Statement of intent

Just had the quarterly update on the offset; we've saved £1089.10 just by offsetting since June 2006. This is equivalent to 4.6% of our remaining capital owing :j

I've updated my signature to record this and the present offsetting (57%) to give an equivalent mortgage rate of 2.75% (based on the increase which will apply from 7 July). This will improve slightly at the end of the month when my pay is received, but, mid July it will not be so good with holiday cost on the credit card. However, whilst this cost was £3000, looking at the current account, I hope only to have to call on £1500 from the monies saved to be able to cover it plus other high spend I've mentioned already. So actually looking at it this way, it is not quite so bad.

I've also made the commitment in the signature to the overpayment (40%) plus interest charges each month. Hope to keep to this plan which would put our overpayment at about 55% each month.:rolleyes:

Well, the spreadsheet was updated not just for Food, Toiletries, Cleaning etc, but I also added a sheet for our Clothing and Shoes purchases. (I've also done this on the blank spreadsheet so it's there for others who ask for it in future).

Downloaded credit card statement for the period early Feb to date, then it was a quick autofilter to start sorting the historic spend for clothing and shoes. I was pleasantly surprised to find it £20 less than my monthly estimate so felt quite chuffed about the initial guess. Now, I will have accurate data feeding the sheet. Just need to collate data in future which shouldn't be too much effort.

The Grocery shopping has been entered from the last couple of weeks, simply splitting out Toiletries & Cleaning items etc from the total leaving the food spend (which includes my beer - not had the guts yet to look at that as a line item alone )

Once we have a couple of months of data this can then feed live to the main sheet, but for now it will distort things somewhat. I think this area will need more effort than petrol and clothing but it represents a significant portion of expenditure so the effort is required. I have popped over to the Supermarket article etc, and some interesting things to adopt there in addition to our present good habits, 15% reduction on the monthly cost would be great! http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-supermarket-shopping

I hope that capturing actual data for petrol, groceries and clothing, in addition to the known spend (direct debits, annual items etc) will give a more confident position. I just need to review the "Ancillary Costs" item to see if I can track back on it, and (guiltily) need to monitor whether £50 per month is my pub spend or a gross underestimate.... :beer: