The Little Cottage by the Sea

BrimfulofSascha

Hello my loves,
I've wandered these threads for a few years and old versions of myself have had different user names and different diaries. I feel like this is a new chapter. One where I'm content and capable and I hope to bring you along for the story.
The diary title is me manifesting the dream.

I have come a long way, personally and financially, in the past 5 years. I never dreamed when I became a single parent at 21 I'd be sat in my own three bed home, earning what I earn, travelling the world with my little best friend in tow.

However, we probably could work a little smarter so we don't have to work harder, and make some big dreams come true.

My little baby is now 15, and I'm hoping this diary follows the next 3 1/2 years of me improving my life so that I can make my own dreams come true when they leave full time education. I'd like to take a little step back from the rat race and live a more modest fulfilling life away from the hustle and bustle.

My current situation:

The good.
I earn a fantastic wage in a fulfilling (if sometimes stressful) job.
I have approximately 40% equity in my little home, my current lovely lockdown 1.99% fix ends in October.
I currently have £60k in my private pension, with a work/personal contribution of 17% each month. I'll up this when the the bad below is dealt with.
I know exactly what goes in and out of my account. I'm financially literate believe it or not.
I have a £1k emergency fund (would like to get this to 10k).
I'm in a good place mentally and physically, with friends who love me for me, and a relationship that adds and doesn't take away. Our current situations mean being apart for work in the week but that suits us both fine. we get to miss each other and we get adventures.

The Bad.
Current debt £34,927.01! It's a lot, but the monthly payments are manageable, and it was £41k on 1st January this year.
CC debt (£12.2k) is at 0%
Loans (£22.7k) the rate on this is 5%
 I'd love to say this was all from renovations, but that would be a lie. It is probably 60% renovations (I moved to this house with only clothes and books) the rest is lifestyle creep, single parent with a stressful corporate job, and also wanting to claw on to memories with my child while I can.
My car is mechanically sound but is ten years old and has done 160k- I commute 80 miles a day for work, public transport is slower and triple the cost. This car will need replacing in the next 2-3 years.

So it's a bit of a mixed bag. I've managed to pay down £6k already in the first 10 weeks of the year from regular payments and using a small-ish bonus that I get twice a year.
Savings are not great, except for retirement. There is a a small win, I haven't spent a single penny on the credit cards at all this month (first time in about 5 years) even with my little cat needing surgery.

The goals:
Pay off all debt in the next 24 months,
Save 10k in emergency fund.
Pay off mortgage by 50.
Move to a cottage with a view.
Collect experiences not things.
Retire before 60.

Love and light
Sascha

redofromstart

Happy new diary, and good luck with your journey.

MFWannabe

I guess you are in the 40% tax bracket of high earnings? 

Ref the car you could look into salary sacrifice if your company offers / would offer this? 

BrimfulofSascha

MFWannabe said:

I guess you are in the 40% tax bracket of high earnings? 

Ref the car you could look into salary sacrifice if your company offers / would offer this? 

Hi MFW,
I am a higher rate tax payer but salary sacrifice leases aren't a benefit my employer offers. I also don't think it's a route I'd want to go down. Even with the tax saving I don't feel leasing a car would be a smart financial decision. I would be replacing my car with a used, low mileage car rather than new, and one that I owned.

BrimfulofSascha

redofromstart said:

Happy new diary, and good luck with your journey.

Thank you 

Sarahwithlove

Happy new diary. Sounds like you have some good goals in place. Do you have much flexibility in your budget to get the debt down some more? Do you have a Sinking Fund for regular yearly expenses? Ref your loan, is it one where you would save interest if you make any overpayments? 

What's your plan to tackle the debts and savings goals? Will follow with interest. 

BrimfulofSascha

Sarahwithlove said:

Happy new diary. Sounds like you have some good goals in place. Do you have much flexibility in your budget to get the debt down some more? Do you have a Sinking Fund for regular yearly expenses? Ref your loan, is it one where you would save interest if you make any overpayments? 

What's your plan to tackle the debts and savings goals? Will follow with interest. 

Hi Sarah.

My current plan, until the mortgage payment changes in November, is to split my income as follow:
45% debt payments
30% bills (mortgage, utilities, insurances)
5% savings
this leaves 20% to live off- all food, fuel, transport, school costs, gym, clothing, fun money.

This should see a small growth in savings but a huge reduction of debt down to £21,500 by December. Which would be an insane £19,584.28 reduction in just one year.

I'll then have to move the percentages around a little when the mortgage changes, I don't quite know what rate I will get yet but it will definitely go up. I'd also like to up the savings to 10% next year so there will be a reduction in debt payments, but still should make the 24 month (March 2027) goal.

The loan debt is across 3 loans (2-8%) and 2 of these will be gone by the end of 2025.
The credit card debt is across 3 cards with 0%'s ending between February and July 2026.

To some it might make more sense to pay off the loans first and just refinance the CC's when the 0%'s expire. However, I have been in a cycle of CC debt since becoming a parent and I know I'm just not a CC person. So psychologically this will work better for me. 

When I'm down to just the last loan I will let this tick by while I switch to aggressive savings, that way i can earn interest and decide to either pay the loan early, or keep a higher level of savings incase i need to replace the car sooner.

Obviously, all this rests on minimising spending and not getting ahead of myself with travel plans. We have already had a European mini break this year, and will have a family trip in a cottage with my parents in the summer. I hope to save up for something special summer 2026 to celebrate the end of GCSE's. but only if I'm in a smart financial position.

BrimfulofSascha

Good morning loves,

Today is a lovely bright day in the countryside. Freezing, but beautifully sunny.
I did have to cave and put the heating on for a day over the weekend as it dropped to -4 degrees and the little cat is recovering from a small operation. It was quite terrifying seeing the money go up on the smart meter!

It was a pretty quiet weekend. Cuddly cat and sad teenager meant we mostly just ate carbs, watched trash, and read.

I'm crawling along to payday on the 24th, with £45 in the spending account and only 150 miles worth of fuel in the tank. There's enough in the freezer and cupboards to feed us for the week thankfully.
The darling teenager has cost more than usual, they keep getting food at school when I buy things to take for lunches. The joy of Parentpay and the angry "you owe X in unpaid catering" emails. Plus there's a residential trip after the summer I now have to siphon off £60pm of the budget to. It is an educational one rather than a fun one, I remember doing the same trip 20 odd years ago myself- although my parents made me get a  job to pay for it! All possible to budget, just about.
I feel proud of that. usually by this part of the month I've put a the last tank of fuel and food shop of the month on the credit card. That's also with a family dental check up (No NHS), school trip deposit, and a couple of birthdays to buy for. Food budget was £34 over- I might need to still buy milk, The fuel budget is currently £37 under but will probably have to refuel Thursday. I'm trying to actually make sure I work from home one day a week, that reduces the mileage by 320ish a month which is about 6 gallons. Every little helps.

I'd forgotten how dull this diary writing can be when you're paying debt down. I tend to make all my debt payments at the start of the financial month so I'm not tempted to spend. It does stop the discretionary spending but it also means I have to wait four weeks between the dopamine hit of reducing totals. I guess that's a lesson in itself though. Stop chasing instant gratification.

I hope the next installment brings payday and progress.
Love and light
Sascha

rachmac3

I'm the same, trying all sorts of ways to get that dopamine hit in the second half of the month.
There are a few threads here that look at the small wins, the debt free wins, and the non-finance related wins. They're helping a little.

BrimfulofSascha

Thank you for the tip @rachmac3
The three sunny mornings on-the-trot has certainly helped my general outlook.
I can see from your signature that we have similar levels of debt. It's nice to have you along for the ride.

No real money news today, will have to get fuel as my light came on during my morning commute, I also need milk.
The food situation is fine. It makes me realise how many half used pastes and sauce bases I have cluttering up the fridge! Why does pesto and curry paste go bad so quickly when it's mostly oil?! 
I made a lovely creamy, cheesy, tomato pasta last night, leftovers in the work fridge for todays post-run lunch. I think tonight's gourmet delight will be a veggie Katsu curry with sticky rice and pak choi.
Chickpea and spinach curry and flatbreads tomorrow, and i have some salmon in the freezer I can do with green beans on Friday. Lunches will be leftovers, but there's also plenty of soup, eggs and crumpets in the house too. Breakfasts will be toast or porridge with fruit as usual.

I did sit down and work out the daily interest charge on my mortgage yesterday. That was fascinating, and scary. It started at £9.92 a day, it's currently £8.86, the only overpayments I've done are to round it up to the nearest £100 each month (which is only £27.57). I dread to think what the daily rate will go to at the end of the year when it renews (an educated estimate suggests c.£17 a day!!!).
My plan with that is just to stick to my current provider and take their rate offer, rather than remortgage. Part fear of how the debt will impact my credit rating, but mainly because they are consistently one of the lowest rates offered at my LTV on MSE.

I seem to have had all my annual bill increases through already to add to my monthly budget.
Council tax up 5.4%
my mobile up £1.80 pm
no news on water
Energy I switched only a couple of months ago so will stay the same
DC's mobile up £0.95 but that's with switching to a new provider with far more data.
So all in all not too bad, in fact about 1 days mortgage interest difference!

I have a new (money based) guilty pleasure, a UTuber called Caleb Hammer, who does 'Financial Audits'. If you ever want to feel better about your own financial situation (or general grasp of the world) it's worth a watch.

BrimfulofSascha

Good morning Loves,

So I've made it through to another payday. This means the monthly money shuffle is complete. My debt payments for the month have been made, the small mortgage overpayment has been made, a little sum to savings has been transferred across, and the monthly spending allowance has been moved to my Monzo account, the rest of my salary will sit in my current account to be used on bills and DD throughout the month.
The two weeks since I started this diary have rushed by.

Totals are below: 24/12/2024-26/03/2025

CC debt:    £14,481.31 down to £12,044.51
Loan Debt: £26,608.52 down to £21,404.76
Total:         £41,089.83 down to £33,449.27

Savings : £1,261.54

Mortgage Balance: £161,702.16 (monthly payment still to clear)

Although I had made good progress in the first couple of months of the year I feel like my mindset really changed at the start of March. Budgeting doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself, more like I'm rewarding myself and being disciplined.
I've swapped the instant satisfaction followed quickly by guilt, with pride and progress.
I don't think all months will feel as easy, mentally or financially.
There will be things that test the budget (I'm looking at you school residential in September), there will be temptations to overspend on travel (my DP wants to do a long distance hike in September - it should be budget friendly given the destination, basic flights, and the fact that we are scruffy little backpackers) I'm not booking anything until the cash is actually saved, I'm no longer going to borrow from next months paycheck for such things. So if I can be extra frugal in the next 3 1/2 weeks to the next payday, I should be able to book flights at the end of the month, then we can look at car hire vs public transport to get to the trail head next month etc etc.

I did make a small money boo boo today already, I left my lunch at home in the fridge and I'm in the office today. Work do provide snacks (cereal bars, crisps, fruit) so I'm hoping I can be satisfied with that - although I do have a tempo run to fit in my lunch break and that usually makes me ravenous! I must not spend £4.50 on a jacket potato at the student café next door!

The car has fuel for the week, there's a meal plan that should last at least another 6-7 days (might need milk- why is it always milk?), I've paid my subs for the sport I do for the month - it's race season so it's cheaper for me to pay £40 a month, than £5 per session to use the facilities as I need to be training 3 times a week.

There won't be much extra curricular spending this month, I have a mother's day card for my mother, ad celebrations will be a nice family dinner at my sisters house. But there is a little wiggle room in the spending pot (if i can keep the grocery shop to c.£40 - This week was just shy of £50  but that included, loo rolls and laundry liquid and some toiletries) The cats have food and litter for the month. If this lovely sunny weather stays it should be easy to stay away from spending, lots of walks/runs with friends, weekends spent spring cleaning or reading. 

Here's to another month of being grateful for the simple things.

Love and Light
Sascha