MoneyQueen’s MFW Journey and Daily Diary

MoneyQueen

Update for March

Monthly Salaries = 4027.96

Mortgage

Balance = £102903.27
Interest Rate 1.29%
Monthly Payment £897.66
OP done in March £94.78 (Daily Scratchcard Payments + Quidco Cashnback + Referral Fee + Mobile Recycle Profit)

Savings (These are all Net Rates)

Reg Saver 4% Expires Feb 2010 Adding 500 per month = £1250
Reg Saver 4% Expires Feb 2010 Adding 500 per month = £1000
Reg Saver 4.8% Expires Mar 2010 Adding 250 per month = £250
Reg Saver 4.8% Expires Mar 2010 Adding 250 per month = £250
Reg Saver 5.6% Expires Nov 2009 Adding 500 per month = £2500
Reg Saver 5.6% Expires Nov 2009 Adding 500 per month = £2300
Reg Saver 6.4% Expires Nov 2009 Adding 250 per month = £1250
Reg Saver 6.4% Expires Nov 2009 Adding 250 per month = £1250
Reg Saver 6.4% Expires Oct 2009 Adding 250 per month = £1500
Reg Saver 6.4% Expires Dec 2009 Adding 250 per month = £1000
Reg Saver 5.8% Expires Nov 2009 adding 250 per month = £1250
Reg Saver 5.8% Expires Nov 2009 adding 250 per month = £1250
Fixed Savings 4.07% Expires Jan 2010 = £6000
Fixed Savings 3.72% Expires Jan 2010 = £8000
Fixed Savings 3.72% Expires Jan 2010 = £3200
Fixed Savings 4.08% Expires Jan 2010 = £5000
Fixed Savings 5.2% Expires Nov 2009 = £2937.61
Cash ISA Fixed 6.3% Expires July 2009 = £6700
Cash ISA Fixed 6.3% Expires July 2009 = £10000
Cash ISA Fixed 6% Expires Nov 2009 = £3655
Cash ISA Fixed 6% Expires Nov 2011 = £3644
Instant Access Savings 3.2% = £ 6324.47
Current Accounts 0% = 1538.22
MB/Scratchcard Float (Earnings + own money) = 2721.22
Total Savings = £74770.52

Debts other than mortgage

Balance to be paid to a Credit Card in Jan 2010 (currently 0%) = £ 2747.40
Balance to be paid to a Credit Card in Oct 2009 (currently 0%) = £2160.84
Balance to be paid to a Credit Card in Jun 2009 (currently 0%) = £4299.78
Total Debts other than Mortgage = £9208.02

Mortgage + Debts – Savings = £37340


SOA for March

Monthly Household Income (after tax) - £4027.96 (Salaries) + £104.78 (Scratchcard + Mobile Recycle Profit + Referral + Quidco)
Total - £4132.74
Mobile -£29.36
Mortgage - £897.66
Transfer to Regular Savings Accounts - £4000
Council tax (Paid by 0% Credit Card) - £0
Telephone and Broadband - £28.47
Fuel (Paid by 0% Credit Card) - £67.86
Electricity/ Gas -£42 (Direct Debit)
Food & Groceries (including eating out once a month, Paid by 0% Credit Card) + work Expenses - £140.94
Shopping + Misc (Paid by 0% Credit Card) - £963.32 (includes £304 for new Coffee Table £4.32 Post Office expenses, £655.00 sent to India)
Credit Card Payment (0% Balance Transfer) - £25.00
Credit Card Payment (Purchases at 0% for 12 months) - £20.00
Credit Card Payment (0% Balance Transfer) - £98.97


Total: -£2153.84 (Again –ve this month, we have taken some money out from the instant savings accounts + 0% credit cards to cover everything)

Elecricity - 154 KWH
Gas - 854 KWH
Grocery Spend £140.94/£75

Have updated my signature

Floxxie

Hi MQ,

Wondering where you had got to! Great to see your 'debt' going down - very impressive!

Floxxie

StuartGMC

MQ
Good progress despite the unanticipated additional expenditure. Pleased to see you have reviewed the monthly groceries budget and have determined it was unrealistic. It is far better to use "real" values than aspirational sums, but I have to say you are allowing a little over our weekly cost of £97.87 (3 of us) for a whole month :eek:

Hope things keep going well

Floxxie

Are you going to tell us where your dream holiday is going to be or do we have to guess?

Floxxie

MoneyQueen

Oh, no need to guess...

We have been thinking of doing an around the world thing so do need to save for that.. Though it shouldn't be difficult once we are MF

2011 seems a long time away though..

MQ

setmefree2

well done on all your progress :T:T

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

Hope everyone had a nice weekend...Weather was really nice here today so had a nice day...

Have sold the Sun Alton Towers tickets on Ebay for £25 profit. Just need to post them tomorrow... Wasn't expecting this much... Though I am not complaining...

We went to a garden centre today and had a look at all the plants at offer. Will be buying some next weekend...

And I bought 3 new tops for me. Had some vouchers to spend.. :j

Back to work tomorrow :sad:

MoneyQueen

No new update.. But just wanted to let everybody know that I have become a Money Saving Stalwart :j:j:j:j:j:money::money::money::money::money:

setmefree2

MoneyQueen wrote: »

just wanted to let everybody know that I have become a Money Saving Stalwart

well done on that

MoneyQueen

I have done a Reality Check of our Financial Situation specifically to check - how long can we keep on continuing with saving more in Regular Savers than we actually earn.

We have been transferring £4000 every month to Regular Savers which have been paying us more interest than what we would have saved doing the OPs to the mortgage

From 6th April there has been an additional £600 as we have subscribed to 7% RS ISA for both of us for 0910 Financial Year

So in Total £4600 saving per month saving when our take home salary is £4230.61

Apart from those regular expenses that we pay by Direct Debits amounts to £1150 per month (including Mortgage repayment)

Which means that in all we are short of £1520 every month :eek:(Assuming I don't get a chance to do any Overtime at work - which in the current climate seems very possible)

Other instant access savings we have at the moment is £10832 (including MB Float)

But we do have some major Expenses in the near future

Credit Card Payment of £4000 in June 2009 and another in October 2009

Also we may have to send around £6000 to India in the end of July 2009(This is for the repair of the house that DH owns in India. Property prices in India have not really gone downhill like UK so we are considering it as an investment)

Now we have got 3 easy options

1. Reducing the amount that we transfer to Regular Savers every month - I am going to check the T&Cs of all the accounts to double check which all allow this - I know at least 2 which do but best to check with Customer Services before doing anything
2. Transfer the Credit card balances to another 0% card - the best we can get is 15 months at 2.9% (but not sure what the credit limit will be) and also need to think about if it is worth paying the fee
3. Withdraw the Cash ISA that gets matured in July this year. DH is not in favour of this as you can't put the money back if you withdraw it once but in any case the ISAs will have to be closed when we pay the mortgage in full next year - so we are still "discussing" this option

There is another option
Though it is a bit difficult - "Earn as much money as possible"

Now I know that whatever we may do, we can't earn per month so option1, 2 or 3 will have to be used at some time but the aim is to delay it a bit /limit the reduction amount to the minimum

So I have created the following plan of action for the next 30 days and based on that we will decide which option we should go for. (I don't foresee any issue with Regular Savers in May so not making any change to the Standing Orders yet)

1. Absolutely no Overpayments to the Mortgage from now onwards
2. As much MB as I can do along with my job
3. Try to use as much RAFs as possible for the bookies
4. Use the Cashback sites to the maximum for any general shopping and MBing
5. Use Interadmedia for all the browsing (Check Referrals boards for this if anyone is interested). Hopefully they will payout
6. Sell Stuff on EBay - I generally struggle with this but hopefully things will be different this time
7. Use Pigsback for treats instead of credit card
8. Do Surveys - I do find surveys boring and time consuming so this one for DH
9. Downgrade Mobile Contract - Already done this. New contract is £20 instead of £30 and as it is a sim only - we would get regular cashbacks every 6 months.
10. Try to reduce the miscellaneous expenses

I will try to update my diary with all the MB activity so as to keep myself motivated...