Spending guilt

[Temporaryname158]

I am lucky that I have some spare money to overpay my mortgage but I have found that I feel guilty if I don’t use it for that.

does anyone else feel like this? Or do I have a bit of a problem?

I pay into a pension via my employer, and try to overpay my mortgage by £300 a month. Some months in one way I’d like to blow it on a fancy day out for the kids and coffees out for me etc. But I feel so guilty at the thought of doing so, coffees etc feel wasteful. I get great pleasure/satisfaction overpaying my mortgage and it is a key life goal to pay this off substantially early but equally I just feel that spending it on something else is wasteful.

am I of the right mindset to save now and reap the rewards later, or should I (in my mind) blow it on fun things.

I don’t have anyone to talk this through with so all opinions and your justifications would be of interest to me.

I think it has to be a balance really - sure, it's great to be able to pay some extra towards your mortgage, but you also need to feel able to spend some money on days out with your children as well.

Would it be easier if you allocated a certain amount of money every month to certain things, e.g. days out, or personal treats etc.?

It’s not all or nothing. I liked to overpay my mortgage regularly so would opt to pay £150 every month off my mortgage and spend/save £150 a month for treats.

However, paying £300 some months and spending on treats some months also works.

I think it’s fine to pay your mortgage off sooner if that’s what gives you pleasure and if you’re not negatively impacting your quality of life by not buying things you might otherwise afford (not everyone wants endless stuff - me included). However, you do eventually need to start spending what you’ve accumulated. So I’d only worry if you had a more deep-seated reluctance to ever buy yourself something nice or go nice places.

Thanks for your advice, I think as a single parent I feel the pressure to provide and as a sole income I suppose I see paying off the mortgage as a big debt so that if I lost my job I have a lot of outgoings to pay. I’m paying off as quick as I can for financial security I suppose.

I do still take my children on holiday and they do after school clubs etc so we aren’t living treat free. I just wonder if I will regret not treating them more in years to come when they are teens and don’t want to know me!

I prioritised saving and paying off my mortgage when I was in my twenties and thirties. No children then, but I got mocked at work for bringing in packed lunches and my own cafetière rather than go out for lunch and three Starbucks a day. Mocked for keeping the same car for 10+ years rather than a new one on PCP every three years. I still had (cheap) holidays going to visit my Dad abroad, but passed up on the group trips to Ayia Napa and Ibiza. While my friends were blowing £70 a head on dinner in 2005, I was learning to cook a £10 Chateaubriand at home.

I do not regret any of it, and never have, not least because I felt I was always being true to myself. More practically, it meant that I was able to stop working when children came along, and even on one income we could weather the cost of living crisis better than most because I had always had a frugal mindset and the person I married believed in it too.

When I talk to friends and other parents it's the ones who drive their Range Rovers half the distance I walk, stop at the Co-Op to buy the kids crisps or chocolate on the way home every single day, and have the weekly 'fuckit' takeaway or pub dinner who are struggling the most with financial security despite being on considerably bigger incomes than us. All those transient 'treats' mean that the holiday to Spain or Turkey goes on the credit card. The kids can't even recall where they went nine months later, when the parents are still nursing the bill.

My kids (seven and four) don't care that apart from uniform their clothes come from Vinted or charity shops. They don't care that they've only been to McDonald's once in their lives, as they prefer home cooking anyway. We do 'treat' them but we make it count rather than normalise it.

@InveterateWineDrinker I am like you in a lot of ways. In order to have the £300 to overpay I bring my own lunch, have a 10 year old car, buy from Vinted and am very careful. I also work a lot of hours and use Quidco and other sources of ‘extra’ money where I can as every little helps.

i think I will try and continue to keep paying it as the financial freedom in the long term will be worth it I hope!

OP, the financial freedom is worth it. Keep the faith.

When the dcs were younger, we went camping for almost no cost and they loved it. Now they are older (21 and 18), we have paid off the mortgage and have the financial freedom to bribe them to come on fully paid holidays with dh and I that involve a fixed roof 😂