Sunflowers MFW Journey

sunflower76

Well I'm sure some will groan at the weight of another diary on this board but , Sorry, here it is!

We moved into our forever house 2 and a bit years back and ever since I've been trying to pay off as much of our mortgage as I possibly can. I've not yet managed to take a huge chunk off it but I'm slowly hacking off little bits to ensure that one day I can give up work and be a SAHM.

So, here's a little bit about me and my situation:

Us
'We' are Mr and Mrs Sunflower who live in a drafty, old, detached home in a little town up North. Mr S is 30 on Friday :eek: and I'm 28. We both work full time and don't yet have children. We do have a pets though; tropical fish, a cat with no teeth and an allergy ridden dog. I am very opinionated and like what I like. MrS is much more easy going.

How we live
Frugally, although we don't seem to miss out on anything! We've both got cars less than 10 years old, we have the nice things that we want (within reason) and we like to take a holiday abroad each year. I am very Old Style (OS) and love to make do and mend. MrS doesn't and isn't so fond of my OS ways - although he can see the importance of ditching the mortgage. I like own brands and cooking from scratch and have an allotment.

The aim
The ultimate aim is, as I've said above, for me to give up work and be a SAHM when the time comes. MrS perhaps isn't so keen on me not working but I'm sure I can convince him :T We've got a few pots of debt which all are house related so as far as I'm concerned are included in my mortgage free dreams. These consist of:

£6k on interest free CC (had the opportunity to BT to a bank aco!!!! so paid a wodge off . This is free until mid 2010, when I'll switch to another BT card. Obviously I can pay as much or as little as I wish off this card (min £25 pm) but it isn't a priority due to 0% APR.

£16k on a loan with LTSB which covered the house renovations. This is fixed at £315 per month and I can overpay as much as I want when i want. I have to do this by cheque though which is frustrating as it stops me paying off little amounts.

£84.5k Mortgage with Nationwide, fixed for 3 more years at 5.34%. It isn't worth me switching to a lower interest rate as we'd be hit with early repayment charges.

Wow - £106.5K :eek:

How?
Well, who knows; unless we have a lottery win I can't see that we'll be able to pay off chunks at a time but we can take baby steps and throw bits at it as and when. My short term goals include:

• Ebaying as much as I can
• Checking that everything I pay is the least that I can
• Trying not to spend unnecessarily
• Getting the best deals for things wherever possible
• Chucking all spare savings at the mortage
• Grow as much food as possible

sunflower76

The next few months will be tight as we have quite a few things to go out; our cars have both just been serviced, had minor repairs, and MOT'd costing c. £700, car tax for both is due at the end of next month and we have to pay £792 for our September holiday on the 18th of June :eek:
We're on a week off work at the moment as as MrS is on agency and hasn't accrued enough holiday yet, he won't be paid for this week. Nor was he paid for last week for another week or two as they 'mislaid' his timesheet . We don't live off MrS's wage as he has been made redundant a few times previously and I'm determined that if it happens again we'll be prepared for the drop in income. His wages go into savings as I'm trying to build up a small cushion just in case. Once I'm comfortable with the amount in savings I'll throw his wage straight at the mortgage.

I'm determined to pay the CC off in full (we pay for everything on CC in order to get the cashback) as I want the amount we owe to go down not up, but it will certainly be a tight month or two.

wantabetterlife

congratulations sunflower on starting your new MFW diary. I will be reading with interest. I am also 28 and my husband is 30 and my dream is to be a SAHM!! Unfortunately our mortgage is a lot bigger and we already have two children- one who is 4 and another who is 2 months. You are definately doing the right thing in planning for the future. I wish i had of been smarter and started overpaying 5 years ago when we first bought a house and had so much more disposable income!!
Goodluck
WABL

littlemrtinkle

never really been a big shopper and only buy shoes etc when old ones have worn out. We always save up for when we need a new car this means that we dont have to take out nasty finance loans. Always look for best interest rate when mortgaging / opening savings accounts.
Do other things like use pigsback that gives you free vouchers which we use for meals out in pizza hut etc instead of going to town on razzle dazzle we go down local pub which does two nice meals for a tenner save on taxis that way. always look at switching gas and leccy and other bills. water meter saves us a fortune. use quidco and topcashback to get money back when buying all these things help to increase pot of extra money left over which we then overpay.

a good way to force you to overpay is change term this forces you to pay money off and with nationwide you can do this free of charge (this goes into overpayment pot which you can access if you are skint)

homeaway

For your LTSB loan why dont you start a money jar for it and then once a month or whenever it suits pay a cheque into that account( after banking your money jar contents),that way you are saving little amounts but only paying in once.

sunflower76

There are a few things that I plan to do shortly to aid me, although they won't save / gain me anything really.

Firstly I have a long forgotten savings account with Halifax which I need to go and close and hopefully there may be a £1 or two in it. I'll add this to the savings tin where all the loose change goes if it's less than £10 and pay it off something if it's more. It's still in my maiden name so I can't access it until I take in my marriage certiifcate but I'm hoping to do this tomorrow. It's worrying how many accounts I may have loitering around. Yesterday I had a CC statement (zero balance) that I hadn't used since 2007, so I called and cancelled it. I suppose I should check Experian to see if there are others :rolleyes:

Next on the list is to open a new current account. Currently we're with Alliance & Leicester but I'm less than happy with the internet banking side of things as it never seems accurate. Sometimes I can see three different balances by clicking on different statement views and, although I know whats due in and out, I don't like the uncertainty. I'm leaning towards Nationwide simply for the ease of transferring money to the mortgage account but not sure whether there are any deals out there offering me money to switch - more research needed I think.

Other than the car (more than we though - £350 and a warning the radiator is on its way out) it's been a NSD today which is always good, although we're out for a meal and pub quiz tonight as an early celebration of MrS birthday - don't worry it's deals night at the restaurant so Moneysaving head is firmly screwed on. And of course I shall remember that it's always cheaper to buy a bottle of wine than individual glasses :beer: :rotfl:

Small acts of MFWing include asking for extra samples of contact lenses while having a checkup (free - got 5 pairs) and making MrS wait in the car in a dubious space in order to avoid paying car parking fees

I've done all my surveys today and checked for Boots upcoming product trials (I get quite a few of these) and I've been given a new campaign through BzzAgent which seems to be free chocolate. Who can complain at that?

sunflower76

homeaway wrote: »

For your LTSB loan why dont you start a money jar for it and then once a month or whenever it suits pay a cheque into that account( after banking your money jar contents),that way you are saving little amounts but only paying in once.

I don't currently have an account to pay coins into as I'm with a bank that doesn't have abranch in my town. This is a good idea though as I know there's just over £100 in the tin that could be used better. Another kick in the right direction for opening an account with Nationwide me thinks.

setmefree2

and on your MF journey. I look forwrd to reading about how you are getting on.

Kind Regards

SMF2

Welshlassie

sunflower76 wrote: »

I don't currently have an account to pay coins into as I'm with a bank that doesn't have abranch in my town. This is a good idea though as I know there's just over £100 in the tin that could be used better. Another kick in the right direction for opening an account with Nationwide me thinks.

I notice you said you are with A&L, we are use the post office to bank everything, cheques, notes and coins. Cheques you need a paying in book for, but for any cash you just use your cash card. HTH
Good luck in the rest of your goal. We are similar, but with a much large mortgage (£193k), DH gave up work last year to be a SAHD for our 21 month old son. It is so worth it if you can do it.

sunflower76

Today I haven't left the house as we've been incrediably lazy and watched a few films and generally done zilch! This means that we've spent nothing and used no petrol which is good.

In a bout of 'spend to save' fever last week I ordered a kit to do my own false nails and it arrived today. I used to spend £15 every three weeks having the infills done so now I should be able to do my own at a fraction of the cost. First attempt today and they look pretty good - I think I'll actually be able to do it well with a bit more practice - who knows I may even offer to do friends for a contribution to the cost of additional materials.

I reckon that in a year I'd have my nails done around 18 times and at £15 a time that'd be £270:eek:. Jees. The kit has cost me £60 and I'll probably have enough for three months worth of nails then it'll be another £20 for a further 3 months supply. So over the year the cost for DIY nails will be £120. A saving of £150.

Tommorrow I'm going to go into town and do the jobs I've mentioned in the post above (open new account with NW, close account with Halifax) and I'll take the change to pay in to A&L at the post office - thanks for the tip Welshlassie. I'll then write a CQ for the same amount to LTSB for the loan.

I'm going to ensure that I send a CQ to LTSB each month as an overpayment; I've already got £12.50 per month from the nail savings, the rest shall have to come from Loose change, Quidco, surveys and eBay. Hopefully I can send a £50 cheque each month.

staceydaisy

hi just wanted to offer some encouragement you too are like me we have a 99k loan to clear but we dont have lump sums to chuck at it. if we have a spare ten pounds i overpay if i sell something on ebay suvets etc etc

every little helps i worled out i am being charged 18.77 a day in interest on my mortgage and for every 310.00 i overpay it actually is 320.00 with the interest ive saved