Starting afresh in paradise

ManekiNeko

Been a quiet few days, mostly involving re-arranging my partner's living room a bit to make the space more functional for us. We've also put up a couple more shelves, and added a little hook to the desk to tuck my wires out of the way.

I've found myself very tired though, so haven't been doing as much. I do have a money appointment next week at my uni, so hoping that'll help to answer a couple of more complex benefits questions.

We did go food shopping yesterday and I found 5p at the tills. Honestly I felt a bit embarrassed 😳 as I waited for a woman to leave the tills so I could pick it up (I don't think it was hers as she was still scanning/packing items when I saw it), and then a man immediately took her place so in the end I thought stuff it and just picked it up anyway from under his trolley. I know it's only 5p but also, my mortgage is huge to me and every little bit does help to pay it down. I realise found money is likely never going to be a significant amount in terms of the total I need to repay, but it's free cash and I can't resist at the moment. I don't know if that's wrong. (But then, I'm feeling very anxious and having a lot of trouble with my MH this week, including my thoughts, so I can't say that I trust everything I think right now.)

Off on a rare trip to the shops today, we still need a few bits for the kitchen. Maybe I'll find more cash. 😉 Just got to finish my tea and gather my strength first.

ManekiNeko

No money found today, and I've decided it's not bad to pick up money or look for it, I think I was just embarrassed in case someone would notice me picking it up and think badly of me, and tbh mainly a bit afraid they'd suddenly announce it was theirs.

We've got quite a few kitchen bits today, I'm especially relieved we've now got some decent kitchen knives as the old ones were going really blunt, which isn't the safest, and I've been struggling to prep food. It was hard work carrying everything back to the car as we also bought new duvets and a few other bits, but that's just good exercise, right? 💪 Looking forward to trying them out tonight, the bed feels all fluffy and soft. ☺️

I also picked up a few hairbands and things. Spent £20, which is more than I thought I would, but I managed to check my fun budget on the go (with my new app) and quickly reminded myself what I could spend. This is a big improvement as I can often get really overwhelmed (in a sensory way, like too much noise and sound?) when I'm out, and then money feels endless and like, who cares what it costs, I'll sort all that out when I'm back home. I've still got £6.85 left in my fun pot, too, which isn't bad considering there's only a week of March left. Tempted by a game on my wishlist that's on sale this weekend, but think I'll wait and keep saving up £5 a month for games, and hope it goes on sale again later in the year (most do, sooner or later).

Feeling in control and happy with progress towards goals. ☺️

ManekiNeko

One of my complaint letters has paid off, just been told I'll be receiving a cheque for £245! 💃✨ This resolves half of my complaint to my car insurance company, with the other half relating to their solicitors who have been dealing (or more like, failing to deal with) with my insurance claim. I've been told to expect to hear from their complaints team in the next few weeks.

Obviously I haven't OP'd it yet, but when I do, it'll bring my MF date forward by 1.92 months or 8.37 weeks, and save me an additonal £182.90 of interest (simple, not compound, so in reality it's probably a bigger saving). That is, the total benefit of it to me will be £427.90. Or, put another way, they're paying off 0.36 per cent of my mortgage for me. Idk if that sounds impressive to you, but it does to me in mortgage terms as it's such a large debt.

It also means that once I cash the cheque, I'll actually have OP'd more in this mortgage year to date (e.g., since 1st March) than I managed in the previous mortgage year (running from completion last June to the end of Feb). I'm genuinely quite surprised by that.

This has actually made me feel pretty encouraged about carrying on writing complaint letters, as I have several more I've been meant to be doing but haven't yet mustered up the energy to do. It's funny, the higher the likelihood of compensation the less I tend to be able to write the letter, simply because of the emotional energy I know it will take from me to revisit that past situation. My support worker has been helping me with them though, and we've written a few now, so we'll keep chipping away. Might take a few weeks though, as she's off on holiday for a couple of weeks after our next session. Fortunately, she's arranging for a colleague to help me while she's away. I won't do any of the bigger or more complex tasks with them, but I can try and do a couple of the easier tasks instead.

Mind you, even the best letters aren't magic. If you want a laugh, we also wrote to the Warm Home Discount appeals team last month. With no sense of irony, they wrote me back almost three pages of text, which I received yesterday, advising me to appeal to themselves by a date (28 February) that's in the past. A bit baffled by what to try next! Like... I wrote to them to appeal... and they wrote me back advising me to appeal to them? 🤯

In smaller but also satisfying OPs news, I found 5p in Tesco yesterday. Having added up, I've found a total of 16p so far this month, which is 1p short of bringing my MF date forward by an hour. 🌈

ManekiNeko

Merlin's_Beard said:

I think you're doing amazingly for the budget you've got.

@Merlin's_Beard, I just wanted to say thank you again for saying this. I find myself mentally revisiting these words and you've really encouraged me.

ManekiNeko

So, I finally got some straight answers out of a specialist CAB advisor yesterday, and everything was good news. I'm very lucky to still have access to my university's financial support team, as they're heavily linked in with the CAB nearest to my uni, so they set the appointment up. It's definitely the first CAB appointment I've ever had over Teams! High tech haha. But I live a long way from my uni now, so that was most practical.

Not sure if you'll remember that my local CAB had raised a concern about whether I would class as a household with my partner. It was raised almost a month ago, but I didn't care to say too much about it online before I'd established a clear answer. Basically, because I stay at his place at times, my local CAB got all hot under the collar and decided this ought to be reported this as a change of circumstances. We were a bit baffled initially, as I'm only visiting him and I have my own home, but I was obviously also worried in case I was doing anything wrong - because of my OCD, I'm especially prone to worrying about this kind of thing. I do stay at his sometimes, both because I'm still doing works on my place, and because of my MH, but it's temporary - we don't want to live together at this time and don't plan to for many years. I asked my support worker and my family about it, and everyone agreed this was a bit silly just using our common sense, but I wanted to check it with someone. Having talked it through with the advisor, I've now had formal confirmation that since I haven't changed my permanent home address, I don't need to report a change of circumstances, since my circs haven't actually changed. So that's nice and simple, and makes perfect common sense.

The huge question on the mortgage front was whether my partner would be allowed to pay into my mortgage as well, even though he isn't named on it. We'd like to do this so that it can be paid down faster, hopefully leaving us in a position where I could buy us a bigger home when we're ready for that (we might buy jointly, but I definitely will buy in my name at a minimum). That could work because I'm only on a low income, meaning the max. I could borrow was £70-72k ish when I last looked to borrow.

Obviously, there's no guarantee of me being able to get a mortgage at the moment we need one, and I'd need to be back at work at least part-time to swing it. Right now, for instance, I'd only be able to acquire a mortgage of about £30k, instead of the £68.5k one I took out last year (because of both harsher affordability calcs, and also because I've resigned from my job - apparently 'only' being off sick, not unemployed per se, really helped me get my mortgage in the first place).

So, no guarantees in life, but it's not like we can save up all that much money towards buying a home, as that would just lead to gradually increasing benefits reduction and ultimately stoppage until any savings had eroded to under the capital limit. So overpaying is the only way we can build up meaningful equity and 'save' towards a bigger home. We'll have to get a solicitor to draw something up to protect both my partner and I on this front, just setting out who will get what % upon sale, and something to say he can't force me to sell, but that if he wants his money back for any reason, I'll just start repaying him right away with whatever I can afford from my budget each month until it's all paid back.

We're still not sure how to solve the puzzle of affording a bigger place, but this definitely takes us significantly closer than we were before, and it's a huge relief that it's allowable. If I manage to get some NHS therapy, and use my private therapy money to OP, this would be another significant piece in the puzzle (that alone is worth £23.5k over the next decade). And, there's a few other ideas, like snowballing the money I'm paying to my DS directly onto my mortgage when I've finished repaying her (although that's years away), and using the service charge money that UC are covering to OP. Obviously, if I was well enough to get a job one day, that could help us a lot too and bump up my OPs in future. Overall, it's another thing saying that a decade in my current place could be an achievable time to be able to afford somewhere a little bigger and more suitable for our (hopeful) future family.

ManekiNeko

Doing most of my budget today as I've got a busy weekend coming up (family visiting). It's pretty handy working a month in advance with money sometimes, it gives me a lot of flexibility.

Have paid my DS my last £100 payment now. From next month, it'll rise to £113.43. A bit harder to calculate the % repaid on that 😉 but this is what's going to pull my DFD forward by about 10 months, so totally worth it.

I'm not totally clear on what I'll receive next month, as the benefits uprating only kicks in on a certain day (the 10th?) and so I'll have a mixture of days calculated at the old and new rates. So, that might mean I've a bit less to spend in June than anticipated. It shouldn't really have any major consequences though, other than meaning I can save a bit less or something. I'll have to work it out when I know exactly how much it'll be.

Happy Friday all. 😎🌻

ManekiNeko

None of my DDs went out today, which is odd as it's the 1st, but on the plus side I did receive £15.73 in interest on my savings account. Now put towards OPs.

Had a lovely day out today with family, had a potter round the shops and picked up a book and a sort of page holder device that I think will help me read a bit easier. Think we'll go for a stroll tomorrow if the weather holds.

Merlin's_Beard

It's the weekend so everything  will go out on Monday, same here! Not complaining about the two extra day's interest all the bill money will earn - every little helps.

Sounds like you've got your plans sorted out - well done on getting the complaint money back. MSE has got a mortgage overpayment calculator which I'm fairly sure works out your compound interest savings.

Sounds like you've had a very positive week

ManekiNeko

Deff, extra interest is a good thing. An extra bit of OPs for you. ☺️ That's what I'd assumed when they didn't go out Saturday, but confusingly, they all went out yesterday on Sunday. 🤷‍♀️ Anyway, I'm glad they're paid and sorted.

We did indeed go for a nice stroll in the meadow, along the river. Sat on a bench and watched the water while we had a snack. We were fortunate to see a water bird, which I think was a coot, eating a large silver fish it had caught. Then had a walk further upriver among the open fields. Fortunately, the sheep were entirely unfazed by our presence. Altogether a good Sunday.

Thanks, good point.. I'll try to check that out tonight after seeing my support worker. Maybe I'll just do the calculation on all OPs to date, so it becomes another figure that's in my sig/updated monthly. Although the complaint cheque might be large enough to be worth doing a standalone calc tbf. Thanks for the reminder, knew it was there but haven't played with it in ages.

Right, must get up and out swiftly now for coffee with family before they head home. ☕ Wishing you all a pleasant, smooth start to your week.

ManekiNeko

Been checking my online banking every day and finally the outstanding mortgage amount has been updated, so my sig is updated with all that now. Also added a figure to show what % my OPs to date have added up to, which is 0.64 per cent as it stands. No % figure sounds grand when it's looking at such a big debt as a mortgage, but I'm pleased with that percentage given my finances over the past year (gee thanks, inflation 🤨).

I'm beginning to feel a little anxious about taking back over my food bill in June, actually. But as long as I've gotten my kitchen up and running by then, I think I'll cope.. I've done inexpensive but healthy meals before, largely by cooking from scratch. Most of my recipes feed two to a hungry horde, which makes the price seem much higher than it is per meal given I'll be freezing leftovers and therefore getting several meals out of one. I do think I'll find it harder given my MH but all I can is try; I struggle to cook from scratch just for myself, but will need to.

I'm expecting the cost of living payment from the government to arrive towards the back end of this month, btw. I think it'll be £301 or something like that. I'm not actually sure what to use it for yet; part of me wants to save it towards a new front door, part of me says to hold onto it and use it towards winter fuel bills, and part of me wants to use it towards energy efficiency measures at home (to hopefully reduce said fuel bills).

If I do end up saving all of the cost of living payments, it'll bump up my savings again (though I think cost of living help is disregarded from savings for a while). I have to watch this a bit as there's only so much I can save on benefits without being penalised for it. In essence, if I save £6k or more, my benefits will reduce a little bit (the benefits reduction increases the more savings I have). However, a door is very expensive and might run me £1-1.5k, so does require savings unless I can find an appropriate grant to apply to.

At the moment, I have about £3-4k between one thing and another (it varies on the time of the month, as I use this month's income to pay next month's bills, so sometimes have that money sat in 'savings'). That's enough to stop me worrying about 'what if' at night. It's basically all allocated for eventual spending though, just split across quite a lot of pots, which range from saving up for bigger annual expenses like insurance and Christmas through to my mortgage OPs pot and a DIY fund. But, each month my savings are increasing as it stands (except the DIY fund 😝). This is all very well, and honestly makes me feel safer, but as it gets closer towards the £6k mark, I will have to keep a close eye on things. I don't see the point of being penalised for having 'too much' in savings when there's lots of things I do really need and could buy. I've been in this situation before though, and it did add a pressure to me to feel I 'have' to spend money or get penalised, as I'm not naturally a spender and my MH makes shopping really difficult, even for much needed items, as it takes me so long to do it and takes so much energy.

I'm actually a bit surprised my savings are back up at this point already.. though tbf some of this is money I've been given to help me get back on my feet / furnish my home. I'm grateful I've got the chance to build my savings up a bit, I know a lot aren't in this position now and I wouldn't be without the support of my partner. If I can just manage to get my food bill in at the right price, I'll be able to continue rather than pausing or depleting them again.