Get yourself a 'Mortgage Pig'

savvykaz

Hi - just bought my "mortgage pig". I had been bidding on one on e-bay but when it got to £8 I thought this was defeating the whole object!

Imagine my delight when we stumbled across a boot sale today whilst visiting my mum near Hornsea, and lo and behold there was the exact same pig!
I asked the lady how much and she said "£2.50, but you can have it for £2".
I don't have a name for her yet but maybe Lucky or Fluke might be apt!

I also don't have any money for her yet, but at least I'm on the right track.

halloweenqueen_2

Well done -hope you put the £6 you saved on the ebay pig into fluke/luke/lucky!

kiwi88_2

clarew wrote:

:j Yeah! Great to hear i am the winner of Ali's peefer prize:j

I kindly accept this award (honourary badge of pride) for being the closest to the total. I look forward to handing the honour over to the next nominee at the next "peefer emptying awards" (date to be confirmed).:D

Talking of "Peefer emptying" is there a specific date this is done on or is it dependent on our own monthly finances? I'm quite lucky because mine is a calender month 1st to 30/31st. So I'll do mine then

Greenstuff_2

Thanks everyone for the lovely welcome, you really are a smashing bunch.
My friend came round and laughed at Wendy (not in an unkind way) and asked about her, she's sitting on the top of the telly with her little speech bubble.
She is a bit odd looking I guess (Wendy not friend), who is actually a psychologist, friend not Wendy, so I explained that she needs to be a character with a personality to help us save and when I explained why it dawned on me how very brilliant we have become at moneysaving due to MSE.
DH is self employed so we have to have a self cert mortgage which is about .4% higher than high st.
If we put down 25% deposit we can get high st. rates as we are no longer high risk.
We are about to move house into our dream home that we have been aiming for for years, we have made a bit on our current house and agonised over how much to put down as a deposit.
Heart said keep a bit back so we can do our house up as we want, head says put as much down as possible to get the 25% equity we need.
We have been so good the last few years, and its largely due to this site we have got our dream home so we plumped for the latter.
Friend asked if it was really worth all that for only .4% so I explained...
That means to us £1395 a year less to pay, or over the term of our mortgage almost £40,000! FREE MONEY!
So Wendy is a house pig, we are putting all our equity in the new house, plus overpaying every month, so when our fixed term is up in 2 years hopefully we will have enough equity to get a high st. mortgage.
Anything in Wendy is going to do up our new house, that is giving us an incentive to save and has given us a boost as we REALLY REALLY wanted to go and buy loads of lovely things.
DD is being a sweetie too, she put a pound in Wendy, and as she wants a pink bedroom when we move she's said she will ask for bedroom stuff for her birthday and xmas so we dont have to take anything out of Wendy!
(A relief too as she's aproaching the teen years and a nightmare to buy for)
We are also really shopping around as we dont have the ready cash yet, and that is making it more enjoyable, and we have bagged some bargains to boot.
We went for a day at the seaside yesterday, took a picnic instead of buying lunch, walked on the pier for free, and instead of parking in the car park for £2 we parked a bit away and walked.
I saw one of those grab machines on the pier with the cutest singing dancing unicorn (what was I thinking) and DH said he would win me one (yeah right) but I said, NO, put the pound in Wendy!
I have also started going out without my purse, was really unnerving at first, but I am a sucker for charities, there was a pin in the post office for a pound that I didnt buy, £1 for Wendy, and I've also found if I see something I am about to buy, if it's that important I will go back for it with the money, funny enough nothing has been that important as yet...
I am trying to devise a system too, if I say put a jumper on instead of the heating, or put the washing on the line instead of tumble drying it, I'm not sure how to do it yet though.
Joined pigsback, part of my daily routine is a few clicks on that, and am fighting my computer phobia to learn how to ebay stuff.

Thanks again everyone, keep the tips and success stories coming.

Greenstuff x

clarew

sounds like greenstuff and wendy are doing very well from all the above.

I too am going without purse where possible-i take no money to work, so i can do no trips to the vending/drinks machine. (i take pack lunch and tea/water is free anyway).

I am also trying not to use my debit card for shopping, and to go back to the OS way of taking out a set amount once a week, and buying in cash from that. Its hard but i am slowly improving on it.

(the only downside of the above-not using purse-means no change to empty into pig/into the £2coin jar!!)

In terms of "peefer emptying" or the equivalent i don't know what most of you do....do you empty once a month regardless (your pig, not your bowels!:D ), so you can pay into mortgage, or do you do it only when it is full?

Personally-i am waiting till my large whisky bottle is full before emptying, and using odds and ends left at the end of the month, or unexpected money to pay as and when i get them, into the mortgage.

alicardinal

I've really been inspired by this thread, and have re-employed my childhood piggybank, Gertrude, as a mortgage pig.

She's had the retraining and is looking forward to the challenge ahead. Off to a good start by changing all the odd foreign notes left over from holidays back to stirling - £101.20!!!

halloweenqueen_2

My friend came round and laughed at Wendy (not in an unkind way) and asked about her, she's sitting on the top of the telly with her little speech bubble.
She is a bit odd looking I guess (Wendy not friend), who is actually a psychologist, friend not Wendy,

I liked this -I thought your pig was becoming real to you until you pointed out it was your friend not the pig!

halloweenqueen_2

Finally got over the £400! Got another cheque coming to tomorrow in the post hopefully, ebay sales are slow going, I was hoping to get about £150 I haven't got a third of that yet, but have been too busy to sort much stuff out!

Greenstuff_2

halloweenqueen wrote:

My friend came round and laughed at Wendy (not in an unkind way) and asked about her, she's sitting on the top of the telly with her little speech bubble.
She is a bit odd looking I guess (Wendy not friend), who is actually a psychologist, friend not Wendy,

I liked this -I thought your pig was becoming real to you until you pointed out it was your friend not the pig!

Did you think I sat and told her my problems hq?!!
Haha, that's really funny, not only inventing names for our pigs but personalities and careers too!
LMAO!
The more I think about that the funnier it is!
Or did you think my friend sat on top of telly's!?

halloweenqueen_2

Well when you said she was a psychologist I thought the pig had gained qualifications as well!