Mortgage Free by 53!!

crunchy_time

Afternoon everybody!

Currently sitting in the garden drinking a beer (back to moderate alcohol in take now) and enjoying feeling the sun on my face!

Lots of things have been happening in Crunchy land!

I finished my very stressful job and am now doing supply. I did a week last week and loved it. I am going back after Easter for a while term which is fine by me. For September I want three days a week though so I shall continue to look for something a bit more permanent. A maternity leave contract would be fine as well. I think I will get paid for the week I did on Thursday but not sure. Either way I have about £700 in the mortgage pot that I can use for my outgoings when the time comes to need it.

I signed up for cheddar about a month ago and now have about £2 cash back - this is a start. Just from sains and sports direct. It follows my Monzo account which is ace. 

Husband has had a bit of a speedy month (of course he has) I think being on £99.5k a year and being debt free has encouraged some speediness. I’ve had to use some of the extra money left over at the end of the month to pay off his credit card but it was more stuff that he had let the kids buy like Audio books and subs as well as another parking fine. Comments like ‘I’m not earning all this money so we can be frugal’ have come out of his mouth. I showed him the plan to use the extra money for savings etc and he knows he just needs to keep his eye on the ball from now on. I think he has learned his lesson. He has promised to have a thrifty April.

we are away next week and I’m setting a £200 budget as we don’t need to be splashy at all. Fuel will be separate as will food. The more we retain the more we have for the European holiday in the summer. So far we have £467 in our holiday spending money pot. 

Speaking about the more emotional side of money management, I feel a shift in me now we have been debt free for a few months. I’m working on my next level goals and my next level life and I can feel it starting to come together but it’s been hard to sit with it and listen to my intuition as to where to go next. Debt free was all I cared about for a while. I’ve now go to reconcile with this happening abruptly. I have a friend 10 years older than me who is mortgage free and contracts then travels the world. That’s who I want to be. It’s good to find mentors and people to look up to for the type of life you want to live and I think that is the next step for me.

I’ve just got to work through my feelings and I will get to the other side with a plan and a roadmap. I guess what I am saying is that I feel a bit lost at the moment.

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

It must be quite unsettling to have to make a new plan so quickly, you'd probably been expecting to be paying debt off for a few more years!
But your plans sound good... you've got work on the house, a household budget to stick to, a plan for work etc. 
My DH would be the same, it must be frustrating to be on so much money and see so little left over just keep reminding him that if you're sensible now, your future can be much more spendy!

crunchy_time

Morning all

It's the last day of the Easter holidays here.  Husband has just left for London for the day for work and the kids are playing Minecraft.  We had a lovely UK break and are now 'looking forward' to the summer term.

I'm feeling uneasy about supply tomorrow as I don't know what I am doing.  My email for the new place is not working so I am just going to have to turn up and go with the flow.  Not something I find easy at all but hey ho.

I had my first pay packet for the week I did before the easter holidays - £471 - less than I was expecting but I may have been emergency taxed as they don't have my P45 so must get that sent off today.  So I have used some of that money to pay for my outgoings and have not had to dip into the mortgage overpayment pot yet which is good.  I get paid weekly in arrears so the next payday for me will be next Friday.  I should have enough money to last until then.  I'm going to be saving £70 from each pay day to pay for August pay which I will miss out on, to cover my expenses for that month.  So I have a plan for my side of the money situation.

We have had to dip into the £10k emergency fund to pay for another round of legal fees.  The plan to replace this is to split the money left over from the husband's salary once all expenses are paid - currently around £300 - between the house pot and the emergency fund.  Once this has been replaced and we have a reasonable amount in the house pot with a plan for each room, we will stop this and direct the money elsewhere - probably look at pensions.

Our European break is in about 16 weeks' time and we have £151 towards spending money.  I have a target of £1500 for spending money and plan to save as much as I can from fuel, food, and spending money accounts by then.  I hope we won't need all that money but it is better to have too much than too little.

Lastly, there is now £758 in the mortgage overpayment pot which I am not touching for now.  It is great that it is there if needed.  I have a deep feeling though that I need to sort out my pension payments first before even thinking about overpaying our mortgage.  The interest rates increase will see us paying at least another £300 a month come October when we need to remortgage.  We were hoping to reduce the term to bring our mortgage-free dream closer to 53 with minimum effort but we are going to have to get more creative.  

For now, the focus is on
 - frugal as possible spending
- me getting another more permanent job
- no spending on credit cards on things we think we need to make life easier.
- meal planning and shopping online.
- only budgeted meals out and takeaways.

I'm going to set myself a challenge to do the following by the time we go on holiday

 - saved £1500 for spending money
 - Emergency fund up to £10k again.
 - Intentional spending log - making a list of extras we have bought and why
 - only online food shopping.
- weekly checking in on here.

Wish me luck!

Crunchy xx

Honeysucklelou2

Hope your supply time goes smoothly. 

missymoo81

Hey just wondered if you’re ok.

crunchy_time

missymoo81 said:

Hey just wondered if you’re ok.

Gosh, sorry, the last few weeks have flown by!

Lots of imposter syndrome at work.  I don't feel like I am doing a great job but I keep getting told that I am highly thought of by my new colleagues.  There may be a job going for September and a colleague has suggested that I apply if one does go up.  I'm being really blase about it at the moment though.  I feel I need a rest from thinking about jobs and money.  It's taken up a lot of my time over the last few months.  I want to focus on other goals.

I've had another two pay packets since the last one of £471.  Both were around the £700 a week mark which is fab!  I still haven't checked online for my payslip though so I don't know if they are correct or if I was emergency taxed.  I'm still sticking to the same payment cycle of my old job of which pay day was the 19th and I have already paid all my bills and pots for May so the last one in May next week is extra money.  I will be adding what is left to the 3-6 emergency fund to make sure it ias back to a nice even £10 ASAP.

Mortgage is now £252,458 so getting closer to that magical £250,000!
Long time savings in ISAs is now £4500 between us.
3-6 Emergency fund is now £8860
I'm saving £100 a week into my private pension for the time being whilst being on supply.
I'm also saving £70 a week to cover my August bills as I won't earn that week.
We have paid for our holiday now so just need to save for the spending money.  I have bought a guide book so we can start to price up how much money we will need and perhaps book things to do.
Mortgage payment pot is now £846.81
Cheddar cashback is £2.16  ha ha!
All sinking funds up to date.


 - saved £1500 for spending money Currently £161
 - Emergency fund up to £10k again. Currently £8860
 - Intentional spending log - making a list of extras we have bought and why Been so busy, haven't been doing this but will go back through spending log.
 - only online food shopping.  My app has brown and been so busy haven't been able to ring up and get sorted.
- weekly checking in on here.  So busy not happened.

So we need to do a bit better with things. 
Always still so grateful that we had that money gifted to us which meant that our debt free journey ended when it did.

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Morning all!

I’m making an effort to post on here a bit more.

We went for a bike ride last night and stumbled upon a street party outside our favourite pub, bumped into a friend who invited us to stay so did and it was lovely. I said to husband that I want more community spirit in my life now. I think working part time come September will help this.

Spent £300 on next app last night buying kids essentials like pants, socks pyjamas and t shirts, shorts, school shoes and me some work clothes. Some will be sent back though. It will be paid off by the monthly budgets for clothes. Oh and swimming costumes as well. Both have had a growth spurt. 

I also got the sains app to work and started an order for delivery on Thursday. Hopefully this will save us time and money and top up cheddar account. 

Plans for today are to get in the garden this morning and then I have a small amount of work I need to do this afternoon when it rains, a bit of crafting with the kids and a film followed by reading more of my new book.

Hope everyone has a wonderful bank holiday!!

Crunchy xx

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Street party sounds lovely  

We live on a main road, all the houses are detached with walled driveways, so I never see my neighbours.  I'd recognise my immediate neighbours, but I don't have a clue after that!  It's pretty antisocial Previously, we lived in a little close and it was much more friendly, kids playing outside together etc.  Definitely miss it, but needed the space with all the children we chose to have  

Your plans and goals all sound great and the supply sounds like it's working for you for now  

crunchy_time

Morning all!

It's all been happening over here!

Car troubles costing £550! SATs and lots of drama in my supply job.  So much so that I have decided to stop teaching there for now.  I've offered to stay until the end of the summer term as a part-time TA.

I've very much enjoyed earning £600 to £700 a week but my sanity is on the line.  Husband is in agreement to this and we have said that we will scale things back for a bit. I obviously want to work, but not to the point that it is upsetting my mental health so I will start assessing my options.  Definitely don't want to do teaching.  I quite like doing interventions though so shall research jobs in this.  I think I would like to do more than one thing so perhaps two days a week doing x and 2 doing x and 1 day a week being a housewife ha ha!!

I'm off sick today as have a horrible cough that just won't go and a headache with it as well. So going to take dog for a walk now and then come back and curl up on sofa with a lemsip and said dog whilst planning our world domination ha ha!

Crunchy xx

crunchy_time

Morning all!

A lovely Bank Holiday weekend was had - cinema, friends, DIY etc etc.  Now, the first day of half-term break and we are having a lazy morning.  We have a bike ride with friends to the park planned for this afternoon.

Thankfully, my cough is on the way out and I have spent some of the weekend reflecting on what I can do next career wise and having a look about on various job sites.

On Friday I went though our finances having taken my eye off the ball for the last 4 or 5 weeks due to the teaching job that proved to be too much for me.  It turns out husband was struggling with being organised.  He lost one of his monzo cards and so was using his credit card intending to transfer money back but didn't.  Because he was doing the food shopping and putting it on his credit card, I thought that we had more money in our food pot than we actually did.  He has also continued to buy things from Amazon but is unclear what is his and what is stuff for the house.  He also doesn't like talking about it either which is annoying.

As a result we now have the following debt on his credit card:

£500 on spending money - amazon stuff mainly but he is convinced that some of it is on the house so we need to go through it.

£150 on clothes

£485 on food - mainly top up shops but also the main weekly shop and then not transferring it.

£372 on house stuff - a new sander, stuff to do tiling etc.  We have a house pot but he hasn't been budgeting, he has been very I'll do it now and sort it financially later which is annoying.

Out of his £300 a month spending money, we have agreed that he will have £100 a month and  I will pay off the spending money and clothes with the remaining £200 a month so it will take a little over 3 months to pay it off.  We will pay off the food gradually with the food budget and the same with the house stuff from the house budget.

From now on I will manage the food budget and house budget too like I used to.  

I have to realise that he isn't so good at this day-to-day organising of money and I need to take control.

We can get through this.  I have £850 ish extra money and then nearly £2500 saved up as well as my long term savings.  Other than this we also have no debt and an emergency fund.

My first focus is to not spend any extra money this week and really focus on our food budget.

My plan is to get debt free again and have a new job by September.

Crunchy xx