I wanna be mortgage freeeee!

ShinyStarlight1

I do admire your commitment.

When I was much younger, I made a plan to pay off a debt. It meant I had to be crazily frugal for a year. Now I look back, decades later, I have such a feeling of accomplishment for how I did what I set out to do.

Applauding your commitment here 💐

Flossymuldoo

ShinyStarlight1 said:

I do admire your commitment.

When I was much younger, I made a plan to pay off a debt. It meant I had to be crazily frugal for a year. Now I look back, decades later, I have such a feeling of accomplishment for how I did what I set out to do.

Applauding your commitment here 💐

Aaawww thank you. 

I think what I’ve done is finally turned my finances into my ADHD hyper focus, and by some miracle my interest hasn’t waned this time.  

Also both my and my husband being made redundant at the same time in early 2024 and I have never been so scared of ending up destitute.  In reality that wasn’t likely to happen, but the fear of not being in a good financial situation is keeping me focussed. 

LadyWithAPlan

Flossymuldoo said:

Oh and I forgot mention, I had planned on starting to increase the overpayments from late this year but o have opened a chip savings account. It has 3.71% interest but I’m only paying 1.89% on my mortgage until the deal runs out at the end of 2024. So any overpayments I will be putting in there until the end of the deal.  I worked out that with what I have in there now it will earn me around and extra £100 in interest between now and the deal finishing. Win!!

Winning indeed!

Flossymuldoo said:

I think what I’ve done is finally turned my finances into my ADHD hyper focus, and by some miracle my interest hasn’t waned this time.  

Also both my and my husband being made redundant at the same time in early 2024 and I have never been so scared of ending up destitute.  In reality that wasn’t likely to happen, but the fear of not being in a good financial situation is keeping me focussed. 

That must have been so scary both being made redundant , but it seems actually it has turned out to be a good thing as made you both get focused. Glad the surgeries went well as well

Flossymuldoo

Thanks for you encouragement @LadyWithAPlan
Yeah it was massively scary and to be honest im not sure the feeling has 100% left me.  Not a bad thing though if it keeps me focused.

I have some good news though.    To cut a long story short I’d got the wrong end of the stick about child benefit so I opted out at the and of last year to avoid having to do self assessment tax return.
Friday I got a text from HMRC saying me that I might want to opt in if I earn less than 80k.
so I sucked it up and did self assessment (and it wasn’t as onerous as I expected), and apparently they owe me nearly £1700 as I’ve overpaid tax. 

Just waiting for it to land then I’ll get it in deep savings, and that means I’ll be at my saving target quicker and then be able
to divert a bit more to my mortgage this year  🎉🎉🎉

HMRC for the win! (For a change)

LadyWithAPlan

yeah to £1700  overpaid tax!! 
I think that kind of fear will always stay a little with you to keep one focused...

I was in the duty free today - some lovely Swarow** rings and new perfume/makeup was smelled but I reminded myself I have to spend a few £££,£££ on a house soon .. that stopped me My current home situation is suddenly a roller coaster I am enjoying but I have no intention into moving into another rental after this place... 

Flossymuldoo

@LadyWithAPlan Oh how i love duty free shops.  I used to go nuts in them stocking up on lovely smelling things and face creams.  Now i'm a tight !!!!!! and cant quite bring myself to spend £80 odd quid for a day and night cream. 
Husband is also allergic to scents so i set him off sneezing if i wear a lot of perfumes 

I have downgraded my face stuff since covid. Mainly because the last one i used i got to the same stage i did with the one before that it stopped sinking into my skin. I'd wake up on a morning and it would all be sat on the surface and it's too expensive to be washing it down the drain.   So i had a play around with some cheaper ones and found one i liked, but then bumped into a friend who i hadn't seen for years and her skin looked incredible.  It turns out she uses the Nivea blue cream.    So i switched to that and love it. It's suitably lardy, cheap as chips so i can just blather it on, and my skin feels lovely and soft.

Jan has ticked along and has felt rather like groundhog day - apart from a lil trip with my friends for a spa weekend. It's the 3rd year in a row we've done it and it's just fabulous having a day and overnight away without hubby and my wayward son (as much as i love them!).  The things i love about it most is that we are all chatting none stop and it's all consuming so i have little time to think of any stresses.   We got an absolutely gorgeous 2 bedroom apartment there and had the most lovely time. We brought our own snacks, bubbly and DVDs and blobbed in our PJs after dinner.  Well worth the £199 and the extras were only £20 each and it came out og the 'holiday pot'.

The tax rebate money landed (wahooooo!) and I sent it straight to Deep Savings.  I still need to scrape the dreg ends of money in the spending accounts together on Sunday night ready for the Feb's to land in the accounts on Monday, so i'm hoping there might be a few quid to add there.   There also be interest to land on the 6th and I've got hubby to cash out out Natwest rewards and that's £93 there so i'll update my totals then.  I'm hoping to scrape my way to £18k in savings and then only 2k to go before i can start hammering the mortgage.

I have created myself a very lovely spreadsheet to closely track my mortgage (gotta love a Friday morning ADHD hyperfocus!)  and if everything goes to plan i will have it paid off 2 months before my 60th birthday.    It likely won't go to plan as there will inevitably be something that crops up, or hubby and i don't get out bonuses etc but it's nice to dream.   

I have savings pots sorted for just about everything so the only real spanner in works could be hubby needing a new car. He wants to keep this til it dies and loves is but obvs we don't know at what point it will be beyond repair.   It's 10 years old now.  Maybe i need a 'new car' pot.... hhhhmmmmmm

Flossymuldoo

All my money jigger pokery is complete for Feb and all monies have got to their respective pots. Current balances are:
Mortgage:  156,215.12
Savings:  18000.20

Me hitting £18k prompted my asking folks on the savings board how much was logical in savings. I think because I was so focussed for so long paying off debt that I have been approaching savings with the same mindset - that I have to save as much as possible in the shortest period of time. 

Anyway the thread turned more into how I can make my surplus and money work better for me, and that’s not necessarily accumulating a ton of savings or hammering my mortgage month to month.

So there has been lots of calculating and spreadsheet shenanigans and I think I’ve landed on a plan I’m comfortable with.

Pension. 

I haven’t been paying in enough. So I’ve upped that by 4%.

When hubby gets his pay rise in April I will add an additional 2%. That should take me under the child benefit threshold so I won’t have to pay any of that back next financial year.
From next year we will add any pay rise either of us gets into our pensions.  

Savings.
Pay £1250 a month into savings.  This keeps the money available to us all year so it’s not tied up in mortgage - which will give me
more peace of mind - and also take advantage of the interest rate being a bit higher that my mortgage rate.   Anything over £20000 at the end of the year I will pay off the mortgage. I am expecting this to be around 10-11k after I’ve paid for a new front path (before it kills someone!) and the outside of the house repainting.

Mortgage.
Stick with the tiny overpayment of 7.36 per month until December.  

All other budgets seem to be doing ok except the holiday one. I’ve got stuff booked and now there is the Black Sabbath gig in July that has been announced.  The budget can handle it but cash flow is going to be a problem, so I need to do some sorting of that to make it work.  More excelling required methinks!

Flossymuldoo

Well February is ticking along fine. My strict budget is doing well.  It’s stopping me from spending on random stuff as I do not have an Unnecessary !!!!!!’ fund 😂

No movement on the mortgage and savings but I have come up with a plan.  

While I can probably overpay a decent amount  by the end of the year it was bugging me that I won’t be able to come up with the full 10% this year. So I have decided to try stooze to get the full 10% for this year, then I will carry on saving so that I have the full 10% to pay at the start of next year when the overpayment allowance refreshes.

I have calculated, calculated and calculated more and it could work really well.  Benefits are:

I can pay 15000 off as soon as the money lands - so I can pay an extra 2-5k off this year with obvs an interest saving there. 
I will then have the full 10% for next January's overpayment rather than paying at the end of the year- interest saving. 

 Calculations say that over the 5 years of my
fixed rate mortgage is will:

Save £2800 in mortgage interest.

Gain additional interest in my cash ISA of around £3000 (but compounded it’s about 8k)

Be able to pay the remaining mortgage off at the end of the 5 year fixed with money in savings whereas I will have an additional year with my original plan).

Keep as much of my
money as possible in savings should
disaster strike!

I will have to pay the CC off obvs, but if I can balance transfer it to 0% balance transfer cards when I need to, i make just over the minimum payments,  I can clear the remaining £5k at the end of the 5 years. I will have enough in savings to do that. 

I have applied for the card. It was pre approved for at least £9900 so I just need to hear from them whether I can have the full £15000 I have requested. 

I don’t think I’ve missed anything but my maths brain is a bit befuddled now 😬

Flossymuldoo

Well, that’s scuppered my plans. I’ve been made redundant today 😫

LadyWithAPlan

Oh no ! So sorry to read that - hopefully your savings funds will help you be a little less stressed 

fingers crossed you will get a new job soon and the redundancy will be  extra cash