Start at the very beginning.

Brindlebabe · 17 May 2019 at 10:51AM

Thanks Northern Monkey.

I hadn't thought of it like that before.
It's definitely a marathon not a sprint! Easy(ish) to decide to chuck a chunk of savings at it, but hard to make that an ongoing reality.

I don't think £344 per month is realistic at the moment. But £172 may be. So that would be 1 month off the term every 2 months.

Thanks
BB

JillyC8 · 17 May 2019 at 6:39PM

Is there anything your OH could do work wise? It would probably help him get used to the area if he's out and about, meeting people and busy, plus the obvious benefit of the extra money ...

MalcRH12 · 17 May 2019 at 6:59PM

Hey, nice to read through your blog. I earn around the same amount as you and also have a scary mortgage figure. Me and my wife sold our first house and moved into a nice 3 bed semi in January. Our mortgage started at 204000 for 27 years at 2.14% for 2 years. Also like you, we only have the one income but are managing to overpay the mortgage by £575 a month, mainly due to living frugally (not too much) and having a decent savings buffer. If you can reduce your outgoings somehow then that will help greatly with overpayments. I'll follow your blog with interest, good luck!

julicorn · 17 May 2019 at 7:35PM

Just wanted to stop by to wish you a very belated happy new diary! Looking forward to reading how you get on :heart2:

Brindlebabe · 18 May 2019 at 11:06AM

"Is there anything your OH could do work wise? It would probably help him get used to the area if he's out and about, meeting people and busy, plus the obvious benefit of the extra money ..."

Obviously this is the clear solution. He has bad anxiety, particularly social anxiety and has had bad experiences in work in the past which make him very nervous about re-entering employment. He's decided to enquire about volunteering in a local Buddhist cafe (which is really exciting!) and if that all goes well build up from there. Although it won't help bring any extra money in, I think it will help him with confidence and getting involved in where we live. I will let you know how it goes.

Brindlebabe · 18 May 2019 at 11:11AM

Had an interesting day yesterday. Went to a workshop on Social Ecology.. Not something I know very much about. However, it led me to thinking about how which aspects of the capitalist world that we're all trapped in that I dislike. Mainly adverts and pressure to spend money we don't have on !!!! we don't need...

So I thought about the ways that I could improve my life without engaging in the capitalist machine. Like a quiet anticapitalist (or at least ambivalent capitalist) revolution. These are the things that I came up with. Some I do already, others I'd like to get involved with:

Freecycle
Parkrun
Olio
Charity shop shopping for clothes etc
Grow your own veg and veg/seed swapping
Liftsharing
If eating out - eating at not for profit cafes

Can anyone think of others? Or suggestions on the theme?

BB

Tartan_Mum · 18 May 2019 at 11:52AM

Lurker here. I agree with your thinking. I’ve recently been enjoying the “beminimalist” site and blog about living with less. It’s an American site but the thoughts and comments resonate

Good luck on your MF journey xx

Hazelnutty · 18 May 2019 at 4:38PM

Hey Brindlebabe! I'm in a similar position to you in that my OH isn't working with a long-term health condition but also anxiety and depression. I'm also hoping she'll start to volunteer as a way to re-familiarise her with working and build her confidence (and social networks). I'm also with you on the sceptical capitalist stuff. We're not buying any new clothes this year and Freecycle has been great both as giver and recipient (although I don't know if Freecyclers have got more like FB buyers recently - people just messing you about when before I'm sure it was a friendlier and 'honourable' experience, for want of a better word).
Anyway, good luck with your challenge!

Hazelnutty · 18 May 2019 at 5:31PM

What's Olio btw?

Brindlebabe · 20 July 2019 at 9:26AM

I'm afraid I have been on here for 2 months. And I haven't overpaid at all in that time.

But it's not all been catastrophic.

I've changed my car. My car previously was a lovely but old and unnecessarily large Citroen Xsara estate with a 2L diesel engine. It was always very expensive to ensure and had done 201000 miles in the end. My brother was upgrading his 3 door Toyota Yaris (1L petrol engine) for something that had more space for his child. So I bought the Toyota off him for £150. Its still done 140000 miles and it is petrol but got through MOT in January last year fine. Plus the insurance and tax are about halved! So that's a win. I've paid the insurance for the year off, and I had been paying about £88 per month for the Citroen so will up my mortgage payment to reflect that as soon as the dust has settled.

My ridiculous £200/month commuting finishes at the end of August so hopefully that can go on the mortgage too. Although I may use the first £200 saving to purchase a bike to get me to work and back for the foreseeable.

Other than that, no particular changes. Just plodding on. I think I was initially quite enthusiastic with the mortgage overpaying, but now my savings buffer has been reduced from £4000 to £2000 I am a bit more cautious. It would be interesting to know if this was a common occurrence.

Will try to check in again sooner.

BB

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