Follow the Yellow Brick Road 2023

Archerychick

SandyShores said:

Letter received from mortgage company yesterday to say that another month knocked off the mortgage, 14 years left in total.  There might not be many more letters for the next 18 months as I'll be saving the regular monthly OPs until then - so I'll need to think of other ways to OP as I want to cut the time left in half.  I need to start getting serious about this now

Interest for yesterday was £9.39 for the day - I've just multiplied that by 365 days and it totals £3427.35 gulp.  I definitely need to start getting serious about paying this off.

Just check PBs - no luck this time.

Nice progress! 
I too am now saving my overpayments into a savings account so aren't seeing the actual balance reduce as quick as it was. BUT I have created a brand new spreadsheet that effectively does this through to the end of my fixed deal (and pay off date). So if you haven't done this I highly recommend it as it's very satisfying to see the knock impact of the overpayment savings

SandyShores

Thanks @Archerychick that's what the locoblades spreadsheet does, agree its very satisfying

Thanks @LadyWithAPlan and good luck with house hunting.  I've put the brakes on using the credit card so much, and whenever I do household spending on the card I'm then transferring that amount into my personal account.  It means that for the rest of this month the household is showing a £214 balance left - yikes!   Though that takes into account the future committed spends for food and pet food so its well within limits - but seeing that figure (rather than the bank balance) will definitely make me budget more effectively.

I also need to start saving £50/mth into an easy access account.  I've got a few smallish yearly bills that I tend to pay from the household account as they arise, but these would be covered by a regular saving £50/mth so I'll start putting that to one side to make for smoother budgetting.

One large item went off to a purchaser this weekend.  Its lovely how the house seems to feel lighter and more spacious each time something goes.  It feels so much more relaxing, especially when you've also done your exercise for the day   So selling stuff and exercising are top of my list for February.

savingholmes

Well done on the savings and the decluttering. You are doing amazingly well.

SandyShores

Thanks @savingholmes, I'm pleased to have a grip on the budgeting again, it was getting in a bit of a muddle and allowing too much spending to sneak through.  Spending that probably adds to the clutter!  I don't have lots of clutter but it all builds up in places doesn't it - and as I've been dithering on changing furniture I haven't had the motivation.   I've decided if I can sell or move just one of my existing units (which really doesn't have much in it), there'll be enough space to store the chosen furniture from the swedish place.  Then I can start selling off the other pieces - it will be furniture jenga which won't be fun, but it will be great to get this done finally.  

SandyShores

Just spotted this on LadywithaPlan's thread and am adopting it for my own use:

"Failing to Plan Means Planning to Fail:

- Leave my phone outside my bedroom
- bed by 10.30pm 
-  Exercise daily no matter what - this could be a decent walk, weights or a swim"

Its those little things that make all the difference.  

Edit, I finally after over 10 years of owning my kindle worked out how to organise it.  I've steadily built up the books I've read, want to read, partially read and it was just not a good feeling to try and find the right book or even the one I was reading.  I've discovered collections - and now have folders of 'currently reading' 'would like to read' and so on.  So now when I go to bed (without my phone!) there's no excuse for doomscrolling on the book of face - instead I'll be tackling that huge list of books to read. I've also got 20+ paperback books to tackle!

Edit no.2 - just set up and made an OP from ZipZero.  Every £1 OP'd is a pound less to remortgage next year.

debtfreeoneday

I only found ZIPZERO recently but love it. Clocked up a decent amount fairly quickly. Just waiting for the first amount to credit a bill. 

SandyShores

debtfreeoneday said:

I only found ZIPZERO recently but love it. Clocked up a decent amount fairly quickly. Just waiting for the first amount to credit a bill. 

I had lots stored up from the first iteration and was able to pay about £60 off my council tax fairly quickly.  I'm building up the cash a bit slower now and I've realised that streamlining my shopping trips means I've less receipts to scan.  But its still worth doing and will be great to see fivers coming off the mortgage for nothing more than sharing my receipts (I'm not thinking too hard about what they do with that knowledge - but I guess its all shared anyway with all the other loyalty cards I use).

SandyShores

Day 1 of going to bed at a reasonable time / not taking my phone to bed went really well and I'm one-third of the way through a light read someone gifted me.  I did turn the light back on a couple of times but only to read a bit more, and eventually I managed to get off to sleep.  Woke up once in the night, but managed to get straight back to sleep again and woke at 6.30 am - can't say I was fully refreshed but definitely so much better.

Emails arrived from BG today reducing my DDs to £65/mth - I hate owing them at the year end, as they include any debt in the following year's DD.  I've always found their quarterly billing so confusing anyway, and their previous system didn't used to do anything to help me estimate spend for the remainder of the year.  Last year I painstakingly worked it out myself on a spreadsheet, pretty accurately, but I just didn't have the patience for it this year so have been paying way over the amount I needed to - thinking that when I receive the end of year refund I'll pay it off the mortgage.  Its also not helpful that they updated the system part-way through October so if you want to see previous data you have to log into the old accounts.  To be fair the new system does seem a bit more transparent, and at least it shows all my data (the old one didn't register all my meter readings for one of the services - can't remember which one).  My only wish is that it would let you choose the start and end dates to view annual spend/use - calendar year isn't helpful when your account 'year end' is April, but at least I can now see monthly usage in units and £s for both services.  I roughly estimated that I will be in decent credit at my account year end, so I'll let the revised DDs stand and any refund will go to the mortgage OPs.  I have been paying £200/mth but it looks like £150/mth should be enough in future - it will be easier to gauge when a full year of data is available - so I'll make sure my next year's DDs are £60 gas and £90 elect and then re-assess in Oct/Nov.

Books Read: 1/3 x 1; Exercise Done: 0; Decluttering Done: 0

SandyShores

Just reading the Retirement Living Standards Report .  Interesting to see this and to read the comments on MSE - everyone is so different in their expectations.  I think we would probably fall into the 'moderate' category and luckily we are on track to get there - all dependant on paying off the mortgage of course.

SandyShores

Finally got around to doing my MrA shop through ZZ.  They are offering an additional 3.5% at the moment but I keep forgetting.  You have to shop through the link provided and then send the receipt off.  That earned me almost £4 so will be able to send another £5 OP off soon.  I also had 70p in my cashpot from MrA.  I ought to use the Shopm and Checkout Smrt alongside as well to make the most of my shop.