The first hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

Nichelette · 27 May 2019 at 2:55PM

I haven't been around for a bit. Life has been a bit hectic...

We realised that kitchen fitting was far beyond our abilities following the corner cupboard incident. FIL suggested we have a word with his retired ex joiner former neighbour. He came over, told us we were doing it all in completely the wrong order, and is now fitting it for us :rotfl:. The tricky stuff is mostly done so now it's just the odd bits like the fuse for the hob, a pipe for the dishwasher, putting the plinths on and the wall units which we had assembled ages ago

. After a rocky start we have really fallen on our feet and he is doing an amazing job. I honestly can't thank him enough.

I'm still going to tile it though

:rotfl:

Due to living in an absolute dump for the last few weeks and having half a kitchen I've been doing a pretty poor job of keeping tabs on spending and I don't think there will be anymore overpayments in this pay month due to escalating kitchen costs.

Eating has also been pretty rubbish/expensive because of kitchen. Once we have everything back in place I'll get back on track. I have all my receipts so I can work things out eventually, am just failing at the moment.

Husband is going back to Scotland on Friday, and I'm going on Sunday for a couple of nights. We only had to pay for my flights but that was another expense. I can't wait to get paid and have everything back to normal which is still 2 weeks away :eek:.

BachSoon · 28 May 2019 at 7:04AM

Eek that sounds like you've had your work cut out for you! It's good that you've had the assistance for fitting the kitchen, it seems pretty complicated :eek: I don't think I'd let DH attempt it :rotfl:
Don't feel bad about an expensive time food wise, there's nothing you could have done and it's a minor blip! :cool:
Enjoy Scotland!

Nichelette · 15 June 2019 at 8:15PM

Thanks Bach. Scotland was nice. Husband is going on the 19th as it's his mum's 60th. I was going to go with him but the price of the flights kept creeping up whilst I was harassing him to arrange holiday from work and it became a bit too much. I downloaded an app called Money Dashboard which is great. It lists the paces you spend the most at - I think we're keeping Easyjet in business at the moment

.

Kitchen has been basically finished bar tiles for a while now. We tried to get them last week but they were out of stock so we've managed to get them today from a different branch. It's so much better to cook in and looks far better, but it will be brilliant once tiles are up and last plug sockets are swapped over. Having a dishwasher is bliss.

I'm now making a conscious effort to use up my food stores and be a bit better overall because I really don't need to be buying more (bar the odd fresh thing). I was quite happy tonight as I made risotto using only things I already had and soup for our work lunches. I'm doing a roast tomorrow too which will use up some bits.

I think eating badly whilst we had no kitchen made me feel pretty rubbish as I usually cook from scratch and started to feel quite run down. I was due to give blood on the 11th and was worried I'd be turned away so I went mad on the spatone which must have worked as I was allowed to donate

.

We were paid yesterday so I've made the usual overpayment of £1000, and I also paid off almost £300 from emptying the current accounts before we were paid. I'm not honestly sure how we had money left but not complaining. When the regular payment goes on the 1st we'll be into the 270's which is a brilliant milestone considering we only completed at the end of January. I'm really happy with that. I was doubting it but I think I may actually reach my 15k overpayment target this year _party_.

I'm doing well on prolific and have made £25 so far. I also realised in September we'll get £85 from swapping banks so that will be handy too. I'm being a bit more cautious with the overpayments now as the £1000 leaves me feeling a bit poor (not struggling, but I am conscious of having enough back) so I think I'll be more in a routine of twice monthly overpayments instead of lots of smaller ones, unless I have any matched betting winnings to throw at it once the football season starts again.

I will try and post a bit more now things are more settled

.

Nichelette · 22 June 2019 at 7:22PM

Me again...

I was off work on Wednesday so I did the tiles. I have some of it left to do (have invested in a snazzy tile cutter today for the more difficult bits), but I think I have done a pretty good job!

I've overpaid a whole £10.07 from cashback since my last post. I'm not sure how it has happened but I feel quite poor considering we only got paid a week ago and I'm not quite sure how, especially as everything is tracked on forecast 2026 :rotfl: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19SojlEyf94soEStsMiQniXD2RT4yKiBGBmuA_cDQg_I/edit?usp=sharing . I think there is about £400 left for food/fuel/anything else that pops up. It's a long pay month so we still have 4 full weeks to go. I shouldn't moan, I imagine that's a lot for some

.

Between the flights and onward travel/birthday present etc we spent about £150, then there has been the maintenance cost for the street which is about £20 a month but has been split as £138 this month and £100 in 6 months. I also have 2 bunny vaccinations in a couple of weeks (£80ish) so I suppose that lot is about £370 alone. Maybe that is it...

I've been trying to stick to eating the food we have and have done reasonably well so far.

I have about £30 in prolific which I will use to overpay, but I'm currently stuck in the nth circle of hell trying to figure out how to register for circle pay to avoid paypal fees. There doesn't seem to be a way to register on the website and I get an error message every time I try to do it on the app :mad:. I may just have to use paypal which is really annoying as the fees will add up over the year as prolific does seem to be quite lucrative.

I've been looking at the overpayment calculator. If we can manage to overpay £1300 each month which at the moment seems manageable, we'll pay off the mortgage 18 years & 7 months early. However, at the moment between the £300 going in the regular saver to pay off the kitchen, and the £100 minimum payment each month, in 12 months we'll have another £400 spare. If we overpaid £1700 a month we'd have the mortgage paid off 20 years and 5 months earlier. It's food for thought.

Overpaying so much of our income is a bit insane and life limiting. It's not like we don't do anything at all, but equally we don't do loads either. Our income is about £4150 so £2860 is a big chunk of that. I am a bit extreme where as my husband is pretty lax with money. To be honest I don't think either of us really have it right! I know I need to achieve some sort of balance but I find it difficult

. I feel like being the ages we are and with both of us having lost so much helping our families I'm trying to catch up for the last 10 or so years.

Nichelette · 24 June 2019 at 7:04PM

Okay, so positive news is that I stumbled upon the prolific blog accidentally. Apparently circle pay is coming to an end which is why I couldn't register. The positive though is that they are apparently introducing fee free PayPal payments soon, so I'll keep building up my money until then.

I've agreed to go for dinner once a month with husband (though I hate being served and always want to help the person

). I've registered for a taste card through topcashback which gives me a free 3 month trial and £3.50 cashback so that's pretty good!

Nichelette · 30 June 2019 at 10:09PM

Made a bit of progress this weekend and have now overpaid about £90 in the last couple of days. PayPal payments from prolific are now fee free, so I've withdrawn £30ish from there, and have made about £60 from odd matched betting things which had all come off the mortgage.

I'm also £4 away from £40 on onepoll and about £9 short of £50 on yougov so they will also be overpayments once I reach the thresholds.

Regular payment should go tomorrow getting us to 289's. I think once interest is accounted for we'll have paid off about 10k in 6 months which I'm pretty happy with :j

BachSoon · 3 July 2019 at 7:23AM

Brilliant overpayments! Matched betting sounds really great with the money you can make.

zcrat41 · 3 July 2019 at 8:11AM

Hi Nicelette

I too struggle with how lax to be on the spending. On paper DH and I can afford a life with a few extras. However, both of us would rather be even more secure financially in the future so we do a bit of a balance. We treat ourselves occasionally but not loads and loads. Eg we go out for dinner once a month too.

Good luck.

Nichelette · 6 July 2019 at 7:05PM

Matched betting is fantastic as long as you aren't likely to be drawn into actual gambling and completely understand what you are doing, otherwise you could lose money. There are plenty of guides though, and the initial sign ups are very easy money.

I've made £30 from it since last night :j. Still waiting on the football season though!

Thanks Zcrat. We are going to a classical Ibiza thing at the racecourse we have right next to us next month which will be nice. Plus it's walking distance which is really handy

. I think we will be able to sneak in a dinner too, but one off bills this month have been horrendous

.

BachSoon · 6 July 2019 at 9:34PM

That's why I've never ventured into it - I have zero mathematical ability! Kudos to you though!

The first hurdle - Nichelette v the huge mortgage

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