The Scariest Thing I Have Ever Done....

Thanks all! Great tips!!

So yesterday was the day of trying to find out what my mystery direct debits were for and cancelling them. First up, mystery payment of £16.99 turned out to be a mobile broadband subscription I had bought to cover me while we were getting a BT line installed to our rental house and then forgotten about! Cancelled and £16.99 now going into my OP account!

Second up, mystery payment of £13.99 to Carphone Warehouse, which I had always assumed was linked to my phone bill, but confused about because I did my last upgrade direct with O2. Turned out to have been phone insurance that I didn't know I had, on a phone I haven't used for 4 years... Whoops! Cancelled, and another £13.99 now going into the OP account.

Third, a mystery payment of £23.00 going to Scottish Widows. Turned out it was my OTHER decreasing term life insurance to cover the mortgage I no longer have on a house sold years ago. Whoops! Cancelled, and got a quote for the new house, will take a decision later on that one!

Next up, a mystery 9.95 going on Halifax insurance. No luck trying to identify it with them last night, so will try again today when I escape the joys of the City this afternoon.

Also on the plan, seeing what I can do about cancelling the holiday to I booked last year. Have persuaded hubby that I can't justify that expense alongside the house purchase. deposit plus extra paid already, and don't want to lose the deposit, so will be calling Kuoni to check my options.... A) can I get it all back, b) if I can't, then can they offset the deposit against the other holiday we have booked with them for our anniversary, or c) can I move the holiday date to 2017. Regardless of the outcome, given I won't be paying towards that, it will be 5K technically saved and I'll be putting what I was planning to pay into the OP pot over time.

That's it for now! Mortgage valuation and structural survey on the house were done yesterday, so it's now keeping fingers crossed that nothing major is flagged that stops the process at this stage!

And so, finally, this diary and endeavour can begin in earnest. We moved into our lovely new home two weeks ago today and, having spent the first week unpacking and the second week redecorating the most offensively decorated of rooms (honestly, who paints a kitchen maroon and blue????!!!!) its now time for me to start planning my expedited mortgage payment journey. Sadly, this first month will be a difficult one given we have a larger initial mortgage payment to make, plus payment of a lump sum of the remaining contract value at our rental property, but I have begun to make a start at minimising the outgoings already.

TV, broadband, telephone: cancelled and switched to BT - a saving of 40 a month
Electricity and Gas: set up with Ovo - compared to our last property, that should be a saving of 200 per month as we don't have to pay 6 pounds per hour to run the oil fired boiler we used to have for hot water and heating!!!!! (yes, we only ran the heating an hour a day, and spent our lives hibernating under blankets in winter…..!)
Insurance: Halifax home and contents insurance - saving of 45 a month, as our last place was on a flood plain and just contents insurance was costing me 100 a month with the sole insurer who would give us insurance!

Current savings made: 285

Now just going to wait and see how the funds net out at the end of the month and do my budget planner so I can work out exactly what I need to pay and when, and therefore how much is left to overpay with!

Have also decided the "loose change jar" that we have will also go to the mortgage every time its full. Any change under a 50p goes in, no matter what

Its nothing compared to the dining room….. green wall paper on some walls, purple swirly wallpaper on other walls, and a pink vinyl ceiling plus the original victorian fireplace replaced by a 1960 brick monstrosity… oh, and a "pub" carpet in green and yellow YUMMMMM!!!!!!! :P

So, having reflected today after two days back at work, I have come to the very profound realisation that I have absolutely no desire to be beholden to this grind for the next 31 years just to be able to pay off the mortgage. I quite frankly think it will kill me if this ends up being the next three decades of my life (not far off the length of time I have been alive thus far, which is a very scary thought).

That, therefore, is going to become my daily motivation to make over payments on the mortgage - the money saving aside, as right now that seems somewhat nebulous on a daily basis if I'm being completely honest, even though the numbers all make sense longer term.

Starting point today was to apply for a Santander 123 Account. All my household direct debits will be transferred there, as will my (now reduced post house deposit) cash savings. Any cash back will be scraped into the OP plan, plus interest on the accrued cash savings that I'm keeping back in my Emergency Fund. Annual cash back plus interest at the moment is netting out circa £400, which is a little extra kickstart to the OP fund.

Current planning, at least for the next 12 months, is that I will be able to fund £500 per month from my regular salary, however I'm adding a stretch goal which is to be at 90% LTV by the end of our fixed term in 2 years from now. The £500 a month for 2 years will net me £12K. With a goal of getting the mortgage down to under £502K in 24 months (ideally the super stretch target is to get below the 5's in 2 years so I can really feel like we're making progress and the mortgage is a little less scary!!!!), that therefore leaves me with at least £18K to find on top of the current planned OP's….

I have an existing loan on a VERY cheap interest rate at the moment, which will be paid off in 12 months, so I'm planning to add that repayment to the OP funds as of next year. That should net me an additional £400 per month. That means for Year 2, I should be able to go up to £900 per month in OP's - an additional £4,800. That plus my two years of Santander interest and cash back puts it up to £5,600.

That would bring bring my grand total down to £12,400 still to find (down the back of the sofa, somewhere) in the next 24 months…. I'm not going to count on the annual bonus happening, as that's discretionary, to close the gap so now its time to do some serious thinking about how to minimise my outgoings and maximise what I can bring in. Renovation costs are already being done sensibly through friends of friends and being minimised wherever possible, but I'm going to see how I can minimise these even further so I can maximise the OP's - we're already doing as much of the work ourselves as possible, but sure we can persuade our friendly builder to teach us how to do some basic stuff to save on unnecessary cost.

This will be my record and my written commitment to achieving this starting goal. Fingers crossed. More to come shortly…...

So, technically not a saving towards the OP, but a reduction in my "usual" style of expenditure. Party to celebrate my Mum's birthday with all the family invited, catered for by the local coffee shop, our local butcher, and everything else made by myself, hubby and the 4 step kiddie winks! Total cost to cater for 7 kids and 12 adults, £50 Think we didn't do too badly, compared to my usual spending for these kinds of things! I always used to buy everything (and way too much) from Waitrose Entertaining and end up spending a couple of hundred pounds on food etc., so feeling overly pleased with myself.

Technically it can't immediately count as a "saving" and go into the OP fund (as it wouldn't be in my usual budget) but I'm hoping it will help to add to my monthly "left overs" fund at the end of the month in addition to my already scheduled OP amount. Plus it helps to reassure me that a mindset adjustment doesn't necessarily mean a wholesale lifestyle adjustment - just that sometimes I need to put a little more effort in

On the downside, eldest s.son got knocked off his bike today and has just called to say he's in A&E Nothing serious by the sounds of it, thank goodness!!!!! Just a lot of scrapes and bruises… Ouchie!