Spendy Wendy to Saver Savvy

Spendywendywoo

Good morning

Just passing by to add a quick update, our car balloon payment due November and we had nothing saved for this at the point that I had my LBM in January… as at today we have £7,301.08 saved through budgeting and looking at every penny we are spending this year. Total payment is £12,243.60 so £4,942.52 left to save which will be very tight but I think I have overestimated for most of the annual bills due between now and then, plus any extra money we earn or receive will go towards it too (I save any additional money to what I was earning in my previous company 2.5 years ago as if I’ve never got a new job or payrise). Once we have paid this off then we will be £420 a month better off plus also all the extra money we are saving for the balloon payment, I’m hoping to up our investments and also start an investment for our DS in the new year. 

Recently I have bought a new personal laptop as I am unable to use my work laptop for personal use, but also I am struggling with Google Sheets so have invested in a cheap laptop with Microsoft 365, this will also allow me to get more organised in life as I’ll be able to use Notes for recipes and use formula in Excel so that the manual effort involved with my budgeting will be significantly reduced. DH will also be able to view the budgeting whoever he wants and we can also take the laptop with us when we are doing our budget review monthly. It wasn’t a quick decision and I’ve debated for the last 6 months but the time I’m investing in the budgeting isn’t sustainable long term so this will certainly keep us on track and now make the task minor as opposed to laborious. 

We’ve also just celebrated a pay increase at work so the extra monies each month (first payment this month) will be put towards the car payment too. 

Once the car payment has been made we only have our mortgage debt left, with our renewal due in 2026. 

It feels so good to be organised and I can’t wait to be able to use Excel to organise other parts of my life like to do lists, meal planning and cleaning rota…. Sad as it sounds, this really does excite me

I hope all is ok for everyone and you’re having a great week.  Hoping to catch up with some of your diaries over the next week of two, struggled for time recently with summer holidays and other life events to contend with but as ever your support is appreciated. 

Much love
Wendy x 

Suffolk_lass

A great update Wendy, you are doing really well. If it were me, I would earmark, say, £400 of the £420 for a regular investment amount, and start to overpay that mortgage with the bits that become available, eg those that you are saving towards that balloon payment. Anything you can overpay ahead of the 2026 renewal will reduce the interest you are paying and improve your loan to value for your new mortgage deal. Sweating the small stuff a bit helps to reinforce that "I'm not wasting that!" mentality and stops us becoming complacent! Just imaging that magic snowball, gathering volume, as the interest on the mortgage reduces as the capital debt goes down, and it all speeds up. * years is not unheard of for mortgage repayment in full on here. (not me, I was much older before the penny dropped!)

Spendywendywoo

Thanks @Suffolk_lass, appreciate you stopping by and commenting. At every renewal we use our current investments to put down quite a large sum of money (well, to us). We managed c.£10k last time and hope to do the same this time too. We are fortunate that whilst we haven’t always been fully financial savvy with our day to day spending, we have made the most of some investments such as a stocks and shares account and also DHs work credit union account which now attracts a fair dividend each year. 

I’m hoping our loan to value has increased too, looking at similar, and even smaller houses in the area now selling for far more than we bought our house for, and also what we received as a valuation last time, I am hoping we can hit a 50%-55% LTV after our lump sum has been paid in, which will give us more options this time (it was 70% last time which hampered us significantly). 

I think back to the position we were in 5/6 years ago, yes the interest rate was much lower but with the help to buy scheme we only owned 80% of the property, when we renewed we were able to add the help to buy onto our mortgage which not only stopped us paying interest only with no repayment but also means that the bank/government have not benefitted from the increase in house prices. It’s left us with a bigger mortgage but once paid off the property is ours and, as we will be investing further from the end of the year, will mean we can reduce our working hours or even retire early than we ever anticipated.  This is what we spurs me on most with the budgeting, that and the sight of the balance in our bank account, it’s never been so high (it will be worthwhile seeing that drop in November, for sure)

jwil

That's an amazing result with the balloon payment!

Spendywendywoo

Thank you @jwil

Just a quick update that I've moved all my budgeting to the new laptop, in an Excel file. Win of the week... finding that I had calculated a little incorrectly and I actually have £61.22 more than I thought I had so I have put that towards the balloon payment too, current balance for that is £7,362.30 with £4,881.30 remaining to save before November. 

It is so much easier having technology to calculate, I will save so much time. I can also access this site easily and add quicker updates. I'm hoping to catch up on diaries and also complete the finance course I had started a few months ago, I am aiming to finish it by the end of the year. 

I hope everyone is well and having a great week so far,
Wendy x

Spendywendywoo

Another budgeting month over... £91.60 left in the pot so that has been moved over to the annual pot (covers annual bills, luxuries such as holidays and also that pesky car balloon payment). 

Budgeting done for the month, we are away for a few days at the end of the summer holidays (all costs including spends are accounted for). I've managed to allocate a large sum to the car balloon payment fund (only 4 pay days, including this one, left to cover the full amount so throwing as much as possible at it). £3,749.70 left to save before the payment is due. I can't believe we will be debt free (other than mortgage) in just a few months! 

I have a general maintenance payment to make this month for some work that is needed doing to the car, I have a car maintenance fund but as we are being super careful with our money I have been able to allocate £300 of our wages to the job, I just hope this is enough so we don't have to touch the EF fund allocated to the car (separate from the general EF fund). To think I used to go into an overdraft to pay for these types of costs is such an eye opener. 

DS has a birthday coming up so I have allocated half the present money in this months pay and half will be in next months pay so I have enough time to purchase his gifts (some clothing and a computer game is what he has asked for, and that suits us as we would buy clothing from the monthly budget anyway). Family and friends also buy him presents or give him money (which we are finding he is very smart with thanks to our ways rubbing off on him). We've offered him a party day for himself and a few friends, a deposit has been paid for this so just the final instalment to make nearer the time, which is being taken from our wages as it has been allocated in the budget.  

Looking forward to our time away, it will be a quiet break in a quiet location so I'm looking forward to lots of time to think about my goals for the rest of the year, and time to read which I have been very time poor for recently. 

Almost the weekend, have a good one
Wendy x

jwil

Hope you have a lovely break when it comes

Blackcats

It's always inspiring to read diaries where MSE ways have really embedded themselves into how we chose to live our lives and spend our money.  Your laser like focus on the balloon payment is fab.  I would guess that you are in the minority as I think most people will allow the balloon payment to creep up on them and end up with limited options to deal with the lump sum required. 

Suffolk_lass

Well done @Spendywendywoo, you remain focussed on the end game. I wonder if you will need the 0% credit card you originally planned to use to pay off the shortfall, you are doing so well.

For me, paying off the first big thing really inspired me to focus on the remaining mortgage. Many on here have had similar "epiphany" moments and gone on to clear their mortgages early. Between 8 and 13 years from start  to end was not unheard of. I was a late starter and finished ours about 4 years early, but, ours was an interest only deal!

Spendywendywoo

Thank you @jwil, @Blackcats and @Suffolk_lass

@Suffolk_lass, I don't believe we will need to 0% credit card after all.. and to think that I was going to spread the payments over 28-32 months, that is insane! I'm super proud of us