Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

debtfreewannabe321

I've done 4, 5 & 6....most delicate lamps packed, I've made a start on kitchen stuff that we don't use much...in fact as I was packing those bits I did think to myself I could probably throw all of this away and not miss it....I wonder if I should leave it all packed the other end and see what I do miss and CS the rest? Some of it has been through several moves only to be used perhaps a handful of times. Hmm...

Popping to Mr T soon to see if we can have more boxes again.

DP helped me move lots of boxes out Into the garage.

The ones I'm debating putting into a self storage is quite a small area and I've left that in the dining room- possibly 4 cubic metres at the moment...  That's including three delicate tables I think that's all I'd want to move ourselves. My brother in law has suggested we use their house and drop it the night before (5 mins from our new house) and just collect after we've moved in. I may take them up on that. I will send pictures of how much there is though before they agree. They're kind of hoarders and don't have an awful lot of space so I wouldn't want to impede on what little they do have. One night may be ok though. 🤔

Thank you beanie 😁 
Hotdog I'm glad I'm not working too. I may achieve a fair bit but I am utterly exhausted lately, not sleeping well at all it's no wonder I'm taking half the day to get motivated. Once I get going I am okay though.

 I didn't realise how much stuff we'd accumulated 😫 I'm constantly decluttering as new things come in and everything has a home in my house or it doesn't stay so it all looked pretty tidy and, well, not exactly minimalist but not maximalist either. As I'm packing I'm realising we have probably three times the amount of stuff we moved in with only two years ago!!! This in one way makes me feel better about selling at the price we have because not all the money I put into it from my rental sale has gone on DIY when packing you can clearly see a lot has gone on 'things' furniture (4 sofas, 3 beds, as well as several other big items) and antiques and records 🙈🙈🙈 and paintings.......but now I'm coming to pack it all I'm feeling really quite overwhelmed with it all and a little stressed. I don't know how to pack some of the stuff up. I've never had nice stuff before as I've never seen the point with young children. Now they're older DP and I have had great fun buying delicate stuff 😫🤣 and I've no clue how to pack it all 🤣😫🙈 we got rid of so much before our last move and I thought that was a big job to pack up 🤣.

Right anyway here's some spends for today - 
£3.05 in the co-op
£44 on some tickets for a tribute band in November right around DP birthday 🎂 so that's his entertainment sorted and paid for. Got early bird tickets too so that was good.

I'm really feeling so fed up I am debating a take away which I know I shouldn't get because I should save the money for when I really need the takeaway during moving week. It wouldn't be too much for just DP & I though...I'll let you know if I win this guilt battle or not tomorrow!...

beanielou

Have the takeaway. 

skint_spice

Another vote for the takeaway!

debtfreewannabe321

We got the take away! 
And it was delicious and lasted for one dinner and one lunch the next day. Totally worth it!
I've also had two better night's sleep on the bounce so feeling much better.

Some frugalness this weekend but also some spends.
We needed to fill the fridge because the kids were coming home so we did a Mr T shop, less than a hundred quid can't recall exact amount.
I have been gifted lots of free packing boxes from FB and also we paid for some packing noodles and bubble wrap and some tape, but frugal enough as they were all off FB and £15 for 3 bags of packing noodles, a huge roll of bubble wrap, 5 lots of tape -3 of them fragile ones. So way cheaper than buying new. 
We've broken the back of the packing this weekend, thank goodness. The dining room, living room are all packed up aside from the entertainment bits- tv, record player, dvd player etc. Kitchen is half packed, I have 4 empty cupboards, 2 half empty ones, only1 full one and 3 half empty drawers. I found some dried bean mix which I soaked overnight and will use today to make a bean chilli in a bit.
Kids are home so I will get started on their rooms before next weekend as they are off to a week's camp then and I won't have them to help me. I want their rooms done by next Friday. For now though we are stopping for the weekend, we must have packed at least 2 dozen boxes and have had enough to be honest for one weekend.

I haven't been on top of the budget so DP and I sat down and reconciled the budget with YNAB I have one thing wrong but can't figure out what I need to change. But it is telling me I have spent,
£291.93 on groceries this month so far.
£95.64 on dining out/ take aways (DP had holiday so we went out on day's out for most of these spends)
£381.21 on DIY/ a few tools we needed to replace when we moved but because we had to do the work we got them early so probably £300-320 on DIY the rest on tools.
£32 on clothes

We have enough left for food especially as the kids are away for a week still this month and we will start our new budget in the new house on the 1st- well that is the aim anyway! Moving our financial month from the 25th to the 1st hopefully it will be much easier to manage then! 

beanielou

Glad that you enjoyed the takeaway. 

Watty1

Just caught up. Phew.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all,

Well I made my first OP to the mortgage this week. Not that I realised  I had set up the sprive app and as it is linked to my current account it sets aside money to be paid straight to the mortgage if I have any spare, I had gone into it a while back when we decided to move and thought I had turned it off....perhaps not? I had however set the OP to a maximum amount ever to be taken out. So my OP for this month was one whole pound  

It did get me thinking though. 

We have had 2 years of our 5 year fix at 2.49% now. Really we want that mortgage as low as possible by the time the fix is done. It is teetering on the low £96k now...with a little push we can get it to 95k easily. I am going to have to come up with a plan to OP this as well as live comfortably in the new house. We also have that new mortgage of around 23k on the higher rate which I think we will make small OPs too as well....
I was thinking about what costs are going up-

• The mortgage is up although we can't find any paperwork, as it's packed, with the exact amount - I wonder if I wrote it in this diary, I might read back and see so I can do the budget properly. I have over egged it to be sure.
• Council Tax is going up as we move up a band and to a different council
• Maintenance has just doubled
• We are putting our fun money up once we've moved because we have a small comfortable EF, and will have paid for the moving expenses by then.
• We think Electric / Gas will go up as the house is bigger & older.
• I've started new pots to pay for expenses next year so they're not a big surprise! So Prime, we may also do it for the ynab as DP is enjoying using it and if it means we get to budget together rather than me doing it all alone I am happy to pay for it....I am pretty annoyed that I don't have the license key for my YNAB4 which I had because it would mean I had an instant 10% off. I am also putting in money for vets, FLD is getting old and tired and I suspect I will need it. 

Our plans so far for doing this:

• DP has applied for a new job, although it is not commission based like his current one he thinks it will equate to the same pay with bonuses and come every month rather than us waiting for bonus months. He's unsure what the pay is though he's just been told it is a 'band' and that band has large variations from one end to the other but it should be similar if not more than what he is currently on.
• I want a job, not really all that fussed with what it will continue to probably be part time, my mental health dips if I take on too much and my c-ptsd goes into overdrive. I am better and can self-heal, self-manage my emotions if I work part-time.
• DD wants a job so that means I could potentially save a little more, most of the clothing expense for example goes on her, as does the toiletries and snacks in the house perhaps I could persuade her to buy her own if she gets a job.
• We will use some of the money that we were throwing at the HMF & EF all year. I still want to keep working on the EF but I feel some sort of life/ saving balance needs to happen now we have the EF to my first goal (well......almost........£50 and it will be at £2000). 
• I will carry on with surveys and use this once we move. At the moment that money is just going into the budget.

What I am giving up trying to curb:

- The food budget I think after having spent a couple of weeks with just DP....we could easily live on less than £100 per week. BUT with two fully grown (well almost both are already bigger than me by a long shot- DS is teetering on 6' and DD 5'5") children at home it is no wonder I couldn't really get below £500. It will stay at that and I will be grateful if we bring it on that, but with the rise in costs there is more to worry about than the spends on food every week. We need it to eat, we eat from scratch probably 80% of the time, I refuse to compromise from organic fruit/ veg, so I think it is what it is. I will still document how much I am spending though to try and keep on budget. I am actually thinking about upping it a little say, £50 on top of this for bulk purchases. Or should I take the £50 from the £500 ...hmm I am not sure?

This morning I am taking a well deserved break, DP & I went through SO many boxes and packing materials at the weekend, we don't have an awful lot left to do (aside from kids rooms and the dreaded kitchen stuff). I have offered to cut DD hair for school/ college wherever she ends up.... as I know she will be asking me last minute otherwise so I am going to do it this week before camp, and before the move. 
This week we also need to chase up solicitors and EA early on if we want to exchange asap. We really need that completion date cemented to organise removal vans.
I am meal planning from cupboards, freezer and fridge. What shall I make with burgers or sausages today yesterday i made a chilli with the beans I found (enough for two meals) and cooked burgers up and served with a massive salad, rice, burgers and chilli on top. DD didn't like the burgers either so we checked ingredients...they're made with seitan rather than the pea protein we usually like. I think that is why we don't like the chewy consistency. They will probably be binned before long.
DP & I walked the dog in the field last night and picked a bowl of blackberries, we had those with ice cream for pudding. A nice easy and frugal way of getting fruit into the kids. We've been eating them for weeks now and will probably be sick of them before long
I've already done 5 surveys whilst writing this....today seems to be a good morning for them! Some days none pop up at all. I have around £4 cleared and another £15 waiting for approval on there which is good. 
Right best be off to start the day properly, I am hoping for a NSD as I don't think I need anything in but I won't declare it too soon....

debtfreewannabe321

"The repayment figures were so low we have opted for the minimum amount needed to buy the house which I think was £23k (I think we could have another 25k on top of that but declined it - hoping we don't live to regret it). But so many figures were spoken about my brain feels fried now so it may be slightly more or less than 23k.

It is only £660 a month for both mortgages. Our first mortgage is £515. So the new one is only £145 per month and I can overpay by 10% as with the bigger one. 4 something percent it's on. "

So I read back and found the amount... I knew oversharing with the world would come in handy one day
So we had to guess what the figure was as we couldn't find the paperwork anywhere. I put £720 in the YNAB ...so this is great, we have £60 more available for OPs or the budget in general when we move! 

debtfreewannabe321

The kids are packing their own rooms! 
I'm very grateful.
I didn't really want to admit it but I'm exhausted and my back is starting to hurt like pre-chiropractor days after lifting boxes.
So yay 👏
Most of her things are clothes (can you tell she's a teenager) so light boxes anyway.

I've emailed the sales progressor and she's chased it all up to see if we can set an exchange date. I will leave it with her I've got enough going on.

Just stopping to make a quick pasta lunch. I always am thinking about food when there is someone else around. I panic if I've not got the next meal planned for them. If I am on my own I will go all day without eating and just crack on....I must be in mum mode 😆

Watty1

What I love most about your post is the awareness that your C PTSD goes into overdrive if you work too much.    I love that.  You are an inspiration to taking care of self whilst also working on goals.