Shaving off the years at Sleepy Hollow

Sarahwithlove

You're doing fab with the overpayments. Have you managed to work out where you are spending your savings? 

CreditCardJunkie

Sarahwithlove said:

You're doing fab with the overpayments. Have you managed to work out where you are spending your savings? 

Thank you! Yes...it's the kids, shoes, coats, vests, pants, presents for birthday parties, school trips 🙈

We would have put money away for the children every month and used that for when they needed clothes but I guess with just having a super spendy year we'd cut back so now the money is coming out of pocket! 

We've also had car repair bills every single month (some months multiple)...I really do love my car but it's getting rather costly to maintain and in many months I'd have been financially better off with a lease car 🙈 

Once we get christmas over us we will take a fresh look at our budgeting. We've been massively overpaying on gas and electric direct debits because of their estimated usages for us. The electric they have adjusted our bill from this month and gas I will need to phone them to sort out. 

LadyWithAPlan

CreditCardJunkie said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

Well done on all your OPs

 tracked all my variable spends for Oct /nov/dec on a spreadsheet and posted here - where even I had to admit I wasn’t being anywhere near as frugal as I thought 
this lead to me to using YNAB which I had resisted for years and it has taken me next level on budget, saving and knowing where my money is going plus it highlights when I am spending money against my own stated priorities 

11 months into using it I feel I am never going back - 
there is a 34 day free trial (& we both get an extra month free if you use a referral link - to then sign up - dm me if you want mine) 
I advise  watching the videos or reading the set up guide before set up as it takes a bit of clicking for some - cost is 109 dollars annually 

Yes please send me the link! I'll have a nosey at your post now!

I finally got paid so have knocked another month off the mortgage 🙏

i have dmd u 

hope you can get back on the budget wagon soon

CreditCardJunkie

Made Dec overpayments yesterday and downloaded a statement after. I had somehow made a terrible miscalculation of how many months we'd reduced the mortgage by! I think I had included the normal payments as well 🤔

So we've actually reduced it by 7 months from normal payments and an additional 14 months in overpayments. I've been trying to work this all out for 24hrs and I'm still confused 😂

CreditCardJunkie

Paid early so we've made our overpayments for Jan.

Savings are horrific. Car has been in the garage 3 times in the last 8wks 🙈

Goals for 2025
Continue with the regular overpayments
Save £50 pm for Christmas (we did this a few years ago and it was the least stressful christmas rver!)
Grow those savings. I haven't had time to look at setting a realistic target yet but I will before the new year!

CreditCardJunkie

Feb mortgage overpayments made, Christmas funds saved from Jan pay and savings growing ever so slowly...what's that they say about slow and steady 🤞

CreditCardJunkie

The littlest one had me up and can't get back to sleep.

March overpayments made, starting to notice some very small savings on the mortgage interest each month. More funds set aside for Christmas as planned.

General savings not going anywhere this month as we've given the go ahead for some garden work so the money has been set aside for that. Have been very frugal and quite smart about the spends so all being well it'll be a good investment. 

Not going abroad this year as we've decided to do a few bits we'd like done to the house, nothing major just some decorating and the work to the garden. Would still like to take the kids away somewhere localish, we've talked about camping but would need a new tent. Will finish garden project and make a decision.

CreditCardJunkie

Paid myself early just because it's easier to get time to allocate everything over the weekend.

Have put £300 in savings. Garden renovations are almost complete and it looks really well. Pretty sure we'll have added value to the house too.

Christmas savings coming along as planned, i actually decided to lift those out as cash and have them stashed away.

Mortgage overpayment sent to DH to pay off along with his share when he gets paid next week. We haven't been in the house quite a year and will have knocked off an additional 19 or 20 months of the mortgage by the time we're here a year. We didn't overpay on our last mortgage as we didn't see the point 🙈 seeing the numbers come down is so motivating!

CreditCardJunkie

Not much to report, we've taken a 2 month break from overpayments to fund decent camping equipment for over the summer. Everything all in would probably have cost the same as 3 nights in an air bnb so definitely seeing it as an investment!

Savings are still dire, so many bits and pieces have popped up and we're well into birthday season now. Realistically wont save much over summer hols with the cost of camps etc for DD. DS is starting nursery in Sept so have to account for that too. DD is turning out to be quite the sporty child and its very costly but I'm keen to give her the opportunities for things she's interested in. We've really pulled in the budget for shopping and rarely have takeaway now and have been out for dinner once this year. Not sure if its the cost of living or the cost of kids!