julicorn's journey

julicorn · 3 July 2018 at 11:51AM

Thanks IAAM! I might see if I can try and post a picture of the cross stitch in here at some point.

(It's weirdly satisfying that the original mortgage among without fees can be laid out in a perfect 45x45 square, with each cross showing a reduction in mortgage balance of £100.)

Runders · 4 July 2018 at 8:13PM

Hey Julicorn,

Congrats on such a huge OP! I bet it felt amazing to pay that much off :T

So I checked out YNAB and got the free trial, but I just don't think it's for me. I couldn't move things around and display them how I wanted. However, I really liked the premise of it and have now come up with something similar in Excel which I am calling my spreadsheet of doom :rotfl:

When I went to Japan I was just in Tokyo. There is so much to see and do there. I can't remember all the places we went to, but when I am back home I'll dig out my travel diary and look up their names. The Ghibli Museum was one of my fave places, and yoyogi park. I'd love to go back

julicorn · 6 July 2018 at 8:54PM

Hi Runders,

Thank you very much! Yes, it was really great being able to pay off so much in one go, and also seeing how far ahead we are compared to if we were just paying the mortgage off regularly.

With YNAB, I really struggled to get me head around it for an hour or so, but then it really clicked. They've got good tutorials and workshop videos as well- if you haven't given up completely, check out 'budgeting when you're broke' (even if you're clearly not broke;) ). I think it's the whole budgeting only what you have, rather than projecting, which is so unusual but seems to make a big difference for people.

The Ghibli museum is number 1 on our list! It looks incredible. We're hoping to go to Tokyo, but maybe also visit Kyoto for a few days. I'd also love to stay in a traditional Ryokan in the mountains somewhere for a night, that would be a dream (just need to find one that caters for vegans and also lets us in their onsen with our tattoos. We're clearly a bit too hipster for Japan :rotfl: ).

julicorn · 6 July 2018 at 9:02PM

Oh, and I just got some money a few weeks early, and managed to squirrel another £300 into the mortgage! :j our balance is now officially under £195k, I can honestly barely believe it. Without overpayments, we'd still owe more than £200k right now.

Another thing I'm trying to do now is replace some of my monthly outgoings with cheaper yearly ones instead. I need another bus ticket next month, normally I'd get a 90 day one for just under £200, but this time I'm getting a yearly one for £600 instead. I'm switching my headspace subscription to yearly as well. It's not huge changes, but will add up I'm sure (even though it means we have to spend a bit more this and next month).

Runders · 7 July 2018 at 5:53PM

Hey Julicorn,

Big 'whoop whoop' for being under £195K, that is amazing news. I love that feeling of going into the next thousand band. :T:beer::j

The Ghibli Museum is so worth it, my friend and I spent pretty much a whole day there just geeking out. Also it's worth going to Harajuku and seeing all the Harajuku girls and cosplayers, I totally got a free hug when I was there - people stand around with signs offering free hugs. Near to Harajuku is the Meiji shrine and that is absolutely stunning, they often have weddings taking place as well. I'm really tall, and when I was at the shrine this older Japanese Chap just pointed his umbrella at me and started shouting "Amazon Woman", I've never forgotten it. :rotfl:

I'm not sure if it's easy to find vegan places over there? I know my friend has been to the hot springs and he has a tattoo, I'll try to get hold of him to see where he went.

julicorn · 8 July 2018 at 7:42AM

Thanks Runders! Our next milestone is £190k, which we should hopefully reach by my birthday in October

That sounds absolutely awesome! Mr Julicorn is super tall as well, and I'm fairly tall and also ginger, so we were saying that at least we should be able to find each other in the crowds :rotfl:

I think food wise it's going to be trickier than most places, but it seems like it can be done for sure. Most 'normal' restaurants struggle to provide veggie food from what I've heard (even rice seems to be cooked in fish stock and things like that), but then there seem to be quite a few specifically vegan restaurants around in the bigger cities. There are also specifically Buddhist restaurants which are vegan (with a few additional restrictions), so those are apparently a pretty good option as well.
Would be lovely to hear from your friend as well, thanks so much! :heart2:

This week has been a lot busier than usual! I ended up showing around 2 sets of 'friends of friends' from Germany, who just happened to come to Brighton in the same week (well, they were pretty lucky with the weather tbf!). I had been carrying around a bit of a cold, which turned into a mild ear infection, for a few weeks, but then Tuesday/Wednesday it developed into an absolutely agonising tooth ache

So I had to go to the dentist, but they gave me some antibiotics and it's much much better now. On Thursday, I went for a murder mystery dinner/lunch with work which was awesome (my team won the trophy as well!

), and then had a fair few drinks and spontaneously played lazer tag with my colleagues. It was such a fun day, but I admit I felt a little rough on Friday

. And then yesterday, I ended up spending some more 'fun money' at the Hobbycraft opening here in Brighton. That shop has the potential to become my downfall. :rotfl: Spontaneously decided that I need to add pyrography/wood burning to my set of skills, because why not! Spoilers: It's trickier than it looks.

Either way, hope you're all having a lovely Sunday! :heart2:

julicorn · 14 July 2018 at 8:48AM

I'm coming to the realisation that we probably have to cut back on our overpayments for a bit. We've got quite a few different savings goals right now (some quite short-term though, like £1,200 for bus tickets between now and October, but those mean that both of us will have annual tickets, so less outgoings for the rest of the year). Between building up our emergency funds, home improvement funds, and saving up for a holiday, I'm not sure how feasible it is for us to keep up with that level of overpayments. Makes me a bit sad though, because I got carried away and did some projections on how much we would save by keeping on paying off an extra £1,200 a month...

What's also not helping (although I think ultimately it's the right thing to do) is that I've just upped by pension contributions to 8%. My employer pays 5%, and my aim is to get my contributions up to 10%. My parents both started suffering from quite severe heart problems at 56, and I really don't want to have to work until 68 (or even longer).

It's weird, I know these are all good things to do, and it's not like we're throwing money away, but rather prepare for the future. I still can't help but feel a bit deflated this morning.

Ah well, we're off to a Greek wedding this afternoon! I'm sure that will be good fun.

Hope you all have a nice weekend x

julicorn · 16 July 2018 at 12:05PM

The wedding was really, really great. Ended up seeing lots of my old uni housemates who I had lost touch with - and even better, some of them are back in Brighton now! We've already made a few plans over the next few weeks, there will be so much to catch up on.
Aside from that, we danced like maniacs to Greek music and ate lots of food. It was a very lovely day indeed, even though the journey home seemed to take forever.

We met up with Mr Julicorn's family for brunch yesterday, and ended up going to the pub with his brother. Slightly blew the 'pub/bar' budget! But I reckon that's ok. I mean, it's only half way through the month, but I don't really feel like we need to keep going out for drinks this month, we've got enough other fun plans.

Based on all these 'reunions' this weekend, we've also decided to host a little garden party next month. We've not had a garden since 2012, so should really make the most of the fact we have one now (even though it's tiny).

So yeah, lots of money spending and fun times ahead, but I'm feeling much better about it now than I did on Saturday.

julicorn · 21 July 2018 at 9:24AM

Happy weekend everyone!

I started today with opening another new savings account to put our ISA balances in, because they're currently earning virtually nothing. The new account is going to pay 1.34%, which is not loads, but I didn't want to set up another complicated system of regular savers and feeder accounts, but rather just have a side account I can just throw the emergency fund into and let it earn a bit of interest. 100-odd pounds a year is better than nothing.

Mr Julicorn and I are about to go out for brunch. Just after we got married, we used to go on a nice date (usually a dinner out) every month on our 'month-a-versary'. We haven't done that for a few years, but decided to start again (and go eat out less in between). I'm super excited!

Aside from that, we're getting paid on Wednesday, and should be able to make another OP of £300 then, to get it up to £1,200 for the month. We most likely will struggle with that goal next month, as we're prioritising a couple of other sinking funds at the moment, but that's OK. I'm hoping to pretty much 'snowball' our savings, so fund a few smaller savings goals, and then apply those monthly payments to larger ones in the following months. Sounds a bit silly, because of course with savings you can shuffle around as much as you like, but I feel like it's psychologically helping me to be able to tick off some goals

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

NorthernPeach · 21 July 2018 at 12:02PM

Ooh I like the idea of snowballing the savings, it's never something I have considered I just tend to chuck stuff in to their respective pots and not make much more progress on any of them....definitely something to think about!

Hope you have a good weekend julicorn!

julicorn's journey

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free