The Unexpected Mortgage-Free Wannabe

Betharooni

Whoops, back again. Mental health been pretty bad over the last couple of months and I’ve not been on the forum at all for a while.

Finance updates are as follows:

Starting mortgage balance at 23/4/25 £120,999
Current balance £119,750.54
August daily interest £13.39
Interest rate 4.07%

Car finance £9,657.64 (5.7%)
New bed £1,646.20 (0%)

Mortgage is now under £120K which I’m glad about, and car finance under £10K. 

Dining room was decorated as planned and they did another great job of it. My new bedroom is still a work in progress and I need to spend a decent amount of time going through stuff in there, but it’s very slowly getting there.

Will post a more comprehensive update over the next couple of days.

B x

beanielou

Good totals. 

Betharooni

Another month, another finances update.

Starting mortgage balance at 23/4/25 £120,999
Current balance £119,435.90
August daily interest £13.35
Interest rate 4.07%

Car finance £9,427.72 (5.7%)
New bed £1,589.43 (0%)

Sorry for not doing any other updates recently, mental health and physical health have both been pretty bad recently. Money is pretty tight this month and I have a few days away towards the end of the month, so I need to be very sensible with my spending.

Will work out what else is going on and post a proper update on everything by the end of the weekend.

B x

powerspowers

Sorry you are struggling Beth xx

beanielou

Keep plodding 🤗

Betharooni

Another update, and within a few days as well!

Last few months have been fairly busy.

• As mentioned dining room has been redecorated and everything that needed to go back in there has been replaced.
• DB1 has taken possession of my old bedroom to use as his “man-cave”. Some furniture items that had been in the dining room have been moved into the man-cave, and we had ordered a small double sofa bed to go in the dining room so it’s a bit more homely in there.
• I received my new bed. It was expensive but worth it - very comfortable compared to my old bed and strong enough to take punishment from little Mog’s claws 😂
• Garden renovations have been completed. It’s now a more relaxed area with lots of pots and some raised beds, an amazing shed with plenty of storage space and a nice grassed area in the middle. Best of all for me is the washing line is finally installed, so I’ve been able to use that a couple of times already.

• I’m still working on sorting through the stuff in my bedroom. It’s slow going but I feel like I’m making bits of progress here and there.
• DB1 and I have had a couple of tip runs so we’ve cleared more unwanted bits out of the house so it’s gradually feeling a bit less oppressive in there.
• As mentioned, my mental health has been pretty poor recently. To help with this, I’m currently doing a free online webinar every week through the NHS on mental health and long term health conditions. I will also be starting a mindfulness course through work from the beginning of November.
• My physical health is also not great at the moment. I had a load of blood tests last month and have got the follow-up appointment with the doctor in a couple of weeks so hoping that might clear up a bit of what’s going on with me. I also have an appointment at the beginning of November with my neurologist so hopefully they’ll be able to help as well.
• I’ve cancelled a few frivolous direct debits so that should reduce the amounts going out going forward.
• I received the water bill through a few days ago and, contrary to what I expected, our water bill is actually going down a bit for the next 12 months! I think they had based the sum we have to pay on the usage including my Mum, so now there are just the two of us, we’re using less than they expected.
• We had smart meters fitted to the gas and electric a few weeks ago. It’s interesting to be able to monitor our usage more closely and I’m very happy that we have a decent amount of credit on the accounts heading into winter.

Am sure there’s probably more to update on but my brain’s gone blank now so will leave it there, and update again if I remember what else I need to say.

B x

SuzeQStan

Garden looking fab!  I really like your shed/greenhouse. Lots of progress evident in your update.  Hope that the blood tests give clarity and that you feel much better very soon xx

Betharooni

Oh dear…can’t believe it’s been so long since I was last properly on the forum 😱😱

I cannot remember what has really happened since my last update in October, so instead will just give a financial update and start fresh from today.

Starting mortgage balance at 23/04/2025 £120,999

Current balance £116,554.44

June daily interest £13.04

Interest rate 4.07%

Car finance £7,318.44 (5.7% interest rate)

New bed £1,078.50 (0% interest rate)

Finances (and mental health) have been a bit up and down over recent months but I’ll aim to be more focused over the coming weeks/months, and will try to post a bit more…

B x

Betharooni

Have had a quiet day today. It’s mostly been spent doing some little bits of garden maintenance, debobbling some jumpers (to extend their life a bit) and catching up on some shows on Sky+ planner while DB1 was repainting the front wall to tidy up the facade at the front of the house. A relatively chilled day, which was much needed.

Plans for tomorrow are to sort out posting some bits to sell on FB M@rketplace, take a box of CDs that I’ve sold to an !nPost locker, and sort out some blankets and my coat for washing while it’s nice weather and the items can be hung up outside. If I can do more than that, then great, but if not it’ll still have been a productive day.

Can’t decide whether I can be bothered to watch the England match tonight…

Am working three days this coming week, then I have two days of annual leave so I can watch The Open golf tournament on Thursday and Friday. On Friday I have my first therapy session, which I’m hoping over the coming weeks will improve my mental health. Will try to keep posting during the week.

B x

Betharooni

Whoops, didn’t post during the week but at least it’s only just over a week since I last posted. This has felt like a reasonable week MSE-wise.

• Having not gone near them for probably more than a year, I’ve picked up my knitting needles again and am knitting myself another jumper. My mum had bought plenty of wool so there’s no outlay, so am counting this as some free entertainment for me.
• I have had the latter part of this week off work and have spent most of the time watching The Open golf and catching up on some shows on the $ky+ planner, so no additional outlay made.
• In addition to that I had a request to book my annual boiler service which I managed to get for Thursday, so that was all done which led to…
• …getting a new boiler. The current boiler is still working fine, but it’s over 20 years old. It’s a conventional boiler with a hot water tank in my brother’s bedroom, which means his room always feels like a furnace to him. So we got quotes on a new combi boiler and it ended up being less than we expected, and they offered interest free credit so we’ve got a new boiler being fitted at the beginning of next month. In theory, a new, more efficient boiler should reduce the bills a little, we won’t be paying to keep a tank of water hot, we’re getting thermostatic valves on the radiators so we can control how warm each room will get and we won’t have to pay as much for the BG service contract as they’ll be covering a new boiler rather than the ancient one, so I’m choosing to view this as a positive from a money-saving point of view. Time will tell.
• I have been getting more stuff out the house this week. I took two boxes of books and dvds of my uncles to the charity shop (his wife passed away at the end of April and he is getting rid of a lot of the stuff at their house that he no longer needs so I’ve been selling books, CDs and DVDs for him and we’ve split the profits 50/50, as he wouldn’t have the patience to do it himself. We’ve got about £160 so far from it, so about £80 each, with more to be sold in the coming weeks hopefully, so it’s going well so far. I’ve been able to use a lot of the boxes he had the items in to send them off, and when we didn’t have enough boxes I was able to get some for free from a local garden centre.) I’ve also passed on some stationery items to my nieces for them to use for school work.
• I had my therapy session on Friday. It went well and I’m hopeful that I will continue feeling better mentally over the coming weeks.

Lots more to do so will stop there and update again in a couple of days.

B x