One day i'll make it!!!

needtopaymydebts

hi
thanks, yes, I was just wondering if anyone knew when they would actually be sent but it seems to be a case of just sit and wait patiently. I'm not very patient!

at least i've been paid early this month which has given me something to do while i wait for the post to arrive. To be honest i've looked at that many calculators it'll probably be a huge dissappointment when it does get here as i've already worked out what it should say!

i only have a fw more weeks at work though, half of me is worried as to how we're going to keep up the op's while i'm on less money and the other is excited to see if i can reduce our spending and get the house in order while i'm off. Today was a bit of an expensive day as I treated myself to a posh new changing bag and also a couple of bits of clothes in the sales, i did 'save' nearly £40 on the clothes though;)

off to catch up with some other diaries and get some ideas i think!

needtopaymydebts

well the statement is finally here and as i thought it's not so exciting when you pretty much know what it is going to say! but one good thing is that the additional secured loan is now down to £9999 which sounds so much less than £10,000!

i know i'm getting a bit ahead of myself but any ideas on which bit to make the payments too next? we still have the mortgage itself and an unsecured loan attached to it. Both at the same interest rates but i have a feeling it would make me feel better to clear the unsecured loan as it's the smallest so will go the quickest. unless someone can explain which should be paid first.

i've also been thinking of ways to increase the ability to overpay and get rid of it quicker than we are already doing. I really want to get out of negative equity so we are in a position to either remortgage or move to a slightly bigger place if we need to. We were cramped in this house just the two of us, so when we turn into four i'm not sure what it's going to be like! DH is talking about increases in wages and bonus payments etc but the amounts vary so much from each conversation i know i can't rely on his amounts!

i'd thought about something like Avon but not sure how this would work with maternity payments etc and i hate the tax returns, I used to work for a party plan company and while i did get a few fantastic trips etc from it in all honesty i ended up spending most of the money before it hit the bank and as i didn't keep the best records probably paid double the tax i should've done too. So in reality DH probably wouldn't be too impressed with another job at the moment. I haven't been that successful on ebay and not really sure what else to consider. I did do bingo for a while but they stopped the account when realised that i wasn't going to spend anything on there and although i do surveys they are so slow i can't see that helping significantly in the long run...mmm...more thought needed i think (obviously i've already considered reduced spending wherever we can)

Just re read what i've written above and wanted to add that while i ended up spending most of the extra cash that i earned on nights out and treats etc, we weren't actually living together at the time and hadn't become aware of the whole mortgage/debts situation that would happen when we did buy. If i did go for something like this it would be a lot more organised this time but would also have to take up a lot less room than it previously did!

needtopaymydebts

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted on here! well there are now four of us and although the house is a bit on the small side we're just about coping. House prices in the area continue to drop quicker than we can pay the mortgage down, a couple of years ago we'd be fine but not at the moment! However, my maternity leave is almost over which means our income will be increasing again in a few weeks. Progress on paying down the mortgage has come to a halt as we took a payment holiday just after our daughter was born and have returned to just paying the actual amount rather than that plus £450 which we had been paying each month. In order to satisfy DH and give the illusion that we're paying things more quickly we have agreed to clear the finance on the car before we make any more overpayments, so we're hoping to have enough to clear this by end January 2012. Then we can really focus on paying off this mortgage or as we see it, reducing it enough so that we can move.

One positive thing I can say is that this house has really taught us a lesson, friends of ours hit the jackpot with buying and selling at the 'right' time however to me they still have the contents of their homes on credit and haven't really got things sorted when it comes to prioritising...although would i be saying the same if i was in their position? who knows

LilacPixie

You have to focus on the fact you have cleared a fantastic amount for 2.5 years. I am similar to you, maternity leave so income is way way way down I have moved my focus to 2012 when we should be in a better position to pay more, by then i ill be back at work, any residual overdraft we may need to use will be gone. Maybe you should focus on similar to allow you to clear finance on car then overpay. Do you have a target level that you need your mortgage to be to allow a move?

needtopaymydebts

well...the target to move just seems to change all of the time, we paid £106,000 for the house and took out an extra loan at the time and then when we remortgaged we added on some remaining debt left from our wedding. With a total remaining of around £111,000 we were devastated that the last house in our street to sell just sold for £80,000! our original plan was to reduce the mortgage to £100,000 then put it up for sale with the idea that by the time it sold we would have a bit of a deposit saved for the next home. However, the recent news of the price of the house down the street led to the decision to focus on paying off the car finance as paying down the mortgage just seems to be a losing battle at the moment. If we pay the car finance at the half way stage (February) we will owe £3500, we think this is achievable by using the £450 ish we've been paying towards the mortgage in addition to trying to save a little extra on top of the usual monthly payments of £110 each month. I think the knowledge that the only outstanding debt we will have is the mortgage might give us a bit of a lift to carry on our overpaying. It's hard as we'd always planned on having 3 children but the house is too small for another and financially i'm not sure we could manage with a third, I know you always find a way somehow! but i'm not sure it would do our relationship any good with the extra stress!!

I'll be back to full wages from end October so back to the overpaying just in time for Christmas! the plan for 2012 is to firstly clear the car finance then see how we go with the mortgage, i'll try and reassess target amounts once the car is almost paid as my employer have also moved my location while i've been off so i'm not 100% on the costs of traveling or if we will need any extra childcare once i'm back.

It's scary at the minute but exciting too!

needtopaymydebts

I've updated signature to show new figures on mortgage, it's rubbish seeing how little we have paid off this past four months... However , I don't think we've done too badly as I've been on maternity leave since February and we haven't added any debt through overdrafts etc we did take a mortgage break completely for two months though:o

So... Mortgage overpayments on hold...next goal is to clear car finance£3500

SeriouslySeekingtoSave

needtopaymydebts wrote: »

I've updated signature to show new figures on mortgage, it's rubbish seeing how little we have paid off this past four months... However , I don't think we've done too badly as I've been on maternity leave since February and we haven't added any debt through overdrafts etc we did take a mortgage break completely for two months though:o

So... Mortgage overpayments on hold...next goal is to clear car finance£3500

You've done great to pay off anything at all with you being on maternity leave and everything else that has been going on.

I haven't paid anything off for 6 months too as I made my target and then rewarded myself with some shopping, flights to NZ (although they weren't really a reward as I was going to buy them regardless) and saving for the house renovations. Still, new year (for me) so it's back on the saving wagon for the next round of targets!

needtopaymydebts

Can't believe it's so long since I updated this. I made it back to work and in November increased my hours from 30 to 37 which has made a huge difference. Things were going great and we had almost enough money to clear the car finance but then stuck on a little blip...I found out my husband had managed to accumulate almost £4000 on credit cards that I had no idea about. So after a huge heart to heart I feel like we're finally in this together. This month alone we have cleared our joint account and his overdrafts and also shuffled the credit cards around so they're now 0%. We've switched from asda to aldi and this month our outgoings have reduced by almost £500!!!

My husband has in fact said he's quite enjoyed the challenge of £10 a week pocket money...so even though we're still a lot worse off than I imagined it's now heading in the right direction.

I'm also hoping to keep ths updated more often so I can look back and see how we've done

needtopaymydebts

Well I didn't stick to my aim of updating more often! Can't believe how things can change in a year. New jobs for each of us, one with a significant payrise. I seriously need to review the budget to make sure I'm paying as much as I can. After OH mess up with the credit cards last year it's up to me to make sure there's no overspending which is a massive pressure but since I'm now in charge of the spending I really want to make it work. Time to get out the pen and paper and get a budget sorted then once the increase in wages kicks in I reckon the extra can go off the mortgage :-)

Also still waiting to hear from NRAM about any money which might get taken off our together mortgage which would be a nice bonus after everything that's happened this past year

Katzen

Hi, just read through from the start. Its nice to see you still plodding on, that's where we hope to be when we buy our house in the next few months. Also, well done for not murdering OH when he came clean about the cards. I know mine would be lucky to be alive if he'd sabotaged us like that!
Good luck with it all, I'm keen to see your next Sig. Update