This post will go up a few of weeks after the event, so it might not be news to my friends on Twitter, but today was a good day. My husband and I paid off the mortgage on our house eight years early. I am relieved and happy to know that if the worst happens with Brexit, we are unlikely to be out on the streets.
We began making overpayments on our mortgage soon after the result of the Brexit referendum was known. All of our income is provided by our family business which relies on exporting to the EU. Any disruption in trade could end us, so our goal has been to own our house outright before this shameful UK government blows up the economy.
To increase our payments, we had to reduce expenses, so we had a look at what we could do to cut costs. The first thing we did was switch our energy from British Power to a company called Octopus. Doing this saved us an eye-watering £1100 a year, and we got the benefit of green energy.
We then decided to go from having two cars to having only one. I live near my work and don’t really need a car, so we pared down to one vehicle. So far it’s worked well, and I can only think of two times I’ve needed transport while the car was away. Of all the things we did, this was probably the biggest. Driving is expensive, and not having to pay insurance and road tax on two cars gave us a good chunk of money to put toward the mortgage. The fact we have an EV has helped, too. It’s much cheaper to run than a petrol model.
Another thing we did was cancel our cable TV. When I think of how much Murdoch and his awful media empire had to do with Brexit, I decided not to put any more money in his hideous pocket. We now watch Freeview, Netflix, and Prime, and we were able to put the money we saved on the expensive cable subscription towards the house.
There are other savings we’ve made which made a difference. I cut my clothing shopping habit right back, and I’ve been more mindful about grocery shopping and using up what’s in the fridge instead of wasting food. For the last couple of years, we’ve done secret Santa with the extended family and not overspent on gifts. These aren’t massive changes, but they helped us grab a little security in the most uncertain time we’ve ever lived through.
Fig and Pen 