Frugally paying the mortgage down

$17mma

Thank you @save_dog for starting this thread, I have begun my mortgage free journey and I am sooo looking forward to it. Thank you for the tips in this thread. 

I have a silly question what does YNAB mean?

save_dog

Hi, so nice to have you here! I’m at the very beginning of our mortgage free journey so I’m hoping this little MSE diary will keep me accountable - I love reading other people’s journeys! Good luck on your journey! 🤗

YNAB is a budgeting software called You Need A Budget. There is a subscription cost but to me it’s worth it’s weight in gold given how much clarity it’s given me over my finances and as a result, it’s helped me to pay off debts and save (promise I’m not on commission - I just think it’s great!). I have no doubt that my debt free journey would have been so much harder without it - I guess it’s just what works for us!

They do have a 34 day free trial and lots of tutorials to help you get set up ☺️

South_coast

save_dog said:

When I’m overwhelmed I do have a bad habit of busying myself with the easy stuff which doesn’t help in the long run!

I can definitely relate to this 🤦‍♀️!

save_dog

I’m terrible for it @south_coast ! It’s a way of getting something ‘productive’ done without doing the thing that’s actually causing me the anxiety. I need to get better at eating the frog!

Yesterday I went into the office in the afternoon for a quick meeting with a colleague. My turn to get the coffees, and honestly, I can’t believe I used to buy coffee at work every time I was in until recently! £5.85 for an Americano and a hot chocolate - including a reusable cup discount for me! It did make me flinch but it really is a one off.

I also paid £7.35 for parking for just over 2 hours which feels extortionate - and again, this includes a corporate discount of 20%!
I only drove in because I was heading to pick my LO up from my mum’s house after work, and work is basically on the way. Sometimes I do work until 7pm though, and being 8 months pregnant now, the last thing I want to do is walk to get a bus home after a late shift - usually in the dark - so I’ve been driving in more than usual which is £9.95 a day 😱 The couple of times I have got the bus in the morning, my energy has been completely depleted by the end of the day and DH has picked me up which isn’t much better. I think I need to look at working an earlier day until mat leave. I do WFH a couple of days a week but I much prefer going into the office and having that separation at the end of the day. 

In other news, we’re going to see a house today which we hope is the one! It was on the market in November when we were thinking of moving out of the area, and I liked it then. Then it was under offer and our plan was to move about 10 miles away anyway. Our plans have changed and we’re staying put, and it’s back on the market as the chain has fallen through. The vendor is only accepting viewings from people who are SSTC, which we are now - so it feels like the stars might be aligning? Although as I’ve learnt from months of viewings, what a house is like in person can be very different from the EA photos, so I’m trying not to get my hopes up. 

It would be great to get it sorted out before my mat leave starts though as I believe that can make mortgage applications a bit more tricky. 

Still on at DH to update his spends so I can figure out if there’s scope for any further mortgage OPs this month! 🙈

Right - time to start work and eat the frog (and not get sidetracked by admin!). Have a lovely day MSE-ers! X

save_dog

Oh, and I am determined to get something on Vinted today, do 10 mins of decluttering and get back on top of TOMM! I’ve tidied and cleaned the bedrooms before work so onto a good start. Fingers crossed my energy from a long sleep last night lasts all day 🤗 I woke up feeling very dizzy so I suspect my BP may be a bit low - the midwife did mention this at my last appointment, so we’ll see how my ambitious plans fare!

HappyFriday05

Just popping on to say hello! I’m at the start of my overpayment journey today too - first )100 made today! 

save_dog

Hi @HappyFriday05, thanks for popping in! Well done on your £100 overpayment! I can already feel that trying to find funds for OPs is going to get a bit addictive 😅 I’m WFH instead of at the office today so squirrelling away my bus fare into the OP category. Every small amount makes me feel like *some* progress is being made!

So, we went to see the house yesterday and unfortunately it was not the one 😭 it was much smaller than we’d expected and the garden, though lovely, was triangular shaped so that too was a lot smaller than we thought. EA pictures can be really deceiving!

We’re back to square one - revisiting Rightmove properties for the millionth time to see if there are any we should reconsider. I’ve booked a viewing for one a week on Saturday which has been reduced by £50k in the last week. It would need some work but the garden is really lovely (or so the pictures make it seem!). We had originally thought the location was a bit too far away from anything (though firmly in the suburbs and not rural at all!) - but actually, it’s only a 20 min walk from the local high street and even closer to our local park. It’s not near a corner shop but that could be a good thing given our track record of overspending on snacks!

I do wonder whether we’re being too picky on what we’re looking for - but it’s such a huge purchase that we want it to be the one. The house we’d offered on but didn’t get gave me that feeling but no others have - maybe we just need to sit down and have a think about our priorities again. In the meantime, I will obsessively check Rightmove for new properties every half an hour!

In other news, I got on top of the housework/TOMM yesterday and posted a return that’s been hanging around for far too long. No decluttering or Vinted though! Trying again today.

Time to start work - feeling all the stress of having lots to wrap up before mat leave so I need to just make a coffee and plod on with it. 

Hope you all have a lovely Friday ❤️

HappyFriday05

If it helps, I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. We were buying a new build and it kept getting delayed and delayed for over a year! Eventually we pulled out and the next day drove past a house in a tiny village we’d never even considered before! Had a look round and it immediately felt like home. We’ve been here 3 years now and I couldn’t imagine being in the new build I originally had my heart set on!

we also moved to an area with no corner shop and we don’t really miss it. It’s good for the diet too 😂

save_dog

Ah thanks HF - you’re absolutely right of course! Glad you love your home so much - it’s not a purchase to compromise on really, is it?

After my last message a house has been listed in an area which isn’t our *ideal* but is still lovely, it’s reasonably priced within budget and the garden looks amazing! The kitchen is at the front of the house so I’d want to do some work downstairs to extend at the back slightly and have the kitchen moved, so all very doable! We’re booked in to see it on Thursday, so fingers crossed - and who knows what comes up in the meantime.

We had a lovely weekend here - DH really wanted a takeaway last night but I didn’t fancy it so it was cheaper than usual - I still flinched though now that I’m my mortgage OP focus! I did discover Sprive last week though, so we got 95p Cashback to go towards the mortgage. While I was on there I bought £100 towards Tesco through Sprive which gave me £3 Cashback for an OP too - every little helps I suppose, no matter how small it may seem - and I’d spend that money in Tesco with or without the Cashback!

I got a vegan burger when out and about yesterday as I’d been to get my hair done in the morning (budgeted for!) and we had to get out and I was so hungry! I need to get better at having snacks to hand.

Today I woke up feeling dreadful - almost hungover! I’m putting it down to the prawn crackers I had last night (my only takeaway item!) not agreeing with my constant indigestion! I feel like baby may have dropped too as I felt very uncomfortable this morning. DH played with the toddler pretty much all morning and took him and the dog out while I snoozed until gone midday, which I felt much better for.

In the afternoon I got a burst of energy, and I think nesting has kicked in - I made a few batches of Nancy Birtwhistle’s Pure Magic and got rid of all the algae on the flags in the yard. Then I proceeded to apply PM to everything in sight, and it is incredible! It managed to clean the outside of the back doors in a way I haven’t been able to do before! I guess that’s frugal as I just used the ingredients I had to make it and existing bottles. It was a very enjoyable afternoon for me anyway 😅

Had leftovers for lunch and dinner and haven’t been over the door all day so a NSD for me!
DH has promised me he’ll update YNAB while I do a little bit of work so I can figure out where we’re up to.

That’s enough rambling from me. Hope you’ve all had a restful Sunday 🤗

strandedinaber

Just come to read through your diary after you commented on mind @spend_dog and I'm really impressed - you are totally on top of it, especially considering you're dealing with third-trimester fatigue!

Did DH update YNAB? I'm a clearcheckbook user myself - I'm always impressed by YNAB as I know a lot of people love it, but I've got a system that works for me on clearcheckbook now.

Re. your mortgage provider, I'm with Yorkshire Building Society and their rates are really competitive. I was determined to go with a building society over a bank when I took out my first mortgage but did look at several bank options as well. The main difference I noted was that the building societies were generally willing to lend less than the banks were - but in all honesty, some of the offers made to me by banks went beyond what I could comfortably afford to repay each month. So I definitely felt more comfortable with a building society but if I'd found a house I'd fallen in love with and couldn't quite stretch the finances, I'd have to have gone with a bank.