Sweetdaisy's aim to be mortgage-free

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I'd say that was quite a lot, actually. From my back-of-an-envelope calculations, I'd say that had increased your capital repayment each month by around 25%.

Out of interest, was is a whopping great extension you had done? Or have you not always been on a repayment mortgage? Just your balance seems pretty high compared to where you started 10 years ago.

Yes, we did have a large extension (an en-suite bedroom upstairs and another sitting room/playroom downstairs). We have always had a Repayment Mortgage and came off Fixed Rate and changed to an Offset Mortgage in 2005.

I forgot to add that we did remortgage in 2005 when we took out the Offset Mortgage as we purhcased two cars, so we repaid a loan we had and added it to the mortgage. This is why our mortgage balance is a lot higer than when we originally started out.

Thought that I would post my SOA.

These are monthly outgoings:
Mortgage: £700
Council Tax: £135
Life Insurance: £17.86
Mortgage Insurance: £18.94
Investment ISA (long-term savings for children): £100.00
Gas and Electricity: £62.00
Mobile Phone: £16.00
Internet: £17.00
Breakdown Cover: £19.30
Son's School Dinners: £38.00
Food Shopping: £370.00
Petrol (for both cars): £220.00
Spending Money: £260

We also have other expenditures that we do not pay on a monthly basis i.e.

2 x Car Insurance: around £700 a year
2 x Road Tax: around £200 a year
2 x MOT's, Car Services, Tyres: amount varies
TV licence: £145 a year
BT (phone): around £65 a Quarter
Water: £400 a year (I am considering paying this monthly to spread the cost)


We are a family of 4 and I budget £85 a week for the food shop which I manage to do and am getting better at this, but it can be difficult. I do my shop online with Tesco as even though I pay £3.00 delivery, when I go instore and do a shop I often overspend by about £20, so doing the shop online means I can budget better and be less wasteful . I allow for £60 a week 'spending money' and this includes activities for the children, top-up shopping, bits and bobs etc.

After all outgoings we have around £600 left over, however from April 2012 when I return to work full-time after being on Maternity Leave we will be paying childcare costs again, so we will only have around £300 left a month .

I'm also a member of quite a few survey and review sites, so I use any earnings/vouchers from these to treat my family and use them towards buying Birthday and Christmas presents.

I would welcome any advice as to where I can cut costs .

SeriouslySeekingtoSave wrote: »

Hmm, I'd definately look at the Broadband/Phone part of your SOA. My total Broadband/Phone package costs less than just your broadband.

Thanks. We have never changed broadband provider and have always been with Tiscali until they changed over to Talk Talk and foolishly :mad: we signed over to Talk Talk and it's the biggest mistake we made. We are tied into a contract with them for the internet only unil February 2012 and they said that if we change provider before then, they will charge us £170!!

There are so many broadband/phone packages out there that I don't know where to begin? Was thinking about changing to Sky internet and phone but not sure. We have Freesat TV from Sky and am happy with this as there is no monthly fee to pay for TV (besides Freesat has all the channels we need).