Nothing much to report other than the interest has been added to my mortgage balance. Mortgage total = £90470.65. This time next month I will be in the 80s!!! Hurrah!!!!

Other than that my spending has been astronomical lately. Most of it on essentials (car needed tyre punctures fixing, childcare costs, plus loads of other stuff). Still need to pay £8 for DS1's milk money at school. Garrrrr!

Oh and DS1 has found one his Christmas presents....he is only 5 and already my cover has been blown! Trying to maintain the pretence that Santa is real and the present he saw isn't for him. It's one of his main ones so I'm a bit gutted. I think the plan going forward will be to hide it and give it him on his birthday in Feb instead. That way the magic of Christmas lives on.

Amazing for next month!

Aw no!!! The kids can sniff these things out I tell you xx

Thanks @Monz - I'm looking forward to it being a new year and a new decade of monies owing. I never thought I'd see the "8" at the front of my mortgage balance, I've owed 90k+ for over three years now!

Yes, I should really hide my presents better in future. I could kick myself.

Hello, only skimmed through these posts while I am looking for something else. Apparently I have been a member for 9 years yet this is my first post. I’m replying because years ago when Martin started out on TV he showed people how to be MF (mortgage free) within a couple of years. This may seem to mean not living life but it is true that the best things are free. I had already done as he suggested and have been MF for many years. I doubt there y any investment that will pay you more than your M (mortgage) as this would be a no brainer and everyone would be on it. Follow the scrimpers advice. Pay off what you can when you can. In my view credit is only good when it is yours or given to you. Owing is not allowed. Good luck. Benny. (Acronyms are obvious to all who know them)🤪

Eeeeeek I can't believe it, folks!

It's official! My mortgage is now in the 80s!!!! I'm so flippin' chuffed. My monthly mortgage payment went out today and the figure now stands at £89820.38

On top of this, I made an overpayment at the weekend - which takes around ten working days to show up on the mortgage balance. The OP was for £400. I know some of you may think this is foolish so close to Christmas, but I bought my last present for my brother at the weekend and I'm well within my budget for the month. So I decided to use a combo of savings and surplus money in my budget to facilitate the OP.

I know I was hitting a new milestone with my mortgage balance, but actually seeing it on my mortgage balance has had a huge positive psychological effect! It almost feels surreal. Since I took out my mortgage in October 2015, I've always had a "9" at the start of the balance. Can't believe I have paid £10k off, especially since I only started overpaying about a year ago. If I hadn't started OPing, I would still be owing approx £95500 at this point!

Anyway I will stop waffling. I'm chuffed to bit, this has made my day! Have a good one everyone.

Great milestone, 10k paid off is brilliant

Thanks Selloptape - it feels amazing!

I think its amazing overpayment of £400 if anyone thinks its mad, they are silly. You know your finances and plan it all out and well done

Thanks Monz - I plan every penny out for the month to within an inch of it's life! Not that I'm anally retentive or anything....

Happy New Year one and all!!! Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

Ahhh, finally back at work today. Couldn't sleep at all last night I always have trouble trying to sleep when I know I've to return to work after taking time off.

Nothing much to report, apart from Christmas was brilliant. Kids were happy with everything they got which is good. I plan on doing the same again this year, which is to buy things throughout the year. It seems to work out well, taking it in baby-steps.

I did get some money at Christmas from my parents and my grandma. I'd also built up a tilly tidy(?) stash, so I managed a cheeky OP of £200 which I made on 31st December

I have been playing around with the mse overpayment calculator last night (did I mention i couldn't sleep? ) and I have discovered by playing around with the figures that I have knocked 3 years off the term of mortgage already. And If I carry on the rate I'm at, I will have it cleared worst case scenario, in 14 years instead of the 32 it is currently at Obviously a lot can happen between now and then so I wont count my chickens just yet. It is thoroughly motivating though.

Goals for this year:

Get hallway decorated

Overpay mortgage by £5000 (should be a doddle - touch wood)

Eat less rubbish

Pack up smoking

Ah where was I....?

Ok, time to fill you in with the latest, if you've managed to bear with me til this point.

I made a rather large OP about a week and a half ago. It felt a bit risky, but it definitely turned out to be manageable risk. In the meantime I broke my new phone!!! I have literally had it a couple of months (the last one had a cracked screen and ended up in my washing machine), but I dropped it on the floor at work. The screen didn't crack but I broke the OLED housing. At first there was a fine visible line of bright pixels going across the screen - phone still very usable. But as the days went on the picture was getting worse, the crystals all leaked out and my phone was rendered unusable

I did consider that because I've only had it a couple of months, it would still be under warranty but I read online that the warranty doesn't cover accidental screen damage). I need a phone for work and being contactable for school, childcare etc so I had to buy a new one out of my savings. That set me back a bit.

It is DS1 birthday next month so I put the deposit down for one of those soft play areas with the ball pits and big slides. He has invited 15 friends so that will set me back some more pennies next month. The deposit alone was £50. The kids dad has offered to pay half the cost so it hopefully wont be too costly.

I remember reading a thread on here recently - I think the user was AFrayedNot - but I could be wrong. One tip they gave was to always have 000 at the end of your mortgage balance..... so when my mortgage payment went out on Tuesday, the outstanding balance was £88243.07. I called up the bank and OPed £43.07

Current balance...... £88200.00

Ok, so here's the latest.

It's my eldest sons birthday in Feb so as you may have read, I am doing a party for him at a soft play area. I have just bought a couple of his presents. He has started to take an interest in Science (which as I work in Physics please me no end) so i have bought him a couple of Science kits for kids. I bought them using a cashback website so I should get some pennies back there.

He is also going to one of his classmates parties at the weekend. I need to buy the birthday girl a present. So February is going to be extremely spendy for me.

I mentioned ages ago on here that I want my hallway decorating. The kids were with their dad this weekend, so I managed to make a start glossing the woodwork in the hallway. Still got loads to do but its a start. Looks brighter already. The kids dad has offered to help me out a little bit with it over half term which is great. It does however mean using the Childminder for both boys to keep them out of the way.... so more outgoings. It's the only way it will get done though so it's a small trade off.

I set up a 5% regular savings account last year. It is due to expire in a couple of days and I should get the interest. I'm tempted to send the interest off as an OP (I'm hoping its in the region of £60-£80 interest) and I'm going to set up a new regular saver account at 5%. You can put up to £250 per calendar month in. Cant wait til pay day. It seems like ages away.....

Hey youthgonewild,

You are doing some amazing amazing work on that mortgage!! Hope your sons birthday doesnt work out too expensive and you get the hallway done quick!

Great work with the 5% saver!

Jodles

Thanks Jodles

It always feels like there's a fine line between living in the now and investing for the future. I probably should be focusing on putting more into my pension....

Hi everybody,

Well, my savings account matured yesterday and I received £80.58p worth of interest on it
However I have decided not to put that towards an OP as I have too much to pay for this month. Pay day is 2 weeks away for me, and whilst I'm not impoverished, I'm below my usual comfort levels in my main bank account.

I am going to set up a new 12 month savings account tomorrow as it will be 1st Feb. For some silly reason, I didn't have my brain in gear last year. I opened my 12 month savings account on 30th Jan..... then I realised you put savings in PCM and Feb only has 28 days.... so I'm not making the same mistake this year Missed out on a month's worth of interest.

I had an almighty declutter of my wardrobes at home - there was items in there I haven't worn in over 10 years, all still nice and wearable, but just not my taste any more. I figured if I haven't worn them in such a long time and haven't given it much thought, I can't really need them. So I bagged it all up and took them to the charity shop along with some wooden puzzles my sons no longer play with.

After my trip to the Charity shop, I took my box of odd change to the bank yesterday. Banked it and the grand total came to £19.90. Which has actually worked out well since I did a bit of shopping. Here's a break down of my spends for yesterday:

• Car parking in town: £2.50
• 2 packets of cookies from a well know pound shop: £1
• A snack for me and DS2 and a drink each: £3.85
• A birthday present for DS1s classmate: £5.50 (A bargain as it was half price )
• A birthday present for my brothers partner: £7.99
• 2 x small rubber dinosaurs (DS2 wanted one and I am a soft touch. He chose one for DS1 too): £2

Total: £22.84

As I used my £19.90 that I banked to purchase the above, I consider myself to only be £2.94 out of pocket. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it

In all yesterday was a good day.

Ok, so I did as I said I would do. I opened a 12 month ISA thingy, that allows me to put it up to £250 pcm @5% interest. So today I have transferred £250 from my standard savings account to the 5% one. Feels good.

Something else I did the other which I forgot to mention on here. I pay a DD for contact lenses. Its a tenner a month and I get sent a 3 month supply. I was having a clear out the other day and I suddenly just how many boxes of contact lenses I had, unopened. I have been wearing my glasses everyday for over 12 months now (must be more?) so I have accumulated boxes and boxes of contact lenses. I stopped paying for the solution years ago because I wasn't getting through it fast enough. Anyway I called up Specs@vers on Wednesday and asked if I could cancel my DD. They said they can freeze my payments for a maximum of 6 months before they will start the scheme back up again. They told me the payments would start again in July. So I will save £60 up til July which is good. They told me I cant freeze the payments again for a further two years though. I better start wearing my contact lenses again.

Hi all,

I am posting from my phone so apologies if the formatting comes out rubbish.

I'm off work today, though it is never really a day off as I have 3 year old with me and I'm always busy playing catch up with chores and life stuff.

I'm nearly sorted for DS1's birthday on Monday. He found one of his Xmas presents a while back so instead of giving it to him at Xmas (and effectively ruining the illusion of Santa forever more) I have saved it for his birthday. It's at my mum's house (I eventually did hide it in December haha) so I need to pick it up at some point. I bought him a couple of kids science kits which I'm hoping are fun and pique his interest. Hope they pique mine too lol. I've reserved a couple of books at Waterstones too. He's taking an interest in Roald Dahl, so I've reserved The Twits as he has been reading it at school. Also he likes the Oi, Frog! Set of books. At home we have, Oi, Frog!, Oi, Dog! and Oi, Goat! which we love to read at bedtime. I have reserved Oi, Cat! at Waterstones. It was supposed to be £6.99 but it's been reduced by £2. I'll be picking both books up on Saturday.

In other news, I have decided I want a new kitchen. I know, I know, I still have the hallway to finish off decorating. But I've found the most gorgeous, coolest tiles relatively cheap online so I ordered a sample and fell in love with it. As I'm only going to be tiling around the cooker and window, the tiles will cost around £70. I also went into Wickes on Saturday to look at worktops. Initially was look at some real wood walnut ones from Ikea for £150, but I realised it had 3mm of real walnut around the particle board and it said it needed sanding and treating with oil on occasion. I can't be bothered with the upkeep. So I went to wickes and fell in love in with a laminate worktop which would match perfectly with the purple tiles I want. And it's only £120 per worktop, and none of the maintenance . I'm gonna have another look at it, just to make sure I am certain of it. I have also renamed one of my ISA's to "I want a new kitchen" on my online banking app haha. It won't be completely new, just tiles, paint, worktops and I'll probably paint the existing cupboard doors if I can. Another large task to the list of never-ending home improvements....

The interest got added to mortgage today. My balance was £88200 but they added £170.38. I called them up first thing this morning and OPed £170.38. Mortgage payment goes out next week, plus it will be payday. Can't wait! I love watching the balance fall, it's really satisfying. Also just had a letter through from United utilities, they are increasing my water rates by £1.20 per month might be worth getting a water meter instead.

Right, enough of my waffling, I'm gonna get a brew then take 3 year old of to L!dl, need some bread and milk.

Have a good day all x

Well, as luck would have it I went back to Wickes today to take another look at the kitchen worktops. There was a sign up saying 30% off showroom worktops. I asked the guy in the showroom what are the T&Cs of getting the 30% and his response was you have to have a full kitchen fitted installed by Wickes.

Anyway I'm at my mum and dad's house at the mo, just logged on the PC to show my mum the worktops I've been looking at and lo and behold, it says 30% off applied to basket. Added 3 lengths to basket and yep, it took 30% off the total

I think I will definitely be making a purchase soon. Only went in at the weekend to have a browse. I think it's meant to be lol

I bought the worktops!! I'm at that age in life where things like this make me seriously happy #sadsack

Hmm, I got the price wrong in my post above though. I said they were £120, when they aren't. Some others I looked at were. These ones were £139. But with 30% off, I knocked £125 off the total (bought 3 lengths). As they are Wickes, I ordered them through Kidstart. Will get 1.3% back on there

I was going to buy the tiles last night online - different company. I went to the checkout and they wanted £69 for delivery so i scrapped that. Have managed to find the same tiles elsewhere for £20 cheaper, and the delivery will only be £35 too Just to be on the safe side that it is an identical tile, I've ordered a sample. Wouldn't want a pallet full of tiles rocking up at my house that I end up hating.

In all, I've got myself a bargain. I've had to pull money from my savings but I'm only really saving for rainy day fund/home improvements anyway, so I may as well crack on!

So today is DS1s Birthday. His little face this morning when opening his presents was a picture.

Party yesterday was great, kids really enjoyed it. OTOH, I have spent what feels like an obscene amount of money this weekend, what with food shopping, extra presents I bought, birthday cake, final balance on the birthday party to pay off plus fuel in my car.... my account has taken a hammering.

To top it all off, my car has a fault and needs taking into the garage on Wednesday Roll on payday at the end of this week.