MFW Challenge - Pay Off Your Annual Interest aka Yet Another Diary

Floxxie

Welcome to the lots of new MFWs and well done to the oldies. I have no idea how much money has been paid back to the banks by us as a group but perhaps it will be enough to keep them going a while longer :rolleyes:

Now unlike other people I am rubbish at diaries so I am not going to start one, preferring to read everyone elses. I do however love a challenge, particularly ones where I have a chance of actually completing them.

Over the last year of trying to pay some of my mortgage off, I have been up and down on what to do, should I overpay, should I invest elsewhere etc. etc. Whatever did happen, it has worked out well as the mortgage is reducing nicely (although much of this is down to interest rate cuts and a good sized stoozing pot).

However at the end of 2008 I am left with no job, three children, an OH bringing in an average salary that pays the bills and little else, a house full of clutter, a library full of books, a forum that has 101 ideas of making extra money and a number of expenditure reducing challenges. Taking all of this into account I am going to have to reduce my mortgage using these means.

Normally I like to set myself completely unrealistic challenges but as it has been a funny year re health and circumstances, I think I need to set my sights a little lower so I propose to do a "pay off your annual interest challenge".

How will this work? Well my mortgage interest in calculated on about the 3rd day of each month, so the next one should be 3 Jan. Given the rate reductions and with the balance decreasing, the interest should be reducing month on month. I think last month, it was just under £300. My plan is therefore to earn that £300 and pay it off the mortgage before the next interest amount is due. Logically speaking the interest due should become lower as the year goes on but of course I have no idea about interest rates or if I shall need to borrow some money back etc. So it is a sort of reverse challenge - lots of hard work at the beginning of the year and hopefully, less work at the end of the year.

Feel free to join me or just read my progress. I'm only planning to update on the date the interest is updated by my bank so my starting point for this challenge for me will be 3 Jan (approx.) EDIT: Should have known that this wouldn't work - can't resist posting my progress so apologies this has turned into another diary.

Floxxie


Things that I am doing to raise the funds (no job) - will add to as the year goes on.
1) eBay the contents of my house (running challenge on DFW board for motivation)
2) Cashback sites - using them for my regular purchases and taking up any offers - bing*, casinos, bookies and financial products tend to pay out the higher bucks.
3) Overpaying the mortgage with money saved on food shopping - if it says I've saved it on the receipt, then it gets put onto the mortgage.
4) Free scratchcards from a bing* site
5) Amazon - selling old text books.
6) Money found on the streets - yes honestly!
7) Referral money - received from others joining groups.
8) Mystery Shopping - I don't get to do too much of this because of the children. This requires a tax return, so another reason not to do too much!
9) Seed Mailing

thriftyscotslass

Hi Floxxie

My situation is very similar to yours :rolleyes:. I have finished 2008 with no job, 2 kids and an OH whose salary will cover the bills and not much else .

In spite of this I have declared that my target is to OP our mortgage by 2K in 2009. Am I mad - yip, barking

I won't join you on your challenge - meeting the interest might be :eek: - but I'll gladly read along.

Merry Christmas:snow_grin
Thrifty

EssexHebridean

Brilliant idea - and after all, in this overpaying lark it's whatever works best for you!

Good luck!

Floxxie

thriftyscotslass wrote: »

Hi Floxxie

My situation is very similar to yours :rolleyes:. I have finished 2008 with no job, 2 kids and an OH whose salary will cover the bills and not much else .

In spite of this I have declared that my target is to OP our mortgage by 2K in 2009. Am I mad - yip, barking

I won't join you on your challenge - meeting the interest might be :eek: - but I'll gladly read along.

Merry Christmas:snow_grin
Thrifty

Hi Thrifty,

Just wondering what interest you are charged for your mortgage on an annual basis? The reason I'm asking is that the 2k you are hoping to overpay by might even cover that amount.

Thanks for reading and I hope you get some ideas from here to help you towards your target.

By the way, eBay are having a 5p insertion weekend so an ideal time for people to start clearing their clutter (and unwanted gifts).

Floxxie

Floxxie

Thrifty, just spotted the reply to the question I asked about your interest on another thread...if you are being charged £5.11 per day then roughly your annual interest would be £1865 so you can pay your interest off with your £2k OP challenge!

Floxxie

thriftyscotslass

Floxxie wrote: »

Thrifty, just spotted the reply to the question I asked about your interest on another thread...if you are being charged £5.11 per day then roughly your annual interest would be £1865 so you can pay your interest off with your £2k OP challenge!

Floxxie

Hi Floxxie

Hope you had a good Christmas.

I've just rejoined the forums after 4 days with the inlaws and the outlaws :eek: All good fun :rolleyes:

Yes I worked out our daily interest and although was a lot less than we thought :T - so I'll join you in your challenge :beer:

Floxxie

Oooh Thrifty, don't feel pressurised. I must appear like some kind of MFW stalker :rotfl:

By all means feel free to join me but I won't be chasing you up if you don't get around to it!

Can't wait for New Year now...have a good one Thrifty.

Floxxie

Floxxie

Good morning,

I had a look today at my Woolwich mortgage to try and work out the interest that I have been charged. If anybody has a Woolwich mortgage via Barclays then you will agree with me that their online mortgage statements are rubbish and you are better waiting to receive the paper copy detailing everything, in the post. This should be due this week sometime so I shall have an exact figure of what interest I was charged in December and use this as my proposed aim for January (hope you are all still with me!)

On a rough guess the interest was £215 so for the purposes of a target for raising funds I am going to go with this one. I shall add my monthly targets to my first post and then note what I actually achieved next to it.

I should achieve the January one if :
1) I receive the cashback due from various sites
2) Get my eBaying/GreenMet/Amazon skates in gear - for Jan I shall be listing books, DVDs, videos and magazines. eBay is changing its policy on postage costs in a number of these and I want to have as many sold as possible before this happens.

To help towards my Feb onward target I shall be doing surveys, scratchcards, signing up for cashback deals and match betting but not this month as I am really rubbish at trying to do too many things at once!

Note: If I paid off the same amount of £215 for the year, that would be an extra £2580 overpaid! (Although hopefully I shall not be increasing my mortgage to keep the interest repayments the same!)


Floxxie

Floxxie

Well it is now the 6th Jan and still no sign of the paper statement to tell me exactly how much interest I was charged in December but I have made a start overpaying as little bits of money have come in.

Just to give you an idea of how I am doing this, there are two areas I use to raise funds. I shall add a couple more next month...

1) I have restarted an eBay challenge on the DFW board which acts as a motivator to get rid of my unwanted clutter in the house. I haven't yet managed to start this challenge but need to if I am to bring in cash this month.

2) Have made a start reviewing the cashback sites I am signed up to. Had £15 sat in GreasyP**m so signed up to Sun B*ngo (£10 deposit and play for £20 c/b) to hit the minimum payout. Had a Quid*o payment of 22p! ip*nts is missing points as is TCB - lots to chase up on! I used to do the daily clicks and may go back to this although it is very timeconsuming. There are plenty of offers where extra money can be made so will spend the next couple of weeks finding these and signing up to them.

Total overpaid so far is £87.04

setmefree2

with your challenge

Floxxie

Thank you smf2!

I have just realised that just by updating the info, I am turning it into a mini diary :rotfl:but I promise I won't post too much.

Anyway have finally received the monthly statement and last month I was charged £222.34 so this shall be target to raise for January (although the interest for January will in reality be lower especially as the mortgage rate dropped from 1 Jan).

Have just added another £25 received from CBK for signing up to Paddyp*wer for MBing (didn't get charged the £1 for BACS but not complaining!). Also got 6p from Quidco after looking through account and realising that they had marked it as paid but it hadn't been (that 6p could make all the difference!)

Total overpaid so far: £112.04