One step at a time

sunshineli

Today I made my first mortgage overpayment of the year! Just £30 but every little helps. This saved me £72.86 in interest. At the beginning of the year I was feeling quite unmotivated by overpaying the mortgage. The mortgage is just so huge and I don’t have loads of money that I am able to throw at OPs (especially since I reduced my working hours last year). I’ve reminded myself that even small OPs do make an impact over a long period of time. My focus is not to become mortgage free as that goal feels insurmountable right now, but rather to just reduce my mortgage as much as possible to make it feel more manageable. I feel that the more financially resilient I am, the less stressed I will feel in general (about my health, work etc).

I’ve had a nice weekend. Yesterday we celebrated Valentines Day and went out for lunch. We had a £30 gift card for a local independent restaurant that we got for Christmas, so lunch cost us just £10 each. After this we went for a drink in a pub, and then went home to relax and watch a film. Being out in the sunshine was wonderful after weeks of grey, gloom and rain. Yesterday cost £25 each which included the train, lunch, a drink at the pub, and some dog chews from the pet shop, so not too bad. The dog chews were worth their weight in gold as they allowed us to sit and enjoy the film undisturbed whilst the pup enjoyed her new chew! 😂

Today has been a NSD and I have done some life admin. I updated my mortgage overpayment tracker and also updated my zero based budget which I loosely followed previously. I’ve also made an expenses tracker which I am going to update consistently so I can gain further insight into my spending patterns and see if I can make any further savings allowing me to make some more mortgage OPs.

sunshineli

A little update on the week so far. Monday was a much needed NSD, and today I have spent £60.83 on this weeks food shop. The grocery budget resets on Friday so it looks like we are coming in under budget this month for groceries by about £4. I’m determined not to do any top up shops this week.

This week I also started my new immunosuppressant medication. So far I’m feeling a bit fatigued, dizzy and nauseous but I hope this subsides once I get used to it. 

I’ve now completed my personal zero based budget, and after planned payments to savings pots it’s showing I have a monthly surplus of £70.68 which I could theoretically use to overpay on the mortgage. This is in addition to the £100 DH and I are planning to try and overpay monthly. I’m quite pleasantly surprised by this as I have already allocated payments towards pots for socialising and hobbies, clothing, gifts etc. I’m sure I must have forgotten about some outgoings so I am going to track all of my outgoings over the next month, and see if there is anything I regularly pay for that I’ve forgotten about.

One more working day for me, then I have Thursday off. Back in work on Friday then off again for a 3 day weekend. Looking forward to having a rest on Thursday as I feel this week has been a bit full on! 

beanielou

Hope you get used to the new medication soon.

sunshineli

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81889152#Comment_81889152

Thank you @beanielou

sunshineli

I have had 3 NSD on Wednesday, Thursday and today. Thursday I was off work but I was struggling really badly with side effects from my new medication, so I didn’t do much this day. Unfortunately I had a bad reaction to the medication so have already had to come off them. It’s been a rough week but I am trying to stay positive and not worry too much about the future. On the bright side the doctors got me an appointment very quickly and blood tests have been sent off this evening. 

I also found out this week that our water bill is increasing from £36 pm to £59 pm. I really don’t understand how it can increase so much, but I am going to start being a lot more mindful of water consumption since we are on a meter. 

I had another look at my zero based budget tonight, and I posted the other day that my budget showed a surplus of £70.68 which I wasn’t expecting. Unfortunately this was because I hadn’t formatted my spreadsheet correctly and my actual surplus after outgoings and spending pots is £8.69. So that makes more sense but it unfortunately means there’s less chance of additional mortgage OPs. 

I managed to sell something on Vinted yesterday that had been sat on my account for months. That’s £7 in the mortgage OP fund. 

Some more positive money saving news, DH goes to a private dentist that have some NHS patients. He has been on the NHS waitlist for years without much luck. He has been suffering with toothache and required a root canal this week. His dentist felt sorry for him as he has been back and forth to the dentist about this issue and they haven’t been able to resolve his toothache before now. Due to this they billed him the NHS price! We’ll take it!

sunshineli

I checked my S&S ISA this morning and now I can officially say we have £10,000 in savings! This includes accessible savings and the S&S ISA which I am trying not to touch. I am so proud of getting to this point. It was only 18 months ago when we moved into our house, and our wedding just over a year ago when our savings were decimated! 

I’m now feeling motivated to focus on mortgage OP’s. 

I’m having a relatively good day health wise (so far), so this morning I went for a little wander into town. I sent off my Vinted parcel, bought 2 birthday cards and a Mothers Day card (£3.49 total), and bought my brothers GF a birthday gift (£4.95). I also bought myself some incense (£5) from my personal spends/hobbies fund. It was nice to support small local businesses which I am going to try and do for some other upcoming birthdays and Mothers Day.

I hope everyone is having a nice relaxing weekend.

beanielou

Well done.

seventh88

congrats on reaching the 10k goal, that’s great news!

rtandon27

Well done! - I know how amazing it feels to reach a financial goal that makes you feel stability! I felt that way when we reached mortgage nuutral - it does something amazing to the mind shift.