Chapter 3: the large London mortgage

lessavyfav · 23 June 2019 at 6:14PM

Thanks RS89. I've had a few too many celebrations with glasses of cold drinks lately :rotfl:

I am starting to get the Sunday blues knowing i have a busy day at work tomorrow (and general busy week), but must focus on payday this Friday – that means just 5 days till mum and dad's loan is paid off in full!

Our holiday was lush, and we didn't spend loads, other than on petrol.

I've been a bit better with lunches to work and have a meal plan this week, so all is looking positive, although the bank balance is fairly dire right now. As expected this month though. Still, we haven't managed to dip into our leftover savings pot by some miracle.

We are doing a bit of work to our garden which may turn out a little more expensive than planned, but as long as it finally starts to look like a nice place we want to use, I don't mind. Our local park had a plant sale yesterday and we picked up a huge amount of plants for £10, so we're pretty chuffed with that. I spent this afternoon potting them up, pruning a tree and doing a bit of weeding (seriously, does weeding EVER end?!), so hoping that it'll be in OK shape before our friends arrive in July. Maybe we can get a few bbqs in this summer!

Right-eo, time to start thinking about dinner and making tomorrow's lunch for OH and I.

lessavyfav · 29 June 2019 at 10:13PM

Payday has come and gone, which means mum & dad loan is paid. in. FULL! I am extremely happy with how quickly we've ended up paying this back when we had no real rush to since it is interest free..originally we were thinking end of this year. It means more money for renovations, and more to put towards time off for maternity (whenever that ends up happening, hopefully next year).

We didn't make loads this month but was a bit better than expected, plus we had £74 leftover which I swept into the 'leftover' pot we've been accumulating.

I am certainly not a shopaholic and definitely not wasteful with food, but have really begun thinking more about how I want to consume even less. I need to replace a few things in my wardrobe, which are getting old, but only t-shirts really, so nothing expensive. Plus, I'm also thinking of skipping the overseas holiday this year. I usually go on at least 2 short haul and 1 long haul flight but don't think I'll do any this year. Wow, how things have changed. When I was skint in my 20s, all i wanted to do was spend on travel and clothes! Now I'm earning decent money and becoming tight :rotfl:

Tropically · 2 July 2019 at 2:18PM

Well done!! It's so nice to pay back family to avoid it affecting the relationship. No long haul holidays! I'm shocked!!

lessavyfav · 27 July 2019 at 11:52AM

Thanks, Tropically. My parents have said to keep the money in a bank account so we can use it if the need arises but good news is we have plenty of savings in the EF so I shouldn't need to do that!

Starting to regret saying I won't go on a holiday this year, seeing everyone in Greece/Italy/Portugal having a grand old time is giving me FOMO big time!

Had a bit of an expensive month with friends visiting, the power shower breaking, and needing some foundation work done in the back garden but it's all accounted for. August looks to be much quieter on the spending front. I need to get back into preparing lunches a lot more, have been terrible the past month. Will crack on with a meal plan.

Our remortgage deal kicks in this month, which is lower than our current rate – woohoo! However, I still really need to take a look again at our finances with OH. I have pots of money accruing but know we could be sending this off to investments or paying a little extra to the mortgage.

Got to run but will update with some goals in my next post!

lessavyfav · 27 July 2019 at 6:37PM

Right, so homemade meals this week include:
- Chicken, olives, pine nut and lettuce salad
- Potato, chard, chickpea korma with homemade chickpea flatbread
- Ramen: buckwheat noodles, egg, pak choi, chard
- Potato omelette with courgette salad (lunch)
- Courgette, garlic and chilli pasta
- Fennel, radish, bean salad (lunch)
- Taleggio toasted sandwich with tomato salsa (lunch)
- Gooseberry crumble

Going out on Tuesday evening for dinner and quiet other than that.

Note to self: MUST HAVE MORE ALCOHOL-FREE DAYS!

lessavyfav · 5 August 2019 at 6:51PM

New lower mortgage direct debit left the bank account today, but I've created a standing order to send another £50 per month. Not much but better than a fork in the eye.

It's going to be very busy with work, not but I've dropped another day per week from my usual contract role, so in ££ terms, we'll most likely be a bit under. Still, I'm enjoying working on these projects more than going into the office!

I seem to have very little in my bank account and the joint one doesn't look so strong either. Two vet visits might have contributed – the little pup hasn't had much luck by way of health, poor guy! Must reign in spending as payday is a long while away.

My meal plan for the week will help. So far it includes:
- Chard and ricotta pasta (dinner)
- Potato salad (lunch)
- Cabbage parmesan soup (dinner. Not sure how it'll go but I got another cabbage in the veg box and am at a loss what to do – it's an Ottelenghi recipe, so should be tasty at least)
- Thai red curry (dinner)
- Cauli, potato and chard curry (dinner)
- Cheese, rocket and pickle sandwiches (lunch)

Alright, better get to it, dinner to prepare!

lessavyfav · 6 August 2019 at 10:53PM

Signature updated.

Going well with the emergency fund, and should hopefully hit our goal within a few months. We're not sure when we'll buy a car but this savings doesn't include what we'd get for our current car (hopefully £3-4k). I've only just added our first overpayment to the mortgage as of this month and don't plan to add much more than £50ish each month as I'd rather put most of our spare money into investments or other savings first. We also have a separate savings pot for renovations which has almost £3k in it, but if we get our bathroom done before the end of the year then we'll need a fair bit more than that!

It's only Aug 6 still with 24 days till payday, so I will have to buckle down when it comes to spending. Luckily we don't have a lot on socially as we'll be working a bit over weekends, but I know I need to be frugal with the grocery shop. No more Ocado this month!!

lessavyfav · 9 August 2019 at 12:19PM

Signature updated again to add £300 to EF. I forgot we had some money owed to us, which explains why my sums weren't adding up and our bank account looked so low. Looking healthier now!

I've had another expensive week with my phone screen completely cracking (it was cracked quite badly before, but sort of bearable), plus the battery runs out so fast so I got that replaced at the same time. £109 later, but more cost effective than buying a new phone, which I easily would have done a few years ago.

We had our veg box delivered and there's loads to use up, plus we've got a lot of work to do over the weekend so it should be a fairly low-spend weekend.

Best get back to my inbox!

lessavyfav · 26 August 2019 at 2:40PM

Am loving this glorious hot weather!

Ergh, so my phone screen has cracked again since getting it repaired despite its protective cover – it got very gently knocked and although it is a really tiny crack, I know it won't be covered by its warrantee. I guess the quality of this screen is not as good as the original manufacturer's one (dropped it many a time from long distances with no cracks for years). I mean, I could try to avoid dropping my phone of course..but I am pretty clumsy.

We've not made any overpayments or done much moneysaving in the past couple of weeks, but it's not like we've crept into savings either. Just sorted a meal plan based on what we have in the fridge and shouldn't need to buy anything for the rest of the week, maybe some pita breads or something but that's it. Which hopefully means a little bit of leftover money in our everyday account before payday this Friday.

According to my calcs, we should hit our £15k emergency fund by November. Woohoo, not long now at all, and will be a nice cushion for us! I have to admit though, we have a fair way to go till we hit the new car and bathroom renovation savings funds, so I may consider 'borrowing' the money we paid back to mum and dad. They've said we can use it whenever, but I was hoping to save up rather than borrow – I guess it depends when we end up doing the bathroom and buying a new car.

Right, going to do a little bit of work before catching some rays and an ice cream.

lessavyfav · 15 September 2019 at 12:25PM

Have updated my signature. ISA is going up slowwwwwly, must aim for more than £100 a month!

Another expensive-ish week but we seem to be ahead of where we normally are by this stage of the month, so hopefully will have a few hundred spare by next payday so we can add to EF/car/renovation funds. We still haven't received quotes for the renovation, but expect it to go north of £10k (unfortunately).

I popped £50 to overpay the mortgage this month. This week looks to be expensive for my own personal spends as I have a couple of dinners to go to, but hopefully not much on the week after.

Rough meal plan this week:
- Thai style pumpkin and potato gratin
- Salmon with veg
- Roasted veg stirred into grains
- Some kind of veg frittata? I think i have peas and courgettes lying in the fridge drawer
- Baked potato, cheddar and beans
- Asian style chicken soup

Well then, must get on with it. Going to head out into the garden to do some dreaded weeding, may as well while the weather is so lovely.

Chapter 3: the large London mortgage

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