Mortgage free mayhem

beanielou

Hope your dad is on the mend soon. 

mathilde

Thank you, he's doing okay, just had some minor surgery. All went well. 

savingholmes

Glad your Dad's okay.

I find an EF helps me sleep better and worry less.

mathilde

Thank you very much for the kind words. But not sure what an EF is? Lol

I've had a tough week financially. Last month unexpected car repairs wiped out my savings. Just after my last bulletin that I really need to build up my emergency fund, two things happened: 1. Octopus got in touch and said that they'd been billing wrong and I actually owe them £800 for the last 10 months (I'd thought I was £200 in credit).

2. Then also, whilst travelling in the US, my roaming didn't work but my mobile service charged me over £100. (I was in an airport car park trying to ring the shuttle service I'd pre-paid. I couldn't get through and the shuttle people couldn't ring me. Finally some people saw me looking distressed and lent me their phone. I got notice the next day that idmobile was going to bill me over £100 because of all the roaming activity--the attempted calls.)

Octopus has sent me a statement and I agree with the figures. But I've written them to tell them I'd been sending meter readings and that the refunds they'd mistakenly paid me earlier had just gone right into my mortgage, so I asked them to write off half the debt. We'll see what they say.

I complained to idmobile that they were billing me for a service they didn't provide, and that I'd actually been put in an unsafe position because of them. It took some back-and-forth but they gave me a refund! Next time I'll get a sim card.

I actually took the step of taking a £1000 personal loan from my bank. It just came through. I used it to pay off my credit card (£300ish for trip to visit dad). The remainder I'll use towards the Octopus debt. Not ideal but at least I won't be carrying a credit card balance or utility debt!

So for now the "mortgage overpayment" goal is on the back burner whilst I build up an emergency fund of at least £3000. 

mathilde

My dad is totally fine. I think my worry about him might have caused some of my panic about the money tbh. Honestly it's all manageable.

beanielou

EF is emergency fund which you have. 

mathilde

Yes, of course! Well I've got £31 in my EF so we've made a start. Lol

mathilde

Happy December. We're down to £78000! Plugging away.

This past month I took out a bank loan of £1000 to cover the emergency bills that came up.

Paid off Octopus £700. Paid off my credit card £300.

I worked some overtime and some contract extra hours in my second job so i also managed to build up my emergency fund to £300 and added a £290 overpayment to my mortgage to bring it down to a round number!

So we're getting there. 

mathilde

Oh, I forgot to add goals for next month!

1. Bring in my own food when I teach on campus, except for a Friday treat.
2. Put £500 overpayment on the mortgage. 
3. Put at least £250 in emergency fund.
4. Get outside more, take advantage of the beautiful parks near me.

mathilde

Happy new year!

Paid £250 into my savings. Whoop.

Overpaid £325 on mortgage, we're now at £77300 so plugging away. Sometimes these piddly little overpayments seem like negligible drops in the ocean but keeping positive! 

I also got outside more.

Goals for next month: 
1. Get £300 into that mortgage.
2. £250 into savings
3. Also doing veganuary! Vegan diet doesn't work for me long-term, but it's nice to have a vegan period to remind myself that vegetables exist. 😀 

I have an opportunity to do some more contract work too, later in the spring. 

Also, got a new kitten who is GORGEOUS. So that's the opposite of money-saving but she makes me happy.