There and back again...reducing the mortgage to manifest our forever home

Tjh1412

Have been a long time lurker on MSE, and DP and I bought our first house together in March 2025 with a mortgage of £190,000. Had many plans for overpaying, what we wanted to get done however life has had other ideas so starting a diary for the first time to try and help me keep on track.

We did manage to OP £3500 in 2025, but then following a health scare moved forward our TTC plans and will be joined by DD2 in March 2026. This has meant we diverted funds from overpaying to saving for covering reduced income, and also accelerated the need to get certain house jobs done, so now I feel all at sixes and sevens with where we go next!

Short term goals:
As frugal a parental leave as we can manage- we have £10k saved to cover the months where we get SPL and the upfront nursery fees for first month, but will need to watch the pennies
OPs- would like to still try and knock something off the mortgage each month, going to aim to make £1k from Vinted, surveys etc to enable this. Tempted by some of the savings challenges I've seen also, but struggling to decide what to go for currently.


Longer term goals:
Family- We would like to get married once affordable for us (expect 2-3 years) We would also love to relocate closer to family and purchase our forever home there in the next 5 years. However, this will mean adding to the mortgage potentially, and with childcare being expensive for the nursery years this may have to be pushed back.

Retirement- a long way off, but whilst I have a decent workplace pension and 2 private ones, DP has nothing bar a minimal workplace one so we will need to address this.

So lots to think about, lots of exciting changes to come and all that needs to be balanced with enjoying life along the way too. Here's to 2026!

Tjh1412

Time for a proper introductory post, in the hopes that someone may find my ramblings worth reading 😆.

Our household is currently myself, DP, toddler DD and one madcap furball of a cat who rules us all with a paw of iron. DD2 is due March 2026.

Home is a 3 bed terrace in the SW purchased for £230k with a £190k mortgage. Boiler, windows, kitchen etc were thankfully all replaced by previous owners, so we are hoping not to spend too much on it overall over next few years, bar converting a brick outbuilding into DPs home office. This was pencilled in for 2027, but due to DD2 will now be a job for February 2026. We have saved for this, so just need to make sure we come in on budget, and on time!

Income wise, I am making £45k and DP £27k. We also have private dental and health care through my job, which thankfully continues during parental leave. My job is fairly new to me, so we have decided to do SPL and have DP take 6 months off to try and give us some breathing space. 

Now onto the exciting bit, the mortgage. We are 10 months into a 5 year fix at 4.43%. Monthly payment is £888, but a disgusting £680 of that is interest. We made OPs of £400 a month until we diverted the funds to saving for parental leave, so £3500 has been OP'd so far and we currently owe £184237.39, though this will go down a bit tomorrow when they take the mortgage payment for January. 

After much pondering, have decided to round up the monthly payment to £890, just for the boost of feeling we are overpaying something each month and aim to make an extra £100/month to chip away at it before we can start knocking more off once we are back to full earnings. Hopefully this diary will keep me on track with this!

Also, in the spirit of a frugal 2026 to stretch our savings and time off with the little one, we have decided to do a buy nothing January. Only food allowed, with the exception of £350 worth on insulation/building materials to be paid for the office conversion. Feels like we are still swimming in xmas chocs and leftovers, so hopefully this won't be too much of a challenge.

Wishing all a happy, healthy and MSE new year 

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary. 

Tjh1412

Had a nice relaxed start to 2026, lots of pottering around the house doing a deep clean and the annual finance review to take stock of where we are.

Small wins for today include
-Bedding and laundry washed and dried outside as it decided to be dry if very chilly
-Dinner tonight is a YS chicken we grabbed for the bargain price of 52p on Xmas eve, with part baked crusty rolls and YS salad at 18p
-DP had to pop to shops today for a few bits. We had to order new cards, so used cash and came in under budget. May have to stick to cash going forward for food shopping

Also been giving some thought to where we will need to spend in 2026 and how we fund those expenses.
Planned expenses are:
Xmas/birthdays- £500. More than double what we spent this year, but every relative we possess wants to be part of baby's first Christmas, so they will need feeding 

Home improvements/maintainence-£800. This will be replacing 2x radiators, converting the airing cupboard into usable storage space, decorating the nursery, boiler service and a replacement mixer tap. DP also has added a ladder and window cleaning equipment to this, as we cannot justify paying £40 every 3 weeks whilst on short pay so he will do this himself going forward, and also clean out the gutters etc

Am sure more things will crop up as the year goes on, but that's all we have on the horizon for now as extra spends

My current ideas are
-stick to food shopping in cash, use the change to max out supermarket Xmad savings card and then to fill the piggy bank as a boost for Xmas also
-attempt to grow some bits in garden, lucky enough to have some green fingered friends and relatives who have kindly offered plants and advice, so need to take them up on this
-investigate potential side hustle swaps with friends and family. Quite a few are self employed, and a couple have offered to swap my book keeping services for house jobs so that could be an MSE way to get ahead on the DIY
Doesn't seem like much though, need more ideas to boost what we can save. Any and all suggestions very gratefully received. Hope all have had a great start to 2026 😊

ladysummerisle

Perhaps for Christmas someone else can host or you can do a couple of short visits? There’s no way I’d host a large group with small kids. That way you’ll actually get to spend more time with them than in the kitchen. This year we had Indian takeaway and had a roast today instead. Much less stressful and worked well given lingering Christmas germs. 

Tjh1412

That would be ideal, but we are the only ones with a house as it stands. All DPs relatives are in tiny flats and my family are mostly abroad, apart from a couple of elderly relatives who would find it all too much. As a compromise, have suggested the 28th as a day when they can all drop in to see the small ones and exchange gifts; this way can do buffet style and not be chained to the oven so fingers crossed that comes off. Will also save £££s compared to proper dinner, and as they'll all be driving no booze required so think that's the best option 

RedLipstick

All the best in 2026, looking forward to read about your journey!

Re Christmas budget, you will be parents to a little baby, your visitors should come fed, offer to bring the food, offer help, or vouchers. I recently went to spend the Christmas Day with my friends who just had a baby, I took a full flag meal for everyone to enjoy and snacks, and I'll be honest, I'd be embarrassed if I went expecting mum or dad to cook or spend money to entertain me. Also agree with @ladysummerisle, the time over Christmas is not only for one day/evening, family could do few short visits to say hi, bring a little gift and catch up. You will be hardly sleeping, running around stressing that the place needs to be cleaned, baby changed, fed, etc. Then you and DP will need to clean after them. Don't do that to yourselves xx

Tjh1412

One upside to all the visiting relatives, just decided to pull off sofa cushions and vacuum the crumbs from all the biscuit munching up and found £28.73 in change they must have left behind them. So just fed that to the piggy bank as a start to next year's xmas fund 

debtfreewannabe321

Good luck tjh 😄
And for next Christmas I'd just suggest everyone bring a dish each if it's going to be buffet style 😉 super easy then! 
My mortgage interest is also high and it is a little sobering when you see just how much is going towards the banks pocket rather than paying down the mortgage hey!

Tjh1412

It is very sobering Dfw321, gives me an incentive to really throw what I can at it though.

I am excited for the bills and mortgage to go out tomorrow, so can see where we are starting 2026, and possibly sneak in a couple of small overpayment as the month progresses whilst we still have full wages. Have also signed up for Shop and scan, Prolific and Sprive today. Hoping these will give me a small boost to the OP fund.

Final MSE activity of the day, I have decided to start eating a frog and finally get my head around pensions this year so been brave and sent a plea for advice up on the pensions board. Not only to benefit me, but I have a SIPP for DD1 that I max out each year and will do the same for DD2; any extra for them will be a huge win 

Tjh1412

Have spent 2.5 hours this morning on the phone to various old pension schemes to get relevant information so can ponder transfers. Was meant to be gardening but horrible grey/sleet weather this morning put paid to that.

Next jobs are to cancel one lot of life insurance now the new one is up and running, make a batch of carrot and coriander soup to use up the last of the xmas veg, and then reduce the cardboard jenga tower into bits ready for recycling collection tomorrow. 

Some bonus money bits for today; £20 Amazon voucher redeemed from shop and scan and March is a council tax free month, so mentally earmarked that for an OP. We moved here in March but didnt get the council tax bill until June, so will also get a £48/month reduction on the monthly amount from April which is a further win. Looks as though the sun may be about to make a belated appearance, so off to dig over some borders after lunch if so. Tempted to put some raised beds in for veggies, but this would mean extra cash to find. One to ponder over anyhow