MeandO's money-shuffling

MeandO

I had to run some errands this morning and was passing the out of town ald! which has a better choice, so I stocked up on shopping which I now won't have to do at the weekend. We had practically run out of milk, salad, eggs and meat/fish for the freezer so it ended up a big (for us) shop. Total spend was £51.93 and we now have 2 packs of prawns, 3 packs of chicken which I will split into portions later, sausages (which I will also split into 3's), bread, bagels, fruit, yogurt, squash, veggies, biscuits for DS and an avocado for me as a treat.   The fridge and cupboards are also now fully stocked and I also picked up some sunflowers for my sunflower-loving friend who is a bit stressed at the moment. They were 50% off but looked absolutely fine so cost me under £2. The meat and fish should last us a fair few weeks now and definitely until next month's budget with a bit of clever food planning.

I still need to buy that stamp today. I'll walk to the post office and post Dad's cards off today. It's a lovely day so will enjoy the walk.

MeandO

Forumites, I need some opinions please as I'm in a bit of a quandry.

My mortgage statement came and they were going to reduce my monthly payment by over £50 (again) because of the overpayments I'd made. Lloyds will no longer allow you to change the term instead of the monthly payment without going through a mortgage review which is what I've (painstakingly) sat through for 1.5 hours today. The upshot is, I can either accept the lower monthly payments and overpay, but this will mean my mortgage will take several years longer to pay off and cost me a lot more in interest as there is a 10% OP allowance per calendar year. I would have flexibility and a very low mortgage payment per month though in case things got really tough (£350). OR I can raise my monthly mortgage payment by around £135 of what I have been paying for the past year and knock 6 years and 8 months off the term and save myself thousands in interest.  It's nearly halving the term of the mortgage but it would mean finding £135 per month extra. 
To do this, I'd need to slash my savings. I currently send £200 to the ISA but that would need to drop to £100. DS's gym membership will now be free for a year plus I've nearly finished paying the £50 per month for his big school trip (August 1st) so that would mean £175 is freed up in total. I'd be able to save £200 per month to the sinking fund for insurances, tax, MOT, car/house repairs etc; £200 to Christmas/birthdays, £100 to school uniform etc and £100 to the ISA for long term savings/gym fees/everything else. I'm also paying AVCs of the equivalent of £287 a month. Urgh, it's difficult knowing what to do for the best. I worry I won't be able to afford everything but I can on paper and I really want this mortgage paid off asap and not to pay so much interest. BUT I also wont be able to save as much which worries me for when the CB, UC and CM stop when DS is no longer in education. Crikey, this adulting lark is difficult sometimes.

in_need_of_direction

what rate of interest do you get on your ISA and what's your mortgage rate?

MeandO

Thanks for your reply INOD, but I've made a decision to not go ahead with the new mortgage deal now. I did a few calculations on the MSE overpayment calculator and it showed that I would more or less have the same result if I just sent £200 a month to the mortgage as an overpayment rather than commit myself to the higher payment every month. Problems with this would arise in around 5 years when the mortgage was below £24K and so 10% would equate to less than £200 per month, but I'll just shove it into savings then instead and pay off a lump sum. I will be in a totally different financial situation in the next 3-5 years anyway so that was what was worrying me with regards to future affordability. For now I will send the £200 per month overpayment to the mortgage and that nicely covers the £1800 left I am able to overpay this year without penalty. I'll re-assess next year.

The antiques guy came and offered £80 for the cutlery and a bag of silver and jewellery. I accepted as it gets rid of it and trying to sell individual pieces online had come to nothing, but I feel like I've been ripped off a little bit by him there with the amount of items he took. I know he will make quite a profit on it all as there were one or two pieces which stood out, but I guess he has the right channels to sell it all whereas I don't. I wont be calling him again though.

I'm feeling a bit glum and down about that now as if I've let my grandparents down a little bit by letting their belongings go for little money. I think I need to draw a line under it now and let it go otherwise it will eat away at me. The £80 will be paid off the mortgage, that's another few bricks of this house they've bought us. 

In brighter news, one of last week's vinted items has been delivered so £20 has been received. Some expensive sports boots that DS outgrew quickly also sold for £25 on there yesterday, that money will go towards his current sporting expenses. Another item went for £65 overnight but I am a little wary about that one as I was chancing it a bit with the price and didn't really expect to sell it for that. Without going into detail, there is a potential for me to be scammed by the buyer on this item so I have done what I can to reduce the risk as much as I can and have taken photos and a video of me wrapping it with all the contents packed and visible. I really hope there is no trouble with it, the £65 will really come in handy to go towards things. I'm nervous though.
I will post both of those parcels off today and hope for the best.

Gym later after a 3 week hiatus. I'm both looking forward and dreading it but I know I'll feel better for going. Hopefully it will cheer me up a bit too. x

vampirotoothus

Hi I too think you have done the right thing with the mortgage. It's much better to have that flexibility, than been committed and then being stretched too far. V x

MeandO

Thank you vampirotoothus, I really appreciate that. It's hard to know what to do for the best sometimes! x

I've just rounded the £80 received today up to £100 (£20 from my spends pot) and sent it to the mortgage. That leaves £1700 left to pay off this year to reach the 10%.
Mortgage @ 03/2019: £125,000, Now: £52,581.79
Mortgage OP’s: £20,319.28

Sarahwithlove

I think you made the right decision. You have the flexibility in future if it's needed and don't have to worry about over stretching yourself.

MeandO

Thank you Sarahwithlove, you summed it up perfectly x

MeandO

After yesterday's storm and torrential rain we had here it is reasonably sunny at the moment, so there are two loads of washing now out on the line, hopefully to dry before we're due more rain later this afternoon.

Both vinted parcels were sent yesterday and one from last week has now 'cleared' so there's £3 on the way to the bank to go in a pot towards something else. I have £108 pending from sales at the moment, £18 of which belongs to DS, the rest will go towards the sporting expenses once cleared. I have a few more very small items to list which I'll try and do later. They won't amount to much but it all helps at the moment.

I've been feeling very remorseful about the 'deal' made with the antiques guy yesterday. It's been playing on my mind all night and was making me feel uneasy, so I took action to make something more positive out of it this morning and feel I can rest easier about it now. I need to stop letting it play on my mind now.

I ordered my Mum some (2nd hand) books online this week which have just arrived, along with DS's and my vitamins which I buy on a subscribe and save every 3-4 months to save money. Mum will enjoy the books - she can't go out much and spends most of her time on her bed as she can't sit for long periods due to the pain she suffers so these will provide a little bit of distraction and pleasure for her. She loves a good murder mystery and forensic read, so much so my Dad worries she's getting ideas! 

Have a good day all x

MeandO

Morning all,

Another weekend has flown by, hopefully Monday is kind to everyone.

Soon after receiving the &mazon delivery on Friday I noticed that the vitamins bought for DS on subscribe & save were short dated. A 3 months supply out of date in 1.5 months. I phoned to complain and was eventually refunded, so that's £17 odd back to me. We will use up one box before they expire but I will give the other two to my friend who has teens so the vitamins don't have to be binned.

The £65 vinted sale arrived at its destination in record time of less than 2 days! It's already been 'approved' and the funds are in my account. It was a large value sale for me so I'm really pleased there were no issues with the order as I was nervous about possibly being scammed. I'm still waiting on the £25 order to reach its destination, it looks like they've tried and failed to deliver a couple of times.
I sold a BIN item on ebay for £60 at the weekend too which I packaged and sent off yesterday. Again, it was something I wasn't hopeful of getting a sale as it was quite niche - something that belonged to my grandparents - so I'm really pleased with the sale. It also makes me feel better about the antiques issues of last week. Hopefully that sale goes through ok too. One other item has bids on with 4 days to go. It's only up to around £2 so far but hopefully will go higher as it has a few watchers. Lastly, I've been contacted about an item which has been on marketplace for some time and over which I've had several people mess me about or just not turn up to collect. It's listed for £40, I've been offered £20 which I've rejected but the guy has asked for my 'best price' (a phrase which annoys me, but never mind!). We'll see if anything comes of it when I get back to him.