SmlSave MFW diary - where to start?

SmlSave

Afternoon,

After being thoroughly inspired by this site and everyone posting I decided to start my MFW journey. But where to start….?

Me and my OH are in our mid-20’s, we bought our house (our first!) last year and so far we’ve done up the kitchen and living room and are currently working on the garden. There’s a few things that I feel have to be done before we can start seriously start working on over paying the mortgage…

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Joint Account

- Currently am doing up the garden (was sloping but am terracing it) so this comes under DIY. Going to the Malvern’s in a couple of weeks to buy plants and need as much £££ as possible to get them all at once. Also need more gravel and compost.

- Christmas is only 15 weeks away! :eek: Need £300 for presents and £145 on the Asda Card for food.

- We need double-glazing to be installed. The current wood, single glazed windows leak and let out a lot of heat. The average quote is around £3000! :mad: We are going to look into DIY but still need to find this money somewhere.

- We can overpay our mortgage every January up to 10%. I doubt much will be possible this year but am aiming to pay off some by next year – when we remortgage probably!

Please find below my Budget/SOA – any thing you can advise me to do?

Home

Mortgage 690.00 – Fixed till 2010
Home Insurance 25.00 – Fixed till 2009
Council Tax 101.00
Water Meter 5.00
Gas Bill 25.00 – going to compare
Electricity Bill 32.00 – going to compare
Home Phone Bill 12.00
SKY 27.00 – I’m hooked – sorry!:rolleyes:
Life Insurance 30.00 – Fixed till 2009
Saving Schemes 100.00
Food Shopping 200.00 – on the Grocery challenge
Car Maintenance 25.00
Car Insurance 30.00
Car Tax 10.00
DIY 100.00
Enjoy 20.00
TV Licence 10.00
Christmas 25.00
Holiday 25.00
OUTGOING 1,492.00
INCOME 1.500.00

Personal Budget/SOA:

- We’re both going to NY in November to visit family and so need spending money to, hopefully, get some Xmas presents. I paid for my ticket out of some savings I had. I would love to have £300 in spending £££!

- With all the talk of people getting made redundant I really think it’s necessary to get some £££ in saving – just in case. How much would you recommend?

- The Loan will be paid off in June next year, is at 4% interest and that works out at about £12. So this should be ok to leave as it – yes?

Personal

House 610.00
Mobile 12.00
Bus 42.00

Loan Repayments 70.00

Regular Saving 30.00
Pension 26.00
Cash 120.00
Weight Watchers 18.00
JJB Gym 36.00
Presents 20.00
Christmas 25.00
Holiday 20.00
CinemaPass 12.00
OUTGOING 1045.00
INCOME 1050.00

Sorry it’s a long post. As you can see we need to several things out of the way to be able to start seriously saving for the mortgage pig.

EssexHebridean

Hello & welcome to the addictive world of MFW!!

Someone better qualified than me will probably be able to give you some more input into your sums - however one thing I would say is that it sounds like your windows need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Is there any way you can patch them up, or maybe fit secondary glazing panels inside to take you through the winter? Otherwise you;re going to lose a fortune in heat escape, not to mention the uncomfortable draughts.....if I'm honest I;d say that considering the time of year that is far more of a priority than the garden......

Check out the OS board for ways of making little savings - it's a wealth of information!

gallygirl

Hi Sml :j

You should aim for 3 months income as savings, so open some ISA's and stick any spare cash in there. What are the saving schemes - where does cash go and what is interest rate, and how much do you have in there (you don't need to answer on here, but these are questions you should ask yourself). ISA's are paying over 6% at the mo, I'd go for a fixed rate as they are predicted to fall.

What is the £120 cash used on? You have already accounted for most spends - is this fritter money . Why not keep a spending diary and make yourself write down every penny - it really works!

Don't apologise for having Sky, hols etc. You are young and taking control of situation, the trick is to do all you want as cheaply as possible and not fritter money.

How can you make OP's on mortgage? Does it have to be a minimum amount? In an ideal world you'd have no limit and could do electronically so every £2.29 latte you didn't buy could be transferred straight in. Alternatively, make sure the ISA operates on line and transfer in to it towards the 3 months income. Or save in another account and transfer into mortgage at regular periods/amounts. It would be really good psychologically to make a start on OP's.

I agree with EssexHebridean about windows, however as you've already started garden you need to finish as cheaply as possible. 1 tip I picked up on if stocking a garden from scratch is to buy some big established shrubs etc and fill in with cheaper, young & smaller ones. So you have instant effect but a bit cheaper. Also, if you buy something like hostas in a pot you can usually split into 2 or 3 before planting. And both you & OH should ask at work - gardeners are very generous and would probably be glad to give you cuttings , spare plants etc, especially as you're young - good to encourage gardening in youngsters. And it's nice to go in after a year with a picture of it to show the donor.

Plan to put the loan money straight into ISA and that will also get you towards your goal of 3 months savings.

Finally, consider signing up for mystery shopping. You won't earn a fortune, but there are lots at a large pub chain beginning with W , also fast food, pizza deliveries, coffee shops etc. Plus the occasional nice restaurant. Treat yourself at someone else's expense and put the money you'd have spent on meal in savings.

Basically, carry on as you've started, be answerable to yourself for every penny, set yourself targets and find a way to measure progress - graphs, % achieved and coloured squares on graph paper are tried & trusted methods .

Good luck :T

setmefree2

ali007 wrote: »

Good luck :T

Good Luck from me too:T:T

SmlSave

Morning!

I had a NSD yesterday and found 20p to put in the change jar - every little helps.

Thank you for everyone's replies, I've got a pot of coffe on, feel free to help yourselves:o

Thanks for the advice Essex, I'm going to put up a curtain in front of the front door to stop drafts and am going to try and plug up the leaking windows for this winter. I did hear about instant double glazing - do you know anything about this?

Ali, 3 months! gosh, I do have an ISA which could do with topping up - 3 moths wages the aim is then!

The £120 is fritter money :rolleyes: I'll have a go at working out where it goes later...:eek:

I can OP my mortgage every Jan by 10%. We've just opened up the £50 back Natwest account to put in any savings we have, truthfully i think that £ will go towards the windows which got me down a little :cool: but then i realised that if we can save circa £3000 for double glazing - then we can definatly do it again and put the money towards OPing!

I have a bootiful hosta which the slugs have muched up :mad: so its going to be moved into a pot and next year hopefully it'll be big enough to split. There a large lady's mantle there too which I'm going to split this month - four plants from one hopefully! i'm definatly going to ask evryone i know for cuttings, thanks for the idea Ali

Where would i go for myster shopping? Is there a place where i sign up?

I'm off to do some work, be back later!

There'll be some millionaires shortcake later too

SmlSave

Morning!

I've been swimming twice this week so thats using my gym membership, last night I ate the shortcake - yum - so I'll have to go exercising again! :rotfl:

I had a thought where the £120 'Fritter' money goes : -

Salsa lessons and drink - £10 x 4
Ballroom lessons - £5 x 4
Wedding Reception party - £10
Birthday meal - £15
Lunch with friend - £10

TOTAL = £95

Whatever doesn't get spent this month or next will go towards NY.

On the news front I'm going to get an extra £60 in my wages from Mr Taxman - Yeah! This is to go straight in the NY fund.

We've overpaid on the Electric and £115 has been paid into the joint account! even better!

With all good must come bad. :mad: The car passanger door is broken, pooh, it looks like it will cost bout £60-£80 to fix if we can DIY. Least this can come out of Electric £.

gallygirl

SmlSave wrote: »

Morning!


Thank you for everyone's replies, I've got a pot of coffe on, feel free to help yourselves:o


Where would i go for myster shopping? Is there a place where i sign up?

MMMMM, thought I could smell some brewing somewhere

There is another board which has a list of all mystery shopping companies -

CLICK HERE to view. I use GAP, Retail Eyes & Grassroots, I get most from GAP. Good luck!

SmlSave

Thank ali, I'm off to have a look.

I've just worked out that if we're very careful and save from Januray (when Xmas is out the way) to June we could have bout £2000! :eek: Thing is I'm worried bout suggesting it to the OH.

He's fine letting me sort out the joint account but is of the mind set that as long as we don't go overdrawn there's not a problem.

He's also seen some very nice solid wood french doors - almost £1000! to fit ourselves. when I pointed out that its the same £ to get french doors and get someone to fit them for you he said - but don't you want the best we can get?

The thing is that I do and I don't It would be nice to have top of the range stuff but what is the point if we're going to move in 5yrs and have to struggle for them? when we can get perfectly good doors/windows cheaper?

Sigh. I'm going to have to chat to him about this, hopefully he'll be in a good mood this weekend

setmefree2

Good Luck with that chat;)

SmlSave

Well I had a chat with OH last night bout the double glazing, he said that i worry too much and we both agreed to concentrate on the garden and once that's done to look at the double glazing.

Its the wedding reception tonight so I have to get a bottle of bubbly for the happy couple and some chocolates for a birthday on Sunday. I did see that M&S are doing a meal for £10, i thought i might pop in and see what they are like and if they are freezable!

I spent £2.99 on a Boots meal yesterday but its back to a homemade s/w today.

My Mum dropped of a bag of apples for me so this weekend I'm going to cook and freeze the lot.

Main thing to do today is to cancell my Weight Watchers subscription, I've become a helper and so get weighed for free! I'm going to miss the Tracker and Community board thou.

Plan this weekend is ...

1. cook the apples
2. do a load of washing
3. go through Xmas box to see what have
4. Build a wall in the garden

SmlSave

Thanks Setmefree2!