer as result as well  ) 

Tilly-tidy done - another £3.52 whisked off to savings. I am getting excited for my first interest payment on the 20th of the month, however paltry it might be!! 

Tried using the MSE mortgage overpayment calculator but it told me that the £56 I put into my mortgage of  £290287.44 at 2.17% over 17 years would only save me £25 of interest over the life of the mortgage. I was quite disappointed with that. Does it sound right to you?

KK

Suffolk_lass

It does sound about right - but don't be disappointed as that means that £56 is now worth £81. Try beating that return in any cash savings account

KajiKita

Suffolk_lass said:

It does sound about right - but don't be disappointed as that means that £56 is now worth £81. Try beating that return in any cash savings account

Fair enough! 😊🥳

I’ve had a good day in the garden today 😊 Sprouted, rooted shallots are in the ground now, done a whole load of weeding, clearing, planting etc. Forgot to divvy the snowdrops and start moving them around the garden though - doh! 🙄😉

In nice news: 

Hubby happy because he’s found frogspawn in our pond and frogs were being territorial over it when he went down to investigate it tonight.

I’m happy because I found hedgehog 🦔 poop in my veggie patch, heard a woodpecker and have realised we have a nice microclimate in the two beds either side of the front door we built last year - the lobelia in there from last summer are still alive! That will therefore make a good hime for my salvia ‘Hotlips’ that’s been needing a proper home in the ground for a long time 😊

KK

KajiKita

Hubby has now fitted my Christmas present (auto window opener) to greenhouse roof vent. Almost all chores doen for the weekend so am off to sow some seeds now 

KK

redofromstart

Sounds like a lovely time in the garden. 

KajiKita

Morning All,

Weekly catch up

Spending is much more contained this week - thank goodness! Fuel will be within budget, largely because of the change in my driving style and using the car less. Groceries will also be within budget so there should be a goodly chunk heading off to savings when I get paid next week. I am hoping to cross the point of having more savings than 0% interest debt this month - crossing my fingers for this (it would make me feel so much better!). I have tilly-tidied (£6-odd) my bank balances again and am hopelessly excited for tomorrow or Monday when I should get my first interest payment on my savings!!

I have also tracked backed through my mortgage details and have retrospectively filled in the opening balance from October 2019 when we moved in here - it means I can see *some* movement on the chart I have set up! I'm being harsh with myself and have set the vertical axis from zero - but it mean the increments look flat!  which is a little discouraging .... I might revisit that next week (monthly money shuffle) and set the vertical axis from the value I know we should get to by next January. That way I should see the effect of the overpayments in the chart, iyswim. 

I have much gardening planned in the nice weather this weekend so it's good to know that our finances are ticking along quietly and healthily. I'm also finding that the weekly check-up is getting quicker / flowing more easily so I must be getting better at it

Off to look for a cheap aka small Forest Pansy to plant near my pond .... need to get one in the ground soon to get any effect from it this season.

KK