The thriftyish way

thriftyish

Introduction

In 2019, DH & I sold our tiny 3-bed semi-detached, and moved into a huge 3-story, 4-bed Edwardian home, almost doubling our mortgage. 

This move gave us the much-needed space for our 4 children aged 13,11,9 and 7. However, we bought at the absolute top end of our budget and took our mortgage out over 39 years.

We tied in less than 6 months after we bought at 1.64% for 5 years and that fix is coming to an end in May 2025. When the fix ends, if we end up paying 6% (or more) our payment will shoot up by £300pm. We don’t have much flexibility to extend the term, so need to reduce the shock as much as possible! My plan is to alter our budget now to overpay an extra £300 to put us in a better situation, we currently overpay £84, so our overpayment needs to be almost £400

DH's income is currently the only income as I am awaiting an operation to remove a teratoma / dermoid cyst from my ovary, and am under investigation with a neurologist as had some awful numbness/vibrating/pain/exhaustion issues over the summer.

Our debt-free journey from the debt-free wannabe board is here

Mortgage

(will update this post as we overpay)

October 2022 - £151,608 overpayment - £353 
November 2022 - 
December 2022 - 

*At the moment all my figures are estimates as I am sat on the sofa with my phone - I’ve toothache from an infected tooth, (just had 3 root canals done) I’m recovering from a migraine and I have the operation on Tuesday to remove the teratoma from my ovary - so taking things very slow! Also have just switched from tax credits to universal credit recently and I won’t know exactly how it will affect our income for another 2 weeks.

thriftyish

Plan of action

Car
Our car is on its last legs. It’s been a good runner but has holes in the sills and is very unlikely to get through an MOT. Realistically we don’t need a car, it’s a luxury. Although we can just about scrape the running costs,  a new car is out of reach financially without bottoming our savings. We purposely moved the children schools as I couldn’t drive while I was suffering with numbness and cognitive issues over the spring/ summer. We did commute out to a village school but now they are in a school in our town that’s is a 15 minute walk from our house. DH can walk to work. It will cause a few issues, being unable to visit family, holidays, cheap days out, dentist in the next town over and possible ongoing hospital appointments. It also has an effect on shopping, I have been ‘practicing’ doing a weekly online shop for the last 2 months. This is a really tough decision.

Kids clubs. 
I feel I should preface this by saying kids don’t get a lot of ‘things’  - presents are just for birthdays and Christmas. Treats such as chocolate/ sweets weekly. Clothes are a mix of new and charity shop, and they are good kids, usually grateful and unfussy. Because of the industry DH works, we get older phones and laptops that would otherwise be destroyed. They each have a computer that has been passed down from us, so they are tech ‘rich’.

DS1 does football and cadets. Both £15 a month. Football is a pain as he usually needs driving which would be impossible without a car. He’s not playing matches yet, but potentially even harder if he’s chosen for matches. Football might have to stop.

All 3 girls all do gymnastics. It was £22 per month each, so £66 plus yearly national gym membership. Eldest 2 girls recently have started a competition group, 2 extra hours a week each, and even with help (they give us DD3 lesson for free) it’s now £132 pm. This might well have to stop and reduce back to the £66. 

Food.
We spend 400-500 per month on food/cleaning. I have reigned this in massively recently, we were spending more, mainly buying less dessert/junk food. I am limited due to health more than I have ever been. I can’t just nip out for my yellow sticker bargains, or visit lots of different shops. Relying on a delivery once a week of mostly budget / own brand stuff. With the cost of living rising I don’t think I can realistically cut this, just keep an eye and try to stick to the lower end. Although with all the news from around the world and the possible blackouts planned this winter I am purposely overspending about £10 each week to buy an extra pack of pasta/rice or tinned meat / fish - so I know we have food in if the shtf. 

Heating/Energy
Our energy bills peaked at £350pm earlier this year, with the delightful E0N refusing to lower the DD that I had raised to cover a previous deficit over last winter. When we were £1000 in credit, they have revised and with the gov help our payments are now £218. They used to be £145ish. We have bought under bed blankets and turned the heating practically off, luckily it’s still mild. I am the only one at home during the week and I sit with my back on an heat pad (mostly for pain in my back - which will hopefully go when they remove the teratoma). We have solar panels so they offset the cost, but we use a lot of electricity - this is definitely an area that we need to save money.

These are the areas we have the biggest chance to cut back as we already live pretty simply. When I am back at my PC and with my spreadsheets I will do a new SOA. 

RobM99

A BIG plus is not having "I want" kids, they seem a good bunch. Have you involved them by asking their ideas on cost cutting? "We're all in this together". 

Food waste doesn't seem to be an issue but it might be worth looking at (It's a personal "Grrr"! of mine - a friend throws away so much food - bloomin' annoying). 

QueenJess

Gosh, you have been on a bit of a rollercoaster recently. I’m sorry to hear of your medical woes and hope the op goes well next week.

I am happy to see you back though. I’ve missed your diary. I’m with you on the scary prospect of mortgage increases and hitting the overpayments now. My fix ends in Feb 2024, so need to do what I can to make sure the overpayments are covered. It certainly is changing life for lots of people and is probably scuppering my plans for a couple of years off work. 

Your plans look sensible though. Good luck with it all.

thriftyish

RobM99 said:

A BIG plus is not having "I want" kids, they seem a good bunch. Have you involved them by asking their ideas on cost cutting? "We're all in this together". 

Food waste doesn't seem to be an issue but it might be worth looking at (It's a personal "Grrr"! of mine - a friend throws away so much food - bloomin' annoying

We do try and involve them in everything, we sit down and explain why things happen and why we are making changes, and ask them for their input and ideas. I am wondering at the moment if we are going too far with that sometimes, and I should be sheltering them more. My 11yo occasionally feels left out and like ‘everyone else is’ having foreign holidays etc, and she needs extremely gentle reminders to remember how lucky she is to have her own room, have her computer etc  - yet she’s the first to share her food at lunch (one boy only had a slice of melon one day, he had spent all his money earlier in the week) or her spare ingredients for cooking and she’s always lending or giving stationary. I was telling the girls about a news article I read recently about a child who had only a single slice of bread in their packed lunch and half regretted it when I saw the look of pure horror on my DD3 (7yo) face. 

Food waste is a pet hate here too, especially since we had our own allotment and it’s eye opening how much work goes into growing food. Usually all that gets wasted is leftovers from plates, but I admit it’s been much harder since I’ve been unwell. DH has had to pick up a lot of slack when I can’t do things and I really do feel truly awful asking him to prep meals from scratch so things don’t get waste, and some things have been wasted 😩 I gave the allotment up when I realised I just couldn’t keep up, but am meant to be helping a lovely gent with his allotment instead. He is 88 and one of the most amazing, kind hearted people I have ever met and even though I have been too poorly this year to help, he has been bringing us some of the fresh veg he has grown weekly over the summer - I hope I can repay the kindness next year. 

QueenJess said:

I am happy to see you back though. I’ve missed your diary. I’m with you on the scary prospect of mortgage increases and hitting the overpayments now. My fix ends in Feb 2024, so need to do what I can to make sure the overpayments are covered. It certainly is changing life for lots of people and is probably scuppering my plans for a couple of years off work. 

Your plans look sensible though. Good luck with it all.

I am happy I am back, it gives me a weird sense of control in a otherwise crazy world. I was telling DH about it while he was painting the living room and explaining why I feel being here is so important. So much support from like minded people and hearing other people’s stories, successes & struggles keeps me grounded, inspired and grateful. So sorry to hear your plans may have to change, I agree that it will definitely be life changing and lots will find the mortgage increase difficult - when I did the working out, the figures really brought me back to earth with a bump. I’ve just double checked and our fix runs out in May 2025 - which makes sense, I must have fixed for 5 years in May 2020. This means we have 2 years and 6 months to try and pay off as much as we can to bring the potential interest down. Our contracted payment is £466, and we have been playing £550, but at 6% our payments would be £854 if we keep our 36 year term. That’s a crazy increase on one hand, but less than some people pay for rent on the other. Even then rates could rise further, so we really need to try and make some headway now.

Bluegreen143

Lovely to see you back @thriftyish, I remember your old diary well and your allotment adventures were very inspiring.

Sorry to hear of health issues and I hope you are all well again soon and that your operation is able to solve things for you.

A difficult decision re the car. Can you earmark some of the money you currently budget for petrol and car bills to use for the occasional taxi to activities or hire car for special days out? Just a thought.

Cornish_mum

Hi thriftyish, I just wanted to pop by to say I think you are doing amazingly. I have had periods of extremely poor health (both before and after kids) and it’s really awful. I really struggled with the guilt which is utterly ridiculous as clearly being ill is not your fault. I am very impressed with your food budget; we are a family of 4 and spend £400 a month now on food and cleaning supplies. 

Best of luck 

CM

thriftyish

Hey @Bluegreen143 it’s lovely to see you! That’s a very good point re:still having a budget for fun. Its so tricky not having all the right figures to play with yet. In my head, I had used all of the car budget over to use as overpayment but I definitely need a longer term plan for financing another vehicle as I don’t want to be without a car long term unless necessary.

Hello @Cornish_mum I guess in that respect we are really lucky that health hasn’t been a big issue for us until these last few years. It has been much harder recently to stay on track while not being well and I am used to buzzing around at 100mph and I just can’t do that atm. 

Operation Cancelled

Ive had some bad news today, it’s more than likely my operation will be cancelled on Tuesday. I had an appointment with an anaesthetist today, who needs information from my neurologist, and was shocked to hear my appointment was so soon after the appointment with him. To cut a very long story short, at my pre op in July, the nurse flagged me for a notes review due to me having numbness/pain/tingling in my arms/face/legs. The op was scheduled for the 8th August but had to be cancelled. The doctor reviewing my notes said they wanted to wait until after my neurology referral in September. I have spent many hours since chasing things, and getting nowhere. As far as I was aware gyne had already written to neurology, but the anaesthetist I spoke to today had no clue. He also informed me that for safety, it’s advised people wait until 7 weeks post covid to operate as the risks of complications triple. I had Covid on 6th October, so I am just 3 weeks past. So I need;

A ) The anaesthetist to speak to neurology to get the info he needs to give me the go ahead - and

B ) My gyne surgeon to agree the risk of making me wait is greater than the Covid complication risk - which it could be, I’m on the cancer pathway and my symptoms are worse than they were in June. They think my mass is benign, mostly due to it’s appearance on MRI and my age but they can’t tell for sure until they biopsy. 

And I need both to happen in the next 24hours if the operation is to go ahead. 

QueenJess

Oh no, what a mess. It’s horrible when you psyche yourself up for a op and then it is cancelled. Sending hugs 🤗. I hope it all gets resolved so you have some certainty soon in what is happening when.

thriftyish

Looking for positives

In the light of my last post, and also my internet rabbit hole exploration of historical interest rates today (scary) and also forecast interest rates in the US next year (also scary) - I thought I really ought to give my head a little shake and think of the positives. 

A ) Private medical insurance - DH’s workplace have offered him private medical insurance and he’s opted to pay for us both. The cover starts in November so it could be worth exploring having the surgery privately, although I am high priority anyway in the NHS. Even if Tuesday is delayed I should be going ahead with surgery before Christmas 🤞 but it’s good to have options. I was referred to Neurology because my Mum (and Aunt) had MS, and my symptoms fit. I had an MRI early in September, a few days after I saw the neurologist but I am still waiting to hear from them about the results. When I rang late September, the secretary told me not to expect anything soon, they were still processing MRIs from April 😔 Having access to private healthcare gives me more options and hopefully faster answers. 

B ) I think cancelling parts of the kids clubs makes sense not only financially but from a simplicity point of view too. With my health not great we are already stretched really thin. Football is cancelled for DS tomorrow anyway, the third time in as many weeks and it was actually a huge relief for both DH and I. When we signed up the training was at our local park, which is only 5 mins away and DS is more than capable of walking himself, we had no idea it moved to a village high school for the winter, a 10min drive. 

C ) We found a switch the other day that controls our security lights. We bought two new lights to replace old ones but couldn’t figure out why the new one wasn’t working. Problem solved for £22 for both replacement lights.

D) DH is decorating the living room. We already have the paint as I bought a huge tub of white gloss a year ago, and we are using the paint we bought for the hallway on 3 for 2 last year. We used some of DH’s unexpected bonus last month to replace some really old blinds for our absolutely enormous 5 windows so it should look lovely and fresh for Christmas 

E) I drove to both the dentist and the hospital this week. I’ve not driven for months, but I really wanted to give DH a break. I felt okay driving, although a bit dazed after the operation news! 

F) I have agreed with DHs sensible suggestion to keep any overpayment in our bank until the end of the month. That way it acts as an extra buffer if we need it. 

I also need to;

1 ) Book a plumber to look at our stop tap. It’s more of a ‘slow’ tap at the moment and we need to be able to successfully turn water off to the house if anything happens

2 ) Provide metre readings for energy on the 1st. 

3 ) Overpay the solar payment on the mortgage

4 ) Update all the budgets when universal credit give us the info (should be around the 9th Nov)

5) Investigative lowering phone contract tariffs. We pay around £30 for DH, myself, DS & DD1 on sim only deals

Thrifty.

thriftyish

Thanks @QueenJess 🤞🤞 It’s taken a lot out of me to mentally prepare - the uncertainty is the worst bit!